yamiche: a mob storms the u.s. capitol. american democracy tested but unbroken. president trump: you htre to show sength and you have to be strong. yamiche: president trump's words leado a riot on capitol hill. >> this templeo democracy was desecrated. yache: his supporters break into congress. >> broke the glass -- yamiche: and lay siege. but they failed to stop the will of the people. lawmakers still certified president-ect joe biden's win. >> they tried to disrupt our cr acy. they failed. they failed. yamiche: how did we get here? president-elect president-elect enough is enough -- president-elect biden: enough is enough is enough. >> bynciting sedition as he did yesterday he must be removed from office. yamiche: next.

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additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen through the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities, the corporation for public broadcasting and by ntributions to your pbs station from viewersyo like thank you.ch ya good evening. i'm yamiche alcindor. welcome to "washington wk." it has been an historic and traumatic week in washington, d.c. esident trump encouraged a violent mob to storm the.s. capitol piercing the very heart of our democracy. after false claiming he won the 2020 election, there are just 20 days lt in president trump's term. but amid them there are growing calls for him to resign or be removed. house democrats are drafting articles of impeachment again. and some on president trump's cabinet are talking about invoking the 25th amendment to

force him out. my sources tell me it's very unlikely that vice eesident peould aee to that. those close to the president say he is embarrassed and isolated. on thursday, house speaker nancy pelosi didn't hold back. >> the president has committed an unspeakable assault on our nation and our people. i join the senate democrat leader in cling on the vice president to remove thispr ident by immediately amendmenthe 25th if the vice president or cabinet do not act, the congress may be prepared to move forward with impeachment. yamiche: joining u tonightre the best reporters covering congress ande. the white ho nancy cordes, chief congressional correspondent for cbs news. tead herndon for "the new york times." and jake sherman, founderf the new punch bow news. jake, today, a draft of the articles of impeachment have the question on everyone's mind, could president trump be removed from office in the nal weeks of his term?

jake: it doesn't seem likely, yamiche. thanks for having me. it doesn't seem likely. a there are onluple of days left here. but the house is undoubtedly in the next couple of days going move toward an impeachment vote. potentially next week, most likely next week. thend 25th ant is really the president.ion for removing there's a lot of hurdles between invoking the 25th amenent and getting the president out of office. but -- so the house will pass impeachment. then it goes over to the republican and currently the republican senate. you would need a lot of republicans to agree to remove the president. i will say this, though. my time covering congress, and donald trumpas presidency,m this is th angry that republicans have been with donald trump. the moin disapd, most they are very, tough word. with donald trump at the moment. they believe that hed inc is violence. he sent his protesters to the

capitol. we don't have to guess that. he told hiprotesterst a rally we're going to march up to the capitol. so they did. i wasn the capitol. they were loud. they were inapperpriate. they violent. people died. so i just think republicans are going to say listen, there's 10,ive, however many days when this starts left of donald trump's pr idency. and we should spare him and let him finish out his days and move on to joe biden on january 20. that it's going to be super hard to get president trump. it seems out of offic with just 12 days left in office. nancy, what is the calculation here when it comes to all the things that we're seeing, especially of course as these articles of impeachmenten have be circulating? nancy: well, i interviewed david sicilini, one of the authors of these articles of impeachment. and i asked h, you know, essentially, why do thinow when the president is about to and what he said was first of all, they need to send a

message to this president to future presidents and to other countries and to future generationsomhat there are things that congress just will not accept. td the fact that this president is abo head out the door no matter what happens isn't a reason no to send that message. as far as republicans are concerned, not a ofhem, but some of them, there is a silver lining here. and that is that if the senate president, even after he has left office, and that is a possibility, they could take this up even after he'sone, if they're successful in mustering two thirds of the senate to vote to convict him, he cannot run for president agai and for many republicans, the president and the specter of another trump run for office four years from now is pretty appealing, pretty motivating. yamiche: nancy saying it's pretty appealing to republicans to have trump be out of the

way. you've been covering the senate race in georgia. what has losing the control of the senate done to republicess, cially when it comes to the political calculations ahe astead: i think there was a political message ande m policy concerns going forward. the political message certainly is that the replicans i that race made a bet with trump. that failed. and that is a warning sign for publican party that cannot put together this trump coalition without h at the to of the ballot. more importantly, you had the democraticotivated base that really overwhelmed that. and i think that for those republican senators, the mess that trump caused in that race, the split between the governor and the senators, the secretary of state, the in-fighting among more traditional suburban republicans and that core maga base was not one that was worh it. and so i think that just -- ys lizes the political problems repubcans have going

forward. but it obviously expanibds the poities for joeiden going ahead. cabinetnd positions, policy are just expanded by the idea that he will now be ableo get a tie breaking vote with vice president kamala harris through the senate. so there are those policy concerns and really a political rebuke, just as big as we saw in november with biden's victory. yamiche: we now have phil rucker, white house bureau chief for "the washington post," thanks so much for being here, phil. astead was talking about the calculations and the ng republicans loontrol of the senate. i want to talk to you about what's going on inside this white house. this -- georgia is seen as a rebuke. but there's also of course all these resignations. ndtwitter susg the president permanentlyoday. what are you hearing about what's going on in hothe white e? i'm hearing that there's chaos, that tensions ares high as they've ever been. philip: yeah. i'm hearing the exact sam yamiche. our sources are telling us that the president feels underiege

and he is in an alarmingly fragile emotional and psychological state r now. he spent most of wednesday fuming about vice prident pence, angry with his loyal number two, not responsiveo the needs of the capitol. he was not engaged in the decision to deploy the military, the national guard up there to help quell the unrest. he resisted pleasrom his virs to tell his supporters to go home and to stand down. he resisted recording the video that he ultimately grudgingl agreed to do last night for the very first time acknowledging hisctoral fate which is that he lost the election. and that there's going to be a new presideome january0. but this is a difficult type r the preident. and the reality is there are very few advisors left around him. we've seen a number of resignations a those who are the closest to him rightow, mark meadows, the chief of staff, among others, are his biggest enablers. they're the people who are giving the president

misinformation who are helping him believe these fantasies that hbelieved for t last two months about the election. and that has a lot of other people in the administration very concerned about how dangerous he might be aid prt in his final 12 days. yamiche: and phil, you're saying it's a difficult moment for the president also a difficult moment of course for the nation. let's take a closer look at the breach on capitol hill wednesday. the violence left five pple dead. that as a pandemic continu kill thousands of americans every day. president trump now faces allegations that he incited riot. in a speech an hour before violence broke out, he encouraged his supporterso march t theapitol. president trump: we won in a landslide. this was a landslide. all vice president pence has to do is send it back to the states to we're going to walk down to the yocapitol. ll never take back our country with weakness. you have to show strength. and you have to b strong.

yamiche: what president trump said is not true. did lose t election. and the vice president's role was only ceremonial. jake, you were inside the capitol as all this was happening. i saw your vid of the chaos as it was reporting from the white house. what did youe see inse building, the protesters, and with capitol police who some say failed to do their jobs? jake: well, you know, clearly it's a failure of a lot of people when a crowd, a mob, not a protest, a mob of people end up init the c running free and roaming free throuout the otherwise or the previously secure hallways. i was sitting in the house periodical press gallery where i sit every day, everyone here knows where that is. and i -- i walked out to -- down the mallway and i knew that people had gotten into the building. and people were smashinfr feet me, smashing their way through this glass door.

gewe've seen the i all over. a police officer fell. and they were -- xt thing i knew, we were i hunkered down an office for three hours. people were banging on ours. do people were armed. people -- there was a swat team going throughout the hallway. weyeren't actua evacuated, yamiche, it's fascinating, for several hours. bunch of reporters and kept saying to ourselves what should we do? and i kept saying. nothi we don't have -- we're not armed. we have no way of defending ourselves against large crowds ofeople. i mean, it was -- it was an alarming episode toay the least. and the scary thing is we always talked about in the capitol wheer, you know, if people got in, would we -- would police ever be able to get them out? it's such a large and sprawling you know, suildings put together. it's a large complex. thankfully, with the help of the f.b.i.,., a.t capitol police, secret service, d.c. police, they were able to clear the place out and secure it

on again. but a really,n episode that i'll never forget. yamiche: we will never forge this episode. and what you're describing just gave me goose bumps because it's sory s. nancy, you've been in that building, that capitol building so many times. it'sne of the most cure buildings in the world. when i go through there i have to get checked and all my stuff gets scanned. how did this mob get in? how did this happen? nancy: well, in some may have simply been a failure of not just intelligenceut o manu raju nation. everne at the capitolused to huge protests. that's just sort of a fact of plife he on capitol hill. but they are usually peaceful protests and people are willing tomoet arrested and asking to get arrested. they want to make their point peacefully. this was the absolute oosite. you had hundreds if not thousands of people banging o those doors. they came with weans. and they just simplyel overd the capitol police force. and i think, you know, when i talk about a flure of

imagination, i just don't think anyone had ever conceived that t something lis could happen because it had never happened before. and when i startedhe day on wednesday, here at the capitol, the last thing on my mind was theli possi that this ge crowd -- and i saw people gathering in the streets on my way to work before dawn -- they were already out there by the hundreds. it never occred to me that they might en masse storm the and clearly law enforceme officials hadn't considered that, either. t we're now a really unusual situation, yamiche, where the house sargeant at arms, the a senate sargeant arms and the capitol police chief have all stepped down week and a half before the inauguration. you've got all the power at thep top here on itol hill and law enforcement gone before one of ourst big high security events, the inauguration of the next prident, at a tim when there are great concerns that these

individuals could try to strike n. so yes, tonight the capitol is secure. but i can tell you loofmentak las, a lot of aides, still feel very nervous because they're worried that something like this could happen again. and they themselvesbere still g hounded at the airrt, on airplanes, wherever they go. lindsey graham had to have a full complement of law enforcement around him at the airport today. because people were screaming at him. this is not going away yamiche: astead, you've been doing so much repting when it comes to right wing extremism. did you see this coming? what is -- has your reporting told you whether or not a moment like thisould happen? astead: yeah. in some ways, i think for some of us who have been not in couny, over the last three or four years, not only at trump rallies, and that kind of eallernts, organized online, you've seen this violence. you've seen thisype of mob activity before. it has been a feature of the trump presidenc and the trump era. it's been frankly, though, out

of the mainstream case. this is communities that have organized locally. and have been really motivated and really potixnt of ndnspiracy and bigotry. a f mess of misinformation. but also one that does not kind of believe in theeal tenets of multiracial democracy and does not respect olose' right to really have their say on this government. you know, i remember bng in northwest arizona last year, the event called trump stock and a man p his gun on the table and said if donald trump loses, we'll have another civil war. that's the type of language yoheve heard at type of things for a while. what happened yesterday was aio culmin of knows events that came to washington, to the seat of democracy, to the kind of hollow places where we don't think this is possible. but it has been gwing and fermenting around the country for years. split in the republican party is growing. almost every republican i talkedo this week was obsessed with this question, goes to what astead was talking about, what is the path forward

forhe party the g.o.p. divisions will be on full display on inaguration day. vice president pence is going. president trump is not. my sources tell me that tensions insidehe g.o.p. are as high as it gets and that trump is furious at vice president pence and the ngressional republicans.nancy, this all week. what is going on inside the g.o.p.? nancy: well, there's a lot ofoi fingering to put it lightly. a number of republicans kind of outright turning on some of the individuals who really led the charge this week to vote against the electoral college results, to challenge them. they were accused of selling their supporters and president trump supporters on this fantasy that perhaps he had won the election after all, that there was massive voter fraud, that the election could be overturned. and they are really coming under withering attk not just from some of their colleagues here on capitol hill, some democrats ha directly called on individuals like ted cruz

and josh hawley to resign. but from the busess world, hawley left -- lost a book deal and from some of their republican mentors. we have seen a lot of republicans sort of come out and say that they're very concerned with what the president has said. i haven't heard too many republicans come out anday that they themselves wish that they could take some of the things they had done back. that they wished that perhaps they hadn't joined this movemento try to challenge the ectoral college results. so, you know, a lot of finger pointing. t not a lot of soul searching i'd say just yet. yamiche: soul sea. phil, there has been a lot of trump got intoffice. president we've covered him together. we've seen his fal allegations, his false information. talk to me a little bit about which is that president trump was raging uncontrollably about

perceived acts of betrayal and president trump in some ways never really trusted establishment republicans. whatea are youing? philip: he never did, yamiche. part of his whole brand has been that he's the victim, right? that the elites, thele peopho are in power in washington, but also in the business world, in new york, that they were out to get him. and that he was an outsider. that's how he developed so much support around the country and how he got elected president and -- what he's seen right nowc is that it's aing home to roost in these final couple of weeks. losing support. he's losing members of his cabinet. he's losing members ofis staff. but he's also losing allies on capitol hill. senator lindsey graham one of his closest friends, golfing partners, fiercest defenders in the senate, over these last rs four y basically said it was an interesting ride but it's over. m doneith trump. i'm moving on. senate leader mitch mcconnell hasold other senators according to our reporting that he does not intend to ever speak tomp donald t again.

the two have been estranged these last few weeks. not been on speaking terms. but mcconnell's finished and his wife, elaine khao, transportation secretary, resigned on thursday. and i think we're going to continue to see this. we just in the last hour or two saw that lisa murkowski, the republican senator from alaska, has said that she's done with trump. she thinks he needs to leave and we very well could start hearing from some more in the days and hours come. yamiche: yism is talking about that strange relationship between president trump and congressional republicans. jake, you wrote in punch bowl news this week that kevin mccarthy and president trump t into a screaming match. is this bond between president trump and congressisal republicnd even maybe the vice president, is it broken? that they had relied on for ion many years toind of smooth over at least internally their relationship or in theindr their relationship, that

transaction is up. that transaction was put up with kind of disgusting behavior and behavior that we really can't stomach. in exchange for conservative judges and conservative policies and thingf that nature. that's up. donald trump is going to be president for another couple of days and he's gone. the incentive structure has changed. now, kevin mccarthy, the top republican in the house of representatives has a different calculus. he wants to win the majority back. he believes there a lot of people in his conference, republican members of the hoe, who are from districts that donald trump is very popular in. and who frankly support donald trum and he doesn't want to get cross wise with them. p but a lot ople would argue, and i think this is a fair argumt to make, that the reason at that his rank suspect file is supportive of -- and file is supportive of donald t trumy have no alternative. if commargy doesn't split with trump they don't split with trump. so it's a complicated situation.

inbut i -- i think everyone's right here which is herepublicans are just --re tired of him. and this was the final straw. yamiche: just t weeks before the inauguration camad these ne events, president-elect joe biden has thursday, biden said this. president-elect biden: no one can tell me that if it had been a group of black lives matter protestingesterday there wouldn't have been -- they wouldn't have been treated very, very differently than the f bugs that stormed the capitol. we all know that's true. and it is unacceptable, totally unacceptable. b yamiche: now ih the house and the senate, democrats have control. that comes after democrats john osoff and raphael warnock won the georgia senate races. that would have been our top story this week in any other week. astead, president-man elect joe biden is talking about unity and healing the soul of the nation and will it work after

all thief witnessed? astead: y real core believe of joe biden. this is something that is not just a kind of political move from him. dst it's how he kind of sees and underst the universe. and ha understood hi negotiating of washington in his decades in the senate. and so this is not -- this is something that is going to be around and has frustrated some. and i've talked to people w are in tho meetings with him in the transition who are trying to get him to dge to embrace kind of unilateral executive orders, to prioritize things like combating racial injustice or other issues or the idea of bipartisanship and kind of washington civility. but joeed biden has respo to them in those meetings saying he is certain that there is going to be a break from kind of trumpism among republicans. and that he is going to hold on to that belief. going to have to see where that goes. and -- in the next couple of months. is this w movementre he is going to be able to really see that?

but you know, jon ossoff and raphael warnock served him a big step on thatront. because he does not have to deal with the mitch mcconnell senate anymore. the question is whether he will be so concern with kind of healing hearts and minds in a he -- or there will be aocus on the policy change that can happen. whether congressional republicans break with trump or not what we know is the bas w has beh him. conservative side have still been motivated by him. i don't know if that's something that joe bidenan c heal in rhetoric. but that is something that he can target in terms of policy. yamiche: 10 seconds left, but phil, i want to go to you. fat do you make o just what things look like now with the o.p. at one poi wanting to look at president trump for 1dterms? ju seconds left. philip: you know, yamiche, we're going to have s to because this is such an evolving story but i wouldn't count trump out.hr we've seengh history that politicians can disappear for a

while and have a resurgence later. so we'll see. yamiche: that's it for tonight. thank you o to panel, nancy cordes,d astrndon, phil rucker --, jake sherman. this is a heart brtiin of the images of this week's attack a burned into our collective souls. but democracy persisted. united we still stand. thank you so much for joining us tight. be sure to check out our "washington week" extra. we'll ctinue this conversation. you'll find it online on our social media and on ourbs e. i'm yamiche alcindor. stay safe. good night from washington. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

announcer: corporate funding provided by -- boeing.is kaiser permanente. consumer cellular. additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams and koo and patricia yuen ro h the yuen foundation, committed to bridgg cultural differences in our communities, the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

candy: i grew up with the american dream. ntika: but all asian immig were denied the right of naturalized citizenship and with the exclusion act, the chinese became the first undocumented immigrants. candy: the american dream is a lovely dream to have and so people continue to aspire; enduring whatever it is that they've got to do as immignts. len: japanese americans fought on the side the united states, while threst of their family was incarcerated. erika: legal challenges were so nimportant because they d have political power. and as much as tragedy is a part of r heritage here, so is possibility. man: asian voices are coming out. alex: you've got these young people fighting to