anchor: the attack one year later. >> we are not going to take it anymore. anchor: we remember the deadly insurrection. >> how did something like this happen? >> president trump was sitting in the dining room next to the oval office watching on television. >> the big lie has driven states across the country to make new laws. anchor: he continues today. >> those involved must be held accountable. >> we must decide what kind of nation are we going to be? anchor: in the great american experiment. next. ♪ >> this is "washington week."

corporate funding is provided by -- >> consumer cellular's goal is helping people communicate and connect. our customer service team can find a plan that fits you. >> additional funding is provided by the estate of arnold adams. the ewan foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting. and contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> once again from washington, our moderator.

>> welcome to "washington week." it has been one year and one day since the january 6 attack. washington remains deeply scarred. former president trump has continued to spread lies about the election. on thursday, president biden addressed the nation. >> the former president has created a web of lies about the election. you cannot love your country only when you win. you cannot obey the law only when it is convenient. you can't be patriotic when you enable lies. yamiche: in a statement, former

president trump said president biden was engaged in political theater. he set the democrats want to own the day so they can stoke fears and divide america. congresswoman liz cheney called out her republican colleagues for downplaying the riot. some trump loyalists quickly fired back. >> they out to be ashamed of themselves. history will judge them. >> we are proud of the work we did to make legitimate arguments about election integrity. yamiche: tonight, joining me are four reporters who wrote the first draft of this chapter of american history. the white house correspondent for the new york times area a washington post investigative reporter. she is the co-author of a book about donald trump. the senior justice reporter for huff post. he is also working on a book

about the insurrection. thank you so much for joining us remotely as we continue to deal with the pandemic. you saw the rioters break into the capital. what sticks out to you about that day? talk about the lingering trauma. >> i will start with your second question, which i think is the most important. tens of thousands of people come into the capitol every day. many of them are construction workers, electricians, plumbers, lawyers, clerks. no one asked for this.

they are particularly scarred. i think a lot of my colleagues are very scarred by the incident. it is the said adele of democracy. we have all covered it. it is something that will linger with the institution for a long time. the people that capitol the is a safe place. i have no evidence that that is the case anymore. i think we are in an unusually

dangerous time in our politics. especially our legislative politics. i think a lot of that is fallout from january 6. the republicans really ceded the stage to marjorie taylor green and matt gates. -- gaetz. their views are not representative of anybody in the conference. kevin mccarthy did not even issue a statement. it is a very difficult day. republicans did not do well. yamiche: it is an unusually dangerous time. you immediately began reporting about how rioters broke in. what have we leaed about the possible role of lawmakers or president trump in this attack?

>> i immediately began getting leads from my law enforcement sources. i really had no idea. what we have learned is so important. there was great investigative work. things that the january 6 committee is now corroborating. they are making it admissible evidence. so is the fbi. donald trump was sitting on his hands for more than 2.5 hours watching gleefully as his supporters broke through a

police line. as they took bear spray into a radios and other weapons and began attacking police. his only concern came when he found out things had gotten violent. and someone had been shot. she was breaking through the glass into speak -- speaker pelosi's lobby. that is when president trump became concerned that this did not look so good. now lawmakers say it was just a tourist holiday. it was a calm group of people who wanted to support the president and defend democracy. it was not violent. we know all of them were privately texting president trump's chief of staff, begging

him to get the president to call off the dogs. telling them things i gone too far. lawmakers were running for their lives. we have also learned that close allies of president trump's were in contact with some of the people who were charged with the most grievous events of the day. yamiche: we will talk about the gop and the shifting tone. president biden came out with a forceful rebuke of president trump. he used words like defeat, loss, failure. what are you hearing from the white house about the decision to do that? >> what we saw yesterday was a shift. the president has condemned what happened on january 6. he has criticized the policies of his predecessor.

the white house press secretary said they did not want to amplify the former president. they want to focus on the president's agen the divisions that trump stoped would fade away. that did not happen. those divisions are still throughout the u.s. from the halls of congress to school board meetings. what he was saying to his team was he just did not want to criticize the mob that stormed to the capital, but also those who enable the mob. specifically former president trump. that is what you saw yesterday.

folks have said when it comes to this topic, you may hear that tone. whether or not we are going to hear it in other areas, i do not know. yamiche: i want to turn to the republican attempts to whitewash january 6. there has been a significant shift in tone as time has passed. former vice president mike pence, who is personally targeted, has sought to downplay it. >> as we reconvene in this chamber, the world will again witness the resilience and strength of our democracy. even in the wake of unprecedented violence and vandalism. >> i know the media wants to distract from the biden administration's failure.

yamiche: you love to the capitol . you shared some moving photos of it. you wanted to see what these people had done to the headquarters of congress. >> i think everyone is goin back to square one. that has really shifted over me. what you will see for the next few years is this constant drumbeat of cases that remind us of what happened that day.

he was a really big trump supporter. he was arrested 12 days after. it was just textbook. everything in their was exactly what you would expect. he used a fire extinguisher on police as they were under attack. and then he threw it at police. that will be the narrative going forward. this constant reminder. yamiche: while some 700 people have been charged, that is only a fraction of the people who were involved in that attack.

what is coming next on that front? where might this be headed? >> we expect public hearings in the next few months. it will be interesting to see how they structure those public hearings. there are couple points. a lot of news is being made about the people who are subpoenaed. the trump white house has several people participating in this investigation. and helping the committee figure out what was going obama scenes.

donald trump was taking in the scenes. i think they have a lot more than that. they have a good deal of information about what donald trump was doing that day. i think you will see some kind of interim report in the next five months. and then there will be a larger report about what they know about that day. donald trump had a rally at the white house. he told people to go to the capitol.

they were not tourists. ? government was talking to these folks i have been working at the capitol every day of my life for 12 years. i've never seen tourists break through windows. i know exactly where that is. this is the main hallway. yamiche: something that sticks out was how this group got treated. this is informing how we may interact.

>> i want to also say the misinformation was a direct factor. in terms of the juxtaposition around the treatment, absolutely, i was there. i covered most of the protests. i was there in june. he took a photo op and had rows of federal agents. there was an alphabet soup of federal agencies. there was a black hawk

helicopter in downtown washington. here you had a different situation. you can notice that. you can point to some of the emails. they are messaging and organizer. the national guard will be there. when against a black lives matter protesters, being the law & order president.

there is more evidence coming out. yamiche: you have been looking into the online sleuths that have been turning a lot of these writers into the fbi. -- rioters. >> they have done impressive work. they can make rocksolid cases against these defendants. they put everything out on social media. you are putting some images up earlier. i see a number of people who have not been charged yet. some of them in the crowd have been identified.

dozens of them are on the fbi list. there is a really long path ahead on these cases. you talk about people who went inside the building that day. the total spectrum of cases we could see is around 3000. that is what the fbi will be measuring against. a really long pathway. yamiche: i want to turn to talk about the future of democracy. 64 percent of americans believe democracy is at risk for failing. so my trying to pass laws that

they want to protect voting rights. >> our democracy is in peril. time is running out. if we fail to protect the voices and votes of the american people, than we have fallen way short of our responsibility as members of this body. yamiche: you have been doing so much work on the people who have been working behind the scenes to restrict voting. >> i think he said it exactly right. democracy is in peril. as journalists, what are we looking for? we are looking to ski -- see where we should skate two.

all of the elections that will be held this year where we will have midterms in which i would guess and estimate a lot of republican officials will be saying, wait a minute, my election was rigged. it was not properly handled. the votes were stolen. now i am refusing to except the result. imagine that happening in multiple states with multiple people. as i said before, there are not enough sandbags to stop that flood. it will begin to unravel what is the core of democracy.

volunteers who manned these locations. they are not to be trusted. he was responsible for overseeing improper interference in the election. he made it clear that all the conspiracy theories floating around were bs. they had drilled down to monitor the election. they determined demonstrably that all of those theories were false. but here we are facing a fall when we could have a lot of miniature trump moments. a lot of january 6 moments. yamiche: we just talked about

that. 57 people played a role in january 6 and are running for office. what does that say about where we are and the state of things? >> i think it is incredible. she is running for office. it does not seem to be a setback. endorsing these lies and spreading these lies across the country. it is really frustrating. the lies we are seeing about january 6. yamiche: this is an easy question for you. what is the likelihood that voting rights will be passed and the filibuster will be blown out? >> minuscule. probably not going to happen. yamiche: that gave us a little

bit of time. thank you so much for all of you. thank you for sharing your reporting. we will can tell you our conversation on our website. also tune in to the pbs newshour on monday for a look at a new effort to bridge the nation's political divide. one year later, i want to say my heart goes out to people who are still dealing with the trauma of that day. it is up to all of us to protect democracy going forward. thank you for joining us. good night from washington. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪

>> corporate funding is provided by consumer cellular. additional funding provided by the estate of arnold adams. the ewan foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. robert and susan rosenbaum. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions from your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ johnstone: mrs. vera's going out. she's in a tizzy. ♪♪ ♪♪