06/122 06/14/22 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> president trump's own campaign advisers, the partner of justice, and his cybersecurity experts all told him the same thing, here, for example, is white house lawyer eric herschmann. his view was shared by many of the trum team whom we interviewed. >> i thought the dominion stuff

-- i never saw any evidence whatsoever to sustain those allegations. >> i was demoralized because i thought, he really believes this stuff. he has lost contact with -- he has become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff. >> the big lie was also a big rip off. the former president laid the groundwork for these false claims well in advance of the elections. as early as april 2020. amy: today, highlights from the second public hearing i the house select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol. the main witnesses were from former president trump's inner circle, including former attorney general william barr, bill stepien. also how trump used lies about election fraud to raise $250

million from his supporters for an election defense fund that did not exist. all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the house committee investigating the january 6 insurrection held its second public hearing monday. video testimony was aired of numerous trump white house insiders saying there was no basis to donald trump's claims the election was stolen. former attorney general william barr said trump was "detached from reality" for refusing to accept his election loss. the committee also revealed that trump heavily relied on far-fetched claims by his lawyer rudolph giuliani who was reportedly drunk on election night when he pushed trump to falsely claim victory. the house panel also examined how trump's campaign raked in over $250 million in donations

from his supporters after the election for an election defense fund that did not exist. this is committee member congressmember zoe lofgren. >> throughout the committee's investigation, we found evidence the trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go, what they would be used for, so not only was there a big lie, there was the big rip off. amy: we will spend the rest of the show after headlines on the january 6 hearing and democracy now! is livestreaming all of these hearings live at democracynow.org. the next one is wednesday morning at 10:00 eastern. it's primary day in maine, nevada, north dakota, and south carolina. in nevada, republican voters will be deciding who will challenge democratic senator catherine cortez masto in november in a race that could decide who controls the senate. the republican senate race pits former nevada attorney general

adam laxalt against retired army captain sam brown. laxalt is a close ally of donald trump who supported trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. a number of other republicans who supported trump scuba attempt are also on the ballot today. -- tru'suwait th to us the llot tod. the ves of 3,000 peoe who ed of cod could ve been saved ifhe unitestates h a universahealthcareystem. th's e finding of aew study published in the proceedings of the national academy of sciences usa. the study also estimates a universal healthcare system would have saved the united states $459 billion in health care costs in 2020. the study's lead author of alison galvani of the yale school of public health told scientific american -- "medicare for all would be both an economic stimulus and life-saving transformation of our health care system. it will cost people far less than the status quo."

in other health news new study , a funded by the national institutes of health has concluded ivermectin is not effective at treating covid-19. the study was conducted by researchers at duke university and vanderbilt university. the united kingdom is expected to begin flying asylum-seekers to rwanda today as part of a new immigration policy widely decried by religious leaders and human rights groups. the u.k. plans to send asylum seeks to rwanda who have crossed into britain regardless of where they came from originally. leaders in the church of england have condemned what they describe as a "immoral policy that shames britain." on monday, filippo grandi, the u.n. high commissioner for refugees, also criticized the plan. >> the precedent this creates is catastrophic for a concept that needs to be shared like asylum. we believe this is all wrong. this is all wrong.

this deal. for so many different reasons. and i can enumerate a few. amy: in eastern ukraine, russian forces have destroyed the last bridge connecting severodonetsk to other areas under ukrainian control as heavy fighting continues in the city. ukraine is calling on western nations to provide far more in heavy arms. on monday, crane requested 300 locket lunches, tanks, and 1000 howitzers. this comes as russia has begun issuing passports in some areas is occupying in eastern ukraine as russia attempts to solidify its rule in the region. meanwhile, rsia is accusing ukraine of firing nato-supplied artillery on a market in a russia-controlled area of donetsk, killing three people, including a child. authorities in india have demolished the homes of several muslim activists who organized protests last week triggered by recent anti-islamic comments made by two members of prime minister narendra modi's hindu nationalist bjp party.

the demolitions took place in the northern indian state of uttar pradesh. police also shot dead two teenage muslim protesters. hundreds of muslims have also been arrested. the indian journalist rana ayyub tweeted on monday -- "the modi government has never sent a more chilling message to its muslim minorities. speak up, protest and you will be jailed, booked for terrorism, your houses demolished, shot in public with no semblance of law and judiciary." a number of muslim countries have also lodged protests over india's treatment of its muslim population and recent statements by hindu officials insulting the prophet muhammed. karen --iran suspects israel is responsible for poisoning two iranian scientists who recently died within days of each other in separate cites after apparent food poisoning. "the new york times" reports one of the scientists, ayoub entezari, worked at an iranian military research center. the other was a geologist to according to some press accounts, may have worked at

iran's natanz nuclear facility. israel is also believed to be behind last month's drone attack on an iranian military site that killed a young iranian engineer who worked for iran's ministry of defense. over 100 million people are under heat advisories in the united states as an early season heat wave continues to break records from the southwest to the gulf coast to the great lakes. over the weekend, temperatures in phoenix, arizona, reached 114 degrees and 109 degrees in las vegas, nevada. in houston, local officials warned residents to stay inside. >> when you have extreme heat, then everyone is in danger. when you suffer heat exhaustion, or heat stroke, then your vital organs, your brain suffers damages and you could die. amy: this comes as wildfires have forced hundreds of people to evacuate their homes in california, new mexico, and arizona.

according to the national interagency fire center, firefighte are battling more than three dozen uncontained fires. in montana, record flooding has forced the closing of all five entrances to yellowstone national park. rhodes and bridges in the area have been washed away and some visitors are stranded in the park following unprecedented rainfall. flood levels on the yellowstone river are now beyond record levels. in some areas, the river is two feet higher than the previous records. scientists have long warned the climate emergency will lead to increase the number and severity of heat waves, wildfires, and storms. in related news, the nobel peace prize laureate malala yousafzai joined with youth climate activists greta thunberg and nessa nakate on friday in a protest outside the swedish parliament. yousafzai talked about how the climate emergency is impacting girls across the globe. >> millions of girls lose their access to schools.

even slight routes impact schools directly. because of that, girls are impacted the most, the first one to drop out of school and th last one to return as well. amy: in ohio, republican governor mike dewine has signed a bill to make it easier for teachers and staff to carry guns in school. under the new law, teachers and staff will need just 24 hours of training, down from 700 hours. teacher unions and the fraternal order of police of ohio have opposed the new law. the u.s. supreme court issued two rulings on monday which will make it much harder for people in immigration custody to challenge their detention. in one case, the court ruled that noncitizens who have been held for more than six months in immigration custody are not entitled to bond hearings. justice sonia sotomayor wrote the majority opinion. its second related case, the court ruled that jailed immigrants cannot come together to file class action lawsuits to

demand periodic bond hearings. but in this case, sotomayor wrote a partial dissent, noting -- "today's holding risks depriving many vulnerable noncitizens of any meaningful opportunity to protect their rights." police officers in idaho have reportedly received death threats after officers arrested 31 members of the white supremacist organization known as the patriot front who are accused of plotting to start a riot at a gay pride event. the white supremacists were found packed into the back of a u-haul truck armed with riot gear, including a smoke grenade and shields. on monday, the patriot front members were released on bail which was set at $300 per person. a group of more than 300 doctors from around the world are calling on u.k. home secretary priti patel to block the extradition of julian assange. in a letter to patel, the group known as doctors for assange say the wikileaks founder suffered a mini stroke last october and

that his overall health is continuing to deteriorate in prison. the doctors write -- "the extradition of a person with such compromised health, moreover, is medically and ethically unacceptable." patel is expected to rule on assange's extradition by friday. and there are conflicting reports out of brazil about the search for the missing british journalist dom phillips and the brazilian indigenous expert bruno araújo pereira. the pair went missing nine days -- over a week ago in one of brazil's most remote areas of the amazon. on monday, the family of phillips said they were notified by the brazilian embassy in london that two bodies tied to a tree were found during the search operation. however, the federal police in brazil and indigenous activists aiding the search have said no bodies have been found. the search is focused on a remote area where authorities found personal items belonging to the two men on saturday. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report.

i'm amy goodman. on monday, the house select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol held its second public hearing, with two more scheduled this week wednesday and thursday. democracy now! is bringing the hearings live at democracynow.org. "the washington post" reports there will likely be eight earrings this month with a possible caring in september just ahead of november's midterm election. monday's hearing was briefly delayed when one of the witnesses, former trump campaign manager bill stepien, pulled out of testifying after his wife went into labor. in addition to becoming a father, he is also currently serving as an advisor to the trump endorsed candidate running against the committees's republican vice chair liz cheney in wyoming. video testimony was aired monday of numerous trump white house

insiders saying there was no basis to donald trump's claims the election was stolen. the committee also laid out how trump used eyes about election fraud to raise $250 million of his supporters for an election defensfund that did not exist. this is part of committee vice chair liz cheney's opening remarks. >> first, you will hear firsthand testimony the president's campaign advisers urged him to await the counting of votes and not to do claire victory on election night. the esident derstood, even before the election that many more biden voters had voted by mail because president trump ignored the advice of his campaign experts and told his supporters only to vote in person. donald trump knew before the election that the counting of those mail in ballots in several states would not begin until late in the day and would not be complete for multiple days. this was expected, reported, and widely known.

you will also hear testimony that president trump rejected the advice of his campaign experts on election night and instead followed the course recommended by an apparently inebated rudgiuliani to just claim he won and insist that the vote counting stop, to falsely claim everything was fraudulent. he falsely told the american people that the election was not legitimate, in his words, "a major fraud." millions of americans believed him. second, pay atntion to what donald trump and his legal team said repeatedly about dominion voting machines, far flu conspiracies with a deceased venezuelan communist allegedly pulling the strings. this was "complete nonsense," as bill barr said. president trump's own campaign advisers, his department of justice, and his cybersecurity

experts all told him the same thing. here, for example, is white use lawyer eric herschmann. his view was shared by many of the trump team whom we interviewed. >> i thought the dominion stuff was -- i never saw any evidence whatever to sustain those allegations. >> and third, as mike pence's staff started to get a sense for what donald trump had planned for january 6, they called the campaign experts to give them a briefing on election fraud and all the other election claims. on january 2, the general counsel of the trump campaign, matthew morgan, this is the campaign's chief lawyer, summarized what the campaign had concluded weeks earlier, that none of the arguments about fraud or anything else could actually change the outcome of the election.

>> generally discussed on that topic was whether the fraud maladministration, abuse, or irregularities, if aggregated and read most favorably to the campaign, would that be outcome determinative. and i think everyone's assessment in the room, at least among the staff, marc short, myself, and greg jacob, was that it was not sufficient to be outcome determinative. >> as is obvious, this was before the attack on the capitol. the trump campaign legal team knew there was no legitimate argument, fraud, irregularities, or anything to overturn the election, and yet president trump went ahead with his plans for january 6 anyway. amy: that is january 6 committee vice chair republican wyoming congresswoman liz cheney. during monday's hearing, the committee played video testimony

from the depositions of some of former president trump's top campaign staff, including former -- senior advisor jason miller and trump's own daughter ivanka trump, who was a senior advisor who also trump ignored them on election night a november 2020 when they argued against declaring victory. they described how trump instead turned to his lawyer rudy giuliani, who they said was drunk when he urged trump to claim he'd won and say the election was being stolen. this is former white house campaign manager bill stepien. >> do you remember rudy giuliani being in the white house on election night and into the early hours the next morning? >> i do. >> what do you remember about when he came? >> he -- he was -- there were -- i had heard that he was upstairs, you know, in that aforementioned reception area. and he was looking to talk to

the president. and was suggested instead that he'd come talk to seral of us down off the map room. >> you said that mr. -- you had heard that mr. giuliani wanted to talk to the president and then he was directed your way. did you end up talking to mr. giuliani when he w directed ? >> i did. >> what was at conversation? >> a lot of conversations re directed my way. a few of us, myself, jason miller, justin clarke, mark meadow gathed in a room off the map room to -- to listen to whatever rudy presumably wanted to say to the president. >> was there anyone in that conversation who in your observation had had too much to drink?

>> like -- mayor giuliani. >> tell me more about that? what was your observation about his potential intoxication during that -- that discussion about what the president should say when he addressed the nation election night? >> and the mayor was definitely intoxicated, but i do not know his level of tox -- intoxication when he spoke with the president, for example. >> were you part of any discussions with the people i mentioned, mr. stepien, mr. meadows, or anyone else about whether the president should make any sort of speech on election night? >> iean, i spoke to th president. they may have been present, but the president -- spoke to the president several times that night. >> there are suggestions by, i believe it was mayor giuliani, to go and declare victory and say that we won it outright.

>> it was far too early to be making any calls like that. ballots -- ballots were still being counted. ballots were still going to be counted for days. and it was far too earlyo be making any proclamation like that. >> i remember saying that i -- to the best of my memory, and i was saying that we should not go and declare victory until we had a better sense of the numbers. ok. cayou be more specific about that conversation? in particular, what mayor giuliani said, your response, and then anybody else in the room's response? >> i think effectively, mayor giuliani was saying we want it. they're stealing it from us. where'd all the votes come from? we need to go say that we won. and essentially to anyone who didn't agree with that position was being weak. amy: that is jason miller. >> what was your view at the time as to what he should or

shouldn't say? >> i don't know that i had a firm view as to what he should say in that circumstance. the results were still being counted. it was becoming ear that the race would not be called on election nig. amy: tt was ivanka trump. is is bill stepien. >> my belief -- my recommendation was to say that votes are still being counted. it is too early to tell. too early to call the race. but, you know, we are proud of the race we ran and, you know, we think -- we think we're in a -- in good position. and we'll have moreo say about this, you know, the next day or the next day whenever we h something to say

>> and did abody who ia part of that conversationisagree with your message? yes. >>yes. >> who is that >> the president agreed with th. i don't recall the particular words. he thought i was wrong. he told me so. and, you know, that they were going to, you know, go in it -- he was going -to go in a different direction. amy: that last voice, bill stepien. only come back other former members of president trump's inner circle including former attorney general william barr post of the january 6 committee also laid out how trump lied about election fraud to raise $250 million of his supporters for an election defense fund that did not exist. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "disorder" by joy division. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman.

we are bringing you highlights from monday's hearing of the house select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the u.s. capitol. this is the second of eight hearing scheduled for this month. one of the key witnesses who testified live was former fox news political editor chris stirewalt, who led the fox news decision to become the first network to call arizona for joe biden on election night in november 2020. fox fired stirewalt months later. answering questions from california congressmember zoe lofgren, stirewalt said trump's chance of winning was virtually zero. his comments were supported by trump's former attorney general william barr. >> i wou like you to explain a term that was thrown around a lot in the election and that is the so-called red mirage. what does that mean? >> so in the 40 or 50 years, let's say, that americans have

increasingly chosen to vote by mail or early or absentee democrats prefer that method of voting more than republicans do. so basically in every election, republicans win election day and democrats win the early vote, and then you wait and start counting. and it depends on which ones you count first, but usually it's election day votes that get counted first. and you see the republicans shoot ahead. and then the process of -- of bailing and binding and unbinding all those mail in votes in some states like pennsylvania refused to count the votes first. so you have to wait for all of that to come in. so in every election and certainly a national election, you expect to see the republican with a lead, but it's not really a lead. when you put together a jigsaw puzzle, it doesn't matter which piece you put in first, it ends up with the same image. so for us, who cares? but that's because no candidate had ever tried to avail themselves of this quirk in the election counting system.

we had gone to pains -- and i'm proud of the pains we went to -- to make sure that we were informing viewers that this was going to happen, because the trump campaign and the president had made it clear that they were going to try to exploit this anomaly. and we knew it was going to be bigger because the percentage of early votes was higher, right? we went from about 45% of the votes being early and absentee to -- because of the pandemic that increased by about 50%. so we knew it would be longer, we knew it would be more. so we wanted to keep telling viewers, hey, look, the number that you see here is sort of irrelevant because it's only a small percentage of these votes. >> so this red mirage, that's really what you expected to happen on election night. >> happens every time. >> thank you, mr. stirewalt. i'd like to play a clip of attorney general bill barr, who also explains what was expected to happen on election night. >> right out of the box on election night, the president

claimed that there was major fraud underway. i mean, this happened as far as i could tell before there was actually any potential of looking at evidence. and it seemed to be based on the dynamic that -- that at the end of the evening, a of democratic votes came in which changed the vote counts in certain states. and that seemed to be the basis for this broad claim that there was major fraud. and i didn't think much of that because people had been talking for weeks and everyone understood for weeks that that was going to be what happened on election night. >> mr. stepien obviously could not be with us today and it's proper for him to be with his wife as they welcome their child. but he also had discussions with the president about the red mirage. that is that it would be a long night and that early votes would

favor him, but that lots more votes would be counted over the course of the night and the days after. so let's play clip one from our interview with mr. stepien. >> i recounted back to that conversation with him in which i said -- just like i said in 2016 it was going to be a long night. i told him in 2020 that, you know, there were -- it was going toe a process again. as, you know, the early returns are going to be, you know, positive. and we're going to, you know, be watching the returns of ballots as, you know, they rolled in thereafter. >> isn't it fair to say you're trying to present -- a -- what you thought would be a realistic picture of what might happen over the course of that night, being election night? >> that night in the days that followed. yeah. i always -- i always, you know,

i always told the president the truth. and, you know, i think he expected that from me. and i told him it was going to be a pcess. it was going to be, you know -- you know, we're going to have to wait and see how this turned out. so i -- just like i did in 2016, i did the same thing in 2020. >> so let's watch a short clip of president trump speaking after he received that infoation from his campaign advisers. pres. trump: we want all voting to stop. we don't want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list. >> so when former president trump said that, it contradicted what his advisers had warned would happen. we all know that mail in ballots played an important role in the 20 election. however, president trump

continuously discouraged mail in voting. mr. stepien was so concerned about the president's position on mail in voting that in the summer of 2020, he met with president trump, along with house minority leader kevin mccarthy. let's play clip four. >> meeting that was had in paicular, i invited kevin mccarthy to join the meeting. he being of like mind on the issue with me in which we made r case for why we believed mail in balloting -- mail in voting n to be a bad thing for his campaign. but, you know, the president's mind was made up and you

understand, you know, how many tis to, yoknow, go tthe well on a particular topic. >> yeah, i understand. tell me a little bit more about the argunt that you and mr. mccarthy made to the president in that meeting as to why it wasn't a bad thing that mail in voting was available. >> largely two pillars to that gument, both owhich i've previously mentioned. one, you know, leaving a good deal to chan. pushing or urging your voters to vote only on election day leaves a lot to chance. that's a. and b, also previous mentioned, the fact that the trump campaign, the republican national committee, the republican party had an advantage of grassroots workers and volunteers on the ground that would allow, you know, an advantage to enhance retur

rates of ballots that were mailed. those were the two pillars of the argument. >> i see. and what if anything do you recall representative mccarthy saying during that meeting? >> we were echoing the same argument. i mean, his words echoed -- echoed mine and vice versa on those two topics. amy: this is jane or six committee member -- january 6 committee member zoe lofgren, trump's former campaign manager bill stepien, who we were just listening to. he said he contradicted false election victory claims by trump's lawyer rudy giuliani and was part of what he called "team noal." >> to pull back just for your own professional reputation, did not want to be associated with some of what you're hearing from the giuliani team and others that -- that sort of stepped in in the wake of your departure.

i didn't mind being tegorized. there were two groups of them. we called them kind of my team d rudy's team. i -- i didn't mind being characterized as being part of team normal,s rerters, you know, kind of started to do around that point in time. you know, i said, you know, hours ago, early on, that, you know, i've -- i'veeen doing this for a long time, 25 years, and i've spanned, you know, potical ideologies from trump to mccain to busto christie, you know. and, you know, i canork under a lot of circumstances for a lot varied, you know, candidates and politicians. but a situation where -- and i think along the way i've built up a pretty good -- i hope a od repution for being honest and professional and i didn't think what was happening was necessarily honest or professional at that point in time. so that led to me stepping away.

>> so the president did get rid of team normal. and i'd like to play a clip showing that the president found the people he needed to perpetuate his claims of fraud. >> they saw a big truck bringing in 100,000 ballots in garbage cans, in wastepaper baskets, in cardboard boxes, and in shopping baskets. and every single one of them was for biden because they were being notified by smartmatic in frankfurt that biden was way behind and they better come up with a lot more ballots. and we can prove every single thing i just said. if you gave me the paper ballots, i could probably turn around each one of these state. i'm absotely convinc if you -- if you let me examine each one of those ballo, i'd pull t enough tt were fudulent

that it would shake the hell out of the country. >> it can set and run an algorithm, that probably ran all over the country, to take a certain percentage of votes from president trump and flip them to president biden, which we might never have uncovered had the votes for president trump not been so overwhelming in so many of these states that it broke the algorithm. i remember that one of the things mark said at some point was you can't show an actual vote was flipped, which i found at the time to be a remarkable assertion, because -- because you don't have to have the gun to see the body lying on the floor bleeding out with five bullet holes in it was killed by a gun. >> what they were proposing i

thought was nuts. you know, the theory was also completely nuts, right? i mean, it was a combination of italia and gmans. i me, different thingsave beenloating around as to who was involved. i remember hugo chavez and the venezuelans. she has an affidavit from somebody who says they wrote a software in and something with the philippines, just all over the radar. >> did you ever share, mr. kushner, your view of mr. giuliani? did you ever share your perspective about him with the president? >> i guess, yes. >> tell me what you said. >> well, basically not the approach i would take if i was you. >> ok. and how did he react? how did president trump react when you shared that view with him? >> oh, he said, you know, i -- i have confidence in rudy. >> i think i had conversations with probably all of our counsel who were signed up to assist on

election day as they disengaged with the campaign. the general consensus was that the law firms were not comfortable making the arguments that rudy giuliani was making publicly. i seem to recall that i had a similar conversation with most all of them. >> i made it clear i did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which i told the president was b-- . and, you know, i didn't want to be a part of it. and that's one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when i did. amy: that last voice is the video recording of the deposition of former attorney general bill barr who continues in this testimony. he told -- he talked about how he became demoralized after the 2020 election when he tried to

counter allegations of voting fraud with then-president trump. >> i felt things continued to deteriorate between the 23rd and that we can of the 29th and on november 29, he appeared on maria bartiromo's show, sunday futures, i believe it was. and he said that the department was missing in action. pres. trump: well, no, we had glitches where they moved thousands of votes from my account to biden's account, and these are glitches. so, they're not glitches. they're theft. they're fraud, absolute fraud. this election was over, and then they did dumps. they call them dumps, big massive dumps in michigan, in pennsylvania, and all over. how the fbi and department of justice -- i don't know, maybe they're involved, but how people are allowed to get away from this stuff -- with this stuff is unbelievable. >> now, spurred by what he saw

barr told the associated press on december 1st, that there was no evidence of election fraud, and immediately after attorney general barr's statement went public, mr. trump berated and he nearly fired bar but barr persisted telling the president that there was no evidence to support e fraud claims. >> this got under my skin, but i also felt it was time for me to say something. so on -- i had -- so i set up a lunch with the ap reporter mike balsamo and i told him at lunch -- i made the statement that to date we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election. i had a later meeting scheduled at the white house at 3:00 with meadows. this was previously scheduled. so i knew this was going to come up. and i went over there and i told

my secretary that i thought i would probably be fired and told not to -- to go home. -- i mean, not to go back to my office, so i said you might have to pack up for me. and so when i got over there, i met with the chief of staff. he said the president was angry. he didn't really go -- get into the issue of t fraud. and then i went up to pat cipollone's office and we were talking with each other. and word came down that he wanted us both to go to the oval and the president was as mad as i've ever seen him and he was trying to control himself. and the president said, well, this is, you know, killing me. you didn't have to say this. you must have said this because you hate trump. you hate trump. then he raised the -- the big vote dump as he called it in detroit. and that, you know, he said people saw boxes coming in to the counting station at all hours of the morning and so forth. and i explained to him that i --

at that point, i knew the exact number of precincts for detroit. i think it was 630 something. i said, mr. president, there are 630 precincts in detroit. and unlike elsewhere in the state, they centralize the counting process. so they're not counted in each precinct, they're moved to counting stations. and so a normal process would involve boxes coming in at all different hours, so there's nothing -- and i said, did anyone point out to you -- did all the people complaining about it point out to you, you actually did better in detroit than you did last time? i mean, there's no indication of fraud in detroit. and i told him that the stuff that his people were shoveling out to the public were bull -- was b-- . i mean that the claims of fraud were b-- and, you know, he was indignant about that. and i reiterated that they've wasted a whole month on these claims -- on the dominion voting

machines and they were idiotic claims. and i specifically raised the dominion voting machines, which i found to be among the most disturbing allegations. disturbing in the sense that i saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations. but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people -- members of the public that there was this systemic corruption in the system and that their votes didn't count and that these machines controlled by somebody else were actually determining it, which was complete nonsense? and it was being laid out there. and i told them that it was -- it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on that. and it was doing a great, grave disservice to the country. >> ok. so the very next day, the president released a video rehashing some of the very same claims that s chief law enforcement officer had told him

were "nonsense." pres.rump: here's an example. this is michigan. at 6:31 in the morning, a vote dump of 149,772 votes came in unexpectedly. we were winning by a lot. that batch was received en hara. we have a company that's very suspect. its name is dominion. with the turn of a dial or the change of a chip, you can press a button for trump and the vote goes to biden. what kind of a system is this? >> barr again told the president that there was nothing to these claims on december 14.

>> when i walked in, sat down, he went off on a monologue saying that there was now definitive evidence involving fraud through the dominion machines and a report had been prepared by a very reputable cybersecurity firm, which he identified as allied security operations group. and he held up the report and he had -- and then he asked that a copy of it be made for me. and while a copy was being made, he said, you know this is absolute proof that the dominion machines were rigged. the report means that i am going to have a second term. and then he gave me a copy of the report. and as he talked more and more about it, i sat there flipping through the report and looking through it.

and to be frank, it looked very amateurish to me, didn't have the credentials of the people involved, but i didn't see any real qualifications. and the statements were made very conclusory like this -- these machines were designed to, you know, engage in fraud or something to that effect, t i didn't see any supporting information for it. and i was somewhat demoralized because i thought, boy, if he really believes this stuff he has, you know, lost contact with with -- he's become detached from reality if he really believes this stuff. on the other hand, you know, when i went into this and would, you know, tell him how crazy some of these allegations were, there was never an indication of interest in what the actual facts were. and my opinion then and my opinion now is that the election

was not stolen by fraud, and i haven't seen anything since the election that changes my mind on that. amy: that testimony was played in the second public hearing. back with more in 30 seconds. ♪♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goman. we are bringing you highlights

from the second public hearing of the house select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol. this is live testimony from how schmidt, the sole republican on the philadelphia county board of elections in pennsylvania, a key battleground state in the 2020 election. he describes how he found no evidence of voter fraud in 2020, and said he and his family received death threats after trump lashed out at him on twitter for not halting the vote count due to false claims of fraud. >> not only was there not evidence of 8000 dead voters voting in pennsylvania, there wasn't evidence of eight. we took seriously every case that was referred to us no matter how fantastical, no matter how absurd, and took every one of those seriously including these. >> as it turns out, even mr. trump's campaign lawyers knew

that the dead voter claims weren't valid. >> i guess the crooks in philadelphia are disappointed in this. they only submitted 8021 ballots from dead people -- mail in ballots for dead people. probably easier for dead people to submit mail in ballots than it is to vote in person. >> rdy was at this stage of his life and the same ability to manage things this level or not. and obviously, i think bernie kerik publicly said it. they never pved the legations that they were making and they were trying to develop. >> mr. schmidt, on november 11, 2020, president trump tweeted about you saying -- and here's a quote, "a guy named al schmidt, a philadelphia commissioner and so-called republican or rino, is being used big time by the fake news media to explain how honest

things were with respect to the election in philadelphia. he refuses to look at a mountain of corruption dishonesty. we win." as a result of that tweet and the cnn interview you gave where you stated the dead voter claims inennsylvaa were false, you and your staff were subjected to disturbing threats. can you tell us about at? >> the threats prior to that tweet, and on some level it seems silly to talk about a tweet, but we can really see the impact that they have because prior to that, the threats were pretty general in nature. corrupt election officials in philadelphia are going to get what's coming to them. you're what the second amendment is for. you're walking into the lion's den. all sorts things like that. after the president tweeted at me by name, calling me out the way that he did, the threats became much more specific, much more graphic, and included not

just me by name but included members of my family by name, their ages, our address, pictures of our home. just every bit of detail that you could imagine. that was what changed with that tweet. amy: that is out schmidt, the soul republican on the philadelphia county board of elections in pennsylvania testifying live on monday. january 6 hearing ended with closing statements from committee chair republican liz cheney and democrat zoe lofgren describing how the trump administration raised over $250 million off his supporters on the false claim that 2020 election results were fraudulent. >> now that we understand the litigation efforts by president trump and his allies, i would like to present additional actions taken by the trump campaign during this time. president trump continued to

push the stolen election narrative ev though he and his allies knew litigation efforts, making the same claim had failed. it is worth pointing out that litigation generally does not continue past the safe harbor date of december 14, but the fact this litigation went on, well, that decision makes more sense when you consider the trump campgn's fundraising tactics because if the litigation had stopped on december 14, there would have been no fight to defend the election and no clear path to continue to raise millions of dollars. mr. chairman, at this time i'd ask for unanimous consent to include in the record a video presentation describing how president trump used the lies he told to raise millions of dollars from the american people. these fundraising schemes were also part of the effort to disseminate the false claims of election fraud.

>> without objection so ordered. >> my na is aman wick and i'm senior investigative counsel at the house select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol. between election day and january 6, the trump campaign sent millions of fundraising emails to trump supporters, sometimes as many as 25 a day. the emails claimed the "leftwing mob was undermining the election," implored supporters to "step up to protect the integrity of the election," and encourage them to "fight back." but as the select committee has demonstrated, the trump campaign knew these claims of voter fraud were false. yet they continued to promote -- barrage small dollar donors have e-mails encouraging them to donate to something called the official election defense fund. the select committee discovered no such fund existed. >> i don't believe there was actually a fund called the election defense fund. >> is it fair to say that the election defense fund was another -- i think we can call that a marketing tactic? >> yes.

>> and tell us about these fund's marketing tactics. just the topic matter where >>just the topic matter where money could potentially go to be -- how money could potentially be used. >> the claims that the election was stolen were so successful president trump and his allies raised $250 million, nearly $100 million in the first week after the election. on november 9, 2020, president trump created a separate entity called the save america pac. most of the money raised went to this newly created pac, not to election related litigatio the select committee discovered that the save america pac made millionsf dollars of ntributions to pro-trump organizations, including $1 million to trump chief of staff mark meadows' charitable foundation, $1 million to the america first policy institute, a conservative organization which employs several former trump administration officials, $204,857 to the trump hotel collection, and over $5 million to event strategies inc, the

company that ran president trump's january 6 rally on the ellipse. pres. trump: all of us here today do not want to see our election victory stolen by emboldened radical left democrats, which is what they're doing. >> the evidence developed by the select committee highlights how the trump campaign aggressively pushed false election claims to fundraise, telling supporters it would be used to fight voter fraud that did not exist. the emails continued through january 6 even as president trump spoke. >> 30 minutes after the last fundraising email was sent, the capitol was breached. >> every american is entitled and encouraged to participate in our electoral process. political fundraising is part of that.

small dollar donors use scarce disposable income to support candidates and causes of their choosing to make their voices heard. and those donors deserve the truth about what those funds will be used for. throughout the committee's investigation, we found evidence that the trump campaign and its surrogates misled donors as to where their funds would go and what they would be used for. so not only was there the big lie, there was the big rip off. -- the big rip off. donors deserve to know where their funds are really going. they deserve better than what president trump and his team did. mr. chairman, i yield back. >> without objection, the chair recognizes the gentlewoman from wyoming, ms. cheney, for her closing statement. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. mr. chairman, i would like to thank all of our witnesses today and i'd also like to in particular wish mr. stepien and

his family all the best on the arrival of a new baby. today's hearing, mr. chairman, was very narrowly focused. and in the coming days, you will see the committee move on to president trump's broader planning for january 6, including his plan to corrupt the department of justice and his detailed planning with lawyer john eastman to pressure the vice president, state legislatures, state officials, and others to overturn the election. let me leave you today with one clip to preview what you will see in one of our hearings to come. this is the testimony of white house lawyer eric herschmann. john eastman called mr. herschmann the day after january 6. and here is how that conversation went. >> i said to him, are you out of your f-ing mind.

i said i only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth for now on, orderly transition. amy: that his former white house lawyer eric herschmann. we will be livestreaming all of the january 6 hearings at democracynow.org. you can tune in on wednesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern and then on thursday at 1:00 p.m. then we will bring you highlights on thursday and friday of those hearings on democracy now! on monday, we will be airing a juneteenth special. we will talk to clint smith on the origins of juneteenth in his book "how the word is passed: a reckoning with a history of slavery across america" and we will also speak with m.i.t. professor craig steven wilder, other of "ebony and ivy." that does it for our show.

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