President biden and Vice President harris met with the secretary of defense and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff after announcing they will reverse trumps ban on transgender individuals serving in military. Vice president harris just held a swearing in ceremony for their newly confirmed defense secretary and the administration is moving to reinstate restrictions on travel from europe and also moving to shut down travel from south africa amid concern over the spread of new covid variants. Its all happening as they try to marshal a massive covid relief bill and get it through congress with an impeachment trial looming. We learned from two sources that chief Justice Roberts is not expected to preside over trumps impeachment trial. Well have more on that in a moment. Over the weekend, the administration spoke with a Bipartisan Group of senators about a covid relief dell and what we learned about the discussions suggest biden has a lot of work ahead of him if hes serious about passing a massive 1. 9 trillion package with bipartisan support. It comes as more republicans are voicing their opposition to the progressive pieces of that legislation and they are claiming it shows biden is not serious about unifying the country. More republicans are balking at the idea of an impeachment trial to convict President Trump as he reportedly threatens to start a third party to punish people he believes are disloyal republicans. The houses article of impeachment against Donald John Trump will be formally presented to the senate by speaker pelosis 12 impeachment managers. Well talk to one of those managers about what the trial will look like. Senators will be sworn in as the jury for the trial tomorrow. Opening arguments set to begin in two weeks. Joining me from outside the white house is garrett on capitol hill. Mike, i want to start with the covid relief deal before garrett and i talk about impeachment a bit. There was there call over the weekend with Bipartisan Group of senators and seems like the initial read is woe, woe, hold on. Theres too much in here. We dont agree with where youve started, where the starting line is here. Youre adding things like the 15 dollar minimum wage and you have people like angus king coming out and saying this will be really tough. At who point does joe biden get personally involved if this is the path he wants to take . It does seem, theres a very real tension between two of President Bidens stated goals. The first being to try to operate in a bipartisan fashion when possible to try to unite the country but also to act with a sense of urgency on a number of his priorities including first and foremost this covid relief plan which they are calling a rescue plan. We did see an effort to that and the first end to try to bring members of both parties along on this legislation. The call over this weekend with brian deese. White house officials stress its one of many conversationings going on, including conversations from the president himself reaching out to individual lawmakers. We see they want to do everything they can to try to attract support for this. I also think were going to see more of the president using the bully pulpit here to try to build some political pressure for his plan. He will be taking questions today. A white house news conference. We also expect to see the pressure build from the democrats in the senate as well about whether and how to move forward with the Nuclear Operation doing away with the legislative filibuster. Everything i heard from biden add visors is to try to emphasize the fact what hes proposing here not only has broad appeal with the public if you look at the polling but its attracted support just last year from some of the republican senators who now seem to be balking at this proposal. Thats something i think they want to try to llg as they move ahead on a number of other promises that President Biden tried to made. In the military. Executive orders. President trump as well, biden officials saying enforcement mechanism into the executive office of the president. They will be strictly enforcing the domestic components of america legislation order than under way as a way of showing he is following through on a very important promise. That idea could generate some bipartisan support as well. Although it seems to split people along those populist slash corporate lines. Garrett, let me pick up with you from the hill perspective hill. It sure does feel like were only a few days into the administration and were falling into very familiar lines of argument on the policy front in terms of trying to get a bill through congress. Obviously, the executive has changed but many of these dynamics, the reflective partisanship we got used to well before donald trump. It was during the obama years and even earlier that this sort of settled in. Whats your take on how these negotiations move forward and how the biden teams opens bid here is playing with the republicans and moderate democrats that they would need if they really want to get a big bipartisan deal. Look, i think they will be real negotiations with the meat of the conferences in both parties here which is what makes this different from what we have seen in the recent past with the Trump Administration. Even lawmakers who arent thrilled about some of the specifics of the biden plan who attended the Conference Call with the Bidens Administration economic advisers about the covid plan spoke highly of the pleat meeting itself. This could turn into an actual negotiation. Then you know sitting around or negotiating back and forth largely in the public eye. An negotiation that happens by lawmakers who we all vote for and hire to do this work in public and the elements of the bills they like and dont like sounds refreshingly functional to me. It remains to be seen where they will get with it all. They are being quite specific about what they dont like. Whats overshadowing this is you point to the toxicity that existed with leadership and the fact that schumer and mcconnell cant figure out how to run the senate doesnt bode well for all of this. Lets switch topics to impeachment. I know you and our team reported it will be pat leheay that presides over this trial. How do you think this is affecting or not these early legislative challenges or these early legislative pushes from the Biden Administration . I think it forces a certain degree of focus on the front end and on getting cabinet nominees confirmed as quickly as possible. Once we get into this trial, everybody saying it will be short. You never know once this get started. What more we might learn in the coming weeks. I think theres an increased emphasis as getting as much work done as possible knowing well have this intermission for the conducting of an impeachment trial. Mitch mcconnell was functioning as an arm of the white house at the last impeachment. Thats not the case here. We can be an intermediary with the Trump Defense team. His goals and incentives are not necessarily aligned with theirs. Theres going be a will the of differences here even in how this pretrial period plays out. I think it will be very interesting to track. Mike, very quickly, how does the biden team feel about the length of this trial. They do they want it to be as short as possible . It does feel that every one is sort of going through the motions here and as far as the biden team is perspective is, i think biden has been very clear. He wants to do as little as possible to interfere with the very important business of moving ahead with both his legislative agenda and confirming his c cabinet. He wants to see the rest of his team in place as quickly as possible. All right. Thank you both. Really appreciate you kicking us off today. Joining me is one of the nine impeachment managers. Its great the see you. Thank you for being here today. I want to pick up with you where we left off with our reporters. Is it as quickly as possible . Well, i dont want to speak to the length of the trial. I think that will be determined in these pretrial negotiations. The motions that will be made. Leadership discussion. Theres a whole other side of it is now just preparing themselves as donald Trump Defense and all that will play itself out. You will see the impeach. Managers have been prepared for this trial and well focus on the facts. Not the process but the facts. The facts stated bluntly are this president staged an attempted insurrection of the government of the United States. Attempted a coup detet. They were not only witnesses of the crime scene but were victims as well. Thats what were going to focus on. What does this two weeks in the view of the managers give to President Trump, republicans have said they want to give him time to marshal his defense. What does the president gain from this period and is there anything youre risk by letting this trial be delayed by a couple of weeks . I think were prepared to go to trial today. Well be even more prepared to go to trial in two weeks. We want to be fair and there to be an equitiable process for the president and his team will do the work they need to do as well. The American People will see when we begin in february what that outcome is. Its our hope the senators will do that i think duty, will see the facts for what they are and will not only bring back an indictment, not an indictment but not a conviction of the president on the count. Remove him as a future danger to our democracy. What is the sense of how the scope of the trial should be shaped . Theres a single article of impeachment. As democrats were debating this in the house, there were questions about whether you should pull in items related to what happened in georgia. Pressuring Election Officials in that state. Do you expect the prosecution at the trial will include some of those elements or do you plan to keep it very narrowly focused on the events of january 6th . Were not going to talk about our trial strategy or whats going to happen. I think all americans are very aware and the facts will show the president has been engaged in a prolonged effort to overturn the election, the president ial election simply for to maintain his grip on power. Thats through disinformation, dissemination for a period of time. Pressuring state officials as well as rallying individuals to washington to inviting his political supporters to d. C. On january 6th. Thats really important date. He knew all members of congress would be there to certify the election, the president ial election and he incited them. He is the one who sent them to the capitol and he enjoyed and re reveled in the capitol. For hours he watched this and did nothing despite the pleas of members of congress for him to intervene in the variety of ways. Forgive me if i have to interrupt you. We got a twominute warning for the white house briefing. Do you believe there are still possibly 17 republicans who would vote to convict donald trump . I believe that we are going to put on a case that is going to show without a doubt that the framers intended to stop individuals exactly like donald trump from doing exactly what he did. That the facts are in fact in favor of the articles of impeachment. That after the presentation of that, the question and the entire process that all 100 senators will do their duty. That is the hope of myself, the impeachment managers and i believe the American People. We cannot have the healing and the unity that the Biden Administration and all americans are longing for until we squash individuals who think that they can use our government, use our democracy for their own purposes and wreak havoc on our constitution. When leader mcconnell leaves open the door to convicting excuse me. Im sorry. Well have to leave it there. Lets listen in to jen psaki. As part of this administration accessibility and inclusion efforts, well have an asl, American Sign Language interpreter for our daily press briefings. Todays interpreter is heather. Including americans with disabilities and their families. Next i want to share a few updates from the Covid Response team. The president will sign a president ial proclamation to reduce the spread of covid19 through travel especially as we see faster spreading variants emerging across the world. Clama government and science driven response to the covid19 pandemic. Of particular note, on advice of our administrations medical team President Biden decide to maintain the restrictions in place for european area, the united kingdom, republic of ireland and brazil. With the pandemic worsening and more contagious variants spreading, this isnt the time to be lifting restrictions on International Travel and in light of the contagious variant, south africa has been added to the restricted list. Additional beginning tomorrow, International Travelers to the United States must provide proof of a negative test within three days of travel to Airlines Prior to departure. The president is taking these steps on the advice of his covid19 and medical team. Were already working to address the needs to vaccinate the public. This comes as part of the president s order last week to direct fema to stand up vaccination centers. We look forward to continuing to be the partnering states moving forward. Last update on covid, i wanted to briefly preview the first of our Public Health briefings which will begin this wednesday and done regularly for the foreseeable future. These will be science led briefings. They will happen three times a week to provide americans updates. The reflection of our commitment to being transparent and honest with the public about the pandemic and the work our whole of Government Team is doing every day. Youll be all be able to participate in those as well. This morning President Biden issued an executive order saying the policy of all americans who are qualified to serve in the armed forces of the United States should be able to serve. Todays action revokes the president ial memorandum of march 2013, 2018 and also confirms the revocation of the president ial memorandum of august 25th of 2017. Todays action fills another campaign promise. With dco no one will be separated or discharged from military or died reenlistment. Their cases will be reexamined. President biden believes it should not be a far to military service. America is stronger at home and around the world when it is inclusive. Last, i said it was the last but a lot going on here. This afternoon the president will sign an executive order that takes an important step to support American Manufacturing. With this order the president is making good on his commitment to building a future thats made in america by all of americas workers. Through the by american executive order the president will put to work the nearly 600 billion in taxpayer dollars that goes toward federal contracting and support of American Manufacturing and good paying jobs for americas workers. Its made to qualify under by american law. He will also appoint senior white house official to oversee this policy to ensure its enforced. They will tighten the waiver process so American Workers and manufacturers can see how federal dollars are spent and where they are going. I will stop there. Thank you. We may have to leave at 2 00. Two topics. One foreign and domestic. Overseas first. Over the weekend theres dozens of significant protests in russian cities over the election that were put down harshly by police. What sort of actions could occur and when does the president plan to speak to president putin . Id like to point you to statement that was released there weekend by the state department strongly condemning the use of harsh tactics against protesters and journalists in cities throughout russia. The crackdown on protest that followed further indications on russian civil society. Ill just reiterate our call from here on russian authorities to release those detained for exercising their universal rights and the immediate and unconditional release of alexi. We request russia to cooperate into the poisoning and credible explain the use of a chemical weapon on its soil. Last week we announced that the president issued a tasking to the Intelligence Community for its full assessment of a range of activities including the solar wind cyber brief, rusian interference in the 2020 election. Its a priority. Has a call been scheduled to president putin . I dont have any calls to predict. The president is picking up the phone and engaging with a range of foreign leaders, european and others. Theres more planned in the next couple of days and well have read outs as those occur. The president has repeatedly stressed the urgency of covid relief package, the need to get something done now. With that in mind and considering the reaction of republican lawmakers, should there be a more narrow focus on the vaccine that could be done sooner. We know white house officials have talked to the hill, can you speak to the president s personal involvement. Who has he spoken to . Hes been engaging with democrats and republicans. Were not going to read out all those calls because those are private conversations. We feel thats the most effective way to get this package moving forward. There was a call that occurred yesterday that we did a brief read out from that call. Part of our ongoing engagements to talk with democrats and republicans and ill convey this is how and the president s view and we talked about this morning, this process should work. He puts his policy forward, his Vision Forward and democrats and republicans can engage and give their input and feedback on what they think will work and how to move this package forward. In our view, this is working exactly as it should work