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reports on donald trump's election interference case. he also weighs in on cabinet picks during an event hosted by political playbook. >> we have a lot of things to discuss that kind of fall right within your wheelhouse. but before we get into the latest justice department judiciary committee-related news, i want to talk about joe biden. he is leaving office in less than a week. his campaign in 2020 posited that his election might be ready to turn the page of the trump years and reinvigorate american democracy in the way he envisioned. trump is now coming back, so that project seems to have failed. what do you make of biden's legacy under the circumstances? >> first of all, thanks for having me. it's appropriate to be talking about joe biden here at union station, mr. amtrak

himself. i barely recognize union station. pretty amazing that we have done it i. biden did put those trump years behind us and he beat donald trump by more than seven million votes, 300-6200 32 in the electoral college. we should never forget that. donald trump beat kamala harris by 3 million votes in this last election, but i think we need to keep some perspective about where america is. it is one of the great things about democracy that we have these pendulum swings and times and of course, anybody who was an incumbent during the post covid-19 inflationary period went down all over the world, left, right, and center. so we can forget that historical context. but i think that he was a great president who ranks right up there with some of the best from the 20th century like lyndon johnson, franklin roosevelt.

we did massive investment in infrastructure. i sat there under donald trump. we had infrastructure weeks, infrastructure month, infrastructure barbecue but never had at infrastructure bill. joe biden sent it to us his first week in office we passed it in the first month a $1.2 trillion investment in the roads , the highways, bridges, ports, airports, rail, trail, cyber security, rural broadband you name it. it really set the tempo by an administration that had huge breakthroughs like with the chips and science act in the semiconductor industry, the inflation reduction act which was not only the most massive investment in climate action in world history but also dramatically reduced prescription drug prices in the country. i can see that it had a terrible name because he didn't capture everything that was going on. [laughter] but look, joe biden and kamala harris oversaw huge growth in the economy, more than 16

million new jobs created, the lowest unemployment in the last 50 years in our history. and so, i would rank them up there with the best in the 20th century and some of the best of the 19th century in terms of his articulation of democratic ideals and cause. additional values you could fault him for not fully wrestling with the politics of the 21st-century which have grown so fragmented and decentralized through the internet and the breakup of the old communications and media systems. i think that's where he had problems. but of the historians will treat him and his administration very kindly. >> let's talk about legal issues. the justice department, last night we got major news in the form of the release of special counsel jack smith report into the investigation of donald trump concerning the 2020 20 election. you haven't had a chance to read

the report in full, i imagine he will be reading it in the days ahead as many of us will be, what will you be looking for in that document, what will peak your interest --pique your interest? >> if you add the three major is reports, you have a comprehensive documentary and narrative record as to what happened with respect to january 6 and the effort to overthrow the election. the first wave was the impeachment trial of donald trump in the senate, and i was the leader of the house managers as we went over there and we definitively proved that donald trump had incited the insurrection against the union. we had a robust, bicameral majorities validating that. then we had the january 6 committee which gave a

completely comprehensive and exhaustive recitation of all of the events leading up to the attack on the capitol, the effort to get the vice president to step outside of his constitutional role to declare and then exercise plan written vice presidential powers to nullify electoral college votes and then to kick the whole election into the house of representatives where we would be voting, as they knew, not on the basis of one member, one vote, but one state, one vote under the 12th amendment. and the violent assault surrounding that attempted coup. that was all out in painstaking detail by the bipartisan january 6 committee. and nobody has laid a glove on a single factual detail in that more than 800-page report that was based on interviews and testimony by hundreds of

witnesses, and most of the key witnesses came from the trump administration themselves, people like cassidy hutchinson who at great personal risk to herself, came forward and told the truth about what had happened. nobody has laid a glove on that. so i started to look at the report by jack smith last night and i saw, again, in corroborating the findings of these prior investigations, but also laying out a very compelling case. certainly probable cause. i think they would have been able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but who knows, it was all nullified. in any event from laying out the legal case for why there was an actual conspiracy to interfere with people's voting rights came up to the election away from the people and the electoral college . and to interfere with the joint session of congress and the peaceful transfer of power, it's

only right there. and nobody has successfully contested a single detail much less advanced counter narrative. i know that one of my colleagues sometimes talk about antifa or hamas or fbi agents on their way down to the d.c. jail where they go and protest for the release of all of these anti-firefighters. of course they knew they want and de-fi fighters, as kevin mccarthy told trumbull on january 6 at south when they were on the phone -- these are your people, mr. president, called and of course that prompted the response from donald trump, well, movie or just a little more interested in a fair election than you are, thereby conceding that these were his people that he had incited with the words you've got to go and fight and fight like hell and if you don't we're not going to have a country anymore. we are a democracy. the government belongs to the people and have to deal with the

facts. james madison was very clear about that, we have to deal with the truth. you can make arguments for donald trump or vice president kamala harris or whoever you want, but they should be based on facts, not on conspiracy theories and lies. >> obviously the smith report brings the conclusion is remarkable and unprecedented prosecutorial endeavor in this country. and your constituent, attorney general garland has played a very integral key in the project. i want to read a couple of quotes from the last couple of weeks of the last few weeks concerning the certification and its conclusion. representative jerrold nadler, recently told huffington post kobani merrick garland within the year initiating the investigation and eventual prosecution of tropical.

and anonymous justice department officials involved in the investigation recently told cnn, quote, they wasted time, they were not strategic, it was a whole year of nothing. they waited so long, they ended up helping trump in the primary and dividing the country. what do you think? >> from that question? looking at it in hindsight, the prosecutors run out of time. it seems hard to argue with the proposition that all should have begun earlier, but which isn't to say they would have won. they were trying to run out the clock no matter what and if you are dealing with a completely partisan judge like aileen cannon, she would have done anything in her power to make sure the clock was running out, so who knows what the defense would have been. undoubtedly i am sure a lot of people feel like they should have started earlier. >> the d.c. case obviously was pending, the classified documents case was handled by judge aileen cannon. we have devoted years of your life to understanding what happened to the 2020 election and lead to january 6 and worked on the committee. what do you make of the legacy

of that committee? on some level, do you think it was all worth or pointless? >> on the contrary. i think it was invaluable and historically will be a landmark moment where on the bipartisan basis, we had a congressional committee that was devoted to one task, and we conducted to lift. to stand up for the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. if we were not going to allow a political hatchet job to take place, or allow the truth key piece at the rug. and, again, anybody who has any particular factual contradictions of paints in the report should come forward, because nobody has. >> it is quite remarkable, actually, as trump has continuously said it's all lies and fraud. he has never contested a single material allegation from the committee's work or from the january 6 case that smith

brought. i want to transition to the judiciary can we do now. you will be taking on a new role as ranking member. congratulations on that. with democrats in the minority, you will have may be a bullhorn, but not this additional power when trump does -- but not power. when trump does something, what tools will be have at your disposal to push back? >> they have the narrowest of majorities which, of course, undercuts the fraudulent claim that it was a landslide election. it started at 220-215, it's down to 219-215. and after elise stefanik and michael waltz go, it will be 217 to two which if you do the math you will figure out they cannot , afford to lose a single vote . and the coalition is already

beginning to fly apart between that billionaire oligarchs like elon musk who love cheap, foreign labor who wants to expand the h-1b program. then he have steve bannon, the nativist majority within maga who want to cut off all immigration to the country. we have people like my friend, speaker johnson, who sponsored the life begins at conception act. who has been advancing the idea of banning abortion imaginary which was enabled by the supreme court's decision overruling roe v. wade then you have others, which i would include donald trump and this, who don't really care about abortion and are doing everything they can to run away from the issue, even though he was bragging about having a point of the justices who did overturn a woman's right to choose. so i think that they have the slender rest of majorities. and on any particular issue, huge divisions going on with their coalition. and we will do whatever we can to work with people. jim jordan is my counterpart on

judiciary, we sponsored legislation together called the press act that i am very proud of and i hope he is still part of it. which protects the rates of reporters not to have compulsory production of their confidential sources and their notes and documents. that passed unanimously in the committee, passed unanimously in the house and unfortunately, after trump tweeted against it, it was held up by one or two senators in the senate. i hope we can continue to push that through in the interest of protecting freedom of the press. you all are not the enemies of the people as you have been called, you are the people's best friend when you are doing your job right. >> what do you expect jordan's focus will be no he is coming in and has endorsed tom's claims that basically the justice department has been "weaponized against him." that the investigators were correct somehow. he sees primed to potentially

use his perch as chair of the judiciary committee to probe some of these things. >> i feel like these american people are exhausted and sick of all of the right-wing conspiracy theories and the nonsense and there is no public appetite for prosecuting the prosecutors , investigating the investigators and so on. if they have some substantive, different analysis of what took place on january 6, come forward and tell america what it is. otherwise, these are just ludicrous fishing expeditions. we just went through one of those for the last two years when i was the ranking member on the oversight committee and we had to completely demolish and humiliate the absurd case, by the chairman and republicans for impeachment of joe biden for high crimes and misdemeanors, which remain still unknown and unspecified. we don't even know what they are. and some republicans are saying, let's keep it going. if you look at the weiss report

which was released this week , that was a republican u.s. attorney who was named to his position by william barr. they came forward with all of this stuff about hunter biden about the tax charges and the gun charges that took place and , nothing about joe biden. it just further underscores that all of that was nonsense and it did come down to the word of alexander smirnoff, who was a russian intelligence asset, who lied about ukrainian payments to joe biden and hunter biden. that is established now. alexander smirnoff was convicted in court of trying to give these lies to the sdi key, so that should be -- to the phoebe -- fbi. that should be put to rest. but in lieu of any program that unifies the party, much less the congress, much less the country they want to go back to these , right-wing conspiracy theory fishing expeditions.

it is just outlandish. >> this week your counterparts on the judiciary committee will be hearing from pam bondi in her confirmation hearing, i believe it is scheduled in two days. what should the democrats be asking her? >> i haven't done a full study of her career and positions, but i know that she and kash patel both bought into the big lie about the 2020 election, they both bought into the completely fraudulent concept that donald trump had beaten joe biden when joe biden beat trump by more than 7 million votes, 332-262 in the electoral college. and there are federal and state court decisions repudiating every claim of electoral fraud and corruption that they had advanced in court. end 8 or 9 of those judges were appointed by trouble himself. so we have this definitive, absolute legal record refuting their big lie and yet they want to appoint as the attorney general of the united states and

the fbi director, people who embrace the big light alone and embrace all of the lies to follow, including the lies about january 6. >> that is a very big dividing line august -- for someone like you. you have to work closely with them if they are confirmed for their positions. are you concerned it's good to be difficult? >> i mean, leave aside just january 6 itself and the fact that our democracy came very close to being overthrown but their whole approach to the law is deeply profoundly troubling. do we want people in charge of the fbi and the department of justice who can't tell truth from fiction? who can read 60 federal and state court decisions to see that the pieties that they are mouthing are completely fraudulent? that is a real problem for the whole country, and i would hope

america wants to stand up for the rule of law and the truth. there is no democracy without truth. you can see that very simply just from an election. because somebody wins an election and somebody loses an election. if you don't always get your way. for example, the democrats, we just went on january 6 to the joint session of congress and we engaged in the peaceful transfer of power. we accepted that. remember what america used to do that? well, in 2020 they took us in a different direction. because they said we are going to allow our political desires to dictate our of reality and facts and truth. how dangerous is that for a democratic society? our constitution was created by enlightenment liberals, people who wanted to get away from the rule of dogma. then what we would call today, propaganda and disinformation.

and yet, we now have political forces in society who want to be run completely by dogma and completely by propaganda, whether we are talking about covid-19 are who won an election. or, is evolution part of science or not. >> the last couple of years, trump has been threatening retaliatory prosecutions if he is reelected. wish he has been. he did this through the campaign, it tweeted about it and at some point send mixed signals about this but it has been a consistent throughline for years now. how concerned are you that they will pursue a campaign aide retaliatory prosecutions? >> we don't have kings and queens here. our constitution was written by american revolutionaries who rebelled against monarchy, and the idea that people who get into power can just prosecute their political foes even if they haven't done anything wrong. so i know there've been a whole bunch of threats made especially against bennie thompson, the

chair of the january 6 committee, the vice chair, liz cheney, the members of the committee, january 6 prosecutors who have prosecuted hundreds of people who were wounded, injured and hospitalized more than 140 of our police officers on january 6, smashing them with confederate battle flag and from flags and spirit of the, causing heart attacks, strokes, broken jaws, you name it. so i know they are talking about persecuting the people who responded to this outrageous assault on our democracy. all i can say is that i will stand up for the solicitation and what the founders did -- they gave everybody the first amendment, the freedom of speech, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, the freedom of the press. they also gave us in congress the productions of the speech and debate clause, that we can't

be arrested and prosecuted for doing our jobs as legislators. and solidarity is going to be the watchword moving into this new period. i will stand up for anybody who suffers political prosecution and persecution, retaliation or death threats, those kinds of things which have been legion ever since this nightmare began. >> so it sounds like you're prepared to contemplate that this might be something you need to deal with, retaliatory prosecutions in the second half administration, obviously that has been quite a bit of talk recently about whether biden should issue some preemptive pardons on his way out of the office, particularly as it relates to members of the january 6 committee. some people like adam kinzinger have said they don't want one. would you like a pardon? >> well, we don't need a pardon in any just world because we haven't committed any crimes. and we haven't done anything

wrong, we have just done our jobs. the speech and debate clause protects us against federal criminal prosecution, state and criminal prosecution and also against civil lawsuits that would try to attack us simply for doing our jobs and fulfilling our legislative functions. so i know different people have different feelings about the whole pardon thing because there are these outrageous threats being leveled against people for doing their jobs like january 6 prosecutors at the doj. i don't know what the answer is that i am glad we have a wise president with wise people around him will be able to figure that out. >> a lot of the focus has been on members of the january 6, with respect to this retaliatory persecution and pardons, interviews with the press. are there people outside of the universe?

because those are, and people at, right, and let's be honest, there will be able to use resources at their disposal, money and access to defend themselves and for comes to that. people like you. what about lesser people? >>? >> the speech and debate clause, of course, applies to staff, but obviously staff could come within the scope of retaliatory fury that is unleashed on the public. there are also the witnesses. i worry most about people like cassidy hutchinson. michael cohen, donald trump's lawyers looking forward to tell the truth about the crimes that were created by the hush money payoff game with stormy daniels, left parnas was rudy giuliani's right-hand man came forward he said it was nothing there, we were trying to concoct stories about joe biden. he simply just to threatened. so i think people in that category need our assistance and

our solidarity, and i would hope that there are some things that could bring us together where we can work together in a bipartisan way. for example, i know that president-elect donald trump seems to be very proud of the fact that he won the popular vote this time. he didn't win the popular vote in 2016, but he won it by more than 3 million votes i know joe biden was proud that he won by more than 7 million votes in 2020. how about we get everybody together and say it's time for us to start electing the president of the united states the way we elect representatives, senators, governors, mayors, everybody else, whoever gets the most votes wins? let's use this as an opportunity to get beyond all of the problems with the electoral college which is an accident waiting to happen every four years? that is something we could do. another thing is to ban stock trading by members of congress . the floor of the senate and the floor of the house shouldn't be like the new york stock exchange.

i would hope that is something we can get together on. if there is real progress we could make if we are willing to talk to each other and are not just drowning in recrimination and retaliation for the last set of conflicts. >> i think that is a great note for us to conclude on. thank you so much for joining us. [applause] >> thanks for having me. [applause] ♪ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy, visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] announcer: coming up next, pete hegseth testified before the senate armed services committee on his nomination to be defense secretary. that house speaker mike johnson briefing reporters after the passage of a bill that would prevent transgender girls and young women from participating in women's sports at public schools. . and later, former white house chief strategist steve bannon discussing the first 100 days of the incoming trump administration. ♪ announcer: c-span, democracy unfiltered. we are funded by these

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