Im kate bolduan in for erin burnett. President trump calling for a special counsel to investigate his allegations of widespread voter fraud in 2020 election. Tweeting from aboard air force one this, i disagree with anyone who thinks a strong, fast and fair special counsel is not needed immediately. Do you know who disagrees with trump . The man who served as his attorney general until today, the man who would have appointed a special counsel if he saw any reason at all to do so, but he did not. If i thought a special counsel at this stage was the right tool and was appropriate, i would name one, but i havent and im not going to. This is just another part of trumps chaotic exit from washington this evening, landing in florida moments ago to spend christmas at his maralago resort and leaving a disaster in his wake. A mess so big that one republican aide told cnn hes coming unhinged. The president vetoing a massive defense bill on his way out of town, a bill with overwhelming support from his own party, a bill that authorizes pay raises for his own military. Republicans are looking the see if hell do the same to the government funding and covid relief bill. The scariest part of that threat is that the president doesnt even seem to know whats in the bill. White house officials acknowledging to cnn that trump himself had not received a detailed briefing on the package. Why not . Perhaps he was too busy with the meetings we keep talking about, meetings with conspiracy theorists egging on the president on his misguided and dangerous attempt to overturn the election. If the president had read the bill, he wouldnt be complaining. A lot of his complaints are about what he actually asked for in his own annual budget. For instance, trump claimed about 85. 5 for assistance to cambodia. His Budget Proposal listed 82. 5 million. Trump went on to complaining about 40 million for the Kennedy Performing Arts Center in washington. Trumps Budget Proposal, 40 million for the kennedy center. He kplapd about 154 million for the National Gallery of art. Trumps Budget Proposal, 161 million for the institution. I could go on. Instead of reading the bill, because clearly he did not, the president is continuing to pursue dead ends to overturn the election and failing to do anything other than create chaos. Today the president invited pennsylvanias entire Republican Senate caucus to the white house for lunch, still clinging to his impossible dream that they can somehow overturn the results of the election in the commonwealth. They cant. The president is also sending misguided message to his own white house staff. The White House Management Office telling staff in an email to disregard a previous email with detailed information about their last days in the white house, giving the impression, of course, that they will be there beyond january 20th. They wont. And on top of that, according to the New York Times, the president is now turning on his closest allies, even on Vice President mike pence because he thinks pence should be doing more to defend him. The thing is, if even mike pence wont defend the president here, the president should probably understand that there may be nothing to defend. Because, in case youve forgotten, pence has spent the last four years doing everything he can to defend donald trump. In President Donald Trump i think the United States once again has a president whose vision, energy and cando spirit is reminiscent of president teddy roosevelt. Im deeply humbled as your Vice President to be able to be here. I couldnt be more proud to stand alongside this president. John harwood is out front tonight at the white house. John, why did the president veto this defense bill that his own party overwhelmingly supported . Reporter kate, the stated reasons are two. One, that he wanted the bill to contain the repeal of a provision of Communications Law that shields Internet Companies for liblt from things third parties pay about them. He thinks big tech is out to get him and he wants to strike back. Thats unrelated to defense. The defenserelated reason is the Defense Authorization act contemplates the renaming of military bases to get rid of confederate heroes who they were named after. The president , who has made racist appeals a big part of his political campaigns in the past wants to stop that. He doesnt want the confederate bases renamed. The larger reason is that hes in psychological distress. The president cannot handle the blow to his psyche and his reputation of losing this election to joe biden. So he is thrashing about, pretending he didnt win, launching, as you said, these crazy schemes to try to stop it and lashing out at people who recognize the reality that he lost. That includes Mitch Mcconnell who shepherded this covid relief and only bus spemnibus spending. The president might actually try to take down covid relief and trigger a government shutdown. We dont know hes going to do that. Washington is a mess right now. The reason washington is a mess is because donald trump is a mess. And he just skipped town. Let me get over to Phil Mattingly. Where john just left off, republicans overwhelmingly supported the defense bill, the government funding and covid relief bill weve talked so much about. What are they going to do about this . Reporter on the former, republicans you talked about are all in on overriding the president s veto of the Defense Authorization act. One place republicans feel comfortable, if theyre going to buck the president is on defense issues. From Senate Majority leader on down they made clear they plan to override this veto and it looks like they will be able the do it. Theyve already teed up the process to do that next week. They knew this was coming. On the covid relief piece, its more just keep their heads down. Ive seen it play out multiple times over the course of the last four years where the president goes through Something Like this, and republicans decide its better to just leave him be and hope he works his way out of it and kind of comes back to them. In the end, the reality over the course of the last 18 hours, i guesses, the most fascinating thing is how few people know anything about whats going on right now including some former allies close allies to the president. Hes obviously in a feud right now with Senate Majority lead are Mitch Mcconnell because of his willingness to acknowledge that joe biden is going to be the president elect. Mcconnell is often on the phone vie privately, without anyone knowing, walking the president to an area that republicans are more comfortable with. Mccarthy in a private Conference Call with House Republicans saying the president did not commit to vetoing the covid relief package but was unhappy with it. I think the big question now, and mccarthy didnt give details as to what happens next, is just that, what happens next . Nobody knows and there are very real deadlines in play. Its unbelievable but also i guess not at this point. Out front with me tonight, abby phillip, cnn Political Correspondent and former republican congresswoman nia love. David gergen, what is the president trying to accomplish with any and all of this. I think hes first and foremost desperately trying to hold on to power. Hes going to cling to the curtains in the oval office until the last second on january 20th. He realizes his power is draining away. I think his second objective is to keep himself in the news. I think he intentionally wants to make these pardons which have grown increasingly controversial if he named his kids and named himself, to create alternative and competing stories so you dont have a three or four days or a week of focus on the pardons. You spread that out. I think thats partly what hes doing with these domestic bills and what hes doing as he beats a potential workaround with iran. Congresswoman, as david was saying, one thing we know is that the president wants desperately to keep control of the republican party. But im wondering your perspective on, if hes desperate to do that, is driving a wedge within the party the way to go about it . This is something im all too familiar with. When i was serving in the house of representatives and the president was in the white house, they would tell us all the time, whenever there was a major bill coming up, we dont want to push anything forward that the president isnt going to sign. This happened on immigration. The president said put one in front of me. We did that. He started hearing a lot of things from a whole lot of people and then he turned his back and said, i never said i would sign this. Kevin spoke to the president. Kevin speaks to the president all the time. This is the minority leader in the house. Mitch mcconnell speaks to the president all the time. I dont think anybody should be baffled that the president turned his back and said im not going to sign this. This is par for the course for me. Ive seen this happen one too many times. Abby, to add to that, trump is even complaining about mike pence, that he isnt fighting enough. And Jared Kushner has told people, according to the times, that the president is his childrens grandfather. One o of the eternal questions remains. Are there seriously no adults left in the room . Well, there are certainly no adults left who the president wants to listen to. I think we should be very mindful of the fact that according to our reporting in the New York Times and other outlets, last week on friday when the president had that unhinged meeting in the oval office about ways to overturn the election and posited naming sydney powell as a special counsel, a lot of other people in that room including people who have actually been supportive of his efforts to overturn the election disagreed with that. Then just a few minutes ago, as he was landing in maralago, he resurfaced this idea of a special counsel. It really does suggest that the president continues to push back against people who are around him who might disagree with his more outlandish ideas. His circle is getting smaller and smaller as the days go on. As long as that happens, were in for a really bumpy ride here. The president is only listening to a few people, and theyre the ones telling him exactly what he wants to hear and also telling him things that are outside the bounds of our democracy and outside of the bounds of things that are appropriate for him to do. So i think this is getting more extreme and not less. Let me add one more to that, abby. As you wellpoint out, the callout for special counsel again, adding one more to that, david, tonight the president was also tweeting about the rocket attack against the u. S. Embassy in bagdad pointing to iran as being responsible. Part of the tweet he says some friendly advice to iran, if one american is killed, i will hold iran responsible. Think it over. Im sitting here with 28 days left in the Trump Administration in military conflict with iran, the final 20 days of his presidency, what would that add to this chaos . I think bottom line here is the next 28 were entering the most dangerous period in the Trump Presidency in the next 28 days. Bill barr has left as attorney general. Well have an enaa new acting attorney general. Jeffrey rosen can order all sorts of things on the pardon front. This iranian question is really serious. Tensions have been building, as you well know, and were approaching a point, january 3rd, which is going to be the first Year Anniversary when we took out soleimani and it caused such tensions between the u. S. And iran. Now the iranians are sending rockets in bagdad toward the u. S. Embassy. They havent really hurt anybody. Trump is warning them, if he needs it, if he wants it, hell have a pretext for using military action. Thats part of the worst case scenario, if in the next 28 days trump sends military forces one way or the other, even putting them in the streets of the United States. Then were in really serious crisis territory. Congresswoman, getting back to what republicans in congress will or wont do, at some point, do you think they can, i dont know, successfully just put their heads into the sand and wait this out for 28 days . They have the votes to override the veto on the defense bill. They have made that clear, that that is one area that they will buck the president. As Phil Mattingly is reporting, but someone has to Say Something when it comes to this government funding bill and this covid relief bill. This isnt a political football. This is life. This is livelihoods. This is people standing at food banks that need help in this moment. The fact that republicans just still are on a private Conference Call trying to figure out whats going on rather than standing up and screaming this is ridiculous, i dont think it actually should still shock people. It was one of the major frustrations, again, that i had, is that we got into the habit of negotiating with the white house, not knowing whether they would stand behind those negotiations. It is the house of representatives and congresss job to write bills and write legislation and then send it to the white house for the white house to execute, sign those bills into law and execute them. But ive been saying this over and over again. It is not the job of congress to stand behind the president or any president. Their job is to represent the people that have voted them into those positions. And if they can start getting that if everybody can remember that, then the American People would best be served. This is why were seeing all this frustration, this back and forth. And at the 11th hour, the discord with the president saying he may veto the stimulus bill and has already decided hes going to go against defense spending. Abby, it may seem small talking about lives and livelihoods at stake here, but what is the deal with this email back and forth at the white house over this is the exit plan, this is the exit process, here is the detailed information about your last days in the white house, how youll receive your final paycheck. They received another email today saying never mind, guidance is coming. Reporter its another normal, administrative process that has become subject to the president s whims. This email was telling people what they already know, that on january 20th, theyre no longer going to have jobs at the white house. This is the process and procedure by which thats going to happen. Now its being rolled back because people at the white house recognize that that story getting out would infuriate the president. So it is its silly. Kate, look, people in the white house are planning for their next jobs. They are starting their consulting firms. Theyre going out, getting other jobs. Theyre doing the things that they know they have to do if they want to be employed at the end of january. All of this is just a sideshow. People who work in that building know this is over on january 20th whether the president wants to admit that or not. Just hold on until then. Buckle up, actually, is the word we must continue to use. Out front next, the u. S. Shattering hospitalization records tonight as the Coronavirus Crisis pushes the Health Care System to the brink. Americans are being warned about many more deaths to come. Plus bill barrs final day. He marched in lockstep with donald trump until he broke ranks at the very end. So what is his legacy . An employee of a voting Systems Company forced into hiding after the Trump Campaign and allies promoted lies about the election. He is my guest. Wedding day, huh boys . Been there, done that. Twice your cousin. From boston. Karen, im just gonna say what everyone here is thinking. You look smokin. Total smokeshow. 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