the us has dismissed reports that russia is withdrawing from ukraine's border and instead accuses moscow of sending more soldiers. washington says russia's presence has increased by as many as 7,000 troops — labelling moscow's claims of a reduction "false". landslides and flooding in the brazilian city of petropolis have killed more than 90 people. many more have been made homeless. nearly a month's worth of rain fell in a matter of hours, causing mudslides that buried homes and flooded streets. rescuers are searching for survivors. presidentjoe biden�*s senior medical adviser on coronavirus, dr anthony fauci, has said it's time for americans to start moving back towards normality. dr fauci acknowleged covid—19 infections would likely rise as restrictions were lifted and said tough choices lie ahead.

now on bbc news, it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm stephen sackur. early last year american democracy came under attack from within. supporters of defeated president donald trump stormed the us capitol and provoked deadly violence. my guest today is democratic congressman jamie raskin, a key player in the subsequent impeachment of donald trump and the congressional investigation into that january six assault. all this as congressman raskin has faced up to personal tragedy. what happened when the pillars of personal and political life came crashing down all at once? congressmanjamie raskin, welcome to hardtalk.

thank you so much for having me. it is a real pleasure, congressman. you have chosen to share with the public the worst experience of your life, frankly the worst experience anybody can imagine, that is the loss of your son. why did you decide to do that? well, ifelt like i didn't really have a choice. i was drowning in grief and agony and tommy was a remarkable young man who had great moral and political passion in his life. he grew increasingly

despondent during the covid—19 period of isolation and despondency and his depression overcame him. but tommy left us a farewell note which said, "please forgive me, my illness won today, look after each other, the animals and the global poor for me. all my love, tommy. he was a poet, he was a playwright, he was a political activist, he was a second—year student at harvard law school. the sky was the limit in terms of what he was going to be able to contribute to us but he was drowning in pain and we lost him on the last day of 2020. we have wanted

to continue to act in ways that would be befitting his memory and his spirit and it would make him proud of what we are doing. so we wanted to tell the world about him and his remarkable essays and poetry and writings. and we wanted to continue to struggle for the things he believed in. as you were suggesting, the trauma over loss of tommy very quickly merged with the trauma of the january six insurrection and attempted coup in the congress of the united states by donald trump and his supporters. as i tell it in this book that i've written, these two traumas really converged in my life and are inextricably interwoven in my psyche. yeah, i have the book right in front of me, congressman. unthinkable, it's called.

it is in a sense a love letter to your son, tommy and it's also a sort of letter full of love and despair about the current state of american democracy. just to stick with tommy and you speak so movingly and beautiful about them it strikes me that tommy wasn't just your smart, talented, beautiful son, he also had become something of a moral compass for you, a sort of conscious and adviser and somebody that you did discuss politics with a great deal. that's right. tommy was kind of a political savant, a natural kind of a thoroughbred. they were so many political influences in his life. but he was disenchanted, i'd say at a very early age with conventional electoral parliamentary politics, the kind of politics that i do.

and he really was far more connected to visionary, moral politics and movements for change. sorry to interrupt, this is so interesting, was tommy in a sense may be angry is the wrong word but did he feel that you were misguided in placing yourfaith in running for office, first in maryland but that of course for the us congress and taking your place on those benches amongst all of the politicians who play their games, who perhaps practice the cynical art of politics, did tommy think that was a mistake? well, he never put it like that to me but there is a conversation i record in the book between tommy and me when i took him to the maryland state senate when i was a senator and he interacted with one of my colleagues who's a brilliant politician but certainly more on the realist machiavellian side

of things than tommy. and that was the moment when tommy said to me, he was in seventh grade, "i don't think i could do what you do." and i said, what you mean, be a law professor? because that was my main vocation and he said, "no, i could just like that but i don't think i could be in politics with people who i fundamentally disagree with about values." and tommy was much more interested in movement organising and visionary political transformation. i mean, he became a very devout vegan, he was totally opposed to the consumption of animals for food. he was a really strong anti—war activists and wanted to oppose the nation states of the world engaging in militarist entanglements and military deployments against each other.

we were blessed to have him, i view him like a visitor from 500 years from now when our civilisation is beyond war and beyond violence and beyond injustice and has moved to a different place. but it was very tough for him to see the things that would take place around the world, the human rights violations, the massacres, civil wars and so on. i dare say, people listening and watching around the world will be wondering how just a week after tragically tommy took his life you found the strength to get to the us congress, to be in the chamber to take part in that process of certifying the presidential election. of course, in the previous november biden had beaten trump, trump disputed it, claimed the election was stolen, but the results were in and onjanuary six you were in the congress to

certified the result. was there any part of you that may be in retrospect wish you missed that day, given what happened onjanuary six? do you even second—guess your decision to go that day? i certainly wish that i had been preparing notjust the parliamentary challenges to the electoral college votes coming in from arizona, georgia, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan and a handful of other states but that i had been preparing for the violence that would come to engulf us. my daughters had urged me not to go in that day because it was just a week after we lost tommy and we had had our covid—i9 constricted funeral service the day before on january five. but i explained that it is a constitutional command that we meet on the first wednesday in january to count the electoral college votes. the democratic margins were very small at that point, as they are now. we were nervous about what would happen. i certainly didn't want to be in the pay position for

anything falling apart that day. and speaker pelosi had asked me several weeks before to prepare responses to the various challenges that were going to come in. at that point, i invited our daughters, the cousins, anybody that want to come with me. and so my daughter tabitha and my son—in—law hank, who is married to our daughter hannah to come with me on that day and they ask whether that would be all right. i said yeah, it should be fine you know, were in the capital. and i had a very specific image in my mind of all these national guardsmen and women who were in a flanks protecting the capital onjune

the 2nd when it was a completely non—violent black lives matter protests outside. i just assumed that we would be fine. you clearly were wrong on that score. you ended up cowering in one committee room, your daughter and your son—in—law ended up hiding in another lawmakers office, you heard the efforts of the mall ——mob to get into the chamber itself. of course you were then take it out and they did get into the chamber eventually. has that trauma really affected the way you handled politics sense? of course you have become... first you became a manager of the house impeachment of donald trump, a second impeachment. and you now sit on the investigation committee looking in detail at everything that happened around january six. i wonder if you are fuelled by a fury at what you personally experienced. i was on the house floor, tabitha and hank hadbeen on the gallery returned to an office right off of the house floor and we were separated for more than an hour when we were evacuated, when

the mob began to pound on the doors and we heard the chanting, "hang mike pence, hang mike pence." 0ur leadership speaker pelosi and others were evacuated out. there was shouting that took place on the floor, we were told to put our gas masks on, most of us weren't even aware that there were a gas mask available on the floor. it was chaos and it was pandemonium and it was very stressful not knowing where tabitha and hank were. turns out they were with julie in that office and they barricaded themselves in and were hiding under a desk as the mob pounded on their doors. the house chamber actually was never overrun because that's where one of the insurrectionist was shot on the way in and that stopped their advance on the house floor. but they did overtake the senate floor and he probably saw the footage. i'm just interested in the language you use about some of the people involved in the assault. you talk about

a bloodthirsty mob. thinking to yourself that as this was unfolding and you are witnessing it, will we finally and preach the trader for setting loose the dogs of warupon us? you were in a state of understandable, very high passion. i just wonder if that high passion, that anger lives with you to this very day? i hope it does, i hope we never forget what we were subjected to on that day. there were three levels of activity there was a mass demonstration that turned into a mob riot which injured 150 officers and wounded some of them

permanently. 0ne officer lost three fingers, one had a heart attack, a traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress syndrome. there was a middle level of the insurrection and this was made up of the proud boys, the 0ath keepers, the three presenters, the aryan nations, the militia groups, different domestic violent extremist groups that have been training for battles that smashed out our windows, knocked down our doors and began the violent assault on our officers which the mob filled in on. and that wasn't even the scariest level, the scariest level was the innermost ring of the coup. and coup is a difficult word to process an american political parlance because we don't have any experience with coups and we think of a coup as something taking place against the president but this was a coup that was orchestrated by the president and against the vice president and against the congress of the united states. so trump, after having lost the election by more than 7 million votes, 306 to 332 in the electoral college, he proceeded on a number of different illegitimate tracks to try to over throw bidens majority in the electoral college. he tried to get election officials like secretary of state brad raffensperger of georgia to try and find 11,780 votes. he tried to get

state legislators to void out the popular vote and just install trump electors. when all of it failed, what he did was he trained all of the fire on his own vice president to try and demand that mike pence to clear new unlawful powers simply to reject and repudiate the electoral college of the united states. here's the thing congressman, congressman, you call it definitively a coup but let's look at the record, the record shows that donald trump on the second impeachment, the incitement, the insurrection he was impeached in the house and he was convicted by a majority in the senate but not by a two thirds majority. so in formal terms,

that conviction was not upheld, it needed a two thirds majority which was not achieved. then, one can look at the federal investigation of january six and we know that 700 people or more have been charged, 165 pleaded guilty, 70 have already been sentenced including as you say, some people from militia groups like the proud boys. we know all that. a donald trump himself has not been charged with anything. it brings me to your investigatory committee, even working out for very long time, you called all sorts of witnesses, i believe you still intend to have some public hearings, you intend to write a long report maybe by the summer. but what really is the point of your committee? because you have no legal powers, you can't bring charges against trump or anybody else. well, our select committee on the january six attacks exists under the authority of house resolution 503, we are charges you say, not with engaging in criminal prosecution, we have no authority to do that but we are charged with assembling a meticulous and comprehensive factual record about what took place on january six, what were the causes of these events and what do we need to do in order to fortify democratic institutions in america to prevent a repeat of this insurrectionary activity and this attempted coup

against our electoral process? now the department ofjustice, of course does have law enforcement authority and can engage in prosecution and indictment of people who engage in various crimes. that's my point. merrick garland, the attorney general and the department ofjustice do not seem to be interested in going after this inner ring of people at the top and obviously you mean donald trump and his key associates who use they were responsible for this, you call it a coup, but i'm putting it to you that the federal authority showed no interest in following your lead. well, why do you say that? 0therwise merrick garland would presumably be gathering the evidence right now to go

against donald trump and other people involved in this conspiracy of yours. but there's no sign he's doing that. well, criminal investigations are secret. i remember when people were saying, some of my colleagues in congress were saying well, all you have is assault on police officers, trespass, malicious destruction of property, there's no sign of any conspiracy anywhere. and then conspiracy charges were brought against the 0ath keepers for its seditious conspiracy. as far as i can tell, we will co—ordinate with the department ofjustice but as far as i can tell they are working their way up like in a

mob prosecution where you start with the foot soldiers until you get all the way to the top to the godfather. you know? really? i wouldn't give up any hope on them figuring out all of the conspiracies that were involved in is very complex set of activities that were designed to overthrowjoe bidens majority in the electoral cartilage and foresee election into a so—called contingent election under the 12th amendment. there was a whole purpose because our constitution says if nobody has a majority in the electoral college when the votes are counted and they were trying everything they could do to prevent a majority from forming, then it goes into the house of representatives. the reason they wanted it there is because they knew we don't vote according to one member, one vote but according to one estate, one vote under the electoral college system. and they are the gop, had 27 states, we had 22 and one, pennsylvania it was tied down the middle. isn't there a grave danger, congressman that your committee of investigation in the report you will ultimately produce will disappear into a vortex of polarisation? that polarisation that we have seen intensifying in america for months and indeed years. we know that the republicans, i'll quote marco rubio, republican senator, your committee a partisan scam. from opinion polling that the majority, a clear majority of

republican voters are ignoring your talk of a coup saying that they still support donald trump and that they do not regard onjanuary six as any sort of insurrection. isn't there a danger that the more you pile on to trump and your ultimate report, the more it will be dismissed as yet more partisanship? well, we have a bipartisan committee. it's the most bipartisan committee of ever served on, we have a democrat, liz cheney who was the head of the republican conference in the house of representatives is our vice chair. you have two republicans, kinzingerand cheney and both have now been censured by the rnc, the republican parties organisational sort of headquarters for their participation in your committee.

so thatjust tells us again, the republican party is taking no part in this investigation beyond those two individuals. that's a reflection of the deterioration of the principles of their party which is no longer a normal modern political party but asked far more like an authoritarian cult of personality under donald trump. if you cross donald trump in any way, if you refuse to follow his orders that you do become a pariah. even if you were the head of the republican conference as liz cheney was with her but she does speak for millions of republicans in the country as does adam kinzinger. the ten republicans who voted to impeach trump for insurrection and the seven republicans in the senate who voted to convict them for that, that was the most sweeping bipartisan result in a senate impeachment trial of a president in us history. we've only had four impeachment trials, andrewjohnson, bill clinton and two trump trials. this was by far the most partisan and it was a 57 to 43 result. so he was convicted in the court of public opinion, convicted in the eyes of history and i think evicted in the eyes of the world. but you're right, we do have a major political party, abraham lincolns party which now today's been taken over by donald trump and his position itself outside the constitutional order. they attack a constitutional processes, the outcome of our

elected and it really should be the foremost responsibility of a political party to accept election results even if they don't go your way. let me ask a personal question, congressman, in your very, very personal and moving book you describe yourself as an eternal optimist and a true believer in american values, american democracy and what you call american exceptionalism. right now your own country is in a polarised state where, i'm looking at the polls, 40% of americans appear to identify with the republican parties against 42% with the democratic party. 78% of republicans say they want to see donald trump run for president in 202a. given what is happening in your country today, afterjanuary 26, 2021, have you fallen out of love with your own country?

no, on the contrary. i'm more deeply in love with my country than ever and i'm fighting for it every single day. look, the authoritarians and despots and bullies are all over the world, we know that. it's putin in russia and duterte in the philippines and 0rban in hungary, al—sisi in egypt, bolsonaro in brazil, you name it those are all of donald trumps friends and they are all rooting for the dissolution and the destruction of american democracy. but what about the millions of americans that would still vote for donald trump, are you dismissing them too, are you calling them as hillary clinton once did, the deplorables? is that how you have to rationalize this to yourself?

no, not at all. there's been an alternative propaganda system set up through fox news and through the media and that obviously has an effect on what people understand and what they think. hillary beat donald trump by 3 million votes. joe biden beat trump by seven and a half million votes. it's only the antiquated electoral college system that allowed trump to get to where he was and the young people are coming with our party, the party of democracy, the new americans are coming with our party, the party of democracy. the gop exist completely on a bag of tricks that installed minority political power like the filibuster in the senate, like the gerrymandering of our congressional districts, like the manipulation of the antiquated electoral college system. so it's the will of the majority versus their bag of tricks. and i concede to you, we are in a profound struggle for american democracy but what we need is notjudgment and carping from around the world, we need people tojoin our

struggle and to help us vindicate the continuing progress of democracy in america. congressmanjamie raskin, we have to end there. i wish he had more time. but thank you indeed forjoining me. thank you for having me. a stormy end to our week — the first of the storms, storm dudley, arrived during wednesday afternoon and into the evening. and as we went through the latter stages of the day, wind gusts were quite widely around 70 mph, gusting in excess of 80 mph through capel curig. now, it looks likely that we'll continue to see some rain and snow, as well, over the next few hours, even snow falling at lower levels across the highlands — so there will be some accumulations, there will be some icy stretches to look out for first thing.

so we keep the potential for some rain and some snow over the next few hours, further south across england and wales. quite breezy still, but the winds will start to ease down, and it will stay largely fine and dry here. but temperatures will hold up above freezing — so first thing tomorrow morning, around 4—7 celsius, noticeably colder into the far north. now, as we start off thursday, then it looks likely that we'll continue to see some showers slowly easing and, as we go through the day, still windy, but not as strong as they have been. a good deal of dry weather on thursday, with some sunshine coming through. temperatures in the north between 5—7 celsius — not quite as mild in the south, with 12 celsius the high here. but we have to draw your attention to what's happening during thursday into friday — this is storm eunice. now, this will intensify quite dramatically, this area of low pressure, and will cause some issues. now, in several areas across scotland and northern ireland, it's not the wind, it's the snow. we are likely to see some heavy wet snow falling on power lines that could have an impact, 10—30 centimetres of snow. as i say, the winds not quite as strong here, we're looking at gusts of winds around 25—35 mph. but the snow will start to tot up. now further south of that, the snow will ease and it'll be

largely dry with some sunshine — but look at the gusts of wind. we are likely to see widely gusts in excess of 70—80 mph inland, and on extreme west—facing coasts, we could see wind strength around 90 mph gusts, potentially up to 100 mph. so the met office has issued an amber warning. be prepared for some significant disruption, dangerous, damaging gusts of wind. and, even as we head into the weekend, we keep plenty of isobars on the chart — showers on saturday being replaced by longer spells of rain.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm sally bundock. the white house says russia's claim of withdrawing forces surrounding ukraine is false and that it's actually sent in thousands more troops. in brazil, a desperate search for survivors after heavy rains cause a mudslide on a mountain. at least 90 people are confirmed dead. a bbc investigation reveals how the vatican's closeness to the italian state sees some clerical abuse cases covered up. disruption and damage after storm dudley. thousands lose power in scotland and northern england, with warnings of worse to come.