jonathan: the case against donald trump. >> donald trump surrendered his role as commander in chief and became the inciter in chief. jonathan: house managers make the case donald truffer incited a mob to storm the u.s. capitol jeopardizing the lives of his own vice president and the democratic leadership. >> where are you, nancy? we're looking for you. jonathan: and brutizing law enforcement. >> i think most republicans found the presentation offensive and absurd. jonathan: with conviction in the senate unlikely, what about the court of public opinion? >> the house democrats hate donald trump. jonathan: did trump lawyers make the case that the former president is not responsible for the insurrection?

>> we just want law and order. jonathan: next. anuncer: this is "washington week." corporate funding is provided by -- announcer: consumer cellular. kaiser permanente. 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 contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. jonathan: good evening and welcome to "washington week." i'm jonathan karl. this week the horrific sights and sounds of january 6 echoed through the very senate chamber that was ransacked by rioters

just five weeks ago. the house impeachment managers did more than make their case against donald trump. they documented in vivid and excruciating detail what happened on that day. a minute by minute account of the deadly insurrection including never seen before footage of the mob invading the capitol, brutallyttacking the police, threatening revenge on members of congress, and even the execution of the vice president. and the managers outlined exactly what donald trump did before the riot and what he failed to do aftert started. >> he assembled the mob. he summoned the mob. and he incited the mob. >> the first and second in line to the presidency, president trump put a target on their backs and his mob broke into the capitol to hunt them down. >> can our country and democracy ever be the same if we don't hold accountable the

person responsible for inciting the violent attack against our country? jonathan: well, some senate republicans appeared shaken by the managers' presentation. few if any seemed to have changed their minds. trump's legal team argued that the trial itself is unconstitutional, in a anything the president said is protected by the first amendment. and that responsibility for what happened lies solely with the rioters themselves. >> it is constitutional cancel culture, hatred and anger has led managers to ignore their own words and actions and set a dangerous double standard. >> countless politicians have spoken of fighting for our principles. no human being seriously believes that the use of such met a forkel terminology -- metaphorical terminology is incitement to political violence. jothan: tonight we have the reporters who have been in the middle of it all covering the insurrection and the impeachment trial writing the first draft of history. rachel bade, co-author of politico playbook, julie pace,

washington bureau chief for the associated press, phil rucker, senior washington correspondent for "the washington post," and my cleague, rachel scott, congressional correspondent for abc news. rachel scott, let's get right into it. you were tre at the capitol on january 6. surrounded by the mob. did the impeachment managers capture the horror of what you yourself witnessed? rachel s.: john, i got to tell you, i remember leaving that day on january 6 and thinking to myself it could have been much worse. an as i watched those videos that we've never seen before, i thought i barely even knew the half of it. it was traumatizing. it was gut wrenching. and it was the first time that so many of these lawmakers saw just how close they got to the violence. and i remember a democratic aide texting me in the middle of that 13-minute long video that played on the very first day of the trial and if you're outraged that ishe point. they felt like this video would move the needle, would change minds. and it opened up the mind of

senator bill cassidy. he ended up changing his vote. voting for the trial to move forward but as you say there in the open, few if any republicans were really swayed and many feel the trial is uncons turingsal. jonathan: rachel bade, you know how much the senators kind of treasure their desks and how that is -- seems kind of sred territory, the senate floor. i thought what was really striking was how they opened the trial. they got right to the -- those rioters there in the senate chamber, rifling through the desks of the senators. rachel b.: yeah. clearly the managers sort of make this calculation that they could make this personal appeal to senate republicans who lived through this as well just like democrats. but the interesting thing about this whole trial is that a lot of senate republicans, well, perhaps publicly, not saying how they'll vote, were looking for an excuse to sort of vote to acquit. we had been reporting even before this trial began on private calls between senate republicans where a lot of them

were saying, you know, how can we get out of this? can we -- mitch america connell, can you go to the supreme court and say this trial is unconstitutional and stop it in its tracks? mcconnell responded that he wouldn't and he couldn't. but the reality is the republican base right now is behind president trump. and so a lot of these senators, we've heard them come out this week, leave the chamber and say the managers were very effective in their presentations. a lot of them are expressing that they were very impressed with the democrats, jamie rass kin, t lead manager. but is it really going to make a difference? they need 17 senate republicans to vote to convict trump to actually have that conviction. it's very unlikely to happen. and again, it just goes back to the politics. a lot of people are looking at this through a very political lens. jonathan: but julie, when you look at their presentation, they clearly -- the managers i think in stark con trast to the first impeachment trial of donald trump tried to speak to those republican senators. but there is also something much bigger at stake here than

what the final whip count, the final vote count will be on acquittal or conviction. theyere also speaking to the country and speaking to history, weren't they? julie: and i think that's really important to make clear here. you know, impeachment is inherely a polital process. so politics will clearly guide the votes of many of these republicans. but this was about something much more than laying down a marker on donald trump's future. this is about this moment in this country. and even though it feels like in some ways that this riot was so long ago, it was just a few weeks ago. andness a really seminal moment for the country. and the forces that we saw that were guiding those rioters to storm the capitol they are very much still out there. the fervor that we saw, the willingness of people to be taken in by false attacks on this election by lies about this election, that exists. and so the democrats feel like they have to reallyone in on the emotion of that day, really make clear to people just how

dangerous this was regardless of whether it ultimately changes the minds of republican senators or not. jonathan: and we'll have a vote, phi tomorrow on witnesses it seems all but certain there will be no witnesses in this trial. but there kind of needs at some point to be a even more -- a much more detailed accounting. there's still basic questions we don't know. i guess the one that's in the top of my mind is what was donald trump doing inside the white house for the first hours that this riot was under way? i mean, phil, that's something -- you would have liked to have seen mark meadows called as a witness, for instance, or other white house officials. phil: yeah. john, that's exactly right. and those are questions that senators asked of trump's impeachment lawyers today in this trial and the lawyers were unable to provide an answer. and there's been detailed rigorous reporting in the news media about how trump spent that day and yet there still has not been a minute by minute accounting of when did he find

out about the siege and his vice president was uer attack and when was he getting those phone calls from people like senator lindsey graham? when did ivanka trump come into the oval office to try to plead with him to try to tell his people to stand down? all of the zirgs points and the activity -- decision points and the activity of the president in the oval office and in his private study watching this on television the public should know about. and especially the details relating to the vice president. when did the president as commander in chief know that his own vice president was under threat? and how long did it take before he did anything? jonathan: and among those potential witnesses, kevin mccarthy has been reporting out there, and i certainly talked to republicans in the house who talk about mccarthy getting in a screaming match with the president as he was getting evacuated from the capitol, pleading with him, mccarthy has said some of this publicly, pleading with him to get out there and call off the rioters. you -- you could have -- kevin mccarthy as a witness here.

and i imagine if there is a further inquiry, we'll have to be asked questions about that as well. phil: that's exactly right. and so much of this process should be about the truth. and bringing the truth to the public. remember, after major moments of national crisis like 9-11, there have been extensive investigations designed to sort of bring a factual narrative to the public's attention. and while the house impeachment managers put together the narrative as best they could based on the resources they had, which was mainly social media posts and video feeds and news reporting, there has not been that -- that oral history, the interviews with the people who were in the room to really provide the full accounting. jonathan: clearly that has to happen. getting back to the trial, the house managers argued that president trump both incit the riot and refused to stop it. even as he certainly should have known what was going on. they cited both hts actions in the days leading -- his actions in the days leading up to the riot. >> this pro-trump insurrection did not spring into life out of thin air.

we saw how trump spent months consult -- cultivating america's most dangerous extremist groups and how he riled them up with corrosive lies and violent rhetoric, so much so that they were ready and eager for their most dangerous mission, invalidating the will of the people to keep donald trump in office. jonathan: and his push on january 6 to get vice president mike pence to stop the electoral count. >> mike pence, i hope you're going to stand up for the good of our constitution and for the good of our country. and if you're not, i'm going to be very disappointed in you. i will tell you right now. jonathan: the managers show pence being evacuated from the senate chamber and the mob calling on him -- calling for him to be handing. so julie julie we knew about the mob and the calls to hang mike pence, but we learned something new in this trial. we saw just how close that mob came to actually getting him. julie: absolutely. i mean, that was one of the things that was so striking

about this. is just seeing just how close this was to the vice president, the second in command of this country, to also see the way the rioters were very clearly targeting trying to get after nancy pelosiy the speaker of the house. and also the other thing i thought was so powerful about these videos is really the audio, actually, hearing the words of these rioters. and seeing just how directly motivated they were by these false attacks on the election. there was a feeling among some of those rioters that they actually were going to be able to go and stop this process. they were actually going to be able to go and stop joe biden from being certified as the winner of this election. and that is directly linked to the attacks by donald trump was making for weeks and mths beyond the rally that he had just hours before the riot. this had been a pretty calculated process for -- for trump to try to build this kind of fervor among his supporters and we see where it led. jonathan: you know, i had a meeting with donald trump a few weeks after the mass shootness

2019 in el paso and dayton. and i brought up to him his rhetoric about journalists. i said -- i wrote about this in my book. i told him that his -- that some crazy person could take hisords to heart when he talks about the press as the eny of the people, that somebody could take his words to heart. and i urged him to change that rhetoric. this was a meeting in the oval office and his answer i thought of as we saw this all unfold and it really -- it was haunting. he told me, i hope people take my words to heart. and i don't think he meant that he wanted people to literally go out and act and take out enemies of the people. but it's almost rachel scott you covered so many of these -- you covered the trump campaign. you were at countless rallies before trump rallies during the course of the campaign. i almost get a sense that he never is able to comprehend or

deal with the fact that people could act on what he is saying. could take him literally and act on what he's saying. rachel s.: yeah. and john, i really do think back to some of those rallies. i was at the rally when president trump suggested that congresswomen of color should go back where they came from and people inside that arena chant send her back e they hang on his every word and when i covered the riots that deadly insurrection here on january 6, that's what i thought about. it felt a little bit like a trump rally. and they were echoing every single claim. they felt like they were there because they were defending the president of the united states. and i also thought that was so compelling. and the house impeachment managers' case here because they were playing back his supporters' words and which they were -- they were saying no, we felt le president trump wanted us to storm the united states capitol. they were using his own supporters' words against him in those moments. but still, his team firing back

today, and saying he didn't incite the riot. that those people that broke inside the capitol right here did -- did it on their own accord and did it without former president donald trump. but there is no denying just how much of an effect that he has on his supporters. they listened to everything that he says. jonathan: but phil, one argument that the defense team made is that -- you know, trump has spoken like ts for five years. in fact, the managers brought up things that he had said back in the early stages of the campaign as far back as 2015. and we never saw something like this. so what -- i mean, what is different here? trump has talked about getting your country back and they're trying to steal your country. he's talked about voter fraud even before the election actually happened. so what -- what different happened here? did the managers kind of establish that?

>> i think that was the challenge -- jonathan: go ahead, phil. phil: what the democratic house managers established was they built this whole foundation that trump had laid over the course of many months dating back to the summer of 2020, before the election that he was predicting there would be widespread election fraud even though there was no evidence of that. then he was predicting that the mail-in ballots would be fraudulent even though there was no evidence of that. and then after the election, day after day after day, in his public comments and in his tweets, on social media, claiming that the election had been stolen, claiming it was rigged, claiming that there was all of this fraud and that he had actually won in a landslide. none of that is true. but it creates the context flew which those -- that the rioters, that the demonstrators gathered on january 6 here in washington. and that's where that anger and that violence and that organized insurrection, that's what it was motivated by. that's the case that the democratic house managers made. jonathan: i mean, in some ways, julia, it seemed to me that

this was a shocking event of course january 6. but it wasn't entirely surprising because donald trump had been calling for something like this for a long time. and now finally, his supporters really took him at his word. julie: and one of the things i thought was pretty disingenuous of the of the case his lawyers were making that he has been saying these things for so long and actually there has been concern for quite some time and you mentioned it, john, in your conversation with him. there has been a lot of concern about what the impact of his rhetoric would be. and just because we hadn't seen something like this before didn't mean that that -- that concern had been alleviated. d so there was almost -- even though it was so incredible to watch that riot unfold in real time, and really almost unbelievable to see this happen at the u.s. capitol, there was this sense that something like this was inevitable. that this had been building for so long that we were -- we were due to reach a boiling point which we of course did. jonathan: and senator mcconnell

had some of his strongest words against donald trump and what he was saying about the election before the riot when he -- when he went on the senate floor and talked about how we have to finally acknowledge that this election is done. and that joe biden is the -- is the predent-elected. he has also told his republican colleagues that this is a vote of conscience this vote on impeachment. but 44 republican senators have voted to end the trial. they did it twice. they did it before the trial even started. and most of them all as we have discussed, seemed poised to voteot guilty again. so rachel bade you wrote something very interesting and provocative this morning saying effectively it's not impossible that mitch mcconnell could surprise everybody. he hasn't ruled out voting guilty. i think most people would be shocked if he did. but you're saying there's a chance? rachel b.: well, look, if i'm a betting person, if you're a betting person, i definitely

wouldn't put any money on this. but i think the reality here is that if you talk to senate republicans who are very close to mcconnell, they will even tell you that they don't know what he's going to do. he hasn't been telling them. he hasn't been signaling which way he's leaning. you watch him in the trial. he barely moves. barely blinks. he's got his hands in his lap and doesn't take notes. and he's just been very quiet. and we know -- we said this and weemp talking before the -- we were talking before the show mcconnell more than any other republican wants trump to be gone. he thinks he's bad for the republican party and he accused him of provoking the january 6 riots, that -- in no uncertain terms. mcconnell is also 78 years old. and perhaps is in the twilight of his career in legacy mode what does he want to be remembered by? pehaps this is his moment where he does something that is surprising. and you know, as somebody who covered him, if you go read his memoir, he talks very fondly about his idols. henry clay, the great

compromiser who tried to kee the union togeer before the civil war, a senator who broke withis constituents, to support the civil rights act even when his constituents were pro-segregationists. he talks very fondly of these republican leaders who, you know, had this vote of conscience at one point or another to take a stand. and so i agree with pretty much every republican -- or i'm sorry every congressional reporter on the hill saying that this is very unlikely. but it's just really different from the last impeachment where mcconnell was whipping people behind the scenes and y knew how he was going to vote and he's been very quiet. so we'll just have to see. right now we think probably going to be about five senate republicans that vote to convict. but behind the scenes, i mean, there are senate republicans who are predicting there could be more. and mcconnell could be on that list. we just don't know. jonathan: and by the way if there are five or four senate publicans that vote to convict, that will be smashing the record for the most senators of a president's party

voting to convict in an impeachment trial. in fact, we never saw it happen once until last year when mitt romney voted guilty on one of those counts. but let me ask you, rachel scott, the question of is there anything else they can do? so if the republicans who have by and large not defended donald trump's actions on january 6, they don't want to vote to convict him in a senate trial, making the case it's unconstitutional, is there any sense of anyovement to try to do something else to be on record, censure, something, to say that -- as an official part of the record, that they condemn what he did? rachel s.: senator john thune today, the number two republican senator, has said that he would possibly, maybe be open to the idea of censure. i know that's something that democrats have floated before. and they have to get some agreement on the language on the idea of the resolution. but at this point, i think it

still remains to be seen and clearly the republican party is struggling with their identity going forward, even thinking about republican leader kevin mccarthy. placing some of the blasme on president trump -- blame on president trump and flying to florida to have lunch with him a few days before the trial started. i mean, it's clear that they're trying to figure out what to do and so much of that hinges on what trump wants to do. and frankly as you know, john, from covering him so extensively, nobody knows what trump is going to do until trump decides that himself. and i think so much of the future of what the republican party does, and especially in these moments following this trial, will hinge on what trump wants to do as well. jonathan: all right. let's take it to that. trump's future. we saw very intriguing article about nikki haley in politico. a very long articleets into some of the very contradictory things haley has said about donald trump over time. but of course she serd in his

administration. she has very rarely criticized him, considered a potential presidential candidate and maybe even a leading presidential candidate. and look what she said to tim alberta on january 12 published today. we need to acknowledge he, donald trump, let us, republicans, down. he went down a path we shouldn't have. and we shouldn't have followed him. and we shouldn't have listened to him. and we can't let that ever happen again. now, phil, unclear whether or not nikki haley still believes that. again, this was an interview she did a few weeks ago but how widespread is that view among republicans that they cannot listen to donald trump, they can't follow donald trump's lead anymore? phil: you know, the interesting thing, john, is i think if you were to do a silent survey of republican elected officials, you would find many of them in agreement with nikki haley. but you would probably find very few of them willing to say so on the record and by name. and that's because donald trump remains the dominant force in

the republican party. he has widespread support among republican voters. according to virtually any poll and survey. the question, however, will be what kind of role will trump have going forward? he's been canceled effectively on social media. he's lost that platform and that ability to speak out hour-by-hour and inject himself into the news cycle. he has told advisors he's determined to play kind of a king maker role in the next election cycle in the 2022 midterms. he of course has talked and mused about maybe running for president again in 2024. although many people around him have told me they think that's very unlikely. but nonetheless, he could be a big force. he could also just disappear and you could see the republican party rebuild in his wake. and there's going to be real competition among haili and many others, dozens of other leaders around the country, governors, senators, members of congress, even mayors, who are going to want foff a stake in that future.

jonathan: and i suspect, phil, whatever the long-term plans are that as soon as this is over and if he is acquitted he will want to get out there pretty quickly. and declare himself vindicated. phil: absolutely. jonathan: all right. that is all the time we have tonight. i want to thank rachel bade, phil rucker, julie pace and rachel scott, thank you for taking the time to join us what has been a very busy and truly historic week. the conversation continues on "washington week" extra which streams live on our website and social media. joining us for a conversation on president biden's agenda and his efforts to fight the covid-19 pandemic. i'm jonathan karl. 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 forwashington week" is provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular has been offering no contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you. to learn more, visit consumercellular.tv. announcer: kaiser permanente. 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 contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

♪♪ [ whirring ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪