tv Anderson Cooper 360 CNN June 28, 2022 6:00pm-7:00pm PDT
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can get unlimited data or pay by the gig. all on the most reliable 5g network with no line activation fees or term contracts... saving you up to $500 a year. and it's only available to comcast business internet customers. so boost your bottom line by switching today. comcast business. powering possibilities. there are many threads running through the tapestry of today's testimony. is the idea of donald trump's indifference, at best, of violence in his name and incitement on january 6, including now that notorious tweet at 2:24 about his then vice president mike pence.
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>> do you recall seeing this tweet in which the president said the vice president did not have the courage to do what needed to be done? >> i do. >> ms. hutchinson, what was your reaction when you saw this tweet? >> as a staffer that works to always represent the administration to the best of my ability and to showcase the good things he had done for the country, i remember feeling frustrated, disappointed, and really, it felt personal. it was really sad. as an american, i was disgusted. it was unpatriotic, it was unamerican. we were watching the capitol children get defaced over a lie.
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>> with me now, "washington post" associate editor bob woodward, senior political analyst carl bernstein, and the man they once chronicled former white house nixon counsel, john dean. bob woodward, we should note, is the more recent author of "peril," carl bernstein the author of "chasing history," and together they wrote "the president's men." i hear those amazon links clicking from right now where i sit. bob, let me start with you. much of the former president's time in the white house, donald trump's, was about, in some ways, it seems, provoking violence. was this the first time you've heard through testimony, however, about him actually resorting to anger and violence himself? >> yes. it definitely is. i'll tell you, one of the things that struck me, if i may say in all of this testimony, it
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connects to john dean going back to nixon 50 years ago. cipollone, the white house counsel for trump, if you follow the testimony and other things that have come out, he's just running around the white house bursting with, don't listen to donald trump, don't do what the president says, i'm worried about this, i'm worried about that, and carl and i were speculating today with knowledge that one of the things the white house counsel does is sit in on national security council meetings and is involved in some of the most sensitive issues. if i recall correctly, john dean, as he was coming out against nixon, socked away some top secret documents which nixon
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had signed to say that he was lifting restrictions on wire tapping and break-ins and so forth. so what else does cipollone know? i think he knows volumes. >> carl, you told anderson earlier that former white house aide kathy hutchinson helped paint a picture in her testimony of, quote, mad king. how important a witness do you think hutchinson was, and what stood out to you the most? >> what stood out is she is a hugely important witness along the lines of john dean, because she has given a coherent, con contextual picture of a president out of control with no regard for the constitution, for the orderly transfer of power who would stage a coup. we haven't had testimony from anyone else like that. but what is the most important thing that has come out today, that is, we now understand that this committee block by block is
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putting together the picture of a coup led by the president of the united states who would allow himself, knowing that there are people in the trees with arms, with lethal arms, people at his rally, and he's saying, it's okay that they're there. they like me. the assumption being, they'll shoot other people, they won't shoot me. come on. let's talk about what is the insanity of this? and republicans on capitol hill, and this is the shame of this whole proceeding, republicans on capitol hill have known about this donald trump from the beginning of his presidency. bob will tell you the same thing. we have been hearing about this. this is the extreme end of it. but it has now been known for four years what and who this individual was, and mary trump, his niece, has told us also exactly who he is. and that's what we're learning
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today and that he was willing to stage a coup so that there would not be, for the first time in our history, the peaceful transition of power to the next president. >> and john dean, the former president's behavior, according to testimony, was reckless. do you think it was criminal? >> i certainly think there is a pr prima facie case of criminality. he clearly tried to disrupt the proceedings. there is a statute that prohibits that. i think he also was clearly involved with the crucial crime of watergate was a conspiracy to defraud the united states. 18-usc-271. those cases have been made. whether he engaged in fraud, in fundraising with his defense fund, we'll get into all that.
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i'm sure the department of defense is looking into everything. there is clearly criminal conduct, not to mention insane behavior for an adult man who is the president of the united states. >> bob, i want to play more of what former white house aide kathy hutchinson said in her testimony. let's listen in. >> you've described roughly three different camps of thought inside the white house that day. can you tell us about those? >> there is a group of individuals that were strongly urging him to take immediate and swift action. i would classify the white house counsel's office, mr. herschman, ms. ivanka trump, in that category of really working to get him to take action and pleading with him to take action. there was a more neutral group where advisers were trying to tow the line knowing that mr.
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donald trump didn't necessarily want to take immediate action and condemn the riots, but knowing something needed to be done. and then there was the last group, which was deflect and blame. let's blame antifa. these aren't our people. >> bob, what's your takeaway from that moment? >> i think that's a pretty precise description. let's face it, i spent hours interviewing trump in 2020, and he's a very determined person, and it's very hard to move him. but all of these groups, all of these individuals and what is surprising in all of this could never go to him or never find a way to stop it, because, you know, where are the people in there instead of trump throwing
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ketchup at the wall? where are the staff people saying you can't do this, or saying i'm going to resign, i'm going to leave, i'm going to go to the press, i'm going to go to the congress. with all of the boldness in this testimony, there is a collective weakness among all of these people. >> bob woodward and john dean, thank you so much. carl, stay right there. i want to talk about something we've certainly seen written about a lot, the so-called war room at the willard hotel with john eastman, rudy giuliani and a whole cast of characters. today for the first time we heard testimony about it, and what cassidy hutchinson told the committee ties her former boss, then white house chief of staff mark meadows, more to it, something she believed would not be appropriate. >> is it your understanding that
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mr. giuliani, mr. eastman and others had set up what has been called, quote, a war room at the willard hotel on the night of the 5th. >> i was aware of that the night of the 5th. >> do you know if mr. meadows ever intended to go to the willard hotel on the night of the 5th? >> mr. meadows had a conversation with me where he wanted me to work with secret service on a movement from the white house to the willard hotel so he could attend the meeting or meetings with mr. giuliani and his associates in the war room. >> and what was your view as to whether or not mr. meadows should go to the willard that night? >> i had made it clear to mr. meadows that i didn't believe it was a smart idea for him to go to the willard hotel that night. i wasn't sure everything that was going on at the willard hotel, although i knew enough about what mr. giuliani and his associates were pushing during
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this period. i didn't think it was something appropriate for the white house chief of staff to attend or to consider involvement in. i made that clear to mr. meadows. throughout the afternoon, he mentioned a few more times going up to the willard hotel that evening, and then eventually dropped the subject the night of the 5th and said that he would dial in instead. >> carl bernstein remains with us. joining him, jamie begin -- gingel and kasie hunt. what is significant about this, about meadows calling in to him? >> let me go back to, what white house chief of staff needs to be leaving the white house the night before, and we now know, everyone knows that there's going to be trouble tomorrow and he's running over to a war room with rudy giuliani over at the
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willard hotel? and it took -- cassidy is now, i think, 26 years old. at the time she was 24 years old. she had to be the one to tell him this really isn't appropriate to go. look, one of the footnotes -- there were so many bombshells, cinematic moments. let's talk about the fact that she testified that rudy is walking around talking about the oathkeepers and the proud boys. my understanding is, in the hearings to come, you know better than anyone, that we were going to see more and more of a connection between some of these groups and the white house, and that testimony about rudy is a very interesting starting point. >> it's absolutely so critical, this point that you raise. and it's critical for a couple reasons. first of all, in the criminality question, because we know many members of these groups have been indicted or are in the
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process of being prosecuted, tying together those cases is extremely significant. >> quick interruption? cases for seditious conspiracy. that's what the oath keepers and proud boys are charged for. >> you're right, this potentially ties rudy giuliani and others to those crimes. separately, from a political perspective, this is also continuing the thread that the committee had started with, which was to separate out generic trump supporters, many of which are charged with crimes like illegal entry to the capitol and other things who were there for what they describe as general political reasons because the president told them to show up. they went to the capitol. they didn't go with body armor or zip ties or organized other paraphernalia, et cetera. these are people who were misled by the lies of the president. they're willing to give those people a pass. that's important politically, because in order to actually
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make a difference here, they have to -- and liz cheney has looked at americans and tried to make this point to them repeatedly, to say, you are misled. it's disappointing. it's hard to accept that the president did this to you, but this is what's going on, you need to see it. so the more that they can emphasize that this was about the white house being tied to these specific criminal groups, the better -- easier it is to make that political case to people who may have voted for trump, may not be trump supporters, for them to say in the next election, no to that guy. >> there have been a couple things to underscore there, that there were toss-off phrases you heard that day. we were scrambling to figure out, what does that mean? now we're getting the color, contour and atmosphere of those moments of the president fully understanding being told multiple times, you did not win the election. the plate story is a great example. the idea of him throwing a plate in anger.
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why? well, the december 1st article where, when i looked it up, bill barr is saying, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election. the plate is going to get the attention, but the issue is, again, it's a moment where the president is sitting with the knowledge that he has been told by his chief legal, the doj, no, you're wrong about this, and yet everything we're about to see unfold still unfolds. >> carl bernstein, there is a moment in the testimony where cassidy hutchinson describes trump wanting to get ahold of michael flint and roger stone to find out plans about january 6. >> that's exactly right, because where is the operational heart of the conspiracy and when? it's that night, january 5, in the willard hotel. and meadows is the go-between. meadows is the key conspirator
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here. he is the guy -- let's go back to watergate for a minute. who was the key to the conspiracy of watergate and the cover-up of watergate? it was nixon's chief of staff, bob haldeman. we see the same role at the heart of the conspiracy is meadows. he is the go-between between the president and these guys. he knows what the president wants. we are now hearing this amazing testimony that all starts to fit together. one of the things the committee is doing is putting together a tiktok, a tiktok minute by minute beginning with before the election and going all the way through january 6 and what happened subsequently. it all fits together in a way that's explicable. it's not about being in the weeds. most americans, i think, can understand. >> oh, yeah, absolutely. everyone stick around. there is some new reporting tonight on a name that has come
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up in past committee hearings. senator ron johnson, today cnn tried to speak to the loyalist of the former president that he was involved in the fake election scheme. remember, reporters tried to ask him about it last week and this happened. >> senator johnson, how much did you know about what your chief of staff was doing with the alternate slate of electors? >> i'm on the phone. >> no, you're not. i can see your phone. i can see your screen. >> reporter: does your chief of staff still work for you, senator? >> why was the chief of staff even offering this to the vice president? >> guys, this is a complete non-story. we've issued this comment. >> joining us now, congressional
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correspondent manu raju. one of those reporters who chased down senator johnson caught up with him again. what did senator johnson have to say about today's hearing? >> reporter: nothing, anderson. in fact, on the way in and on the way out of an event he had this evening in milwaukee, i tried to catch up to him, tried to ask him about the hearing and what happened last week. he didn't want to answer questions. at one point he snuck out the back of an event room and declined to answer questions. watch. >> reporter: senator johnson, do you have time for questions, please? >> reporter: so he has been under quite a bit of pressure
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over the fake electors issue that you mentioned, and they revealed last week that they said the senator wanted to help in the fake election. he has downplayed that when i asked him on several occasions, but he also downplayed january 6 saying it wasn't an armed insurrection. when i tried to ask him about that as well, anderson, no response. >> his comment that it wasn't an insurrection, there weren't weapons, all that sort of the stuff, it looked particularly bad today. it's understandable he would want to try to flee even though he didn't use the phone excuse this time, manu. >> reporter: that's right. and he's up for reelection in a very difficult race as the perennial swing state. democrats have come after him on this issue. several of the opponents in the fall have called on him to resign, even calling him a traitor to this country.
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johnson wants nothing to do with these issues. he wants to talk about the economy, inflation, joe biden's agenda, not even talking about the abortion ruling that came down last week. that is what he says will get him another term in office. >> joining us now chief analyst jeffrey toobin, laura coates, david griffin, gloria borger. i want to get your opinion on a conve conversation. >> i had a prooifrt conversation with pat cipollone on the 3rd or the 4th, that pat was concerned it would look like we were obstructing justice or obstructing the electoral college count. i apologize for probably not
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being very firm with my legal terms here, but that it would look like we were obstructing what was happening on capitol hill, and he was also worried that it would look like we were inciting a riot oren co encouraa riot at the capitol. >> is that the closest we'll get to pat cipollone actually testifying? >> probably, but it's an important moment in itself, because one of the crucial moments here is what did the people involved here, starting with the president, know what was illegal? you know, did they headmake a g faith effort to count the election honestly, but pat cipollone understood exactly what the risks were here, and
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the thing that we're really missing is what conversations did he have with president trump? presumably he said the same thing to trump, you are violating the law if you do what you appear to be doing, and the fact that trump was warned that, if he was, would be extremely important in a potential criminal investigation. >> listening to the testimony today, it seems like pat cipollone was running around like chicken little at every moment, saying, look, we're going to get charged with every crime imaginable. this is terrible. they have this meeting at the white house with all the lawyers. he said, this is a murder-suicide pact. we cannot possibly do this. you cannot replace the acting attorney general with mr. clark. over and over again, pat cipollone was saying, no, no, no. nobody was listening to him. donald trump at that point, correct me if i'm wrong, didn't really like pat cipollone very much, even though he had defended him on the floor of the senate during impeachment, so
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you have your white house counsel trying to set up this human speed bump to everything, and everybody just ran him over. >> you know who listened? the doj at one point. you mentioned the idea of whether pat cipollone will testify or not, think how many times we heard his name be mentioned when the doj, richard rosen, michael donahue. the idea of all these people -- hold on, i wonder if this is a violation of law. these are con temperatemplative. you think we might be charged? yeah, because you're inciting a riot. these are not things that were out of thin air. these were things that became more and more premeditated. >> what i know from my time at
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the trump white house and what went along with today's hearing, yes, people gave advice to the president. the moment that stuck out to me was pat told cassidy hutchinson, the president cannot go to the capitol. that was consistent throughout his presidency but especially the final few months. i'm not exactly sure what got to the former president in terms of, this is illegal. you can't do this. there was a fear factor involved. >> the portrayal of the final president cassidy hutchinson gave, did it ring true to you? did it remind you of times there, or was it a different donald trump in, you know, the dark days of early january? >> it's do i undkind of all the.
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bob could speak to this, too. there is a side of the principal that is fun to be around, and there is a side of him that is cruel and unpredictable. i saw both sides when i was there, but it did start to unravel in the ending days. and the rudy giulianis and the sidney powells got to him and the messages that giuliani was sending to him instead of talking to him as counsel. >> he told people directly, there is dangerous. >> that was the smoking gun to me. he knew there were weapons. here's a question for the department of justice about those weapons. a lot of people with those weapons are being prosecuted right now. and they are getting enhanced
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sentences because they had weapons. now you have the president of the united states knowing that they had weapons, still encouraged them to how is it just that ghet prosecuted and the person who was ultimately responsible do not get tested. ly. we'll talk about the president's attitude while the mob ransacked his work displace. yep, them too. it's an invigorating rush... ...zapping millions of germs in seconds. for that one-of-a-kind whoa... ...which leaves you feeling... ahhhhhhh listerine. feel the whoaoa! liberty mutual customizes your car insurance, so you only pay for what you need. [submarine rising out of water] mions are bitin' today. (sung) liberty. liberty. liberty. minions: the rise of gru, in theaters july 1st
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he doesn't think they're doing anything wrong, to which pat said something, this is f-ing crazy. we need to be doing something more. >> he thinks pence deserves it. that was cassidy hutchinson testifying about a conversation she says she heard between white house counsel pat cipollone and her boss, chief of staff mark meadows. this occurred as the january 6 riots were happening. the conversation was about the former president's reaction when he was told that the crowds were chanting, "hang mike pence, hang mike pence". joined now by ryan nobles. what happened since so many people there experienced january 6 in realtime, and we saw a video of many of them panicking even though they later denied it. >> that's right, jake, and publicly the reaction has been divided along party lines, which isn't a surprise. i saw a number of democratic
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members who came to witness this event for themselves. many of them were tweeting as the information was being relayed by cassidy hutchinson, angry about what they were hearing. forms for them that he wanted them to be the victim of violence and that it made him angry. many other democratic members said the exact same thing. it's been a markedly different reaction from republicans, as you might imagine. in the beginning the republicans were trying to discount the value of the testimony, saying that democrats were focusing on the wrong issues, that they should be focused on the border, inflation and other things. they quickly then transferred to being concerned about this conflict over what the secret service testimony versus what happened in that presidential limo on january 6. again, not really getting to the substance of what the former president wanted to do on that day, and that was get here to
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the capitol which would have already inflamed a very difficult situation. but it's also interesting, jake, what these republican members are telling us privately. many have reached out to me and my colleague winona, and there are some who have gone so far as to say they believe this was a real problem, that they were learning things they had not known previously. that really follows a pattern that we've seen with many republicans who have raised alarms about the former president, donald trump, privately but are not willing to do so publicly. and what the committee has said time and time again is they want everyone to come forward who has issues or information that could help in their investigation, and that even includes republicans who may have been reluctant to do so in the past. as we've seen time and time again, jake, really the most important witnesses in this process have been republicans who had a firsthand knowledge of exactly what happened in the days after the election leading up to january 6. jake? >> almost all of the witnesses
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have not only been republicans but conservative trump-supporting republicans, and one wonders, what if the mob had actually gotten its hands on mike pence? would anything be different right now. ryan nobles, thanks. carl, you heard what ryan nobles said. honestly, i'm just -- >> jake is speechless. >> i'm at a loss. i honestly think it is a fair question, because it has now become a liberal point of view that mike pence should not have been hanged, right? if you believe that, if you say donald trump should have stopped the mob, the mob should not have been calling to kill mike pence, all that, somehow in maga world, that is a liberal point of view. >> yeah. facts mean nothing. facts have meant nothing for four years of the presidency, for the post-presidency of donald trump and for the campaign of donald trump.
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but facts have meant nothing to the republicans who have been silent. i want to talk about reporting for a minute. i finally got really tired of it, and you know i wrote a story saying 20 members of the senate, and i named them, have believed donald trump, held him in contempt or disdain. a day or two later i got a call from a former number of the senate who had left the white house and he said, carl, the number is really closer to 40. how do we start to cover, when we know from members of the republican party, whether it's joe biden's party, donald trump's party, how do we start to cover this differently? yes, we get information background. it's off the record, but we have to somehow get this news out,
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and we can't use the old rules all the time. i don't give a damn, democrat, republican. our responsibility is to get to the best attainable version of the truth. not saying what you know is part of it. i think we have to deal with this differently, because perhaps the story, the presidency might have been different. >> cassidy hutchinson to be the top aide for mark meadows in december 2020/january 2021 means you are a believer in donald trump. you are a loyal to donald trump. cassidy hutchinson put everything on the line today to tell the truth. and the republican party who was allegiant to donald trump either is attacking her, smearing her or ignoring her. >> right. we are going to see what we've
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seen so many times before, which is they are going to try to take her down because that's what donald trump wants. to carl's point about public and private, i just want to say that even today while they are attacking her, privately here were the messages i got from republicans. it is worse than we ever imagined. this is not one bombshell, it's multiple bombshells, my god, he wanted to go to the capitol. again, the private versus the public. can we go back to mike pence for one second, though, and talk about the gallows? i think so much of what we saw and heard today from cassidy hutchinson, all of her testimony about top white house aides has to go to intent. they knew it was coming. i point to the gallows because someone didn't run out in the middle of the day and get the wood and get the noose, someone
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thought about that ahead of time. the pipe bomber. we still don't know who did that. that was planted ahead of time, and i think the most striking thing for me today was how many people spoke to cassidy hutchinson and she heard that this was coming. >> and audi cornish, you talked about how you thought the most important moment today was cipollone saying we're going to be charged with every imaginable crime if trump goes to the capitol. the one i find the most devastating is cassidy hutchinson overhearing donald trump talking in that tent before the rally, saying he wanted the magnetometers removed because he wanted the crowd bigger than it was and the magnets were keeping them out of the area and made them look smarter. >> the reason you're pointing
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out that it's interesting is one of the so-called big defenses of trump by his allies is that that was an unarmed crowd. that was a crowd of just people that got a little bit out of hand. today is one of thoiz days that the committee is trying to underscore and undermine that defense to say, no, not only were there people who had knives, spears, whatever they could get their hands on, but the president and his security folks were informed and informing him of that. it's not just about the mags, it's trying to show everybody what it means when this constellation of things comes here. >> and he said they're not here to hurt me. >> that's what he said, let them in, they're not going to hurt me. and he encourages them to mark down to the capitol. thg this is the president of the united states who is saying go to the capitol, bust it open and do what you will. meanwhile, we have a lot of
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questions about why it took the defense department so long to get the national guard to the capitol. it's all astonishing, but if the big picture you're making, carl, too, it's not going to matter to people who are really hard-core trump supporters, it's just not. and how do we get around that. >> thank you all so much. more hard testimony ahead which is a very easy question asked of a three-star general. do you believe in a peaceful transition of power? when we return.
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we heard a lot of disturbing things at today's january 6 hearing. one of them michael flynn's responses to the following simple questions. >> do you believe the violence on january 6 was justified? >> can i get a clarification? is that a real yes youquestion asking or a leading one? >> i'm asking both. >> i said i pled the fifth. >> do you believe the violence on january 6 was justified
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morally? >> i take the fifth. >> do you believe the violence on january 6 was justified legally? >> fifth. >> general flynn, do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the united states of america? >> the fifth. >> those are not hard questions to answer, but flynn wouldn't do so. violence is never justified in a presidential transition of power. i'm sure historian doug agrees. doug, where does this stack up in history, do you think? >> watergate is on everybody's lips, and in a way, cassidy hutchinson is the john dean of the moment. this is just devastating testimony we heard today. donald trump has to be cringing in disbelief. she delivered all the goods.
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there is nothing like this since the civil war. i mean, if watergate was less than this, we never had a president or even an american history just be the poster child of sedition. and that's where we saw trump today. there will be a lot of scenes of this, the plates smashing and the ketchup and i'm the f-ing president, but the fact is, anderson, the president of the united states did not care that there were armed rioters on the capitol, saying they might not hurt me, meaning they might hurt pence or pelosi or members of congress, leaves one to the conclusion that they will indict donald trump, so this is a story with legs. >> i don't think he's cringing today wautching this. i think if you have a sense of shame, you would cringe, but i think he probably justifies in his own mind everything he did. has there ever been a president in the darkest days of any
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scandal who allegedly embraced violence to such a degree, who encouraged rioters who were seeking to kill his vice president? >> no. this is unprecedented. herbert hoover with a bonus army turned on veterans in the mall. it's not going to be the behavior of donald trump in the suv and did he or did he not try to lunge at the driver of secret service. that's going to be interesting, all important, but the fact of the matter was this was a riot and insurrection and the president was basically greenlighting bloodshed as long as it wasn't his own, so there is no president that's ever acted this repubrehensibleprehe. this is a twice impeached president who tried to have a coup on the united states, and the january 6 investigation has gone on for a year, it's been
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sizzling, and i think the reason, anderson, i said he might be cringing is the key is now in legal jeopardy, i think, of a different order than he was, say, 24 hours ago. that's how devastating cassidy hutchinson's voice was today, and she now becomes sort of a hero. to listen to hutchinson and liz cheney, you start seeing kind of voices of democracy at last standing up in a real way, and i'm waiting to see vice president pence and mark meadows end up testifying. let's hope they don't take the fifth the way that general flynn did in such a cowardly fashion. >> have things in history in america been as polarized, where people believe what they want to believe? have many of the former presidents just shrugged all this off, thinking it's political, thinking they're not even paying attention to it? has that happened throughout history? >> it's not happened for a president, but if you look at joe mccarthy who we all said
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trump was a lot like, you can see the seeds of this in the mccarthy era. he was a wisconsin senator, mccarthy. he wasn't president of the united states, he was trying to lead dark forces forward. he was that's who was supporting the segregation back then. i think there's some parallels to the trump forces. a lot of this is about race. >> appreciate it. thanks. i know you want to end the evening op on a key questioned today. >> one of the big questions about the investigation is whether there's a between the oath keepers and proud boys. many charged with sedition conspiracy for the actions attack the capitol that day. are there witnesses that describe actual conversations between these extremist groups
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and anyone in triump orbit? >> yes. >> there will be? >> yes. obviously you have to go through the hearings. we have a number of witnesses who have come forward that people have not talked to before. >> we learned today from former top trump white house aid, cassidy hutchinson, and from the committee that the far right groups were part of the conversation in the days leading up to january 6th. >> the white house continued to receive updates about planned demonstrations including information regarding the proud boys organizing and planning to attend events on january 6. >> liz cheney noted on january 3, the capitol police issued a special event assessment warning that the proud boys and other groups would be in d.c. on january 6 and quote congress itself is the target.
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>> i recall hearing the word oath keeper and hearing the word proud boys closer to the planning of the january 6 rally. when mr. giuliani would be around. >> cassidy hutchinson talked with mark meadows about giuliani telling her that donald trump would lead a march to the capitol on january 6. telling meadows this -- >> interesting conversation with rudy and mark. sounds like we're going good at the capitol. he didn't look up from his phone and said something to the effect of, there's a lot going on but i don't know, things might get real bad on january 6. >> there's so much we still do not know about the ties of the extremist groups to the trump team. proud boys leader visited the trump white house on december 12, 2020, he claimed to have been invited.
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the white house at the time insisted that he was on a public white house christmas tour and didn't have a meeting with donald trump nor did the white house invite him. is that true? or was it like so much we were told by the trump white house in december 2020 a complete and utter lie? there are others. with direct ties to these groups. such roger stone. >> is it your understanding mr. meadows called mr. stone on the fifth? >> i'm under the impression meadows did complete both a call to stone and general flynn. the evening of the fifth. >> now, committee vice chair liz cheney noted that cassidy hutchinson has no detailed knowledge of any planning involving the proud boys for january 6. unquote. but the committee does seem to be suggesting that none of this is a coincidence. >> on january 5 and 6, mr. stone
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was photographed with multiple members of the oath keepers. who were allegedly serving as his security detail. >> in fact, oath keeper hours after being seen with roger stone outside the hotel, was photographed on steps at the eastern side of the capitol wearing goggles and other equipment. he is also seen in images near flynn in december. he was arrested last march. he pleaded not guilty for his role in the insurrection. described by prosecutors as having quote forcibly stormed the u.s. capitol equipped with military style gear. unquote. oath keeper josh james who pleaded guilty to sedition conspiracy three months ago and now cooperating with the justice department investigation, he also provided security for stone. at the hotel. where today we heard mark meadows was beckoned. >> do you know if mr. meadows ever intended to go to the hotel
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on the night of the fifth? >> mr. meadows had a conversation with me where he wanted me to work with secret service on a movement from the white house to the hotel. so he could attend the meeting. or meetings with mr. giuliani and his associates. in the war room. >> and what was your view as to whether or not me should go to the hotel that night? >> i had made it clear to him that i didn't believe it was a smart idea for him to go to the hotel that night. throughout the afternoon, he mentioned a few more times going up to the hotel that evening. and then eventually dropped the subject the night of the fifth and said he would dial in instead. >> we do not know what me discussed with stone or flynn or anyone else who may have been on the call. or why the names of the oath keepers and proud boys far right would be mentioned close to the planning of january 6.
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when giuliani was around as cassidy hutchinson testified urn oath. our answers to those questions relevant to this testimony today? >> did rudy giuliani ever suggest that he was interested or receiving a presidential pardon related to january 6? >> he did. >> did white house chief of staff mark meadows ever indicate he was interested in receiving a presidential pardon related to january 6? >> he did seek that pardon, yes, ma'am. >> what exactly did giuliani and meadows feel they needed pardons for? we reach out to them for comment. they didn't respond. giuliani tweeted minutes ago that he told president trump he didn't want or need a pardon. we should note of course he didn't tweet under oath. many bomb shells came together. we will see if others come in future hearings. >> another historic day here in washington. thank you. thank you all the guests.
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