President trump leaves office in disgrace, nation divided; Day one: Biden to sign roughly 12 executive orders; Experts fear the Capitol attack may be just the beginning of a surge of violence from right-wing extremists; US nears grim milestone of 400,000 deaths;
The Lead with Jake Tapper
CNN
3.5 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 18 January 2021
⏱️ 38 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Sources: Trump expected to issue around 100 pardons; Trump planning major send-off as he snubs Biden inauguration; National Guard members in DC vetted amid fears of insider attack; Newly obtained video shows insurrection inside U.S. Capitol; FBI investigating tip that rioter stole laptop from Pelosi’s office, possibly planned to sell it to Russia; Sources; no background checks needed for inaugural guests of members of congress; Insurrectionists say they were following Trump’s call to action;
Biden begins inauguration week as volunteer at Philly food bank for MLK day of service; Biden to roll back Trump-era policies on first day; will rejoin Paris climate accord, reverse travel ban; Biden’s’ executive orders on pandemic on day one: extend eviction ban, pause student loan payments, mandate masks; Biden begins inauguration week with no cabinet members in place; Garth Brooks: my performance at Biden inauguration is show of unity; Incoming Biden chief of staff: we are inheriting “a huge mess”;
Experts: “social media to extremism is like oxygen for fire”; Experts express concern about growing number of potentially violent extremists; CNN poll: only 19% of republicans think Biden win is legitimate; GA Lt. Gov. demotes republicans who backed Trump’s election lies;
Less than 0.5% if Americans have gotten vaccine; Incoming CDC chief predicts 500,000 U.S. deaths by mid-February; 60% of all confirmed U.S> COVID cases have been since election day; Biden to take office exactly one year after first U.S> COVID case was confirmed;
To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the lead I'm Jake Tapper and we begin today with the 45th |
| 0:05.4 | president final 44 hours in office. The disgraced and twice impeached |
| 0:12.3 | President Trump will soon leave Washington DC. |
| 0:14.9 | He leaves Washington with the lowest approval rating for a first term president since scientific |
| 0:21.2 | polling began. |
| 0:23.0 | And that historical achievement is earned. |
| 0:26.0 | Trump is leaving as the city here continues to struggle with the virus he failed to contain. |
| 0:32.0 | He is leaving with parts of this |
| 0:34.7 | city looking like a war zone because of threats of violence he incited and lies he |
| 0:39.6 | spread. We have long since past a peaceful transition of power. There are dead bodies as a result of the President's |
| 0:47.0 | deranged belief that he won the election that he lost and the conspiracy theories that he and his enablers on Capitol Hill and in |
| 0:54.9 | Maga media continue to propagate. So this is what the transition of power looks |
| 0:59.7 | like in America in 2021 at the end of the Trump era. |
| 1:04.0 | Some 25,000 members of the National Guard |
| 1:07.5 | protecting the Capitol all because of the fear |
| 1:10.0 | that other Americans, President Trump's supporters, |
| 1:14.0 | will harm their fellow Americans, |
| 1:17.0 | some of them far-right extremists with whom President Trump has been playing footsy for years, |
| 1:21.0 | others radicalized by lies pushed by President Trump and the MAGA political |
| 1:27.0 | media ecosystem. |
| 1:29.9 | The threat of extremism is so serious that even members of the National Guard are currently being vetted to make sure there won't be an insider attack from those tasked with protecting the inauguration. |
| 1:41.0 | But on noon Wednesday, two weeks after the Capitol Hill |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from CNN, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of CNN and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.