that is destruction of democracy and we can't let them do it. we are doing our part. thank you for joining us for this hour. have the best evening with the ones you love. we will see you tomorrow. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> sean: and welcome to "hannity." we start with a fox news alert. breaking tonight, we have all three major broadcast networks, fake news cnn, msdnc come all happily broadcasting, well, the dullest, most boring, nothing new, multihour democratic fund-raiser, masquerading as a january 6th hearing, and by the sounds of it, they are going to do hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours of this, produced by a former abc executive, 100% hollywood production with all the creative license that would go along with

that. make no mistake, tonight's so-called hearing is not in good faith, it is not an honest probe into the security breakdown on that fateful day, and we will prove that to you tonight. instead, it is a made-for-tv smear campaign against president trump, featuring sliced and diced video that fits their predetermined political narrative from the very beginning, accompanied by the biggest trump haters on capitol hill. every single person on this committee is on record hating president trump, and they all voted to impeach him. now, people who support donald trump were not allowed to participate on this illegitimate, hyperpartisan committee, and sadly, those running the circus are not interested in what went wrong. they are not interested in what actually happened. they are purposely omitting what is critical information. we will tell you about tonight, and we will show you tonight, that will reveal where massive security failures did occur, and beyond that, show you the people

that are responsible for all of those security failures, and how the committee is protecting all of them from being exposed. tonight, we will name names. we will also show you how president trump, our defense department, the capitol police, offered every morning an opportunity to protect the capital, and they were rejected every single time. now we must learn the truth, so something like this can never happen again. i spoke out about it in real time on my radio show, and on january 6th on this program that night. now sadly, this committee prefers politics over safety. on this program, we believe that improving security at the capital, protecting all elected officials, is of the utmost importance, rather than a vengeful smear campaign like we see unfolding. so unlike this committee and their cheerleaders in the media mob, we will actually be telling you the truth. now, tonight, thanks to the very diligent reporting from john

solomon, we now have a troves newly unearthed documents and our own sources, and we have now been able to put together a critical timeline that i promise you are not going to see anywhere else. now this is the official timeline of the capitol police, as obtained by investigative reporter john solomon. he will join us in a little bit. and we began on january 2nd, 2021. we now know today, definitively, that on january 2nd, 4 days before the 6, that trump is department of defense and one of his officials from the trump administration, in fact, reach out to the capitol police department, asking the deputy chief that they are planning on calling up the national guard to help protect the capital ahead of the massive rally that was planned on january 6th. the next day, on january 3rd, after consulting with the capitol police chief, deputy chief sean gallagher told the department of defense that a request for national guard was

not forthcoming. however, shortly thereafter, they got new and darker security assessments that were issued to the house and senate sergeants at arms, and they discovered that, in fact, radical groups were planning violence. now, according to the assessment, it said, quote, "due to the tense political environment following the 2020 election, the threat of disruptive actions or violence cannot be ruled out," then it continued, "the sense of desperation and disappointment may lead to more of an incentive to become violent." now, one day later, on january 4th, the capitol police chief steve son, he rightly, based on a new intelligence, changed his mind, and began the process of seeking permission from the office of nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, two in fact deploy the national guard, using that intelligence. now the house and senate sergeant-at-arms, they denied this request.

why weren't they called before the ceiling? president trump and top dod officials, they forged ahead with plans to make a massive amount of national guard troops available. you might remember, this is coming off the summer of 574 official riots in this country, where dozens of americans were killed, where thousands of police were injured, where there was billions of dollars in property damage, so they rightly wanted to prepare. then come on january 4th, a meeting took place in the oval office. it featured president trump, his chief of staff mark meadows, acting defense secretary chris miller, the department of defense to chief of staff kash patel, who will also join us tonight, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, mark milley, president trump, in that meeting, requested that up to 20,000 national guard troops be made available for security at the capitol for january 6th as the law requires him to

authorize. now, "the washington post," they lied and claimed we must have made this up. they gave out four pinocchio's command as per usual, "the washington post" is either dishonest or lazy or both. they did not talk to the people actually in the meeting. we did on this program. four out of the five present in the oval office have on this program corroborated our reporting. take a look for yourself. >> did you authorize calling up the guard, and then it became -- the chain of command went to nancy pelosi and to the mayor of d.c., muriel bowser -- did you, as required by law, authorize that? >> 100%. and attested to by many people, and they turned it down. nancy pelosi turned it down. >> mayor bowser's written refusal, the communication between the leader of the capitol police and their chain of command to the dod,

refusing our request to allow national guard's men and women to stage on january 4th and 5th, before january 6th. >> did you call for the national guard to be called up? >> without a doubt, sean, we have made that very clear, not just once but on numerous occasions. we wanted to make sure there was plenty of national guard on the ready in case there was some kind of violence. >> i had a meeting with president trump on the 3rd of january concerning some international threats, and at the very end, he asked if there were any requests for national guard support. >> what was the president's response to you with regard to the request made by mayor bowser? >> fill it and do whatever was necessary to protect the demonstrators. >> sean: now, in addition to what you just heard, there was one other person in the room, and that is the chairman of the joint chiefs, general milley. now, this week, people close to him have confirmed directly to

me that the general absolutely recalls conversations with president trump about security prior to january 6th. now, we are more than an hour into the capitol show tonight, this so-called hearing, apparently there's going to be planned hearings in perpetuity by the sounds of it, and this critical information, this critical meeting, has not been mentioned one time. not one time. why? because it doesn't fit, sadly, their predetermined political outcome, which we all know is to smear once again donald trump. it is kind of hard to say to somebody that somebody wanted a riot and instigated a riot when that same person authorized up to 20,000 troops to protect that very capitol where the so-called riot is going to take place. keep in mind, according to defense experts, the capitol would not have been breached with thousands of national guard

soldiers providing the security. let me say it another way. had they actually listened to president trump, had they listened to the experts at the department of defense, january 6th never would have happened. they didn't listen. they were deaf, they cared not to protect the capitol. they knew, they had 574 riots the summer before, they knew tensions in the country were high, and they didn't do their duty, they were begged repeatedly to take the guard, and they wouldn't do it. while the president can make national guard troops available, it is important to note, well, then it becomes the responsibility of speaker pelosi. she is in charge of security at the capitol, and also, d.c. mayor bowser, she has the jurisdiction. they both have the authority at that point, once the president authorizes the troops to be called up, they are the ones that have to deploy the troops to the capitol and surrounding areas. so the question they are not asking that they should be

asking, why didn't pelosi, why didn't i was, why didn't you burn didn't the sergeant at arms call up leah targeted arms? why didn't schumer say, you know what, we should listen -- why didn't the sergeant-at-arms in the house and senate listen to the capitol police chief when he was begging them? why did they deny the capitol police chief, the troops he said he needed? if this city cared at all about the truth, if they cared at all about preventing something like this, which we should all agree on, from ever happening again, they would be demanding answers from pelosi and schumer and bowser, and both the sergeant of arms in the house and in the senate, and the capitol police chief, and the deputy police chief, and everyone else that would be responsible for securing the capitol. why didn't this committee subpoena all of these people,

demand all of their text messages, all of their emails, and depose all of them? now, even the vengeful and very trump-obsessed liz cheney, she actually admitted tonight -- i couldn't believe my ears -- that the violence on january 6th was not spontaneous. she said it. it was not the result of the president's speech. instead, she points out, it was preplanned. now as you watch this, ask yourself, well, if you knew ahead of time that people are planning violence, why didn't everybody that knew this, why didn't they -- if they knew about this, why didn't you call in the guard? take a look. >> the attack on our capitol was not a spontaneous riot. intelligence available before january 6th identified plans to "invade" the capitol, occupy the capitol, and take other steps to halt congresses count of electoral votes that day." >> sean: okay, so they all knew the violence was

preplanned. now, that brings us to january 5th, 2021. that evening, we now know that the fbi shared intel with the capitol police revealing that some january 6th attendees were plotting and attempt to violently storm the capitol. that is the day before, "an online threat discussed specific calls for violence to include stating to be ready to fight, congress needs to hear glass breaking, the doors being kicked in from the intercepted intel, goes on to say, "get violent, stop calling this a march or rally or protest, go there ready for war." they knew this on the fifth. according to this document on your screen, the capitol police emailed the senate sergeant-at-arms, warning this group that is "promoting the photos of the capitol tunnel system online and stating their goal of blocking them from even

entering the capitol. the same revealed rioters are planning to create a perimeter around the capitol. despite all of that intelligence on january 5th, d.c. mayor muriel bowser wrote a letter that day to the dod explicitly asking them not to deploy national guard troops to the capitol on january 6th. why would she ever make that decision? again, why didn't they lift a finger, with all the intelligence they had ahead of time, to protect the capitol, to protect every elected official. is anyone on this committee, are they ever going to ask that question of mayor bowser? are the ever going to bring in nancy pelosi and ask her why she didn't call at the guard? they don't seem to care. apparently, because those people have not been interviewed. according to all of the reports i am reading, they only seem to care about one thing, and this is sad, because that house is our house. that is the people's house.

that is your house. and we need to protect our institutions be it i don't care if you are a republican or democrat. i said it on the 6th. we've got to protect our elected officials. it is that simple. and it seems they only care about smearing trump, exciting their base, may be raising money off all this. which now brings us to january 6th. now, that morning, during his speech, president trump -- remember, he said these words and they have yet to bring them up, what a shock -- he said many of you now will peacefully and patriotically march to the capital so your voices may be heard. didn't call for violence, kind of just the opposite of what chuck schumer said on the steps of the u.s. supreme court when he threatened justices, and we all know what happened yesterday. anyway, here is the president on january 6th. take a look. >> i know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.

>> sean: okay, unfortunately, when the january 6th committee features their clips from trump, i'll bet any amount of money they're going to slice and dice and edit around that part where he says many of you will now peacefully and patriotically march to the capitol so your voices will be heard. i wonder why. now, in the hours that followed, capitol police, they were ill-prepared, they were outmanned, and according to the departments after action report, antiriot squads did not respond in a timely manner. many of their radios were not working. and much of their riot gear was locked in a bus and they couldn't find the key. now ultimately, the capitol police chief requested the national guard and ask for help six different times, and it wasn't until way late in the afternoon that pelosi finally said okay. by that point, it was too late. the capitol had been breached, and ever since, democrats have used this awful day as a political weapon.

they don't actually care about riots or improving safety and security. it is all political. remember, right now, there is no congressional committee. ask yourself, why don't we have a committee looking into the 574 riots that took place in the summer of 2020. dozens of dead americans. thousands of injured police officers. billions in property damage. where is that congressional committee on the federal courthouse in portland, remember, night after night, lit on fire for week after week, by far left protesters. what, no hearings on that? those lies don't matter? that property damage does not matter, those police don't matter? here we are suffering through yet another anti-trump smear that will accomplish absolutely nothing. here with reaction is the person that first got a hold of the capitol police timeline, investigative reporter and the editor of just the news.com, john solomon. your work has been phenomenal. your headline is trump-pentagon

first offered national guard to capitol for days before the capitol january 6th riots. let's add the color around this because there is a lot more to the timeline then what i have just laid out. >> you have done a good job, though, sean, you simply nailed what happen. four days of infamy, four days when the capitol police, nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, leadership could have hardened the capitol, could have gotten the resources in place, could have made strategic decisions, could have accepted the national guard help that would have saved all of those men and women in blue on the capitol got injured that day. it is overwhelmingly clear that these were repeated political decisions made instead of security decisions. i'm just going to give you two examples because i think they're both very important. when the house sergeant at arms turns down cheap son's request on january 6th for the national guard deployment, s them it is because of optics.

optics is not a security term, it is a political term. they were not making a security decision that they for the men and women of the capitol police force or the lawmakers in that capitol building. they were making a political statement, and that is why they turned down this helped. that same night, when the deputy police chief sean gallagher gets this information coming in from the fbi, there are two ways of fda information that come in between 5:00 and about 9:30. the first one is what we would call an intelligence morning. it comes from norfolk, virginia, and it is very specific, there is going to be violence, they want to breach the capitol, they want to target lawmakers. very clear what they're trying to do. a few hours after that, the national threat center, the fbi here in washington, d.c., began getting information from a website, i'm seeing some weird activity of some of the people talking about going to the capitol tomorrow, i don't like the look of this, and they start pulling down, and they see the

people coming tomorrow, the bad actors on january 6th have maps, they are instructing people how to go through the library of congress, through tunnels, get into the capitol building, and take the capitol building hostage. this information comes into the deputy police chief, according to the senate report that looked at all of these documents, it was never given to the commanders of the capitol police, it would not give into the chief of the capitol police, it was not given to the men and women on the front lines, many who didn't have helmets and shields and other proper equipment for the threat assessment that was emerging. where was it sent? it was sent to a political person. it was sent to a woman named kelly theta, was a trusted political -- a long-term aid of senator chuck schumer. the political people, the political elites got a warning, hey, stay away from the tunnels, the police and national guard who could have prevented it, they don't get that warning, three days, four days of infamy, political decisions over security decisions time and time again. >> sean: john, stay right

there, we want to bring in kash patel, the chief of staff for acting secretary of the defense department, chris miller. you are basically, this new information, kash, you were in the oval office on the 4th of january, two days before, you were there. you have told me, mark meadows has told me, chris miller has told me, and the president has told me, both you and chris went under oath before this committee, so you said this to the committee under threat of perjury, right? >> that is correct. >> in fact, you were offering these guard troops -- it almost now sounds like with john's new information that your department, the department of defense, was pretty much begging them to take the guard and they kept refusing, in spite of all of your efforts to reach out and convince them the threat was real.

>> you are absolutely right, sean, and the defense department can only do so much because we are limited by the law and rightly so, the defense department cannot unilaterally deploy american soldiers domestically without a presidential authorization for national guard and a request from nancy pelosi, the capitol police, and mayor bowser. as you outlined in your timeline correctly, most americans do not understand that legal process, we did as much as we could proactively and preemptively to go within the confines of the law and ask them, hey, we have authorization, do you them? they repeatedly refused our authorization request. they repeatedly told us we don't have anything there is going to be an attack, and on top of that as john solomon pointed out, they were more concerned about optics. vehicle we had dod do not concern ourselves with optics, we concern ourselves with the security of not just the capitol grounds but the men and women who are sworn to do their work there, and that is what we were trying to get them to notice, but unfortunately, they wanted

to politicize the january 6th -- the lead up to january 6th and not put up any fencing or secure perimeter warnings on that date. it was a disastrous lasting security department by the folks at the top, they report due nan, the only people who can -- >> sean: the inspector general of the department of defense in the biden presidency examined your actions and basically said you did everything right, meaning trump's department of defense department of defense, isn't that correct? >> you are 100% right. it was not the result the january 6th committee wanted to hear. i went before them and i actually submitted to the january 6th committee the entire dod inspector general report from the biden administration. they had not entered that into evidence. i had to do that, and i had to

highlight the findings in the report which stated the department of defense acted lawfully, appropriately, and without delay. that is the key that the american people need to understand, but what they need to educate themselves on even more is the depths of that report which shows the failures of the political leadership to take us up on those requests so that we could safeguard the capitol. they wouldn't even allow a no climb fence to be established around the perimeter. to see these fences in d.c. all the time, it prevents the scaling of buildings and properties. the again went to optics and didn't want that look vehicle that alone would have stopped anything on january 6th. >> sean: i want to be very clear. when you testified before this committee, you told them all of this, when the secretary of defense chris miller at the time, when he testified, the committee was told all of this. they have all of this information. is that correct, kash? >> 100% correct and i repeatedly asked them to release the transcripts instead of doing what they're doing tonight,

which is offering out piecemeal, cut up testimony and clips to fit a political narrative, as you said. this is not how you run constitutional congressional oversight. i did it differently when i ran the russia gate investigation, we put out the documentation invoke all transcripts. this committee has that ability and liz cheney let off the hearings and specifically said we are only going to give you partially what we have discovered, we are going to hold back the rest. that is not how you educate the american public on how to safeguard a capitol, that is how you politicize national security. >> sean: they are trying to make the case donald trump is responsible for what happened after he gave his speech that day at the capitol. can you explain to me how the guy that authorized 20,000 or up to 20,000 national guard troops is responsible for a riot that he was clearly trying to prevent, because i think common sense would recognize that if those troops were there at the capitol, january 6 never

happens. take us back into the oval office long before january, when there were the five of you, including the chairman of the joint chiefs, and you all had that meeting when trump authorized calling up the guard. >> yeah, so we were in the oval office talking about a very serious national security matter which is why i remember it so distinctly, totally unrelated to january 6th and the president brought up january 6th security protocol measures come on top of everyone's mind given what was n the media and the president said you have my authorization as the commander in chief, the department of defense come up to 20,000 national guard's men and women. for us, who operate on chain of command at the department of defense, we said roger that, sir, we will get ready as best as the law allows us but we did one step further, we went to the capitol police, we went to nancy pelosi and we said, do you want this trip request? not even 20,000 format, 1,000, 16,000, whatever number in between, and they refused it

all. >> sean: did you talk directly to speaker pelosi? who did you speak to? some of the inner office, or did you speak to her? >> on the 6th of january, we spoke to her on the phone -- >> sean: but after -- after the president authorized, as legally required, up to 20,000 troops, when was the speaker made aware the president had done that? >> very shortly thereafter. the chain of command is the secretary, the army is in front of the national guard force so we sent the secretary of the army and his representatives to capitol hill to engage with the capitol police and mayor bowser as they had been doing for the weeks before january 6th, and that was outlined in john solomon and your reporting. we had been engaging them on a daily basis and you showed the letter where mayor bowser said no, and the secretary of the army and his team were indirect engagement -- >> sean: kash, in writing, she said no, this is after the new threat assessment.

remember, the capitol police chief initially said i don't think we need the extra security. then the new threat assessment comes in and says we need the guard here. and he went directly to the speaker and the sergeant-at-arms. do we know what happened or transpired, or maybe we can bring in john solomon, john, maybe you know a little bit more about pat. >> the capitol police timelines is very clearly, sean, that when he talked to the speaker come he got a very clear answer, we are not going to do this, we don't like the optics. we have an idea, call the d.c. national guard yourself and say be on the ready in case something happens. anyone who knows anything about security you do not want to wait until something happens to deploy the security force, you want it there firsthand. that is all in the official capitol police file we have put up that you just showed on-screen. >> sean: kash, would it be a fair characterization, you are the chief of staff for the secretary of defense, you

preemptively went to congress, you offered the national guard, you did it on multiple occasions, you did it after a new threat assessment came in. you worked it out with the president. the president authorized calling up the national guard. is it fair to say that in many ways you are almost borderline begging the people in charge of the capitol led by nancy pelosi to take the guard troops because you are going to need them, the intelligence is telling us this could go -- spiral down in a bad way? >> yeah, you are right. that is in our blood stream at the department of defense which i lead, and a political organization, that is our bloodstream: prepare, prepare, prepare. prepare to the max of law allows you to prepare and this is borderline and basically pleading with them, almost begging them to say look at the intelligence, you are going to need the security information, we know you want sideshow to occur on january sixth but do not allow this to occur because lives will be hurt and lost, so

we did with the law required and we went all the way up to the border and said, look, you know this is going to happen, let us help you. let us help you. let the department of defense help your security posture so it does not have to be federal law enforcement and cops, and they still would not allow us to do it. >> sean: you did your job, our intelligence community did their job, they picked up the exact intelligence, they did a phenomenal job. the president signed off on it and we have no investigation into why these people denied the guard to being called up after it was authorized. john solomon, kash patel, stay with us. earlier tonight, liz cheney even admitted that at some point in the future, or sham committee might get around to investigating the security failures at the capitol after they get tired of bashing trump for the 1,487th time, take a look. >> as part of our investigation, we will present information

about what the white house and other intelligence agencies new and why the capitol was not better prepared. we will not lose sight of the fact that the capitol police did not cause the crowd to attack. and we will not blame the violence that they -- violence provoked by donald trump -- on the officers bravely protect all of us. >> sean: elise stefanik is with us. congressman, let me start with you. you and jim jordan originally were slated to be on this committee. how come they took you off this committee? >> first of all, sean, what you heard tonight on this committee hearing, the entire point behind this process is to prosecute donald trump for crimes that he did not commit. we all know this is a sham committee process. they want to put donald trump in jail. if they don't get that, they settled to keep his name off the

ballot. if i was the ranking member and in that room tonight we would have been asking questions about the bombshell reporting of john solomon -- who by the way has done more to investigate januart committee has come of the breakdown of security, how intelligence was gathered, disseminated. why capitol police officers like the head of the capitol police union told me that the rank and file capitol police officers didn't receive the intelligence that something was going to happen that day and now we know thanks to john solomon and you that chuck schumer's office got that intelligence but our capitol police officers didn't. at the end of the day, the speaker of the house nancy pelosi is covering up her role and responsibility, or breakdown of leadership as head, her leadership and oversight over the capitol police, this is all a cover-up to divert us from focusing on that and making it a political witch hunt about donald trump instead. >> sean: if they had any integrity they would call her up, get her text messages, get

her emails, they would do the same with schumer and the same with muriel bowser, the same with how sergeant of arms and the senate sergeant of arms. they are not doing any of that and they would bring in the capitol police chief who also requested the guard to be called up. congresswoman, does it make any sense to you -- beyond being dull, boring, repetitive, and a preview of 100 more hearings to come, the one thing they are not asking, how does it make any sense if donald trump authorized up to 20,000 national guard troops to protect the capitol, how does it make sense that they are there on national television blaming donald trump for wanting to start an insurrection? can you explain that logic to me? >> it makes no sense at all, sean, because this is a partisan witch hunt. it has been that from the beginning. it is about punishing nancy pelosi's political opponents. that is why nancy pelosi removed

jim banks and jim jordan, because they were asking the very important questions that you laid out today. why was the capitol left so ill-prepared on january 6th? why did nancy pelosi prioritize our own partisan political optics rather than providing the security, training, and equipment, and basically making sure there was a broader understanding of the threats that potentially were going to happen on january 6th? and you know what, sean, the issues that matter to the american people right now that i hear about from my constituents, inflation, sky-high gas prices, the border crisis, the baby formula shortage, that is what the american people care about and democrats know they are losing on all of those issues because they created their crises, their radical policies, so these hearings are no more than an attempt to change the narrative, they are desperate, this is an illegitimate committee that is unconstitutional and it will do nothing to ensure the capitol's market secure in the future.

>> sean: let's talk about the security failures here. they also talk about the fact that the president had issues with the election. i can give you some examples that we really need to resolve going into any future election. for example, many states have laws that say that partisan observers get to watch the vote count up close from start to finish. that didn't happen in any state that have those laws. that is problematic if you want integrity in your elections. that is problematic if you want confidence in the results. i will take the state of pennsylvania, for example, they have a constitution in that state, with very specific guidelines about mail-in balloting. instead of going for a constitutional amendment, they decided to pass legislation, which is a lot easier to do. that is problematic if you believe in the rule of law and you believe in a state constitution. you should follow the process. so there were legitimate questions that a lot of people were asking, other people saying

crazy stuff, but these issues in particular, if you read the decision by the wisconsin supreme court, it was a 3-4 decision, the dissent was a stinging one by the supreme court chief justice in wisconsin, saying you are not following the laws of this state. i think we should pay attention a little bit to what he is saying. he criticized the other four members that did not bode with him, but they lost that decision 3-4, it was a very close vote, so there were issues, legitimate concerns. we have people of that signed affidavits under the threat of perjury, nobody wanted to hear from those whistle-blowers, did they? >> no, sean, and never forget, by the way, voted to object to the election in 2004. i do not call him an insurrectionist, just a hypocrite. here we are today with him changing his tune about what that means. i had big concerns about the election in 2020 and i voted to object, as well, because those

states that unconstitutionally conducted their elections deserved the scrutiny that they received through that process. people were right to be upset about how the election was conducted. that doesn't mean they committed an insurrection. again, they are trying to prosecute donald trump for crimes that happened on that day that he didn't commit. people that were violent, that broke into the capitol, they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. the fbi has arrested hundreds of people who did it. there's a reason hundreds of people showed up in the nation's capitol -- by the way, no greater place to show up and protest, make your voice heard, it is very american to do that in washington, d.c., and to prosecute people who did that peacefully and exercise their constitutional right is absolutely shameful. >> sean: let's talk a little bit, congresswoman, so far it has been a rehash of pretty much everything we already knew. they made a big deal of the fact they had video that had never been seen before, that seems kind of meaningless to me, we all saw what happened that day,

just like we saw the 574 riots in the summer of 2020. i don't know why we don't have a committee looking into that. people, good people all across the country know that we can't have riots like that and people go unpunished but that is exactly what happened. but we can't have our capitol breached like this. there are answers but it does not seem like they are even delving into the questions that would lead to the answers. >> that's exactly right, sean. what makes republicans different from democrats as republicans have consistently condemned violence, whereas democrats did not condemn the violence during the riots throughout all of 2020, the desecration of our federal building, the burning to the ground of our cities across america, republicans did condemn that just like we condemned the violence on january 6th. and again, those that committed crimes and destroyed property on the u.s. capitol, they have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, but we have a constitutional duty when there

is unconstitutional overreach when it comes to certain electors. i also objected to certain electors because in the case of pennsylvania, they circumvented the constitutional process. we need stronger election integrity and election security in our country, i know that in my home state of new york where we do not have adequate election security, we chain of custody on the ballots, signature verification, all of those key issues, it was important to discuss that on the house floor, so the fact it was not just bennie thompson who objected in the past, but also jamie raskin objected to the electoral college counting after president trump's election, and he called for the impeachment of president trump even prior to trump's swearing in, so look at the democrats on this committee. they have no basis. they are complete hypocrites. i agree with my colleague, jim banks, and they want to avoid -- again, focusing on the issues that matter to the american people. i think the american people are smart. they are tuning this i would. they see these individuals for

hypocrites that they are. >> sean: congresswoman, thank you, congressman banks, thank you, joining us now, author of "saving nine," utah senator mike lee. senator, you are one of the few people i know that really cares about our constitution and i give you a lot of credit. we did a reveal, it was revealed during these hearings that jamie raskin has another motive in all of this. he wants to get rid of that outdated relic called the u.s. constitution, that calls for electors to end up picking the president. that's interesting to me because that would mean that liz cheney's father never would have been elected vice president. the electoral college -- >> that's right -- yeah, he wants to eliminate the electoral college, which is about as fundamental to our system of government as it comes. there is no way around this. look, the u.s. constitution has fostered the development of the greatest civilization the world

has ever known. for reasons that escape, styled, and dismay me, the modern democratic party wants to throw it under the bus, throw it under the bus with statements like that he is amazing. they want to throw it under the bus by denigrating the supreme court of the united states and by packing the court so they can turn it into a political football. and sean, the thing is, without the supreme court being an independent arbiter of what the law is, there is no constitution. they want to pack it so they can destroy the court and in so doing destroy the constitution. that is why i wrote "saving nine," "saving nine" tells the story of the last time this happened and the fact we are still paying the price for it. >> sean: when you look at for example abolishing the electoral college or packing the courts or statehood for d.c. or getting rid of the filibuster, all of these items the democrats have brought up, and your book really does highlight the importance of the supreme court,

when they do this, the democrats have always wanted to do things that they can never get done at the ballot box or never get done in congress, legislatively, and they want the courts to do their job for them and legislate from the bench. that is not particularly good for our country, is it? >> no, it is terrible for our country, and it does not work out well for anyone, but sometimes for them it works out in the short term, but in the long term it hurts everyone, including and especially them. but if they attempt this again, if they try to pack the supreme court again, unlike 1937 -- i tell the story in "saving nine" of how franklin d. roosevelt, sort of a hero, a role model, an idol, if you will, to joe biden, he tried to do this back in 1937. it failed in part because there were a lot of democrats that were willing to stand up to the democratic president at the time. we don't have that today. nor do we have the buffer that

we had back in 1937. but as i explained in "saving nine," back in 1937, even though it failed legislatively, it coursed the supreme court to switch its view of a particular provision of the constitution, and that reinterpretation with a de facto amendment to the constitution that has caused the federal government but to become too big, too expensive, and to far-reaching, we are paying for it ever since then. all these efforts to denigrate the constitution and our system, you can draw -- the statements of jamie raskin, the efforts to protest outside of supreme court justices homes, efforts to assassinate supreme court justices, and the refusal of the president of the united states to condemn going to supreme court justices homes to protest in front of, harass them, try to get them to change the ruling in a case. that is wrong, and it is counter to everything we believe in about constitutional government. >> sean: you know, it is amazing to me that the

white house gave their tacit approval and actually encouraged, in the case of jen psaki, the doxxings of these supreme court justices homes. we know the tape of schumer, you know, you better listen to me, gorsuch, you better listen to me, kavanaugh, you won't know what hit you. that sounded like a threat to me. if i made a threat to a supreme court justice, would i be committing a crime? >> yes. yes, you would. and you would especially be committing a crime if you were going to the supreme court justices homes to protest in front of them, and if you are the president of the united states, who actively encourages people to do that, and through your press secretary jen psaki, if you said yes, i support this, you would be actively encouraging that. we know he encourages it. we know therefore that he is trying to pack the court. we've got to stop them now and that is why i encourage people to read "saving nine" to give them the tools necessary to confront this. we need as many people as possible to read it so they are

ready to respond. we need the help of all americans on this issue. >> sean: the book is called "saving nine," could not be a more timely book. senator mike lee, thanks for being with us. you now fox legal analyst gregg jarrett. gregg, in light -- the big get out of today's hearing was liz cheney's admission that they had all the intelligence prior to january 6th that violence was going to occur, and now we know that the department of defense, donald trump department of defense and donald trump on january 4th, but as early as january 2nd, they were pretty much begging nancy pelosi, the capitol, the leaders to take the guard and they would not do it. they refused at every single point. i am having a hard time reconciling the fact that liz cheney and this committee knew that the intelligence showed there was a lot of potential for

violence and they are not questioning those that didn't act. that, to me, is a story, especially if the goal would be to never have this happen again. >> now we have written proof, sean, the nancy pelosi, chuck schumer, mayor bowser were derelict in their duty. they committed gross misfeasance, and they found scapegoats. they sacked of the two sergeants at arms and the capitol police chief, blaming them without accepting their own responsibility, but for schumer and pelosi and bowser's inaction, the refusal to call up these troops, the events of january 6th at the nation's capitol would not have unfolded as they did. you are not going to hear that from this committee even though they well know that because this committee is taking snippets of information and contorting it to support a false narrative. at the same time what they are doing and this is the most important part, they are concealing exculpatory evidence

and information. now if a nonmember of congress did that, they would be criminally charged with a felony, obstruction of a congressional investigation, 18 usc 1505. but these members are protected under the speech and debate clause, so here is what should happen, and i hope kevin mccarthy is listening. if republicans regain control of the house in november, they should move immediately to expel each and every member of this committee for violating ethical rules by abusing their official position. that takes two-thirds vote. if republicans do not have enough seats for that, they can do something else. they can strip every member of this committee from committee assignments. that is just a majority vote rendering these members of the committee, adam schiff, townson, jamie raskin, neutered, as positions of power.

>> sean: let me ask you this. david axelrod, i do not agree with him clinically but he is a smart guy, he warned the democrats are overpromising and under delivering. i found this opening tonight so underwhelming. they built this up to be this is going to be the definitive moment where we prove that donald trump is responsible for the insurrection that took place. they didn't come close to even capturing my interest, may be for 3 minutes before i said this was a waste of time. how will the public view this? >> well, not well. there is also, i would argue, a measure of desperation here. bennie thompson, the chairman, trying to compare this to slavery in what smacked of blatant race baiting, but elise stefanik was right. what americans care about is what is affecting them

personally. they vote with their wallets. looming recession because of biden's policies, high gas prices, inflation at grocery stores, people can't put food on the table, they can't fill up their tanks, they see rampant crime in their cities and democrats doing nothing about it, they see chaos increasing every day at the border, and they are fed up with this stuff. they have buyers remorse which will be expressed at the polls come november. i think democrats are in for a rude awakening. >> sean: gregg jarrett, thank you for being with us. joining us now, former white house chief of staff reince priebus along with fox news contributor joe concha and america first legal founder stephen miller is with us. so, we learned tonight, stephen miller, that in fact this committee knows they have intelligence prior to january the 6th of the strong potential for violence. we also know this committee was

told in no uncertain terms that the option of the national guard was available to everybody in power and they didn't take advantage of it. why isn't that the bigger story here? >> you do such an excellent job of shining a light on this very issue, which is that president trump authorized the use of the national guard and his offer was turned down. and there should be an investigation -- and how muriel bowser handled the security of the capitol and the city. these are the same individuals that stood behind and cheered the riotous mob that attacked the white house and sent dozens of secret service agents to the hospital and they cheered on nancy pelosi, in fact, attacked the victims of the portland siege. these are people that have been pro-write year after year after year. >> sean: let's get your take, reince priebus. >> i mean, it is an amazing

situation tonight, and the situation is that we have a committee that is forgetting about the fact that a lot of these folks learned and illegal behavior which was rioting in the streets, burning down buildings, we allowed these activities to take place, leadership in our country, we praise and these folks that were burning down our cities, our vice president raised money to the defense of these people that were burning down our cities. we ought to have hearings about the things that are truly new and have to be figured out today. baby formula. what about the 13 troops that died in afghanistan? wouldn't it be nice to know the origins of that debacle? the border crisis. and let me just say one other thing. you know, there were real cases in this country that were being prosecuted, like in wisconsin, where you had a state where

hundreds of thousands of people did in fact vote in a way that wasn't contemplated by state law. they are being directed by an election commission in wisconsin to allow people to vote early in a state that didn't allow early vote, they were voting in drop boxes, voting without applications, declaring themselves indefinitely confined, all of these things, and i am not suggesting anything that took place in the capitol was right. it was wrong. it was also wrong to allow people to burn down our cities. it was also wrong to allow election commissioners to allow a vote to take place in a state like wisconsin improperly, and it's also wrong after the already impeached donald trump to yet hold another hearing because of their obsession with trying to destroy donald trump. we all get it. we all said what happened on january 6th is wrong. we need to solve the real problems in our country that the democrats have created. >> sean: let me ask you, joe concha, you studied the

media, you should have your own media show. now that we know that donald trump authorized up to 20,000 troops, trump's dod basically was begging the leaders in both houses to take the guard, have them available, we now know everybody knew ahead of time there was a real threat assessment and the possibility of violence and they did nothing. bowser did nothing. schumer did nothing. pelosi did nothing. the sergeant-at-arms in the house and senate, they did nothing. how is the media going to handle that aspect of this? >> that's a big story, right? just like it's a big story that a supreme court justice, there was an attempted murder of, just yesterday, it was reported, and yet the president of the united states was on an interview on national television for 24 minutes and said nothing about it, nor did the host, and "the new york times" put that at page 820. in other words, big stories that

should be reported as the top story get ignored or buried in these situations, sean, and look, the first night of hearings is the most important by far, in the case of the january 6th hearings, and here is like watching a movie you've seen over and over again. a poll from -- shows a majority of voters say they think the investigation into the january 6th capitol riot is about scoring political points than it is about an independent inquiry into seeking truth. and then you look at the timing and the backdrop, right? the timing, the midterm elections are coming up this fall. the backdrop, a president at an all-time low, historically, in terms of approval of a first-term president and joe biden. the bottom line is inflation is at a 40 year high, an overwhelming number of americans say that is a top priority, a concern. gas prices all-time high. skyrocketing crime. you even have das in

san francisco getting fired by voters as a result of that crime. a border that is anything but secure, with fentanyl coming in and killing americans in record numbers. parents are greatly concerned about their kids education, and their child's safety in school as a home, so maybe, just maybe, those -- all those things are what americans are more, you know, concerned with the right now than what they are watching on all these networks, and i am seeing on social media, sean, right now as i speak, there is not a lot of buzz around this because people just have better and bigger concerns than what we are seeing right now. >> sean: and they are reminded every time they go to fill up their gas tank. they are reminded in every store they go to because prices are so high. all right come exit question, on a scale of 1 to 10, steve miller, what is the number of concern and attention the american people will give these hearings? i guess they announced we are

going to have 100 more of them but what do you think the attention level will be, 1 to 10? >> it is a flat 0. people are worried about inflation, the bleeding border, violent crime, destruction of our economy, can't get baby formula for their kids, that is what they care about, bruxism in our schools, not partisan political anti-trump propaganda. >> sean: 1 to 10, reince priebus? >> 1. >> sean: wow. joe concha? >> 3 because the president's polling currently at 33% approval, so those folks i guess we'll be concerned about this but independence and those who are apolitical and those on the right will say yeah, no, we got it and we have more important things to be concerned about right now. >> sean: all right, steve miller, thank you, joe, thank you, reince, thank you. we will bring back john solomon and kash patel. the hearings -- john solomon, based on your investigative reporting, based on kash's

personal experience at the dod, all of the attempts to get people to call up the guard, basically begging them to take the guard, how does this play out as this narrative now takes over, i think the entire story because this is about a securite of incredible magnitude, and they don't even seem to one person who looks good as donald trump. >> he's living rent-free and the democrats had 15 months after leaving office. they are so obsessed with donald trump and they are missing their opportunity to save the election because they're not talking about all the issues that were laid out. the gas prices, inflation, the border crime, they'll lose the election because they've been letting donald trump live in their head. here's a big think i'm a big developing going on, i'll tell you about it real quick. rodney davis, ranking republican members sent a letter to bennie thompson saying all the evidence

you have, preserve it. make sure it's catalogued and when we can empower we will go through and we are finding out the truth. i'm hearing from several capitol hill police that they've gone and done a review of the security tips to find out congressman was actually casing the joint, one of the crazy allegations. let's see if that plays out in the next couple days and those will be to make your stay ins if they drop them both. >> sean: preservation letter has been sent out to everybody -- every committee letter, all communications? >> yep, i know the police, large numbers of text messages between the police and nancy pelosi staff. they may be the holy grail of where republicans finally found out what really happened in there that night. >> sean: any chance you will get that? you've got the timeline when nobody else dead and by the way perfect timing what else might we learn in terms of your department, the department of defense and your

efforts to protect the before were ignored? what might else we learn about donald trump's efforts to protect the capital that nobody else is talking about? >> that juxtaposition leading up to january 6th. one thing i highlighted was the failure to install the no climb feeling my fence they could have done that and they refused to do so. turned to nancy pelosi and chuck schumer, what you will learn is that their activities on january 6th, the same people that did not want a single national guard men and women, they called me and the dod and say we want service weapons and armored tanks to protect to the capitol from that time on until inauguration. >> sean: who called you and asked for what? >> the leadership at the congress, all of a sudden wanted every national guardsmen that we

had and wanted armor plated vehicles with machine guns in the inauguration along with tanks. these are why americans cannot stand the political leadership. we as a national security apparatus of the dod executed the mission a politically. all they wanted to do was politicize a? >> sean: the guard was offered first by your department on january 2nd. when did nancy pelosi finally say okay to the guard? what time was that? >> dod timeline which has been published, late afternoon on january 6th, then they wanted us to magically deploy 15,000 armed men and women over in an instant. i want to remind your audience, always is when the national guard was the fastest start since world war ii and it was the largest occupation by soldiers in uniform since the civil war. we did it appropriately.

>> sean: they overpromise to an under delivery to, and missed the big story which is the big failure in terms of security that you are begging to get to t take and when they had the opportunity of the arco thank you, that's all the time we have left. thank you for making the show possible and let not your heart be trouble to come out laura is next and "the ingraham angle" the arco have a great night. ♪ ♪ >> laura: i'm laura ingraham and this is "hannity" from new york city. thank you for joining us. democrats and liberals have been flopping in prime time television for years. it's always the same, misleading information, vicious innuendo, attempts to connect the dots that never quite pay off. the drumbeat constant drumbeat of demonization. it's neither entertaining or edifying. it's bad programming. tonight began with chair benny thompson