bogus, idiotic, crazy? completely nuts?

that is how trump insiders describe the former president election lies to the january 6th committee. it was all part of today's public hearing. cnn's ryan nobles has the highlights right now. >> we were getting ready to win this election. frankly, we did win this election. >> reporter: donald trump's false claim that he won the 2020 election before all the votes were counted. a lie he continues to peddle, but one that some of his closest advisers told the january 6th committee they did not believe. like his attorney general. >> he's become detached from reality if he really believes the stuff. >> reporter:'s campaign manager. >> i didn't think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional. >> reporter: and several top campaign lawyers. >> i remember telling him, that, i didn't believe the dominion allegations, but they put were proposing, i thought was nuts. theory was also that's. >> reporter: trump's insistence that he won the election despite a wide range of evidence to the contrary is at

the core of the committee's argument that he purposefully and potentially criminally worked to prevent the certification of the election results. a conspiracy that ultimately led to his supporters storming the capital on january 6th. >> i told him the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public were the early claims that i understood were completely bogus and silly. >> reporter: bill step in, trump's former campaign manager was expected to perform live, but after his wife went into labor, he bowed out. the committee played excerpts of his testimony instead. >> did anyone who was a part of that conversation disagree with your method? >> yes. >> who was that? >> the president disagreed with that. >> reporter: the result was a methodical rejection of trump's claims of fraud delivered by his campaign and white house advisers. respected professionals who

said that trump stopped talking to them and started trusting people agree giuliani, and sidney powell. >> there were two groups, recalled them my team and rudy's team. i did not mind being characterized as part of team normal. >> reporter: election experts and state election officials also testified that there was a zero chance trump won the election. >> there was no credible evidence of fraud produced by the trump campaign, or his supporters. >> reporter: the committee also drawing a line between trump's big lie and his fundraising. >> of the claims that the election was a stolen were successful. president trump and his allies raise $250 million. >> reporter: the money was intended to be used to fight voter fraud, fraud which did not exist. the last email sent to donors, half an hour before the capital was breached. >> we are really just at the beginning of his hearings taking place throughout the

month of june. seven, in total. the third hearing scheduled for wednesday is designed to specifically focus on trump's attempt to infiltrate the department of justice, with the goal of installing a public attorney general, who would do the job of investigating these thin claims of voter fraud. there is also the possibility that members of congress that were involved in that effort may be revealed as being part of that plot. don? >> thank you very much for going to ring in political commentator charlotte den, i almost called you charlie dean, good to see you. susan, so much to talk about. i want to start with the committee chair, bennie thompson telling reporters that the committee will not make any criminal referrals to the doj, or trump, or anyone else. vice chair liz trent cheney contradicted that. the january 6th select committee has not issued a conclusion regarding criminal referrals. we will announce a decision on

that at an appropriate time. susan, what is up with this? what is going on? >> it's remarkable in the rollout of their long-awaited hearings. here we are, talking about their disagreement with each other. it is not just liz cheney versus the chairman. you see several other members, i think adam schiff, and another congresswoman, also saying wait a minute, we had not decided. to a certain extent, i am not sure how consequential this disagreement really is. it will be up to merrick garland, the attorney general and his justice department, whether or not they proceed with charges. whether or not they have an advisory role, it is not this which matters in the legal determination, none of which is in the hands of the select committee anyways pics but i want to bring in laura coates to get her take on this. >> hello to you, laura.

is the select committee presenting a strong legal case? we know that attorney general mary garland is watching. >> he is watching, and i think that they are presenting a case that the medically outlines the prosecutors if they were inclined to pursue charges would pick up. remember, they are outlining the notion of, what he was doing, what he was engaged in, the notion of trying to, based on fraudulent information, knowing that it was fraud, trying to convince people of the big lie. there is actually a criminal hooked to this, that is the idea of trying to defraud the people of the united states. you have to have an agreement which says, here is what we will do. that is still out there to be proven, but you have to have an official proceeding. here it was, certification of the count. and, the intention to use fraud, or deceptive means for some input improper purpose or correct purpose and then commit everett. every single time he tried to find instances of fraud, knowing that there were no

fraudulent issues to discuss, he was committing a kind of overt act. a treat, a conversation, a plan which ran totally counter to what everyone said and you know, there is really no inference that can be made that he actually believed or knew that this was somehow true, because he had his own at visors, his campaign manager, his campaign lawyers, who had all this happening and yet, he still searched for it. >> 62 times. >> yeah. yeah. >> he exhausted legal remedies, and why that is important, don, you are right to point that out. even if he didn't have the criminal intent to do something wrong, he would still have known, based on all the certifications, all the exhausted legal remedies, that he was improperly trying to retain office. that is part of the calculus as well. >> former ag bill barr, may not have been sitting in the hearing room, today, but he was

in the start witness. here it is. >> there is never an indication of interest, in what the actual facts were. that he had lost contact with -- he has become detached from reality if he really believes the stuff. >> for someone who carried trumps water for so long, charlie? >> it tells me that the former president is not only detached from reality, but believes his own bull. he believes he is never wrong

and he is never in doubt that he will not let facts or evidence get in the way of his argument, and so, i think he what wwitnessed here from bill barr and other republican to support a donald trump, these people have called him out and said, the emperor has no close clothes. they often did not say that but they are saying it now, and it is a good thing. the sad part about this is that, you know, if someone tells an easily disposable lie, over and over again, sadly, too many people will believe it. it is undermining faith and confidence in our electoral system. >> it is interesting, i think the evidence is pretty compelling. what are they going to say, it's the deep state, it's never trumper is, it's rhinos, these are the people the president had, the people he is closest to come his advisers and family members, charlie. >> yeah. you just wonder, you know, at what point is there going to be a family intervention? this dysfunction is unhealthy, it is obsessive, and it is destructive to our country. to the party, the election

system. it is wrong on so many levels. everybody knows it, and, we are well past the point of people calling it out and we will have to reject this man. he is a diminished figure, he is still a dangerous one, and until enough people who know better continued to shout from the rooftops, we will continue to see this spiral of our democratic institutions in a very bad direction. >> another soundbite for you. this is bill barr describing a moment leaving the oval office, this is after trump was talking about his fraud hearings. here it is. >> jared was there with dan's gavino, who ran the presidents social media, who i thought was a reasonable guy, and believe is a reasonable guy. and, i said, how long is he

going to carry on with this stolen election stuff, where is this going to go? by that time, meadows had caught up to me leaving the office and said, he said, look, i think that he is becoming more realistic and knows that there is a limit to how far he can take this. and then jared said, we are working on this. we are working on it. >> i mean, susan, seriously. all these people around trump knew that these were lies. they did not say anything publicly at the time. they aren't stopping all the other republicans who are running on his lies right now. lies on top of lies, and this is compounded. to charlie's point, what the hell?

what? >> these people, not only have they lied to the american public, they are lying to each other, they are backstabbing each other, they are each playing a different underhanded game, and that comes through so clearly in that clip you just played from former attorney general barr. mark meadows, trumps final chief of staff, an important figure in all of this. and you know, he seemed to be actively misleading bill barr, establishment republican at the same time the evidence come out from the committee has shown clearly that mark meadows was an active participant in creating the conspiracy, and helping trump to fuel his election lies. to me, this is a snakepit, the trump white house. with each other, as well as lying to the american public. >> it is astounding. stick around. we have a lot more to talk about for today's hearing.

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back now with laura coates, charlie dan, and susan glasser. laura, what does all of this tell you about trump's intent, his state of mind, that people within his inner circle told him the truth, and he still would not stop. >> i think that it is very clear, just like what chairman bennie thompson spoke of on the first day of the hearings, that on the morning of january 6th, he intended to still be the president of the united states. that would be an improper thing to do, given the fact that he was already aware that there was not widespread fraud to overturn the election, there were certified results, he did not have a legal basis to continue to challenge although he had already tried over 60 times, and he did not have a constitutional way of trying to have the vice president of the united states undermine those electors. in that moment we were clear on

the intent. the question working backwards was, how did he form that, did he truly believe that he had the right, or did he just want it to be true? that's a huge divide. either way, criminal intent, or if he remained for an improper purpose, you have the foundations of using fraud to try to deceive the public, which is unlawful, and antidemocratic. >> let me ask you this, because, you have the people on one side, they were to see trump in handcuffs and he's going to jail, and then you have folks on the other side saying no one cares about this, gas prices. is anything in between this where he says listen, we cannot control, and i think we should even be concerned with how this is going to land, what are people going to think? because people will think what they want to think but with your legal mind, did you say or see anything in here that has been presented so far that trump has any legal exposure, whether it is defrauding people with campaign money, or whether

it is him knowing that it was a lie and going out there and instigating this insurrection? >> he had legal exposure. manifesting right now in fulton county, georgia, based on his pursuit a cording to what we have learned so far, knew not to exist, that also expands to the nation of, there is a lot of time being spent about the proud voice. we are not hearing any information about him being charged alongside those already indicted people, but the idea seems to be floating in the air in some respects that there were some directives given. now, they have not proven this yet, we are only in the second day of hearing and i'm not going to get out of her my skis on this notion. but there is the notion that this is an ongoing threat to our democracy i did not question earlier today on our programming, i questioned congressman aguilar, a member of the committee, as to whether the focus seemed to be almost singularly on donald trump, would deter the understanding that the was a collective

thought process but he answered the question to the committee as well talking about how this is really about democracy overall and figuring out whether really, that was a dry run for future elections. >> i want to play more now, this is what trumps campaign manager said that he told trump about his prospects. >> very bleak. you know, we told him, the groups that went over there, outlined a unit, my belief in chances for success at this point, and we pegged it at 5% or 10% based on recounts that were either automatically initiated or could be initiated , based on realistic legal challenges, all the legal

challenges that were eventually pursued. but, you know, my belief is that 5% to 10% was not a optimistic outlook. >> susan glasser, when he was not telling trump what he wanted to hear about the election results, he found someone else. is in this part of the pattern with the former president? >> absolutely, don. this story, in many ways, the full three years of the trump presidency is him, over and over again, rebuffing those who brought him bad news, or news he did not want, trying to get himself -- at one point in our book coming up this fall about trump, you know, i was just looking at this again today, one of his former senior officials is talking to him about who will be the new white house chief of staff, and trump says i want a yes-man. i want a yes-man. so, in the end, the yes-man he

ended up with was rudy giuliani. but, you know, bill is no hero, either, that is what makes this so complicated? he has never spoken out publicly, that his account has, broadly speaking been known before but he portrays himself on team normal, but did donald trump change radically on november 3rd, 2020? come on. he was appearing to talk about a rigged election before there were even any votes cast. and he knew that and worked for him and had no problem doing separate >> he is talking about, i've been here since the very beginning, since he went down the escalator in 2015, he was talking about a rigged election, then. then when he won all of a sudden it wasn't rigged. so, there you go. >> can we say something about the cynicism of all of this? the way people have monetized this lie and have grafted on it. i respect bill as a campaign person, he has just acknowledged that the president lost and presumably the

president is lying about losing, but that is not stopping him from working for a candidate running against liz cheney because she has pushed back on the lie, and the insurrection. >> but the candidate he is working for has campaigned on the lie. >> correct but he is still monetizing it but that is what is happening. there are plenty of people who are monetizing this lie, even though they know it is a lie and this is all nonsense. this is what makes me so cynical about politics today. how can you do that with a straight face? you know, say it's a lie in front of the whole world and then you go out and monetize it and i wish somebody -- too bad you couldn't be there in person today so someone could have asked him that question. there's liz over here pushing back. >> that is what happens, charlie. it happens because people, obviously they live, and they gripped on it, and as you said, the members of your own party, the republic and party won't call them out, and if you do call them out, then you are

called rino or liberal or democrat or whatever it is they want to call you, which i think is a pejorative. they use as a pejorative. so that is how it becomes a lie. they try to stem the criticism by making the people who criticize it out to be against the former president or republicans. republican or democrat or independent or whatever, are only telling the truth. where am i at? where is the lien that? bueller? anyone? >> you are right. >> it goes back to legislative purpose. let me just say, they are talking about the legislative purpose of all of this. here is the thing. their purpose, in many respects, is to figure out the ways in which existing laws are

being exploited, or whether there are shortcomings within them, and they need to recommend the entire congress ways in which to codify a way to close those things but the things you mentioned today, monetizing the lie, first amendment protections and campaign finance laws. is there a gap between that, to capitalize on made-up marketing tools? the electoral count act, as well. there are things in this committee can be doing to promote and further the mission that they are trying to flex their legislative and oversight function. it is not a criminal function but that is a way to have a nation of laws. >> it will take the american people, the writer voters to do that. thank you all. >> trump family members appearing through video depositions and distancing themselves from the former president election fraud claims. >> i don't know that i had a friend you as to what he should

say in that circumstance. the results were still being counted .

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the january 6th committee hearing more today from president trump's inner circle about his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. this is what his daughter, ivanka trump and son-in-law jared kushner had to say when asked about rudy giuliani suggesting trump outright lie and call the race for himself. >> i don't know that i had a firm view as to what he should say in that circumstance. the results were still being counted. >> did you ever share, mr. krishna, your perspective of

mr. giuliani with the president? >> i guess -- yes. >> tell me what you said. >> basically, not the approach i would take if i was you. >> those comments follow testimony from ivanka last week where she said she accepted attorney general william barr saying there is no fraud to be found in the election, tonight the former president issuing a response to today's hearing, however he did not address allegations from the committee about benefits that were supposed to go towards election fraud claims. let's discuss, michael d'antonio, the author of the truth about trump.'s argument trying to keep from laughing. >> the truth, connected with trump, can you believe it? >> it's so outrageous, i cannot believe that people still believe this man. i just think it is outrageous.

there is so much evidence that point to, he knew he was lying. right? he was told he was lying. the courts proved he was lying. he is still repeating the lie, and now you have his daughter, and you saw, she froze when asked her opinion about whether she thought that trump won or lost the election. >> i think jared froze as well, when they asked him. had you spoken to the president about this? the trouble for jared and ivanka is that they both want to be considered part of team normal, now, when they were not on team normal for four years. so, i think it is a stretch for all of us to believe that back in november d december that they were the voices of reason. if that was the case, why did jared go to the middle east for much of that time, and where was ivanka's voice during that time?

it is really a case of them wanting to have their cake and eat it, too. >> don't you think that this is significant, because all of these are family members? trump's inner circle that we are hearing from. these are not never trumper's, these aren't democrats. these are his closest allies and advisers. family members. >> you are absolutely right. i am now waiting for melania to speak out and get back against ivanka because the two of them had a feud, so there is no love lost between the two of them, and then eric and don jr. may now be thinking, i have the shot at being the best child because ivanka is obviously abandoning her role, and now there is a place for them to move up. in a, the rivalries with this crowd are endless. >> you have been talking about how ivanka and jared have been trying to promote themselves as

post-white house speakers but this comes across as really pathetic. how is it? >> it is very disingenuous. i don't think anyone believes that they didn't know that donald trump had lost the election. i think they understood before the election that he was going to lose, and they understood what he was doing, back in may of 2000, when he was setting the table for this plan. anyone who has been around donald trump for any length of time knows that he always anticipates what he will do. >> in may of 2000? >> yes. in may of 2000, he started saying, it will probably be rigged, it will probably be stolen. >> may 2020? >> in 2020, yes. >> i was going to say, wait a minute but he might have done it then, too. certainly before the 2016 election, he made the same crazy claims. he is always looking for this

trapdoor, this way of saying yeah, but i didn't really lose, i was cheated. doesn't matter, whether it is a game of golf, or it is our democracy. it is all the same. >> it doesn't matter if it was on the level, a game of golf or a local election or the national election. misses congresswoman -- yeah, congressman zoe lofgren, her opening statement. watch. >> will also show that the trump campaign used false claims of election fraud to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from supporters, who were told their donations were for the legal fight in the courts. but, the trump campaign did not use the money for that. the big lie was also a big ripoff. >> talk to me about the big ripoff. that was interesting. we have been reporting on that, but no one had stated it as clearly as you heard today about the big ripoff. it wasn't just an effort to attack our democracy, but he was intent on crafting the

american people, as well. stealing money from the people who support him? >> precisely. think about what is happening to those folks. they then swindled politically, swindled intellectually, swindled emotionally, out of their money and at least one, swindled out of her life. all of these people who went to this crazy attack on the capital were sent there by donald trump through his lengthy propaganda campaign, they really believed in him. many still believe in him. and, this is the greatest abuse, i think, that he has perpetrated, is against the people who actually believe in him. >> we will see what happens with this particular claim, but as i said you have been reporting on it. to see it laid out in front of a committee, the evidence was quite stunning. thank you, michael d'antonio. a rare bipartisan agreement

in congress, senators reaching a framework deal on gun legislation. it doesn't go as far as democrats want. one senator who helped negotiate the agreement joins me, next.

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chase. introducing icy hot pro. ice works fast... to freeze your pain and your doubt. heat makes it last. so you'll never sit this one out. new icy hot pro with 2 max-strength pain relievers. they have made a deal. a bipartisan group of senators announcing they have agreed on a new gun legislation framework including grants for state red flag laws and enhanced background checks for people under 21. the attorney general merrick garland endorsing the proposal, today, calling it meaningful progress. >> if you put illegal guns on our streets, or into the hands of violent offenders, the justice department will spare

no resource to hold you accountable. the justice department is committed to doing our part to end the plague of gun violence. we strongly support congress's efforts to do so as well. >> this could be the most significant federal action on gun violence in nearly 3 decades. centers deborah knapp and roy lunt led the proposal in here with me now is a senator stabber now. this is important stuff and i just listed some things that are in this framework but there are lots of things which are not in this framework, like renewing the assault weapons ban, raising the legal age to purchase an assault weapon, and more. do you feel this framework goes far enough? >> first of all, it is great to be back with you, and, that to say this is meaningful. is it everything that i think needs to be done? no. i would support a ban on assault weapons, and comprehensive background

checks, and a number of other things. but, i will say that having background checks on those age 21, or under, is important, that essentially creates a waiting period, and, requirements, also say that if you have an 18-year-old that goes out and buys an assault weapon or two, like in uvalde, the police have to be notified that happened, and that will make a difference. tightening up on gun traffickers, and tightening up gun dealer licenses and red flag laws like you are talking about, and on the other side, that you mentioned, that senator blunt and i have been working on for years, the mental health investments are transformative. it is actually transformative. what we are doing is committing

to comprehensive quality community behavioral health services, mental health and addiction, in communities across america, and funding it like healthcare. not just grants. >> so listen, this is just a framework, the legislation is not actually written yet. do you think this will change as the bill is written and are you confident that republicans will continue to support it? >> all day today i was talking to folks about language. i am very involved in writing the mental health pieces of this, talking to colleagues about the other pieces of it, and people are very focused. members are very focused on getting this right in the language, getting it done, as quickly as possible. everything counts. and so, i am confident that, from what i have seen so far, that there is enough people in the united states, not

everybody, but there is enough that are serious about this, but we can get it done. >> okay but the reason i ask if you were sure that -- one of the reasons i should say is because the republicans are going to support it is because this is personal for you because i understand your father needed some help, but the support for mental health issues just wasn't there at the time, right? >> no question. i think for so many of us whether that is a gun violence issue, by the way, the majority of guns are used in suicides. so, there are a lot of ways in which gun violence is going on in this country, and when we talk about the mental health side of things, we are talking about helping people so they do not feel hopeless. and, commit suicide. my dad was bipolar and did not get the services he needed, we were in a small rural community in michigan and i saw what happened when he did not have

help and when he did have help it was incredible different. and so, what we are talking about is, across this country, and in schools, another important part of this is making sure that we have mental health services in our schools, for children. it is important for teachers, as well. >> i am glad you mentioned schools, because there are other parts of the country, governors and states are making their own moves. governor dewine signed a bill into law just today which reduces the hours training school staff need to carry a gun from 700 hours to 24 hours. what effect do you think this will have on the state? >> i thought i misread that when i first saw it. i don't know what to say. when you lower the training for people, you want more people with guns in the school, urging teachers to get guns, and then dramatically, not just a little bit, from 700 to whatever it

was, dramatically lower. how in the world does that make sense, with the situation we are in right now. that doesn't make sense to me. >> we will see how that plays out, let's hope for the best. thank you, senator. i appreciate your joining. >> we want to hope and then we have to act. you know, thoughts and prayers are not enough. it is time to act. >> completely agree. thank you, senator. >> thank you. dozens of men suspected of having ties to a white nationalist group arrested in idaho after planning a riot at a private event. now, police say they are getting death threats.

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tonight, and idaho police chief says he and others in his department are receiving death threats after they arrested 31 men linked to a white nationalist group who law- enforcement officials say were planning to riot at a private event. >> reporter: to witnesses, they appeared as a little army. 31 men dressed in similar outfits, all with their faces covered. police say they were prepared to riot as the city celebrates pride month. >> the information that we had

would lead any reasonable officer to assume there might be criminal activity afoot, based not only on the 911 call but information contained. >> reporter: police say they were stuffed into a moving van with shields, weapons, and at least one smoke him as they headed towards downtown coeur d'alene took >> i had no doubt that had that a van stopped at the park, we would have ended up in the right situation. >> reporter: police unmasked the men. one of the men, police say is their leader, thomas russo. he, along with his group, patriot front came from out of town and brought with them a nasty racist past, one, cnn has reported on over the years. >> these members of the hate group patriot front, these are not antifa in disguise nor fbi members in disguise. >> reporter: this group did not come out of nowhere.

they are not new. researchers that hate say patriot front is an offshoot of a group called vanguard america, whose allegedly, thomas russo, attended the whites the premises unite the right rally in charlottesville. the person convicted of this murderous act of hate in charlottesville, the man behind the wheel of that car, had been spotted standing side-by-side with the racist group holding one of their shields. that the leadership of vanguard america said he was not a member and condemned his violence, that did not stop there neo-nazi ideology or activities, according to several groups that track hate in america. they simply splintered and rebranded themselves after the terrible publicity and legal trouble facing many who took part in the deadly charlottesville rally. >> patriot front spun off of vanguard america as a new effort, and your brand. they are constantly trying to reinvent themselves and distance themselves from the very violence that they are routinely promoting. >> reporter: peter is an

associate professor of sociology at chapman university. he spent decades studying extremist groups. among them, the and towards the premises, even living with some of them. he says patriot front's favorite targets are immigrants, brown and black people. >> reporter: why would they, as authorities have said, target the lgbtq segment of society? >> it's a common target for these kinds of hate groups. these whites are process groups tend to be very homophobic, very much seeing this either in biblical terms in terms of, sexuality being a sin against god, or, for those that are not religiously oriented, they will see it in more biological secular terms, seen as unnatural. >> reporter: this town has been through an invasion of hate filled men before. the county was home to the leader of the aryan nation, who had worldwide gatherings here until the town decided to fight back. their fight to remove racist hate from their town resulted in some of the toughest state hate crime laws in the country.

cnn, coeur d'alene, idaho. >> thank you. thanks for watching, everyone. our coverage continues. sleep per ni ght. save 50% on the sleep number 360 limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add a base. ends monday. through the endless reasons to stop... through the challenges, the hurt, the doubt, the pain. no matter what, we go on. biofreeze.

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♪ hello. a very warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the united states and right around the world. i'm eisa soares on "cnn newsroom." the select committee to investigate the january 6th attack on the united states capitol will be in order. >> president trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night and, instead, followed the course recommended by an apparent