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Biden Stresses Unity Amid Historic Political Division In U.S.; FBI Warns Of "Armed Protests" At Capitol And In All 50 States; Control Of The U.S. Senate; McConnell Remains Undecided On Convicting Trump; Interview With Sen. Angus King (I-ME); Biden To Take Office As U.S. Confronts Multiple Historic Crises; Kamala Harris' Path To History. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired January 17, 2021 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:22]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): An inauguration like no other, fencing, troops, a capitol city fortified against attacks and insurrection.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We're monitoring all incoming leads, but the volume of information up there is significant.

KING: A new president inherits a dangerous political divide and a raging pandemic.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The only way we can do it is to come together as fellow Americans, as neighbors, as a United States of America.

KING: And the departing president is angry, isolated and impeached again.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The president of the United States incited this insurrection, he is a clear and present danger to the nation.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: 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 your Sunday. It is a very strange Sunday here, the anticipation of a presidential inauguration colliding with palpable anxiety. What law enforcement sources tell us are credible threats of violence in and around the nation's capitol. There are 20,000 plus troops deployed here, fences, concertina wire, blocked off areas where we would normally see crowds and celebration this week.

The coronavirus pandemic had already force add scaled-back inauguration. Now, the threat of domestic terrorism by supporters of President Trump add unprecedented stress to what is supposed to be America's defining moment. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW MILLER, HEAD OF SECRET SERVICE WASHINGTON FIELD OFFICE: There is a great deal of very concerning chatter and it's what you don't know that we are preparing for. So I don't know if anyone has raised their hand to say we are coming, we will be there, but we are preparing as if they are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: President Trump becomes former President Trump in 76 hours. He will not attend the Biden inaugural. He will leave office stained. The only president impeached twice, the second time this past Wednesday, one week after the insurrection he inspired.

A brand-new CNN poll releasing right now, you see it right there, pegs his approval rating at an all time low of 34 percent. His approval among Republicans is also down from 94 percent to 80 percent.

Now, some Republicans hope his influence evaporates now that he cannot tweet and because he leaves the White House so diminished. But insurrection, that insurrection of 11 days ago is just one glimpse of his legacy, the Trump conspiracies and election lies that inspired that insurrection now have very deep roots in the GOP.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MO BROOKS (R-AL): There is great suspect that there was massive voter fraud and other illegal casting of ballots. No one said having a republic was easy and the underpinning of a republic is honest and accurate elections. We have to fight for it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's a member of the United States Congress repeating, repeating, repeating lies.

The president-elect, though, voices confidence this moment will pass or at least begin to fade if his team can prove it will improve the economy for everyone and prove it can finally tame the coronavirus by quickly rebooting the sputtering Trump vaccine rollout.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Our plan is as clear as it is bold, get more people vaccinated for free, create more places for them to get vaccinated, mobilize more medical teams to get the shots in people's arms, increase supply and get it out the door as soon as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, Lisa Lerer of "The New York Times" and CNN's Manu Raju.

Lisa, I want to start with the president-elect who will be president in 76 hours. This should be his week obviously because of the security, because of the insurrection, because of the impeachment trial still pending, President Trump still dominating a lot of the talk in this town, but Joe Biden becomes president Wednesday at noon.

Let's listen to a little bit about the tone. This is the tone he wants to set for the country at this delicate moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: We didn't get into all of this overnight. We won't get out of it overnight. And we can't do it as a separated and divided nation. The only way we can do it is to come together, to come together as fellow Americans, as neighbors, as the United States of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's the tone he wants to set and with the new stimulus plan and amping up the vaccine rollout that's for everybody, but some of these first day actions we're learning about, the team -- the Biden team put out yesterday, the list of executive orders he will take in the first several days in office, they include reversing Trump's Muslim travel ban, rejoining the Paris climate accords, requiring masks on federal property, extending restrictions on evictions and foreclosures, extending the pause on student loan payments, there's also some immigration orders in there.

[08:05:03]

Much of what he wants to do right out of the box, he wants to show action, turn the page, there is a new president, but much of it also is a poke at the Trump base.

LISA LERER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Oh, for sure. Look, I think Joe Biden ran on a message of unity and if you talk to people around him they will say that that message is even more needed than ever before. But, man, is that an awfully hard tone to strike given what happened in the past two weeks and also given the optics of this moment. He has essentially taken the oath of office in a Capitol that looks awfully like a war zone and I don't think he can have an inaugural address that doesn't mention the capitol and the need for accountability for that siege.

So I do think we will have to see a little bit of a bouncing of the tone and you're seeing that as you point out legislatively as well. He really wants to show action to try to move the country forward and he understands that getting through -- things through Congress was going to be hard before, it's likely going to be even harder now because the Senate is going to also be dealing with this impeachment trial which will not only take up time, but could potentially harden divides and make it harder for him to gain bipartisan support for his proposals.

KING: And, Manu, that reinforces the crisis atmosphere in which Joe Biden will become president. Yes, he would like to quiet the tensions in the country and get those Trump supporters -- maybe not the ones prone to violence but other Trump supporters to listen and give him a chance. And the vaccine rollout might help, stimulus plan might help. These other agenda items Joe Biden's team says we have to do what we campaigned on, whatever the moment is.

Also complicating things is the looming impeachment trial. We don't know when it will be, we do expect the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will send the article of impeachment in this week, the very week we get a new president. The question is the math.

We can show you some of the senators. Here are five Republican senators we're watching, you see Murkowski, Collins, Romney, Sasse and Toomey, all possible, possible votes for impeachment. Not certain, but possible votes to convict the president in the senate, but that's five. You need 17 or 18 Republicans depending on whether any Democrats vote no.

So you have this other group, there's 18 senators on your screen right now, the one you watch most obviously the leader, the Republican leader Mitch McConnell who has said he's open-minded.

I would say, Manu, right now, it looks quite improbable there would be a conviction, is there any evidence the math is shifting?

MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Not yet because a lot of these senators will tell you that they are going to simply wait. It's easier for them politically not to take a position right now. They do say they want to listen to the arguments on both sides and a lot of it, John, will depend on the politics of the moment.

Where are we in two to three weeks, how does the country feel, what is the mood, have we learned more about this investigation, have we learned even more about president Trump's role or reaction to his incitement of this insurrection? All of that will factor into how senators ultimately vote. Now, can there be 17 votes to convict? That is going to be the big question over the next few weeks.

The question, too, is exactly what is the case that House Democratic impeachment managers bring, of course, a lot of it is public, we know what the president said publicly to incite that insurrection, what he said in the run up alleging fraud without any evidence about the election, trying to pressure Georgia election officials, for instance, to overturn Joe Biden's win, but how do they present that case before the Senate? Will they bring in witnesses like Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger? Those are questions that they have to decide.

How do they convince senators who are trying to decide what to do and whether to convict, all big questions, but the political one, too, for Mitch McConnell is if you vote to convict what does that mean for the future of Trumpism? Does that make him more powerful as a convicted former president? Does that push him aside and perhaps marginalize him even further heading into the 2022 midterms?

So, those are key calculations that members will make, even though I'm talking to senators -- Senate Republican sources, John, virtually all of them believe that he committed impeachable offenses, but getting to the vote of convicting is still an open question.

KING: Right. Especially when you think about so many of those -- the seats up in 2022, 20 Republican held seats now among the Senate seats up in 2022, vote to impeach or vote to convict in the Senate is what it is and you probably guarantee yourself a primary inspired by President Trump, the question is will they have the courage if they get there.

And, Lisa, that is one of the big questions, you wrote about this with your colleague Reid Epstein the other day, Josh Dawsey in the "Washington Post" today quotes Chris Ruddy a close friend of the president in Florida.

We don't know what legal issues are going to arise but I think he's going to remain a global force, I think he's going to like being post- president more than president because you have a lot of the perks without as many of the restrictions. I think this is an open question: can the president use the bully pulpit when he loses? He's already lost Twitter now he loses the White House.

But you wrote about this as well. That is the defining question of the Republican Party, does he fade, is he diminished, or does he find a way to reboot because he still has the loyalty of his supporters?

[08:10:09]

LERER: Look, there are a lot of Republicans in Washington who see an opportunity to move past Trumpism and the Trump era right now in this moment, whether that looks like impeaching the president in the Senate or it just looks like people sort of repudiating him out in the states they are uncertain, but they feel that that opportunity is finally in their grasp. I'm just not sure they're being realistic about what their party actually is at this moment.

I spent the past week or so talking to Republican state legislators, state chairmen and what you see is that Trumpism, the baseless conspiracy theories, is deeply embedded in the firmament of the Republican Party at the local level and exorcising that from the party no matter what Mitch McConnell and people in Washington may want to do is not going to be easy.

And so, it really is how the Republican Party moves forward from this point really is extremely uncertain and I don't think anybody really has a clear picture of what that party is going to look like two years from now when we are in those mid-term elections.

KING: And the question, Manu, is how many Republicans plant the flag and say we will not let him have any influence, we will fight any further influence, plant a flag and fight it consistently.

The headlines in recent days, he has essentially surrendered his jobs, the president of the United States. He's still spreading his lies, maybe, but, you know, "The Wall Street Journal", Trump spends final days focused on GOP defectors. Meaning he wants recriminations, Senate defense.

Pence calls Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, the vice president doing what would happen weeks ago, and just as we get close to inauguration. Trump explodes at Nixon comparisons as he prepares to leave office. The question is what signal do the other Republicans take.

At the top of the show in the open we had Congressman Mo Brooks who continues to repeat the president's lies that there was widespread election fraud. The conspiracy theories and these lies have deep roots, even as the president prepares to head to Florida.

RAJU: Yeah, no question. And what's remarkable to see is such a split within the congressional Republicans on the House side and the Senate side. A majority of the house Republican conference even after the riots, even after everything that happened on January 6th, that night into the morning of January 7th a majority of the House Republican conference voted to throw out the electoral results from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

On the Senate Republican side a vast majority voted to push back and respect those accusations of electoral fraud and to affirm Joe Biden's victory in those two states. And you're seeing that divide play out pretty starkly. No matter what happened on January 6th, there are still that contingent faction, very vocal faction of the House Republican conference who will continue to side with the president's conspiracy theories and lies.

You mentioned Mo Brooks. I even asked him last week, are you concerned at all about your role in the rally, going to the rally, inciting those rioters to come to the Capitol when he was saying very provocative things at that rally. He said he was doing his duty.

So there is no -- there's hardly any concern voiced by -- regret voiced by any of these members about their role in this. They are siding with the president. You're going to see this clash emerge between them and Senate Republicans, the question is how many will do it publicly and how many will continue to do it privately, John.

KING: When you take an oath to the Constitution as members of Congress do your duty is to respect the will of the people in a democracy, but some Republicans don't want to get that message including the soon to be former president at the White House.

Manu Raju, Lisa Lerer, grateful for your reporting and insights as we begin this fascinating week in Washington.

Up next, we continue the conversation, the fortress inaugural. The capitol fenced off now from attack and there are more troops in Washington, D.C. than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:16:47]

KING: Inauguration week begins with the nation on alert and the FBI director says every legal tool is now being used to prevent a repeat of the Capitol insurrection.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WRAY: We are seeing an extensive amount of concerning online chatter I guess is the best way I would describe it about a number of events surrounding the inauguration and together with our partners we evaluate those threats and what kind of resources to deploy against them. Right now, we're tracking calls for potential armed protests.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: A new security bulletin warns domestic extremists unhappy with the election results are the biggest inaugural threat. President Trump stoked that anger with his election lies.

D.C. Police Officer Michael Fanone saw it up close at the Capitol 11 days ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL FANONE, DC METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICER: Some guys started getting ahold of my gun and they were screaming out, you know, kill him with his own gun.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us to share their expertise this Sunday, Julian Kayyem, a former state and federal top homeland security official, Jonathan Wackrow, former Secret Service agent who has coordinated security for major events like inaugurals and the U.N. General Assembly.

Jonathan, let me begin with you because of your experience with events like this. If you are watching around the country or if you're living in this city which is a fortress right now, you remember what happened just a little more than a week ago at the United States Capitol when the dots were not connected, signals were missed, when agencies were not listening to what the intelligence told them. Are you confident things have been fixed for this inauguration?

JONATHAN WACKROW, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning, John. Yes, I am confident and here is why. There is a big difference between what we saw in terms of preparation and response on January 6th and what we have right now moving forward into the inauguration. There is a construct called the National Special Security Event as designated by the Department of Homeland Security which is being coordinated by the U.S. Secret Service.

What this means is that there is a comprehensive overarching security coordination that is applied to the inauguration that takes a whole of government approach and it brings together all of the resources of the federal government and local and state partners to put together a very comprehensive security plan that looks at everything from intelligence to operationalizing the security structure to consequence management. There are multiple layers of this security plan. There's redundancy, there's agility, there's the ability to quickly shift.

And the reason why this NSSE structure is so important right now is because what we're seeing. We are seeing a domestic threat coming in from violent extremists like we have never seen before. And the reason why law enforcement is mobilizing to the degree that they are is that we know that this threat can manifest itself into violent acts and that's what worries law enforcement the most.

KING: Right. And if you had any doubts of how it can manifest itself we saw it. We saw it and in some ways even though five people are dead and that is a horrific tragedy we're lucky. The vice president, the vice president-elect, speaker of the House, 500 other members of Congress in that building at the time, we're lucky things weren't worse. That presents the challenge.

This is from the bulletin that police intelligence memo warning, this is before -- this is from before the capitol insurrection: Supporters of the current presidency January 6, 2021 is the last opportunity to overturn the results of the presidential election.

[08:20:12]

Unlike previous post-election protests, the targets of pro-Trump supporters are not necessarily the counterprotesters as they were previously but rather Congress itself is the target on the 6th.

So they were warned then and as Jonathan says security is different, it's coordinated by the secret service for a big event like this. So you have two challenges, stopping it from happening again now in the days around the inauguration, but then the bigger challenge of what's going on out there and how do you deal with it in the long term.

When you hear the FBI director say we're picking up so much chatter, what are you trying to do between now and Wednesday and what happens after?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: So now until Wednesday, we are fully in the tactical phase of the greatest counterterrorism effort since 9/11. We may not be calling it that, but it has a combination of the prosecutions and investigation, the security posture that you're seeing on the Mall.

But let's also add 50 state capitols, the deployment of the national guard, the private sector doing everything from de-platforming the inciter of all of this, Donald Trump, to bringing some of these horrible websites down like Parler. Actions by companies like Airbnb which just simply canceled all of its reservations in D.C. and then of course the impeachment which the combination of these political, financial, economic, prosecution, security, all of them focused on not eliminating the risk, but minimizing the risk because of the big lie that Donald Trump continues to propagate.

We can never forget that Donald Trump has not conceded this election nor has he called President Biden. But if you think about terrorism in the future, we will continue to have a threat. This is a greater threat as the FBI acknowledges than international terrorism at this stage, but we have to have some hope about being able to control it. Very small element of Trump supporters are violent, you prosecute them, but the most important thing is we begin to isolate the president himself.

He is the reason why the capitol was the focus according to that intelligence bulletin is because the president told them why. He said congregate on January 6th, fight for your right. He essentially told them that morning go -- you know, go up the Hill and do what you need to do.

So I think this continuing isolation of Donald Trump is at least a precondition and I think we will be surprised. I sometimes think the greatest gift that President-elect Biden can give us is the gift to look away and I think that that will begin to happen. He will have his policies, they will be hard, we have a pandemic, but most people just want to live their lives and what we're seeing these last three weeks is no way for a great democracy to live.

KING: No, not at all. And, Jonathan, so there's some people just say, well, there was a mob, they went up to Capitol Hill, then they got angry and had this spontaneous insurrection. No, if you listen to some of the people outside and listen here, some of them went there with a very clear plan. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey guys, I've been in the other room, listen to me. In the other room on the other side of this door, right here where these feet are standing, there is a glass that somebody -- and it's broken. You can drop down into a room underneath it. There's also two doors in the other room, one in the rear and one to the right when you go in. So people should probably coordinate together if you're going to take this building.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That's frightening. That's frightening.

That's somebody that has cased the building, somebody who has figured out how to move about to do what you're doing. You heard Speaker Pelosi this week saying she wants to find out if members of Congress were accomplices, aiding and abetting. That is stunning to hear those words and to hear the depth and complexity of that planning.

WACKROW: John, what happened on January 6 was not a spontaneous event, it was a well-coordinated attack on the U.S. Capitol. We have the audio, we have all of the digital exhaust to actually prove it. We know that for weeks people were talking about storming the capitol.

You know, what a lot of people are calling this an intelligence failure. Actually what it is, it's a failure to act on the intelligence that was available. We're going to relitigate exactly what had happened prior to January 6th to ensure that it doesn't happen again, but right now I think we need to focus on today through the inauguration and bring some reassurance that those failures that we saw early on will not happen again.

There are some challenges for law enforcement. I think that, you know, Juliette's point was really well taken. We have wild card factors right now such as the encouragement from president Trump on these potential violent extremists and really what is the unknown impact that the impeachment will have on mobilizing his base once again.

[08:25:01]

Law enforcement has to be keenly aware of those factors. They've put together the right plan right now to ensure that this inauguration is safe and secure.

KING: And then we will see how we do going forward. You both underscore a big challenge in the days and weeks and months and even years ahead.

Juliette and Jonathan, thank you for your insights as we begin this important week.

Up next for us, like the White House the Senate flips from Republican to Democratic this week, but it's still hard to get big things done.

And the second Trump impeachment trial could make it even harder.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:29:44]

KING: Control of the United States Senate will flip from Republicans to Democrats this week once Georgia certifies the results of the two Senate runoffs there. Democrats will have the narrowest of majorities, 50 to 50. Vice President Kamala Harris breaking ties.

One big decision is when to schedule President Trump's impeachment trial. Conviction though viewed as unlikely because it would take 17 or 18 Republican votes but the Republican leader Mitch McConnell says he has an open mind. That makes Trump allies in the Senate furious.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): They will destroy the Republican Party if leadership is complicit with an impeachment or if leadership votes for an impeachment they would destroy the party.

Impeachment is purely a partisan thing, it's for these moral "I'm so much better than you and you are a bad person because I'm so moral". These are the kind of people that are going to do this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Impeachment complicates things for the new administration. The president-elect is asking the Senate now to split its days, use mornings to confirm his cabinet picks and consider a new coronavirus relief package, have the trial in the afternoon.

With us this Sunday to discuss the challenges ahead, Senator Angus King of Maine. He's an Independent who votes with the Democrats on organizational issues.

Senator, I'm grateful for your time this Sunday.

Let's start with your take on the math. You are an Independent who votes with the Democrats on most issues. I assume you are a yes to convict on impeachment. But is there any way -- is there any way that you think you can get 17 or 18 Republican votes, what you would need to convict the president?

SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): John, in talking to some of my Republican colleagues I think there are two missing pieces of evidence. Of course, a lot of the evidence is out in front of us and we all saw it in real-time. This is probably the first impeachment trial in history where the Senate was also witnesses of what went on.

But there are two missing pieces that I think could have a dramatic influence. One is what did the president know before he went out that morning to talk to that crowd. In other words, what was the intelligence and did he know that there was a likelihood of violence and a violent siege of the Capitol. That's number one.

Number two, what did the president do that afternoon? And there are reports that he watched TV. The word I heard was he was delighted. And that he resisted any effort to try to ameliorate or mitigate the situation.

If those two things are validated, and it will take some evidence, and then we are back into the situation we were a year ago of, you know, does the president stone wall and there are no witnesses and no documents.

But if those two things are validated that he knew that there was a danger of violence and that he willfully and consciously refrained from stopping it, I think that could change some minds and make this a different discussion over the next several weeks.

KING: We will watch as that goes forward.

You are on the intelligence committee so you have access to the classified briefings and even more we get scary information that's made public, you get access to much more of it.

I want you to listen here. This is a freshman House Republican Peter Meyer one of the ten who decided to vote to impeach the president in the House. Listen to how he describes his life right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. PETER MEYER (R-MI): There are colleagues who are now traveling with armed escorts out of the fear for their safety. Many of us are altering our routines, working to get body armor, which is a reimbursable purchase that we can make.

It's sad that we have to get to that point, but you know, our expectation is that someone may try to kill us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Our expectation is that someone may try to kill us. That's a new member of the United States Congress who took a vote, you can agree or disagree with it -- he believes a vote of principle.

What are you hearing about the threat against members of Congress like yourself and against the Capitol building and against the country?

A. KING: Well, there's no question that there are threats out there. I mean, the blogosphere is just full of talk of violent revolution and hanging traitors and those kinds of things.

John, what's really awful about this is that this was created by the president of the United States. Now, there was always, you know, these militia groups and those kinds of things. But by perpetrating the underlying lie that the election was stolen, that there was fraud and beating it into people's heads for two or three months, it created a situation.

He could have ameliorated this, you know, a week or two -- let him sue. Let him have his day in court. Let him have his recounts. But around the first of December when all that was over, that was the time to graciously concede as virtually every other losing presidential candidate in our history has done and tamp down what's going on instead of trying to inflame it.

And there he was the morning of January 6th encouraging this crowd to go up to the Capitol. His own vice president who has been incredibly loyal was at risk. This is in his control and he's done, you know, practically nothing.

He does these sort pro forma "be peaceful" statements but there is always a wink and a nod and they're not -- it's not helping. And that's what's so really awful about this is that he did this for so long.

KING: He does that when his lawyers tell him he needs to do it in case he gets sued or prosecuted. It's not so much of a direct call.

[08:34:58]

KING: So one of the questions the new president Joe Biden will face when he takes office next Wednesday is what to do about the former president.

President Trump's former deputy CIA director -- DNI, I'm sorry -- Sue Gordon wrote an op-ed in "The Washington Post" saying said that Joe Biden essentially should cut off his access to any intelligence.

"Trump has significant business entanglements that involve foreign entities. It's not clear that he understands the trade craft to which he has been exposed, the reasons the knowledge he has understands (SIC) must be protected from disclosure."

It is the president's call whether Donald Trump gets access to pretty much anything in the post-presidency. Should Joe Biden say cut him off, he's dangerous?

A. KING: Yes. I mean, there's a certain irony here because this is a president who has become somewhat famous for not paying attention to intelligence and not really taking the daily brief that he's supposed to take and not really being very interested. But yes, there's a grave danger of him inadvertently or willfully revealing classified information that would compromise sources and methods and there is no upside -- there is no reason that he needs to have this information.

It's a courtesy that's been passed on from president to president, but there is no legal requirement and I think given his past history of being fast and loose with intelligence data, it ought to be -- that ought to be an easy decision for the incoming president.

KING: What is this moment for Joe Biden? He says he wants the Senate in the morning, you know, to do some business, work on his new stimulus plan, confirm his team and cabinet. They released yesterday a memo that he's going to have a lot of executive actions out of the gate.

He becomes president in a moment of so many crises. Do you see a climate in the United States Senate, many people say, you know, Trump is going to stoke this, no. Other people say well actually a lot of Republicans are going to want to prove Washington can do some things.

When it comes to new stimulus, when it comes to other Biden agenda items -- is there a possibility of progress at this moment or are we and are polarized even more so because of the Trump effect?

A. KING: No, I think that there is an opportunity. And I think that the case study was the stimulus package that we passed back in December which was based upon a bipartisan negotiation that took place during the months of November and December.

So there's -- I can tell you there is a strong desire on both sides to get things done, to act like senators, to debate bills, to have amendments, to have votes on the floor and I think there's also a widespread realization that we need to do more in the way of stimulus and dealing with the virus.

Now, when you get to details -- how much, how big, what should the stimulus package look like, what are the limitations, all those -- there's going to be a lot of negotiation. But I do think there is an opportunity to really move forward.

And I think a lot is going to depend upon Mitch McConnell's attitude. If he takes the attitude that apparently he articulated back when President Obama came in, we're going to do everything we can to stop this, to cripple this administration, to make it a one-term presidency then we've got trouble.

But I think his caucus is not going to allow him to take that kind of straight-up obstructionist position. And I think you're going to see that there's going to be some pretty serious bipartisan negotiation.

Now, I'm an idealist, John. I mean I always try to find the bright side and maybe I'm being too optimistic here, but I can tell you from talking to Republicans and Democrats there are a lot of people that want to move this country forward.

KING: We will get to put your optimism to the test in just a matter of days -- in just a matter of days. We will see how it plays out.

Senator Angus King of Maine, grateful for your time on this very important Sunday, sir. Thank you.

And up next for us, as the senator just noted, Joe Biden takes office in a moment of crisis and history reminds us his inaugural address will help turn the page.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Homes have been lost, jobs shed, businesses shuttered, our health care is too costly, our schools fail too many, and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

Starting today we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and begin again the work of remaking America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:39:10]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Joe Biden will be a crisis president from moment one. A country on edge. A Trump impeachment trial looming. A struggling economy and this raging pandemic.

If you look at the cases, it's a horrific time to become president. Saturday the case count under 200,000 for the first time in a number of days. Sometimes the numbers are down on the weekend. Let's hope. Let's hope we're at least at a plateau.

But even if it's a plateau look how horrifically high it is in the case count right now.

Hospitalizations -- also this is the first time we're under 130,000 Americans hospitalized with COVID-19. But again, the statistics sometimes drop on the weekend. Still horrific to be anywhere in the ballpark of 130,000 Americans in the hospital -- stressing hospitals across the country -- because of COVID-19 just as Joe Biden prepares to take office.

And the death numbers are horrific, you see the rise, right? Saturday 3,286 of our friends and neighbors, fellow Americans, lost their lives to COVID-19 -- 3,286.

One giant challenge for the new administration, the Trump administration started rolling out the vaccines. Things have not gone as well as the Trump administration had hoped. You can say that without a doubt.

More than 31 million doses distributed nationally -- 12.2 million, nearly 12.3 million actually shots going into arms. So they're being distributed but not being administered quickly enough which is one of the reasons Joe Biden says I will fix this but people need to be prepared. Things are still bad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Almost a year later we're still far from back to normal. The honest truth is this. Things will get worse before they get better. I told you I will always level with you, you know.

And the policy changes that we're going to be making are going to take time to show up in the COVID statistics. They're not just statistics. It's people's lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday to share their insights the former Republican congresswoman Mia Love of Utah and David Axelrod, the top strategist for Barack Obama's two presidential victories.

David -- I want to start with you as someone who has won presidential campaigns and helped a president prepare for the inaugural address. Things are going to get worse before they get better is not the climate you want to be telling the American people to prepare for on day one.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: No, but it's important to set a baseline because things probably will get worse before they get better and I think he wants people to understand this is where we're starting.

But, you know, what's interesting John, is four years ago President Trump made an inaugural speech that will be remembered forever for its grimness in which he talked about American carnage, even as the country was in pretty good shape and recovering -- you know, having recovered from the recession and so on.

Now we have a president who is going to take office in crisis and his job is going to be to give people hope, to give people confidence that there is a way forward and that we can get there and we can get there together. The paradox is he's going to be doing it from within a green zone with 20,000 national guards surrounding the Capitol.

[08:44:53]

AXELROD: So you know, I think this is a most unusual speech. But Biden is an optimistic person, I expect him to be optimistic but realistic in his inaugural address.

KING: One of the things he promises, Congresswoman Love, is to reach out to Republicans and to try. He has a relationship of trust with the Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. They don't agree on much but they trust each other.

The question I have is which Republican Party emerges as preeminent here, as most powerful here in Washington.

Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska writing in "The Atlantic" over the weekend, "When Trump leaves office my party faces a choice. We can dedicate ourselves to defending the constitution and perpetuating our best American institutions and traditions. Or we can be a party of conspiracy theories, cable news fantasies and ruin -- and the ruin that comes with them. We can be the party of Eisenhower or the party of the conspiracist Alex Jones."

His point is that there are QAnon members of Congress now. President Trump has aligned himself with the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Ben Sasse says Republicans must root them out. Will they?

MIA LOVE (R), FORMER UTAH CONGRESSWOMAN: Well, I certainly hope so. The Republican Party has to root out the conspiracy theorists and get back to the ideals that the Republican Party platform is based on, -- a free market, free enterprise, freedom and getting people back to work and dealing with this.

Now, I understand that the administration has got a -- he is definitely dealing with some issues and is not going to be able to hit the ground running. But I think unity and even bringing in some Republicans into the cabinet might be a great way to show that he is pushing all of this nonsense aside, getting rid of the Donald Trumps of the world and is doing what he can to work with Republicans to move a positive agenda forward.

KING: And what do you do, David, if you are Joe Biden at this moment? A brand-new poll we released this hour, 99 percent of Democrats believe Joe Biden legitimately won the election; 66 percent, two thirds of Independents believe that; only 19 percent of Republicans believe that.

Do you spend time trying to change their minds, the Republicans? Or do you just go about your business and hope if you get a new stimulus plan passed, if you pick up the pace of the vaccinations, that people in America -- Democrats, Republicans, Independents -- actually see things getting better and maybe then some of that fades?

AXELROD: Yes, John, I think Plan B is the only one that you can pursue. You have to go about your business, govern the country.

I think that if he is successful in getting this vaccine program on track and we can finally push back on this virus and get the economy moving again, he will have accomplished a lot to win over large segments of the country. Not all of the country, he's always going to meet some resistance.

But the question is do Republican legislators feel free to work with him and cooperate with him, or do they think that there is a penalty to be paid for doing it. And that's what we need to see.

There are some decisions he's going to have to make right away about how to proceed on his relief package here which is twice as large as what the Congress was willing to approve just a month ago. And does he -- does he try and put together a program that Republicans can support because there are elements of this that they were vehemently opposed to like aid to state and cities, and do you do that, or do you go the route of reconciliation, budget reconciliation where you only need a majority to move forward, 50 votes, and you can do all Democrats but that would send a signal that we are not beyond the kind of separation, the kind of opposition that we've seen in the past.

So, you know, we're going to find out very quickly what we can do. He is someone who believes in working across the aisle, he did it all his life, did he it in the Obama administration. He was the emissary to Mitch McConnell in the Senate. We shall see.

KING: We shall see. We shall see. And I wish we had more time for the conversation this morning but we're out now.

Congresswoman Love, David Axelrod -- grateful for your time. We'll continue this very important conversation on both sides. How does Biden perform and what do the Republicans do.

Up next for us, a special CNN look at Kamala Harris and her path to history.

[08:49:07]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: History will record some big things about this week. Unprecedented security, the president on his way out stained by impeachment and by trying to block the peaceful transfer of power. And it will record this, the first woman vice president of the United States, a woman of color.

Tonight CNN's Abby Phillip takes a closer look, "KAMALA HARRIS: MAKING HISTORY". It airs at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Now Harris will be without a doubt a trailblazing vice president. But she does have something in common with some of the men who have held the job before her including Joe Biden. That is running for president and coming up short.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), U.S. VICE PRESIDENT-ELECT: I am our campaign today. Making a decision to get out of a race is probably as difficult as making a decision to get into a race.

SENATOR CORY BOOKER (D-NJ): Kamala Harris is a glass ceiling breaker, name taker, history maker. If somebody like her could not make it that far what does it say about our country with someone with that qualifications?

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): But some of her qualifications like her career as a prosecutor became a source of criticism from both sides of the aisle.

(on camera): Do you feel like you were misunderstood?

HARRIS: There are a lot of nuances in what it means to be a prosecutor especially in this moment that is I think long overdue where America is coming to a reckoning on a lot of issues that deal with racial injustice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Abby Phillip is with us now. Abby, looking forward to watching the hour tonight.

How does she handle the history of this? There is so much going on. We're just learning she's going to resign from the Senate on Monday. She's picked two bibles -- one from Thurgood Marshall, Justice Sotomayor will give the oath. There's so much happening, so much planning.

PHILLIP: Yes.

KING: Does she get the context of the history?

PHILLIP: Oh, of course. And this is someone who has a long -- long history herself of being a barrier breaker. She's constantly been the first woman, the first black woman, the first South Asian woman to be in a number of the posts that she's been in. And so she's pretty much used to that.

What I found interesting talking to her is that she doesn't dwell on the degree to which she will be the first of her kind to inhabit that role.

She's very much a kind of forward charging type of person and it's just like I'm just going to get the job done. But you see her not only nodding to the history here but speaking to it directly. And I think she senses a sense of responsibility in speaking for the people that she represents as she takes on this new role.

KING: It's going to be a fascinating week and a fascinating hour tonight. And now something even more special, to me anyway, before we go.

This is nearly five years ago. Look at this picture. That's April 2016 when Abby Phillip, then at "The Washington Post" made her first appearance right here on INSIDE POLITICS.

Abby will be in this chair, where I sit, in the middle next Sunday. Her first as the anchor of INSIDE POLITICS Sunday with Abby Phillip.

It was an honor for me to bring the INSIDE POLITICS' name back to this network in 2015 and a privilege to share Sundays with you more than I can say.

It's also a privilege and a pleasure to pass the baton and the early wakeup call to Abby Phillip. You're going to love this job.

PHILLIP: I'm really looking forward to it. And what I love so much about it is it's a continuation of a tradition of INSIDE POLITICS being a sort of training ground. You've talked about how this was where you kind of learned the TV ropes.

[08:54:50] PHILLIP: This is where I learned the TV ropes from you at that table all those years are ago when I was a little, you know, cub "Washington Post" reporter and then later, a television reporter. So it's a tradition that I'm really honored to carry on.

KING: You're a great reporter -- great reporter then, a better reporter now. And you're going to do just great in this seat.

Abby Phillip Sunday morning --

PHILLIP: And you're going to enjoy your weekend.

KING: Next Sunday, I'll be watching.

And you know, the other guy lost his Twitter account so you need somebody to live tweet during the show. I'll take that reporting. That will be my new job.

And that's it for us this Sunday. It's been an honor to be with you on Sundays.

I hope to see with you weekdays for INSIDE POLITICS at noon Eastern.

Up next -- I get to do this one last time -- "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER". A busy Jake Tapper show ahead. His guests include the impeachment manager, the lead manager Jamie Raskin, the incoming White House chief of staff Ron Klain, former Trump national security adviser H.R. McMaster and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday. Please stay safe.

[08:55:43]

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