process before anybody goes home. >> garrett haake on capitol hill. garrett, stick around. i am going to hand the baton to my colleagues brian williams, nicolle wallace and brian. i have to say, nicolle, we all feared this worst-case scenario during these last four years and here it is, sir. >> here it is. >> a bunch of people were not paying attention to the warnings in plain sight over the past several days, chuck. what a tremendously sad day across our country. we should make no mistake these are rioters, these are insurrectionists, they have been cheered on by the president and prominent republicans in congress. they have stormed the u.s. capitol and something else that should be noted, they have done so with ease. we are wondering where law

enforcement has been. if you were wondering the same, you are not alone. the whole world is watching this. the whole world is now able to see what has happened to the u.s. capitol. by our reckoning both houses, house and senate, have been breached. members of the house and senate have been told to shelter and, yes, we have seen guns drawn in the house chamber, point-blank range. those are gas masks, oxygen hoods handed out to all members of congress, some of whom got behind the railings in the balcony. this is your house and senate and these are our fellow citizens who have, as we say, with ease stormed the u.s. capitol today. we have our entire team, our entire on air family on stand by waiting to talk to us. with me in following hours rachel maddow and nicolle wallace and nicolle wallace, i

understand you've been doing some reporting among national security types. >> i spoke to three former senior national security figures, all three of them recognizable to viewers, but i will -- because of the nature of this crisis, i will share something that they all said to me. we are watching and listening to people describe scenes to our colleagues chuck todd and andrea mitchell and katy tur whose coverage was extraordinary that sounds the way you describe clearing regions of iraq. terry talked about going room to room. that's how you clear a hot spot in fallujah. we are not used to see images that look more like benghazi than washington, d.c. on our tv screens. another former national security official, a former pentagon official, said that we must investigate the incitement. that of course the events of today and the fact that they so easily took the united states capitol is a scandal in and of

itself. the incitement by rudy giuliani and donald trump and mike flynn in the last 24 hours is the match. the other thing that was universally articulated is that as with dealing with any radicalized extremist group, the only people that can reach them are their own. it is on donald j. trump to take to the airwaves and make it stop and everything that happens not just today, but we have an event that is likely to stir far deeper passions than the shenanigans that were going on inside the capitol today and that's the inauguration, the peaceful transfer of power. so i think there is an open question burning up the phone lines among former national security officials today about how this country gets through the next ten days. >> president of the united states has been watching this on television at the white house. the democratic leadership has been pleading with him to get

people to disperse, to clear the u.s. capitol. depending on which chamber the members of congress are in, depending on their proximity to the chamber when this started some of them have sheltered over in the congressional office buildings, some of them have been spirited away by security, like the vice president, like the speaker of the house, some of them were all corralled into basement rooms. basement entrances is the way a lot of the law enforcement reinforcements have been brought into the u.s. capitol. it says something about the lack of preparation and response that it took the governors of the surrounding states, maryland and virginia, to spend their own national guard members to mobilize them to head to the capitol of our nation. d.c. police have joined the capitol police. you see they've responded with long guns and they've responded with handguns.

our own pete williams reporting at least one, speaking of fallujah, improvised explosive device has been found on the capitol grounds inside the structure. it was feared many of these rioters were armed because obviously there was no security screening. you don't every day see rioters calmly walking across statuary hall. what is clear is we're going to hear from the next president before we hear from the current president. we're on a loose stand by here to get remarks from joe biden about what he, like all americans, has been watching on television, this sad, sad day, there you see the podium waiting for him on the right-hand side of the screen. the president has stopped short of what he needs to say to his followers. we've heard republican members of congress call him out and beg

him to use his social media platform to get people. here is joe biden. >> -- an convenience and i'm sorry for the reason we've delayed -- i've delayed coming out to speak to you. i initially was going to talk about the economy, but all of you, all of you have been watching what i've been watching. at this hour our democracy is under unprecedented assault. unlike anything we've seen in modern times. assault on the citadel of liberty, the capitol itself. an assault on the people's representatives and the capitol hill police, sworn to protect th them, and the publish serc serv

who work at the heart of our republic. an assault on the rule of law like few times we have ever seen it. an assault on the most sacred of american undertakings, the doing of the people's business. let me be very clear. the scenes of chaos at the capitol do not reflect a true america. do not represent who we are. what we're seeing are a small number of extremists dedicated to lawlessness. this is not dissent, it's disorder. it's chaos. it borders on sedition and it must end. now. i call on this mob to pull back and allow the work of democracy to go forward. you heard me say before in

different contexts the words of a president matter, no matter how good or bad that president is. at their best the words of a president can inspire. at their worst, they can incite. therefore, i call on president trump to go on national television now to fulfill his oath and defend the constitution and demand an end to this siege. to storm the capitol, to smash windows, to occupy offices, the floor of the united states senate, rummaging through desks, on the capitol -- on the house of representatives, threatening the safety of duly elected officials. it's not protests, it's

insurrection. the world is watching. like so many other americans i am genuinely shocked and saddened that our nation so long the beacon of light and hope for democracy has come to such a dark moment. through war and strife america has endured much and we will endure here and we will prevail again and we will prevail now. the work of the moment and the work of the next four years must be the restoration of democracy, of decency, honor, respect. the rule of law. just plain, simple decency. the renewal of the politics that's about solving problems, looking out for one another, not stoking the flames of hate and

chaos. as i said, america is about honor, decency, respect, tolerance. that's who we are. that's who we've always been. the certification of the electoral college vote is supposed to be a sacred ritual. the purpose is to affirm the majesty of american democracy, but today's reminder, a painful one, that democracy is fragile and to preserve it requires people of good will, leaders with the courage to stand up who are devoted not to the pursuit of the power or the personal interests pursuits of their own selfish interests at any cost, but of the common good.

think what our children watching television are thinking. think what the rest of the world is looking at. for nearly two and a half centuries we the people in search of a more perfect union having kept our eyes on that common good. america is so much better than what we're seeing today. watching the scenes from the capitol i was reminded as i prepared other speeches in the past, i was reminded of the words of abraham lincoln in his annual message to congress whose work has today been interrupted by chaos. here is what lincoln said, he said, we shall nobly save or merely lose the last best hope on earth. the way is plain, peaceful,

generous, just. a way which if followed the world will forever applaud and god must forever bless. the way is plain here, too. that's who we are. it's the way of democracy, of respect, of decency, of honor and commitment as patriots to this nation. notwithstanding what i saw today, we're seeing today, i remain optimistic about the incredible opportunities. there has never been anything we can't do when we do it together. and this god awful display today is bringing home to every republican and democrat and independent in the nation that

we must step up. this is the united states of america. there's never ever, ever, ever, ever been a thing we've tried to do that we've done it together we have not been able to do it. so, president trump, step up. may god bless america and may god protect our troops and all those folks at the capitol who are trying to preserve order. thank you and i'm sorry to have kept you waiting. >> reflecting the tone so many feel on this day, the president-elect speaking there. the president, the sitting president, watching television in the west wing. nicolle wallace? >> well, brian, i think we need to put that picture back up. there were protesters storming

the police -- biden is still talking. >> enough is enough is enough. >> yeah, we apologize for the lack of a time stamp on these pictures and people familiar with live coverage we're mixing live and video from earlier. suffice to say these live pictures show the situation, nicolle, and that is they still occupy the balcony portions of the capitol and what we're also seeing is camera towers that were erected for an inauguration have been taken over and stormed by the rioters, by the mob, and so that's -- if you see the tall structures with ladders, that's what that is. sorry, nicolle. >> well, joe biden, i think, president-elect biden, gave us a punctuation we were looking for there on his way out the door when it looked like he stopped to take a question from a

reporter in attendance. i want to underscore some of the things that he said because they represent historic firsts for our country. he described it conduct as borderline sedition. we have had a real problem with language i think over the last five years, many of us have been reluctant to call lies, lies, they were misstatements and mistruths. joe biden went there. he called it an insurrection and said it borders on sedition. those are very, very strong and important words to be used to characterize what is happening today at the united states senate and as he said these are not protesters. that's the wrong word. an important moment, i think, for the incoming president. you could also see some emotion as he prayed for the safety of the people inside the capitol. he called that building home for the vast majority of his own career and i know empathy is his thing, but i'm sure he feels it in excess. you heard from him, though, the same thing i heard from the three national security officials i talked to, one, the point that words matter, that

the president's words have incited this today, everything you see has a through line so what donald trump has said and done in the days and weeks and months now since he lost the presidential election to joe biden. he also called on donald trump and we will wait for our white house unit to get us some reporting on how that was received. president-elect biden called on the lame duck president donald trump to take to national television today to call on his supporters to stand down. remarkable, brian. >> apparently elissa slotkin a member of congress has spoken to mark milley the chairman of the joint chiefs. according to her he has approved the use of national guard. if you've seen any social media today then you know a good many americans are pointing out how this would have gone down in their view had these been black lives matter protesters.

had this been other people involved in another cause. as we just saw the better part of these last several months in so many venues around this country. nicolle, this is now a herculean task. speaking of your initial remarks about clear and hold, the military strategy overseas, that's exactly what they have to do with this building. there have been pictures posted of one of the rioters in the chair presiding over the well of the senate, rioters in congressional offices. they have to clear that entire building. >> yeah, and i think that's why this is now a national security story. it's gone ten train stops past a political crisis and is now a national security crisis. it was pointed out to me that we don't right now know exactly where vice president pence are or where speaker pelosi are,

they are numbers two and three, the important roles in the continuity of government of this country. we've got our elected officials in gas masks and laying down to avoid potential gunshots. the clearing of the capitol is because one person with one weapon could do incredible harm and so they're going to go room by room, closet by closet, and that's where these three national security officials said it is similar to a military operation. a pentagon official, though, said to me -- former pentagon official said that it was probably important for elissa slotkin or anyone else trying to get the national guard to come and help to reach general milley. if you remember we've all covered donald trump's shake up in appointment of many political allies there and so this person said -- the members probably had to reach general milley before the national guard could be activated. >> rachel maddow is with us.

rachel, i think everyone wants to hear your thoughts on what we're watching but let me just throw out a couple more things that i've heard from national security officials that i talked to. they said right now ambassadors from other countries are drafting cables describing this scene is america in the nation's capitol that looks more like benghazi. that this was the reporting that i had that i've been talking about. a scene that doesn't look like one we're familiar to seeing here in america. >> yeah, one of the things that strikes me here, nicolle, is that oddly one of the things i'm grateful for is that this has been well-covered by news cameras, by the c-span cameras, by the cameras inside the congress and the cameras throughout the capitol complex here are capturing the faces of these people who are breaking windows, who are breaking into offices, who are looting offices and who at least it appears in some cases have brought firearms into the u.s. capitol. merrick garland is going to be

the next attorney general of the united states, lisa monaco will be his deputy attorney general, one of the big challenges they are going to have -- maybe not a challenge, but one of the big jobs they are going to have is prosecuting lots of these people and putting them in jail for very long prison terms. and you see, you know, reminds me a little bit of charlottesville where we saw the white supremacists and klan neo-nazi protesters who did not feel the need to cover up their faces. here you see the same thing. you see these men on the right side of the screen in this taped footage menacing a capitol police officer. they don't feel the need to cover up their faces not only because they don't wear masks for covid because because they feel they have impunity to do this, they will soon find out they do not. that is going to be part of what the beginning of the biden administration is like is getting these people in jail. and the question i think for republicans who have brought

this on, who have indulged this, who helped the president create this expectation that if enough trump supporters came with enough ammunition to washington today they could somehow stop joe biden from becoming the next president is a question as to whether or not the people who have politically made this possible and who have egged this on and who spoke at that rally and who have told these people to do this, whether they are elected officials or not, are also prepared to face the legal consequences of real law and order. not fantasy cost player law and order that's about putting on fake tactical gear you buy at dick's sporting goods and pushing cops around because you have 15 of your friends behind you, but real law and order that comes from a country that doesn't see this happen, that will never see this happen again and that will punish the people who did it. >> rachel, joe biden today using language we have never heard him use. there's been a lot of pressure i'm sure you see it, too, a lot of frustration that trump hasn't

been called out, that republicans haven't been pressured more aggressively. mitch mcconnell got a lot of credit for the speech he gave on the floor of the senate today and it was incredibly newsworthy for the fact that it was the first day, the first time he broke with trump in a meaningful way. what do you make of the president-elect's posture on this and do you think enough pressure and enough political pain has been applied to republicans who have incited this and have used up a lot of former national security officials today? >> i feel like president-elect biden is approaching this the way that you would want a leader to approach this, calling on other leaders to do the right thing, calling on americans to recognize the severity of what is happening here and calling on us to support the people who are in danger here and to support the law enforcement and soon to be military personnel who will be taking care of this problem. but i have to say just as an observer, not only of today but

of what we saw leading up to this, the president's increasingly unhinged and untrem ld calling for something like this, his willingness to engage with, you know, the calls by people like mike flynn, right torques put the military in the streets and to use force to redo the election and all that stuff. i feel like as an observer of this i don't much care what donald trump says right now. i don't much care what the republicans who have caused this problem do to try to mitigate the impact of what they have done. this is a problem that will not be solved by ted cruz saying this isn't what i meant. this is not a problem that is going to be solved by donald trump saying, okay, okay, come back tomorrow. or whatever -- whatever mealy way that he could come up with this. this is a problem that will be solved by the police and it looks increasingly like military and the national guard reclaiming -- physically reclaiming the capitol building

and then the arrest and prosecution of everybody who carried this out because this is a crime. and the people who instigated the crime will be held accountable for t i do not believe that the people who instigated this crime are going to be the solution today. the solution today is the rest of us. the solution today is going to be the police and the national guard who are going to be brought in to deal with criminals. that's what this is. you bring a gun into the u.s. capitol, you smash glass, loot offices, break into capitol buildings, set off gas. i mean, somebody has been shot, we don't know the circumstances of that. i mean, when that happens the solution is not for republicans to tone down their rhetoric. or reverse their calls to incitement. i'm sort of done seeing their approach to american problems at this point. >> i think a whole lot of us are done. i want to add to our conversation, jeh johnson, former secretary of homeland security during the obama administration. mr. secretary, just your thoughts on what you're seeing

and jump in on any aspect of our conversation. i've heard from former national security officials who have likened the process that needs to take place now to clearing hot spots in military zones. obviously it's scary for people watching, but i think as rachel said, it represents the culmination of years of lies and incitement by a party that's now increasingly out of power. >> well, thanks for having me. where do i begin? i have many thoughts. as a former security official, as a former secretary of homeland security and as an american i'm shocked and horrified by what i'm watching right now on television. first amendment activity, peaceful demonstrations, protests on the ground of the capitol, near the capitol are routine. for example, the million man march in 1995, something close

to 1 million black men and we saw nothing like this. one emailed me and i think it's probably accurate, the last time we had anything like this was during the war of 1812. this is trumpism boiled over finally and to be blunt donald trump lit the match and it is on him now to fix this. i'm told that there might be a statement from him that's kicking around somewhere. he's not going to do this because the president-elect or jeh johnson or anybody else says he should do this. he should do this because this is his legacy. let's point out that exactly four years ago he stood on those steps, on the eastern front -- on the western front of the capitol and talked about american carnage and here we are -- >> i thought of that, too. >> -- almost exactly four years later on the western front of the capitol and this is what we have, american carnage, because of his overheated rhetoric.

and so if he cares about his legacy, he needs to fix this. he is the one that they will listen to and respond to. >> mr. secretary, for the president-elect called it an insurrection bordering on sedition, do you agree with those characterizations? >> i have to agree with those characterizations. dozens if not hundreds of people should be prosecuted for today's actions. when i look at the images of unscreened people with backpacks walking the halls of the u.s. capitol, they need to be responsible and those who encouraged this need to be responsible. we've prosecuted people before for inciting violence and we need to do that here and someone has to be accountable for this. it's going to be days probably before the u.s. capitol can get back to business.

if you have all of those unscreened people roaming the halls of the u.s. capitol, you can't just simply bring back members of congress, the vice president and speaker into that building. you have to have k-9s go through the entire building to make sure it's safe to bring back senior government officials into our u.s. capitol. >> what would you be doing if you were still in your old post as secretary of homeland security? what should be happening to prepare for the inauguration of joe biden? >> well, i know what happens to prepare for the inauguration because i did it four years ago. it takes months, it is a combination of capitol police, the secret service, d.c. metro police, the guard, the coast guard, fema and a host of others and, you know, to a very large extent the u.s. capitol is the people's building. we don't have a fence around it, but we are able to protect the perimeter of the u.s. capitol if

adequate security is put in place in advance. so someone needs to ask the question why didn't we anticipate this happening given what we heard leading up to today, given the rhetoric of our own president leading up to today. how did this flood occur so easily? >> as you said, it's something we will be -- questions that need to be answered. someone suggested a 9/11-style commission after calm has been restored. we should point out that the police do not have control of the united states capitol right now. they are going through a process that jeh johnson just described to our viewers of going room to room, closet to closet, making sure there's nobody inside who represents a threat to anybody who works there or visits that capitol. as you can see, everyone is very, very comfortable stationed outside. jeh johnson, thank you for

spending some time with us today. i'm going to toss it back to my colleague, brian williams. >> nicolle, just to explain the pictures we're seeing right now, those are rioters occupying the risers built for our presidential inaugurations, normally, of course, members of the public can't get anywhere near this area since 9/11 there has been such a sea change lockdown on security on the hill, obviously along with the white house. point number two is the republican leader in the house, kevin mccarthy of california in an apparent bid to be remembered heroically when this is all over said in a live interview this afternoon i called the president and explained to him what is going on. i begged him to go talk to the nation. that brings us to what we're about to show you. we feel duty bound to show it to you, he is the president of the united states for the next couple of days. this is a video recorded by

donald trump posted on social media and a heads up, he repeats the lie that the election was stolen while also telling these rioters to stand down. >> i know your pain. i know your hurt. we had an election that was stolen from us. it was a landslide election and everyone knows it, especially the other side, but you have to go home now. we have to have peace. we have to have law and order. we have to respect our great people in law and order. we don't want anybody hurt. it's a very tough period of time. there's never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. this was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the hands of these people. we have to have peace.

so go home. we love you. you're very special. you've seen what happens. you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. i know how you feel. but go home and go home in peace. >> so a couple admonitions in there for his followers. these rioters, to go home. they were interspersed with lies about the outcome of the election, perhaps helping law enforcement is the fact that darkness is due to fall entirely in washington at 5:00 p.m. and i also wanted to note this, while we were listening to the president-elect earlier, nbc news called the second of the two georgia senate races after hours and hours of being sure and counting and waiting for jon ossoff. that means -- take this to its logical extension -- that while

they were under security detail, shelter in place, mitch mcconnell became in effect the minority leader designate, chuck schumer became in effect the majority leader designate, again, by our vote counting and reckoning from our decision desk in the middle of this, a change in the political balance of power within that building. nicolle, i would just say before i get your response to donald trump, we're seeing another line of law enforcement come down the steps to try to get the people who you correctly described as getting comfortable on the capitol balcony to move on and they are being jeered by the rioters who are trump supporters down below. but take it away. >> well, first of all, democratic control of the united states senate is so important to a country that needs to move on from this and what the president did in that interview, in that

tape, it's not an interview, he doesn't do those anymore, he said we love you to people who joe biden accurately described as committing the crimes of sedition and insurrection. so that's who donald trump loves. it's a go good thing donald trump loves his power of pardon. i wouldn't be surprised if he's preparing to pre pardon this large group today. and the point is he is going to go out the way he rolled in, as a thug, as a political bully, as someone who operates in the words of andy mccabe and jim comey as someone much more similar to the kinds of men they prosecuted when they prosecuted mob crimes. and i've been thinking a lot about all the reputations that have been destroyed by donald trump over the last four years. i don't think it's a coincidence that many of them are the men and women who worked at the highest levels of law enforcement and intelligence. those were always the people that in donald trump's view -- and it's clear in that delusional video -- he's terrified by truth, he's terrified by facts and he's clinging to a lie that today put

the lives of his own vice president in danger. vice president mike pence was ushered out of the senate -- it was either the senate or the house -- because of these protesters insigcited by donald trump and told by donald trump today, quote, we love you. the same men and women described by joe biden as committing the crimes of insurrection and sedition. it's just an unbelievable split screen, rachel. >> there's no reason to believe that that video from the president will have the effect of actually sending these folks home. the president in that video continuing to stoke the grievance that not only brought those folks out there but that he told them they could allay, they could solve, they could get the solution to their grievance by turning out in force, including marching to the capitol. the president's lawyer at the event today before this started

at the capitol saying, let's have trial by combat. well, then the president does this video in which he says, yeah, go home, but he also says voter fraud, we won by a landslide, this was a fraudulent election, they stole it from me, we love you, you're very special. these bad people, these evil people here. i mean, he's not actually telling these folks to go home despite those words in his voochlt there's no reason to expect that they will. i think brian just noted something that shouldn't be -- shouldn't be overlooked in terms of its importance, which is that at 5:02 p.m. the sun will set in washington, d.c. tonight and what we have seen from previous lawless pro-trump violent gatherings in washington since the election -- i'm not sure what that smoke or fog is there -- when night -- whatever is going on during the day when night falls is when in some cases literally the knives come out and when trump supporters have proven themselves to be more than capable of masks and fast moving violence. and so as it gets dark at the

capitol steps we don't know if there are still protesters inside the offices of members of congress, if they're still looting and vandalizing. we have seen pictures of them carting off pieces of furniture and podiums inside offices and public spaces within the capitol. we don't know how well they have done in terms of reclaiming the inside of the capitol let alone the outside, but as it gets dark i don't think there is any reason to expect this to get better. >> i want to bring in garrett haake who covers congress for us. garrett, first of all, start with your location and can you shed any light on what we're watching near the riser for the inauguration ceremony that is either smoke or a disperse ant. >> brian, i'm in the russell senate office building, a lot of reporters have been essentially locked in place here today while we've been watching this happen, the doors are literally chained

shut to this building as everyone kind of shelters in place. i can't speak to the smoke specifically but you are looking at the west front of the capitol there. i think closer to the senate side where you're seeing those rioters continue to gather. you also are seeing yellow jacketed mpd, that's the metropolitan police department of washington, d.c. and capitol police starting to clear that space. i can tell you over the last hour or so the entire alphabet soup of local and federal and adjoining state law enforcement agencies have begun to arrive here. the state of virginia sent straight troopers in their national guard, the state of maryland is sending their state troopers. the streets outside the capitol, constitution avenue in particular where i am, completely clogged with law enforcement vehicles. so while it doesn't look like it from these pictures you're getting a sense that some order is starting to get restored. i can also tell you this, i've been talking to a bunch of different lawmakers who are in their secure locations around the capitol who are telling me

there is a bipartisan agreement that they are going to finish this electoral vote count tonight before they go home. these folks are angry, this he do not want to see their work disrupted by the mob. so jeh johnson's comment from earlier, there's nothing that says they have to be in the house and senate chambers to do this work. there are for contingency reasons for terrorism reasons, for reasons just like this several other rooms in the greater capitol complex that are large enough and secure enough where the house and senate could theoretically meet to continue this work if they choose to do so and some of those conversations are going on now about how can they do this without waiting for a sweep, without waiting until tomorrow, without allowing the mob to sort of win the day by delaying this process any further than absolutely necessary. >> well, garrett, thank you for that and, rachel and nicolle, i'm curious to hear your thoughts on what you think might be the responsibility of messrs. hawley and cruz as co-match

lighters for this. there's still a picture of josh hawley whether he likes it or not is going to come to symbolize his role in this prior to the violent riots starting he is pictured raising his fist outside the u.s. capitol. this is the senator from missouri, the republican senator from missouri who was the first one really to lend credence to this movement. so what do you think their responsibility is because the senate big on symbolism now wants to be seen as bravely going on about its business this evening. >> nicolle, i'm going to let you respond to this at length. i will just say briefly my first question is whether or not senators hawley and cruz are going to resume their objections to the counting of the electoral votes when the house and the senate do reconvene to do this. the president and his supporters have succeeded in delaying the certification of the election result, delaying the ascension to power of the president's

successor. when they reconvene and they start recertifying those votes again tonight are hawley and cruz going to go ahead with this and keep -- keep stoking this grievance that this election somehow wasn't right and donald trump should still be in office and these people are on the right side of this? i mean, that's the first thing they're going to have to decide. i don't have any faith that they will decide to stand down. >> i mean, let me just add to that hawley and cruz don't have any principles among the two of them so their decision to -- and they weren't objecting to the results, they were seeking to overthrow the result of a democratic election. it's called a coup. they got 12 senate republicans to go along with that attempt. tom cotton made a totally different allegation and these are three members of the republican primary for president in 2024, tom cotton, very, very politically ambitious, he backed donald trump's insurrection but

was against the hawley/cruz coupe so it's an interesting lot the whole bunch of them. i think the fact that tom cotton ended up on the other side of this, that the two democratic candidates in the runoffs in georgia prevailed, that donald trump is now hold up sending up videos that we haven't seen him do on days like this since he was hospitalized with covid, that the vice president and the speaker are still as far as we know at the capitol but we haven't seen them or heard from them and police, law enforcement and the military do not have control of the united states senate. so i dare ted cruz and mr. hawley to go on with their shenanigans. i mean, what they were doing was trying to overthrow an election that was vetted, that was investigated, that was counted, that was recounted. so if they have the audacity to go ahead and do that today, i think it's a stain that will be on them for the rest of not just their careers but their lives. i want to bring into our conversation john brennan, former cia director, nbc news

senior national security analyst, former homeland security security, too, right, director brennan? >> no, i was president obama's assistant for homeland security at the white house. >> so with that hat on, someone who counseled the president on all matters of homeland security and as someone who oversaw the country's intelligence agencies, what do you make of this scene today? how does this deescalate? >> nicolle, words escape me and i need to try to keep my anger in check because when i'm watching this footage of the desecration of our nation's capitol the global symbol of our great republic and it's happening because an individual in the white house who has the title of president of the united states but has never fulfilled those responsibilities is the one who actually has encouraged and incited this. it is beyond words. these are the scenes that i watched throughout my national security career of things happening overseas. i never imagined that it would have happened here in the united states. and so, therefore, yes, donald trump is the quarterback of this effort, but there are so many

enablers in congress and now it is going to be up to the authorities, as rachel mentioned, national guard and capitol police, whatever, to bring some semblance of law and order back to the capitol so that the people in the congress can do their necessary work. but i must tell you, i have never ever seen something like this. i never imagined i would see something like this in the united states of america in our capitol. i also wonder -- as has been said before -- why has this been allowed to happen when we saw at lafayette square right across the street from the white house these very aggressive and authorize theirian tactics that were used against peaceful protesters who were not violating, in fact, the nation's capitol. so i think there are so many questions here, but, again, the accountability goes back to donald j. trump and also to those individuals in congress who have enabled and abetted his efforts to try to undermine our democratic system of government. >> director brennan, chris krebs tweeted that he has been trying to combat the disinformation

himself, that donald trump has been pumping into the information ecosystem that obviously all of his supporters drink from, and i wonder what you think about that broader question. we first started talking to you on all of our programs about russian disinformation. it would seem now looking at these images on our screen the gravest threat is domestic disinformation, donald trump's disinformation. >> i think we all have a responsibility to try to prevent disinformation from getting into the nation's bloodstream. individuals in terms of not deceiving and lying others with their lies as donald trump has done. we need to make sure that the political parties also are able to exert some discipline on their members. yes, i understand partisanship and hyperbole, but there have been mischaracterizations, misrepresentations of the facts which are then enabled by newscasts and individuals and other networks that try to continue to stoke these fires which are leading to this

insurrection and sedition that we're seeing today. so i do think that this is a moment that we're going to have to look back upon and see what we can do individually, collectively, organizationally and politically what we can do to counter this cancer of disinformation that has taken hold in our country today. >> director brennan, we're going to ask you to stay with us for on ongoing coverage of the events in washington today. i'm going to turn things over to my colleague, rachel maddow. >> i want to bring into our conversation now democratic congressman jason crow of colorado. i have to tell you he is at an undisclosed location with other members of congress, congressman crow brings a unique perspective to this, he is a u.s. armor ranger, veteran fortunate 82nd airborne, served three tours in iraq and afghanistan, probably isn't used to thinking about those skills in relation to his day job as a member of congress now, but these are unparalleled times. congressman crow, thank you so much for making time. >> hi, rachel. >> can you just tell us what your experience has been today? i know we don't know where you are calling us from and you are not going to tell us that

location, but other than that can you tell us what has happened to you today and what you've seen? >> yeah, i was in the house gallery watching the proceedings when we were kind of tracking on our phones watching what was happening outside the capitol when we saw that the rioters had broken through the outer barricades, shortly after that they evacuated the leadership and then started an evacuation of house members. what happened, though, is rioters made it into the capitol and cut off our access routes so capitol police weren't able to actually evacuate us so they barricaded us within the house floor. they locked the doors and actually started to pile furniture up against the doors and windows and pulled their guns out so there was a group of about 15 or 20 members who are trapped in there as we were surrounded by rioters who were trying to ram and break down the doors and break through the glass. the police had their guns pulled and were preparing to use them. fortunately they were able to

clear a path for us and get us out after about 15 minutes through the tunnels. >> did it seem to you, congressman, that there was a plan in place for this eventuality? obviously there have been -- there has been widespread discussion in the country about the prospect of violence given what the -- was being incited for this gathering today in washington, d.c. was this a catch is catch can sort of ad-lib plan to protect you on the fly or did it seem like some contingency was actually put into action? >> well, i can just say that the capitol police did an incredible job. they were extreme professionals, somebody who had been in situations like this so i know when somebody is doing what they should be doing and they were. they were ready to put it on the line for us, protect us and they did and they continue to do that as we speak right now. there is a larger question in my mind about how it got to this point and why there weren't thousands of national guard

troops and even active duty military from the old guard that is garrison just down the street ready for this and already deployed because, you know, i was thinking that there were going to be riots today, you know, with tens of thousands of trump supporters being incited to violence by both the president and his supporters, i knew that there was risk of this. so there are some very serious questions in my mind as to why there weren't more preparations broadly to prevent that outer security perimeter from being breached. >> do you know, congressman, if the interior of the u.s. capitol is now secure, if there is enough law enforcement present there that there are -- they've been able to put a stop to the looting and vandalism and free roaming of potentially armed protesters that we've been watching over the last few hours? >> it's my understanding that it is not yet secure. that they have federal law enforcement, capitol police and special units that are in doing a sweep of the capitol, but they have not finished it and there are still rioters in the capitol.

but i can tell you this, we will return. we are all resolve to do that. they will clear the capitol, hopefully today. we will return, we will do the business of the people and we're not going to let, you know, the seditious treasonous act of a few people stop the few people stop the work of the people. we will go back and finish the business. >> congressman, are you and your fellow members fending for yourselves in terms of your security? do you have communication with security personnel who are advising you what to do, telling you where to go, keeping you apprised of the security situation or are you sort of handling this yourselves? >> no, the -- i'm not going to speak specifically as to the arrangements but i've been very impressed with the capitol police and the way they are handling this. they have acted admirably, honorably, with courage, and they continue to do so, and they deserve a tremendous amount of recognition for that work. >> one of the things that has

been discussed at the senior levels of the pentagon, if reporting from the "washington post" is to be believed, was the worry at the highest levels of the pentagon that the president might use violence or the threat of violence on this day, in this context, to try to use the u.s. military to his own advantage. rather than to try to use the military to contain or put down this sort of violence and the insurrection that we have seen. i wanted to, again, yourself as a combat veteran, as somebody who's served in iraq and afghanistan and who's seen these things from a very different perspective, given what you just said about your surprise that there weren't forces, including active duty forces deployed and ready to go in the event that something like this happened, what do you feel about that potential? >> well, i didn't have a concern that the military would be used. you know, the former defense secretaries that came out a couple of days ago and made their statement and i know, you know, a lot of the senior commanders of the military very

well. i didn't -- i never thought they would allow themselves to be used in this way. that doesn't mean that president trump wouldn't try. i believe that he would try, because the president is a violent man. he is not a well man. he is somebody who is capable only of thinking about himself and nothing else and nobody else, so he is capable of everything. now, the larger story at this point isn't president trump, because we know really well who he is. he's made it really clear for a very long time who he is. the larger story at this point is the story of his enablers, those people who should know better, whether they're members of congress, whether they're senior administration officials, his inner circle, they should know better. and they bear a lot of blame here. >> congressman crow, i'm going to ask you one last question, which is, for americans who are watching this at home right now, who are unnerved by the fact that you're in a secure undisclosed location while we're talking to you and unnerved by these images that we're seeing, what do you have to say to people watching this at home, wondering how this will end?

>> yeah, well, the message is clear. our country is strong. we will endure. we've been through crisis, and the reason i'm talking to you right now is to deliver that message. you know, the vast majority of the american people, the vast, vast majority are great, honorable, courageous, good people, and there will -- their will will be done, their voices will be heard, their votes will be count and had we will move forward. we undoubtedly have a lot of work to do in our country to figure out how we respond to this and how we do the repair work that we need to do, but we will prevail. we will go back to the capitol and finish the work of the people. >> congressman jason crow of colorado, thank you, sir. we appreciate it. stay safe and stay apprised as this day continues to unfold. >> thank you. >> brian, back to you. >> rachel, thank you. congressman, thank you. let's bring in leon panetta, former cia director, former

pentagon secretary, former head of o plrmb, former white house f of staff but perhaps most important for this moment and this conversation is the many terms he spent representing his district in california in the house of representatives. and mr. secretary, it's on that basis that i ask your reaction to this horrible and depressing turn of events today. >> brian, in my over 50 years of public life, i never -- i never expected to see the kind of scenes that i am seeing today with an insurrection taking place at the capitol of the united states. it is -- it's a moment where you know that indeed our democracy is fragile, but there's a concern that if we don't take the steps now to try to restore

order and get back to the business of the country and allow this thing to kind of continue, that it literally could undermine our democracy itself. >> just as you could not have foreseen guns drawn on the house floor, just as you could not have foreseen your former fellow colleagues in the house putting on oxygen hoods in the balcony, you probably couldn't have foreseen the calls that are going on back and forth in some cases between sitting members of congress and general mark milley, the sitting chair of the joint chiefs of staff. in your view, since the pentagon has been invoked and since we've been led to believe the cavalry is coming, we've seen some men and women and bdus in the hallways inside, what should the role of the pentagon be on a night like tonight? >> well, as you saw, ten of the

former secretaries of defense, including myself, wanted to make very clear that there is no role for the military in terms of the deciding an election outcome, and we were -- i think we were very concerned that the kind of scenes we're seeing now might justify an act by the president to basically use the military for that purpose. i think this is a moment where we've got to rely on the national guard. we've got to rely on law enforcement to restore order, and there is no role for the military at this point in time. i do think that ultimately order will be restored and congress will go back to the business of deciding who our next president should be. that is really the fundamental objective right now. let's get back to the business

of governing and our democracy. >> what has to happen, in your view, between now and our ability to say this is over and we're on a glide path toward a peaceful inauguration in a few days time? >> well, first and foremost, order absolutely has to be restored at the capitol. you've got to clear the capitol. you've got to put a perimeter around the capitol to make sure that this never happens again, and you've got to allow both the senate and the house to continue the business so that they're required to do today in counting the electoral votes and announcing a new president. that is really the first priority, and you're not going to get much help from this president. he's essentially awol from dealing with this kind of

critical situation. any other president, obviously, would be very concerned and very involved. not this president. so, it's going to be up to the leadership and the congress to basically make sure that security is restored and that they go back to the business of dealing with governing our democracy. >> final question. in your view, who should mcconnell and mccarthy, guys like scalise, pence, what should they say as early as tonight? >> well, this is a very important moment that will test the quality of leadership that we have in the congress. i think it's very important for the leadership of both democrats and republicans to stand together to denounce what took place with what happened to the capitol. and to move quickly to do the

business of the country. i hope that those who want to object to the vote counts, who are basically taking on our constitution itself, i hope that they think about this again as to whether or not they ought to proceed. this is a critical time. and i think everybody who's in a position of responsibility needs to take the position that right now, the order of business is to count those votes, elect a new president, and then move on. do not use this as an opportunity to create further chaos in our democracy. >> secretary panetta, thank you very much for making time to be with us on this tumultuous and depressing day. this dramatic moment at the u.s. capitol, and indeed, nicole, as

garrett haake pointed out, those are apparently city police officers. the dcpd, known locally as the metropolitan police, in yellow, helping out the overwhelmed members of the capitol police, clearing protest -- line by line of these rioters who have apparently sat down on portions of the upper balcony. >> brian, i'm wondering why they're all still there, and i wonder if joe biden characterizing this as an insurrection and describing it as borderline sedition means they want to keep them there. i mean, i don't know why they're not -- i certainly, because everything that donald trump touches has become politicized, that would go for protests and law enforcement as well. and you just can't fathom that if this were an anti-trump protest, that they would be permitted to stand there for this long. i think we can try our chances at seeing if our colleague has an answer to that. she's joining us now from the east front of the capitol.

that is the other side from where this crowd is gathered. any insights? >> reporter: i mean, any insight? we've been here all day. it is just unbelievable to see in-person, nicole, and brian, what i have been witnessing all day. i mean, there were thousands of people on the steps of this capitol. i want to step out of the way so miguel can get a clearer picture as well of what we're seeing up there. so, president trump's message was actually coming out of those speakers, as you see, at the top of the steps there above the inauguration balcony just a couple of minutes ago, essentially saying to go home. yes, this election was stolen, this is what the president was saying in his messages, but then he said to the crowd to go home, to disperse. we can't play into their hand. this is part of the president's message. i mean, these bleachers here -- and guys, we haven't even been talking about this. there's going to be an inauguration here in two weeks or so. all of this set-up, all of these bleachers, all of this set-up on

the inauguration balcony, that's for president-elect joe biden's inauguration in two weeks time. instead, over the last couple of hours, they have been filled to the brim with rioters and protesters trying to breach the capitol. i was speaking to a man who came up from florida. he doesn't know how many did he's going to be here. he said himself he is part of a militia group in the state of florida. he breached the capitol building. he got inside the capitol building. he said he made it into a hallway of the capitol building and then they unleashed pepper spray on him and he had to retreat but he said to me, personally, that this is not the end. they're not going to take this any more. and he went so far as to say brian, you used the word depressing, the depressing situation we're seeing in washington, d.c., and capitol hill. he said the next time we're going to come back with weapons. this man, who's part of a militia group in florida. that's not the first i metime i

been hearing this. one of the questions i've been asking folks throughout the day is, did it have to go this far? someone has been injured. someone has been shotment. the halls of the capitol have been breached. is this what you wanted to see happen? and so many folks have said to me over and over again out here, this is what needs to happen because they feel as if the election has been stolen. they're using words that the president himself has used over and over again, like, communism and socialism and feeling like the country is playing into the hands of socialism. it is an unbelievable sight to see. a couple of hours ago, when katie was on air, she talked about the fact that what are other countries going to see when looking at what's happening in this country? i've covered a lot of those situations in other countries, specifically in the middle east, and i think countries like egypt, for instance, and iran are looking at this, folks in those countries, and saying, this is the kind of thing that we deal with in our country pretty often. and yet, this is the united states of america. and we're hearing it here. and you just heard that sound.

we've been hearing that all day. i'm not quite sure what that is, guys, that sound that you have heard repeatedly. it might be a pepper ball spray. we don't know what it is because we have been seeing smoke billowing from the top left corner of the inauguration balcony over to your left. we're seeing some lights on the spotlight. but again, it seems at this point, yes, people are yelling at the camera. that's what they do out here. that's to be expected. so apologies in advance if anybody says anything -- any profane nature. but at this point, it seems like people are beginning to dissipate. it's pretty cold out here. there is a 6:00 p.m., i believe, curfew in place that the mayor had put out a couple of hours ago. that's kind of causing people to disperse a little bit more. but man, oh man, guys, it has been quite a day so far to see -- just to see this sight, knowing what it looks like normally, and then again, there's that smoke from the middle of that inauguration

balcony coming out. we don't know what it is. we're seeing flash grenades go off. i believe that's what that sound is. flash grenades going off on the inauguration balcony. that is where the president-elect, when inaugurated on january 20th, will be standing, taking the oath of office. but today, two weeks before that moment, we're seeing flash grenades going off over and over again as capitol police are trying to disperse crowds there. it is an unbelievable sight. it seems like people are beginning to retreat from that area. and think about what is happening inside as you guys have been talking to garrett haake. again, there we go. >> i want to say two things and then i'm going to turn this back over to you. one, if you need to move to a safer location, just scamper away, and we will assume that is what you have done.

two, if your cameraman can go back to the area where the sounds, the flash bangs seem to be coming from and the smoke, can we stay on that? >> reporter: yeah, yeah, miguel, so, miguel, just make sure we're focusing on where the sound is coming from, the flash grenades. so, i think, guys, it's coming from the center area of the inauguration balcony where we have been seeing that flash grenade. i don't know how many you guys counted. that just took place in the last couple of minutes or so. maybe three or four flash bangs that we heard in the last couple of minutes. they seem to have ceased for the moment, and folks seem to be retreating at this point pretty quickly to say the least. and there you go again. miguel, focus in on the smoke that's come out of that center area. >> do we know if they're being put off by the protesters or the

police? >> reporter: i don't know that. i don't know the answer to that question. i'm going to make -- sorry. there it was again. that's teargas, so that's -- that's teargas. yeah, that's teargas, guys. let's move this way. let's move away. we're going to be -- we're in the -- >> you and miguel get somewhere safe for us. i want to pull brian williams back into this. brian. >> and i in turn want to bring vaughn hillyard in. he is among our correspondents out there as well. we appear to be watching, in the center of the screen there, the archway doorway that has a couple of chandeliers visible in the distance. we've seen humans up there kind of breaching the entrance.

we can see one exiting now over what was once glass windows. vaughn, where are you in relation to yasmin? are we correct that these are chemical disbursements and not any kind of fireworks, which were also used today? >> reporter: brian, i think that you may be looking at the straight-on shot that our photographer, paul, is shooting on here. we're just a little bit aways from where that photographer's podium is at, looking straight on towards that inauguration platform there. this is the first serious action we've taken or we've seen taken to move out this insurrection, essentially, here. over the course of the last hour, you have seen capitol police that you see in the bright green vests slowly one by one literally physically pick up these individuals that have been sitting and standing in these seats here where typically at inauguration day, you have lawmakers, you have former presidents, family members of

the president that is being sworn in. they have taken those seats. and what you have seen slowly, methodically, over the course of the hour, is those capitol police literally, physically pick up and remove those individuals. but what you just saw was apparently those flash bangs, teargas, coming from that straight center door where the president of the united states or ahead of his swearing in typically walks down before taking the oath of office. and that is where these individuals had broken multiple panes of glass, had essentially broken into that main lobby area right outside of the scaffolding of the capitol, and yet the doors ultimately kept more individuals from ultimately getting inside the heart of the capitol, but that's where you saw these flash bangs come from. apparently working from within, pushing people out, and that's where you have seen now a much more just over the last five minutes, an effort to push these

individuals out. again, that 6:00 p.m. curfew, i think, is worth noting here, because what you saw over the course of these last hours, brian, was not only just a couple hundred individuals enter the capitol, but you had thousands if not more than 10,000 individuals watching an insurrection, a takeover of the united states capitol building. we were out here among this crowd as there were smiles, there was cheering, there were chants of, fight for trump. ultimately what i think you are seeing right now is if i may, that last stand here. these are the last maybe 1,000 or 2,000 folks that are here. you just saw another flash grenade up in the air here. brian, i think over the course of the next hour is when you'll see this effort. we have seen essentially nobody but those capitol police officers that you see up there on the capitol as paul tries to film while walking backwards here. you have seen no other police presence. there was even a medical emergency that we watched.

there were no medics around. there was no other law enforcement around. there is no -- you can see one police car out in the distance. there's no national guard presence. >> vaughn hillyard, why is that? >> reporter: essentially back to the national mall. that's a good question, nicole. i got to tell you, here, you know, i'm standing here looking actually behind where paul is at right now, towards the national -- towards the washington monument, and there were thousands here, and i got to tell you, it was something to hear congressman moe brooks, one of the first individuals at the rally this morning, say that today is the day that patriots will begin to take names and kiss ass or kick ass and then it was rudy giuliani who then took the mic and said that there is going to be trial by combat, and quite frankly, the capitol grounds here, all the way back to the lincoln memorial, essentially the land has been ceded here, and i think what you are now seeing is this effort here over the course of these next minutes to try to push

these individuals out of this area here. i got to read you one sign that i have kept looking at repeatedly, nicole, if i could. it said, we, the people, will bring d.c. to its knees. we have the power. that has been hanging just to the left of the scaffolding on the capitol here. again, two weeks from now, this is where joe biden is set to be inaugurated as president of the united states. and yet, this is the scene that we're watching here in washington, d.c. >> vaughn hill yayard, have youd any access to any law enforcement, either local, state, or federal, that can answer the question why such a different response to an attempt to take over the united states capitol than to the peaceful -- largely peaceful protests in lafayette square, which was militarized. general milley roamed the streets in fatigues that he wears in fallujah. >> reporter: nicole, i got to be

honest with you, the best source of information that i have been getting and our team out here has been getting is via you guys because email is down. we can hardly send out a text message. there is no law enforcement to communicate with. several of the streets, there's about a two-mile square radius here around washington, d.c., that streets were supposed to be closed but as we made our way down here at around high noon, there were cars that were still going through, and we watched police vehicles struggle to get here to the capitol grounds. police officers getting out of their cars to conduct traffic here. again, these were streets that were supposed to be shut down, and it was clear that the -- by the time the insurrection inside of this u.s. capitol started happening, it was too late as police vehicles tried to make their way from other parts of d.c. to try to get down here to those grounds. and if i could, the question about the president of the united states' video, it would be great if people could see

that but you can't upload a video here. you can't send a photo here. essentially, any form of communication is absent here on the united states capitol grounds right now. >> vaughn hillyard, do you feel safe? >> reporter: i feel good. we've got our own private security here. we're standing back. paul rigny is our great photographer. todd, we -- we are good out here on these capitol grounds right now, nicole. thank you for asking. >> vaughn, please come back with everything and anything you've got there. more questions come to my mind from all your great reporting than i think we have answers. we'll keep coming to you. stay with us, my friend. i'm going to turn things over to rachel maddow. >> we're going to bring back into the conversation now somebody else who was inside the capitol. joining us now on the phone from the capitol complex is democratic congresswoman christy houlihan of pennsylvania, former u.s. air force officer. and she's inside the capitol grounds now. congresswoman houlihan, thank you so much for joining us. i appreciate you being here.

we have congresswoman houlihan joining us? i think we have lost that. >> yes, i am. >> oh, great, congresswoman, i'm sorry that we had a delay there. can you hear me? this is rachel maddow in new york. hi, congresswoman. can you hear me? >> hello? >> all right, we'll come back to congresswoman houlihan when we can establish that connection. what we're looking at here are live shots of capitol hill. 5:02 is sunset in washington tonight. we still do not have clarity in terms of what we were seeing, in terms of gas on the balcony area of the capitol that we're seeing sort of center stage there. obviously, that's a familiar scene from the inauguration, from inaugurations past and from the inauguration that we will have in two weeks. we also heard recently, just moments ago from congressman jason crow, saying that as far

as he's concerned, as far as he and his staff have been advised, it's not at all clear that the interior of the capitol is secure. as vaughn hillyard was just explaining, it's hard to get communication and media uploaded, for example, in and around the capitol right now. we're able to see what we can from these professional crews that we have got there. i will note that there have been some reports that journalists and tv crews have been attacked by protesters, and so the people who are doing their work to bring you these images right now are themselves being brave in doing so. the capitol police and other law enforcement that we can see on hand, it's still puzzling, sort of hard to understand why we haven't seen more arrests and why the protesters have been allowed to persist on the steps and at the doors of the capitol and here you see protesters apparently taunting or yelling at the protesters -- or yelling at the police. these scenes are -- this has

been going on for three hours now. it feels like about three years. i will tell you, but again, getting live reports from what's happening inside the capitol complex is difficult. we're bringing you as much live reporting as we can. i believe we've reconnected now to congresswoman chrissy houlihan. can you hear me now? >> i can hear you. >> i apologize for those earlier technical difficulties. can you tell us, congresswoman, what your experience has been today, where you are to the extent that you can tell us that, and what you have seen? >> sure, of course. my experience has been not dissimilar from other people, other members of congress. i represent a community in pennsylvania just outside of philadelphia, so i spent most of the morning and a little bit of the early afternoon preparing for what i expect would be a contested conversation about the results of pennsylvania. i finished working with my delegation on that at around the 1:00 time frame and began my journey into the office right around the time when i walked by the capitol steps and watched

the people literally, you know, crashing the gates of the people's house, and it was one of the most offensive, disappointing, devastating, saddening, maddening scenes that i never thought i would see in our country. i am now safely within the capitol building, and i am eager and ready and resolved to get back to work to the work of the people, to move this process forward and to make sure that in another several days or so that we have a newly minted president biden. >> congresswoman, what can you tell us about the security of the capitol complex right now? we have footage that we've been airing live showing the outside of the capitol, including the area that's set up with the bleachers and such for the soon to be inauguration of joe biden and kamala harris. but inside the capitol complex, we've had sort of mixed reporting as to whether or not the rioters have been cleared and whether or not law enforcement has been able to

secure the interior of the complex. >> so, i, like many others, am sort of hunkered down and watching some of the images that you all are bringing us and it would appear as though it is a mixed bag. it looks as though some places have been secured and cleared. it looks as though others are still compromised and until such time as they are cleared and safe and swept, we can't return to the business of the house and the business of the people. i have heard conversation that we may move to some other location, but i haven't heard confirmation of that. >> is it your impression that members of congress themselves, you and your colleagues who are elected in the house, have been in danger today? we heard a dramatic account from a congressman from colorado earlier about being one of 15 or so members who were ordered essentially to shelter in place inside the house chamber as protest -- excuse me, rioters tried to break down those doors. we've seen images of furniture

piled up against the doors, which seems like it ought to be plan z in terms of defending members of congress, not anything that we'd have to resort to when we could see something like this coming. have members of congress been personally in danger today? >> i also have seen some of those images and i am assuming that the congressman that you're speaking about is jason crow of colorado, and he and i share in common a veteran heritage. i served in the air force, he in the army. and this is definitely not what you expect to see unfolding on the floor of the house of representatives, and there certainly is -- are scenes that we have seen where members of our congress have been in danger and in peril, as have frankly the capitol police and other people who are charged with our protection. and this is untenable, absolutely unacceptable behavior on the part of what is -- could be described as nothing other than a mob. >> this mob in the capitol didn't come out of nowhere. the president has been demanding or telling his supporters to

come to washington today, promising them, quote, will be wild. the president's attorney, rudy giuliani, today said that what will happen for the rest of the day will be trial by combat. the president today called for a march on the capitol and said he would accompany these protesters. he then put out a video message tonight continuing to stoke this grievance that the election was stolen from him and telling the protesters that he loves them. it does feel as night falls in washington, it does feel like this is not ending, and the incitement that led to this is still active. a lot of people have talked, including the vice president -- the president-elect, has talked about wanting the president to step up and do the right thing, wanting republicans to step up and do the right thing here. what do you think should happen here? how do you think this can and should resolve? well, you know, wasn't it refreshing to see president-elect biden take, you know, the stage and be

presidential? isn't that something that we all deserve regardless of our party and affiliation? and i expect from our leaders exactly that. i expect that from president trump, which is not something that we've seen over the course of the last four years, and what we are seeing certainly is a failure of leadership. you know, leadership is not just about leading, but it's also by -- it's about educating. it's about setting expectations. it's not about just representing people but rather helping them to understand the truth. this is something this president has failed to do. and frankly, though, what i would also say is so is there a responsibility on the part of these individuals. you know, these people woke up and made choices. they made their way to the steps of the capitol building with malicious intent, and they also have responsibility as well that we cannot lay all of this on the feet of our leadership. >> the pictures that we are seen right now on the screen may eventually be pictures that are cited in affidavits and

prosecutions in the future if what you're saying is correct. congresswoman houlahan, good luck to you, stay safe. keep us apprised as this long night in washington starts to unfold. thank you. >> thank you. bye-bye. >> brian, back to you. >> thank you, rachel, garrett haake standing by to rejoin it. garrett, i'm tempted to echo what so many are saying on social media and say that if it was the president planned to hold a bible aloft on the grounds of the capitol, it sure would have been cleared much earlier than now. that is to say that while there appears to be a commander of this effort and something close to an organized effort to get people out, no one's in any hurry. no one is showing any of the tactics near what you and i witnessed during the hot nights of this summer when the rioters were alleged to be all connected to the black lives matter movement.

these rioters are connected to the president of the united states and his colleagues in the house and senate, but garrett, be that as it may, you have, i'm told, something of a damage assessment from inside the hallways we're watching right now. >> yeah, brian, yeah, notwithstanding the comparison to june, which was a very different situation, and is starting to have some similarities which i'll get to in a minute, i can tell you that the lockdown here on capitol hill is lifting just a little bit. that video you're seeing now, i actually just shot that on my cell phone a few minutes ago. those are virginia state police officers in the senate office building making their way through the tunnels that we have been talking about all day into the capitol. i only shot a few seconds of video, but by my count, there were several dozen, maybe as many as 50 of these officers, including heavily-armed s.w.a.t. officers of the virginia state police. all working their way through the capitol. you've seen those deployments of flash bangs and smoke on the

steps of the capitol. that is not dissimilar to how we saw metropolitan police clear black lives matter plaza back in may and june, and it appears likely from where i'm standing now that this is what we're getting ready to see again. you've got those heavily-armed officers who are now inside the capitol building. i could hear some of the radios talking about a couple of folks who were locked in rooms in the capitol. wasn't clear whether these were people who did so intentionally or found themselves stranded from their fellow rioters in the capitol and locked in rooms unintentionally. but now on constitution avenue, just outside the office building where i'm standing, there are several dozen, perhaps as many as a hundred up armored mpd officers staging to clear this area, likely probably right at 6:00. like we saw in the protests over the course of the summer. remember, d.c.'s under a 6:00 curfew. at 8:00 p.m., the public transportation system here is shut down. and what mpd typically does as

i've become all too familiar with, is they're going to move through this area and try to push all of these protesters outside, i would say, rioters inside. they're going to try to push them all in one direction. they don't have the numbers to do mass arrests. that was part of the problem earlier today. they were functionally completely outnumbered. but it's generally the way mpd does when they're trying to shut things down and enforce a curfew. my guess is probably west, down the mall, back towards where this rally started this morning. and just try to force them out of this space, and we're going to see that come into action here in the next 30 minutes or so. >> i've seen two things of note. number one, a mention on social media that perhaps the rioters used chemical disbursements of their own to get the better of the capitol police officers at several points on their way to occupying these buildings, and there are pictures out of

rioters inside the speaker's office, at nancy pelosi's desk. a note they left for nancy pelosi at her desk. senator duck worth said in an interview earlier this evening that it was a sharp-eyed senate aide who on their way out of the chamber thought to reach back and grab the electoral college certificates, what we were supposed to be covering today, so just as a matter of chance and happenstance, they were grabbed and preserved because of course the senate chamber was taken over in this unbelievable day which our friend steve schmidt has called a moment of humiliation for the united states. garrett? >> reporter: well, brian, that senate aide is going to end up being one of the heroes of this day for taking those electoral college ballots out of the senate chamber. the senate chamber itself is just a room in terms of how all this gets done. there are a number of large

rooms in the capitol that are essentially designated as contingency areas where the senate and house can conduct their business. if the capitol should be deemed unsafe. there are rooms in these various office buildings where they can do their work but they needed these physical documents,the form of the electoral college votes, i guess the affidavits from the states, as well as, by the way, the objections, which we may still hear from members when this process resumes, have to be submitted in writing. these pieces of paper are actually important to the process. on your point about, you know, this chemical agents being used by the rioters, that is entirely possible. you know, we're trying to reverse engineer how these folks got into the buildings in the first place. as you know, this capitol complex is enormous. it's not just the capitol itself, which is the most secure, but you know, multiple house and senate site office buildings, all of which are connected through a network of tunnels. when this started earlier today, the first building to be locked down was the cannon office building on the house side, and we sort of saw this roll across the capitol from the house side

of things north to the senate side. and you know, if i were a betting man, i would say that's probably where this started, just because the office buildings tend to have more entrances and fewer police stationed around them at any given time. i think that will probably be part of what i suspect will be a pretty comprehensive review of this whole day that's going to have to be conducted at some point by capitol police. >> and indeed, garrett, while you're talking, we see members of the metropolitan police, again, for folks watching not familiar with d.c., it's in effect the dcpd. it's the district of columbia police department that has always gone under the title, metropolitan police, and as garrett pointed out earlier, in the district of columbia, you have a -- an amalgam of law enforcement agencies. you've got the federal protection service. you've got capitol police, secret service, park police, on and on and on. and right now, garrett, we've got state police from virginia

and maryland who have come into the district with permission to help get the upper hand over these rioters. >> reporter: yeah and that in and of itself isn't that unusual because of the weird nature of the federal district of columbia and the states that surround it, maryland and virginia. the law enforcement agencies here work together all the time, usually there's mutual aid requests that go out. you know, if it's anything from a car chase that goes from one to the other or if you need additional forces, the arlington police department, for example, the big virginia suburb helps out d.c. police quite a bit. i think in this case, you saw the deployment of state police officers and even the national guard under control of their governors in virginia and maryland moving quite quickly to help d.c. address this issue. it should be said that the d.c. police, the mpd, they deal with large-scale protests on a weekly basis, if not a daily basis. that is not uncommon here. and even the handoff between them and the capitol police isn't the kind of thing that

should have caused this breakdown today that led to this situation where so many people were able to get into the capitol. it is not unusual to see giant protests across the district handled very professionally by this alphabet soup of law enforcement agencies. what happened today is just an incredibly unusual breakdown, and it's going to need to be thoroughly investigated. it's just not normal. these law enforcement agencies have too much experience with events just like this all the time. >> garrett haake, don't go anywhere. we're going to bring into our conversation right now california congresswoman linda sanchez. she's calling us from her office where she is hearing flash bangs outside her window. congresswoman, how are you? >> i'm well. little bit rattled, and i am not in my office. i am in an unsclodisclosed loca in the capitol complex. >> don't tell us where you are. i want to ask you, garrett haake, our correspondent on capitol hill, just said none of this is normal.

what would something inching more toward normal look like? what should be happening? >> well, as somebody said earlier, the capitol is not a stranger to protests of all kinds. we have protests -- people come to protest at the capitol all the time but this is a violent riot where people smashed barriers and glass and wood to storm into the capitol, where shots were fired inside the capitol, so this is not a normal run-of-the-mill garden variety protest. this is, in my opinion, a seditious, traitorous act to try to subvert democracy and to try to delegitimize the votes of every american who participated in the last presidential election. >> president-elect biden described it, in fact, as an insurrection. so, for those of us watching these images, if it's a seditious act determined or designed to undermine democracy,

some people call that a coup attempt, or if it is what the president-elect described it as an insurrection, why do you think the rioters are being allowed to just hang out and take pictures with their phones? >> yeah, that, i don't understand. every single one of them should be arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. >> do you have any ability to -- i mean, are law enforcement, capitol police, in contact with you? >> they have been providing us with updates throughout the afternoon. we were removed to a secure location with other members, but it was really crowded and there are still republican members who refuse to wear their face masks and so i decided i did not feel safe staying in those crowded conditions, and i have gone to a less safe alternate location, but one where i feel like, you know, i'm in a safer environment. but we continue to receive updates on what is going on. our work will continue.

we will get this work of certifying the electoral college votes completed. i don't know if that will take place here or elsewhere, but we are bound and determined to do our constitutional duty and to get that job done. but it's just -- it's really jarring to come into work on a wednesday to do something that is normally a very, just, procedural thing that is a hallmark of our democracy, the peaceful transfer of power, and to have the events unfold in this way is just -- it's astonishing. it's disheartening. it's dangerous. and you know, as a member -- i called my husband last night, and i told him that i was coming into work today but that should anything happen, i let him know where my will and last testament was located in the event that we needed it. and it's a sad day in america when you are trying to come in and do your job in a democracy

and you have to think about things like that. i have an 11-year-old son who i want to be around to raise, and people who are, you know, breaking down barriers and bursting into the capitol and that are armed make it really hard to do that. >> i remember on 9/11 calling my dad to say good-bye. that was the only time i ever felt like my life was in danger because i worked in government. can you tell us why you knew last night that you needed to tell your husband where your will was? >> you know, it was just a premonition that, you know, there has been enough nasty rhetoric, inflammatory rhetoric by our president and by others to encourage this mob-like behavior, this riotous behavior, and i just knew that it probably would boil over, and i just wanted to be prepared. i wanted to have a plan.

and as i said, you know, having to barricade yourself into a room and put purchase furniture against the door and grab whatever objects are handy that can be used as weapons, you know, when you are going in to work is -- it's unfathomable to me that that would be something that, again, that would happen on a wednesday workday. >> congresswoman, if you knew last night through premonition or just from watching this president incite his supporters for the last nine weeks, why weren't the capitol police better prepared? >> you know, it's -- i don't want to play the blame game, and i give the capitol police a lot of credit, because they have come around to -- as i said, check on members and to put us in secure locations, but we had asked questions early on, you know, what were the plans for the protesters, which became rioters, and we were assured that they would have it all well in hand, that they had a plan, that they had contingency plans

and they didn't want to give us specifics because they didn't want those specifics to get out somehow to the general public. but i have to say, i'm left scratching my head, wondering how did these events just transpire to where, you know, people broke through barricades and, you know, once they broke through the barricades that got them on to capitol plaza, why weren't -- why wasn't teargas employed then or water, in 40-degree weather, i got to believe that if somebody got a thorough soaking, it's nonlethal force but they sure would be less apt to hang around. none of that happened. and i'm quite frankly shocked that, you know, those things were not thought about. or maybe they were and people dismissed them. i don't know. but you know, i can't -- i can't begin to understand that. >> congresswoman, there was an image over the summer of armed

people wearing military fatigues, but they were made up of a mix of federal agencies, some of them came from the border patrol, some of them were national guard units on the steps of the lincoln memorial. i think it's an image that no one will ever forget. they were there to protect the nation's capitol after george floyd was killed. was today's event at least worthy of the same kind of show of force in terms of protecting you from rioters committing insurrection and sedition? >> i think the process -- i think our democracy is worth the effort. again, this is a normal process. it's a very perfunctory, you know, event that happens when we transfer power. and i think it's worth -- our democracy is worth defending and guarding, you know, to the death by every agency. so, again, it's a little bit shocking that there was not a,

you know, bigger show of force, a more well thought out plan for what to do in case violence happened, which of course it did. >> congresswoman linda sanchez, for your time, for your candor, and for your courage and for what you have been through today, we thank you for sharing all of it with all of us. thank you so much. stay safe, please. >> yeah. thank you. >> over to you, brian. >> devastatingly sad conversation with a sitting member of congress, nicole. thank you. congresswoman, thank you. i just want to reference what our viewers have been watching, the focal point, the center of your picture. this is pennsylvania avenue, so you see the capitol dome in the distance. behind the camera a few blocks is the white house. the tower on the right is what is now the trump hotel, the old post office in washington. that means fbi headquarters is

down toward the capitol a block or two on the left. but by our count, about 15 police vehicles, d.c. fire is there as well. we know nothing about why they have all converged on that location. obviously, we'll be listening to d.c. police scanners and the feds to figure it out. but you've got police, fire, and ambulances there during this time of, let's just call it heightened activity in d.c., and rioters who have yet to disperse from the capital. to that end, correspondent josh letterman is standing by over on the senate side of the capitol. josh, darkness fell over a half hour ago. what change have you seen? >> reporter: well, the crowds have dispersed a little bit as it's gotten colder but there is still a lot of antagonism and in fact, we are watching right now as these riot police, they

appear to be from metro police here in d.c. they are moving the line and have been trying to push the remaining protesters farther and farther away from this senate entrance to the capitol. it's a line of police officers blocking an entrance that reporters go in every single day to do their business in the capitol. we've also been seeing some confrontations, brian, between the protesters who are here and what appear to be some members of the media. it's been a little unclear and what's odd is you have all of these police officers who are arrayed here, have not really been intervening in these altercations. they're kind of just standing back and allowing what's going to happen beyond their perimeter to happen. now, i don't know if that's because, you know, that's the instructions that they have is to focus on protecting the building and making sure nobody gets in, but we're continuing to see these very tense situations play out without any real involvement from the police force here, and what's so

dystopian here, brian, is how -- i'm going to pass it back to you. i think we're going to pass it back to you. >> all right, josh letterman, thank you. we're going to ask you to stay on that line of metropolitan police. about what it is we're covering here, rioters who, with seeming ease, took possession of that building, the united states capitol, rioters with seeming ease entering both chambers of congress, sitting behind the desk of the speaker of the house, sitting at the dais and the well of the u.s. senate. a whole lot of normally upstanding, smart people, prominent citizens, have wondered if a fix of some sort wasn't in, if lines were dropped, if security was

lessened. where was the fight? where was the line in the sand? how is it that since we have known this gathering was coming for weeks, the president himself has promoted the gathering, his attendants, his participation in it, everyone knew this was happening. nicole wallace, how is it that the u.s. capitol police and the blame hardly stops there, how is it they were so instantly and easily overwhelmed? >> well, that is a question that we will -- the truth will emerge. we will learn the answer to that. what i don't understand is what's happening now, because as president-elect biden described this act today as an insurrection, it's being called domestic terrorism, if it isn't, i'm not sure what the distinction is. why are they standing around? obviously very comfortable. the rioters are very

comfortable. they feel no threat from law enforcement. they look, and rachel maddow was profound, to draw the parallel to charlottesville earlier. they looked as comfortable committing the crimes of sedition and insurrection as the kkk protesters looked out there in the light of day, marching with their lanterns and whatever else they had. so i think the question is, why is that the state of affairs right now? and i think my question for you, claire mccaskill, who's joining our coverage now, is why did congresswoman linda sanchez have enough of a clarity about how dangerous today would be for her to, in her words, simply going to the office, that she last night called her husband and told her where her will was hidden. >> well, i think the members of congress have watched in horror as the president of the united states egged his supporters on with lies and taunts. i mean, you had rudy giuliani

this morning talking, urging the crowd of tens upon thousands of people to go to combat, and within hours, they did. i don't think i've ever had a roller coaster day like this. i woke up this morning, excited about our democracy and what happened in georgia, and i got to tell you, the moment i saw somebody sitting on the dais in the senate, knowing that, you know, i couldn't even take my family on the floor of the senate, and i was a senator, unless it was a specially arranged visit, and then wandering around the capitol with a confederate flag, i mean, this is incredibly sad. this is not just law breaking. it is not just sedition. it is a low moment for this country. >> claire, how did it happen? you were protected by capitol

police. how did they lose control? i mean, it doesn't look like they ever had control so lose seems like the wrong verb. >> well, first of all, i do -- they were so used to tourists and people who are coming to visit senators and congressmen, and they are used to people who are compliant. they are used to people that, when they -- you have a locked door, they don't break the glass. this is extraordinary. so, they were not prepared for a riotous mob trying to take out windows and steal things and go through desks and try to get in to sacrosanct places. i will tell you one thing. i do think i have some news here. i've spent most of the afternoon talking to my friends, both republicans and democrats, some of whom are locked underground somewhere that i won't disclose, some of whom were in their offices and remain there, but

i'll tell you what they all say. everyone i've talked to. now i will admit i've only talked to republicans who are on the side of the constitution. i've not talked to any of the seditious group. but all of them, to a person, are -- have a sense of urgency about getting back to it. i predict that before the clock strikes midnight, the senators will be somewhere, maybe in the old senate chamber, as you all may know, right down the hall from the senate chamber is the historic old senate chamber where the senate used to meet at a point in time when the new senate chamber was not finished, and maybe they meet in there. but there is a sense of urgency about not letting these domestic terrorists stop the process of democracy, so i predict everybody eat their wheaties because i don't know that you guys will be forced to be up all night, but somebody is going to be broadcasting all night because i believe this process will continue tonight based on my conversations with united

states senators this afternoon. >> claire, i'm going to -- this is rachel in new york. i'm just going to jump in for a second here to say that per reporting from pete williams, nbc's pete williams, several law enforcement officials have confirmed to nbc news that the woman who was shot inside the u.s. capitol today has died. this is footage that we've seen. we've seen still images of it on our air. there's been video circulating on social media. we still do not know the circumstances of that woman's injuries, but nbc is reporting that she has now died as a result of that shooting. it is -- i think it remains sort of hard to overstate the importance of the fact that people appear to have gotten inside the u.s. capitol today not just themselves but apparently with weapons. nobody was screened. nobody went through the sort of security procedures that you would usually need to go through in order to get in there, and there does seem to be indication

that some of the people who got inside the capitol were armed and now we know of at least one death. the entire d.c. national guard has been activated. that's about 1,100 troops. we've seen activation of national guard now from other states. but claire, i'll put this to you, and actually nicole as well, given your experience in government. one of the things that i am increasingly surprised by, i mean, we're ten minutes away from the fall of a curfew in d.c., and who knows how they're going to enforce that, but where is the homeland security secretary? where's chad wolf? or anybody else at the department of homeland security? we had been told in advance that at least tactical teams from customs and border protection would be activated today and ready to be deployed on a moment's notice to protect federal property and federal buildings. how well did that go? where's the homeland security secretary? where's the acting attorney general? jeffrey rosen, who got up on -- behind the podium this summer and said that anti-racism protesters should be charged with sedition. should be charged with trying to overthrow the government for protesting against police violence.

in various american cities. where's jeffrey rosen today? and we've seen fbi teams who have apparently been activated. we've heard the u.s. marshals have apparently been activated. we've heard nothing from senior members of the trump administration. where's the acting defense secretary? this junior pentagon officer christopher miller inexplicable vaulted to secretary of defense after the election when president trump came in 1and decapitated leadership of the defense department installing, forgive me, hack political staffers in the senior echelons of the pentagoncri christopher miller who vaulted five tiers of leadership to be an unknown defense secretary. where is christopher meller today? where is anybody in a federal role of leadership whether or not republicans should step forward and say president trump, it's time to resign whether

republicans should come forward and say senator holly, time to resign, senator cruiz time to resign. we won't be known as the violent insurrection after we have caused this. but where is the actual federal government right now? i don't need to hear from president trump again, not if he's going to give any inciting video where he talks about the election being stolen. maybe pence is in a punker so b somewhere. who is in charge? who do you expect to be in charge with this siege underway? >> i would think that this would be a moment for mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy to step up and do a press conference and require the head of homeland security and the acting attorney general to participate in it. this is on the world stage, this is maybe the most dramatic thing that has happened in our country in my lifetime in terms of what

it says to thee eto the rest ofd about our democracy and i do not understand why. for a minute, just for a second close your eyes and imagine if all of those people who are breaking windows and who were streaming through unauthorized doors and who were putting off fire extinguishes in the senate, if they were all black. just imagine for a minute the police response. i know they were trying to keep people from getting killed and they were out numbered but there will be a lot of hearings over how this is being handled because it does appear there are two different standards here. if you are being told by the president to go and go this for

two hours he stood in front of these people and urged them on then you get a free pass to break law and to challenge law enforcement officers and to break down barriers and to destroy parts of the united states capitol? it is unbelievable. this is a moment where all of america just like george floyd should realize that there are in fact two systems of justice in this country. one for black people and one for people who call themselves donald trump supporters today were showing to be terrorists. >> claire, i want to say nbc news confirmed within the last few minutes per an fbi source that there have been explosive

devices, two suspected explosive devices rendered safe. the investigation is on going. we've now got shots fired inside the capitol. we have a woman who was shot inside the capitol who has now died. we've got reports of two suspected explosive devices responded to by fbi and law enforcement and this is not over. it is dark now in washington d.c. the capitol grounds are not secure. the capitol complex does not appear to be secure and while it is heartening and i think necessary to clehear, claire, w you've been hearing this electoral count will happen tonight and will not be delayed any more than it needs to be for certification of the next president of the united states. it's not clear how that can be done safely as of yet. >> they have been bringing people in through the basement. you saw video that garrett shot which is right as you come out

of the cafeteria area to the trams that go over to the capitol building, you saw all those state troopers going in that way. it my understanding from talking to people today that a number of people have have been coming in through the convention center, obviously, which is shut down into the bows of the capitol to methodically move through the capitol and you're seeing them move off the stands and that's going on inside the building right now and there is some belief that process should be complete within a couple hours. >> indeed. as senator mccaskill is talking, we're seeing a couple things. we're seeing vehicles arrive on the capitol grounds that looks to be government buses, perhaps these are full of law enforcement or national guard and prior to that we saw

something leon talked about establishing a perimeter. these are d.c. police officers in i guess, what could be called riot gear. please note, their presentation more peaceful and different than it was in a place like lafayette square when the order came down from the a.g. and president to clear it out because he wanted to hold a bible aloft. we have both scenes in the split scene. motorcycle escort of the buses. the use of barricades at all, that's a novel concept today and the first time we've seen them used with any seriousness. vaughn is at this camera location standing by. vaughn, this looks like a half regimen of metropolitan d.c.

police officers. >> reporter: yeah, brian, what you saw over the last hour is i guess you can say finally serious action on the part of law enforcement on a tough day here in washington d.c. we along with the things that took place are pushed back here. we're outside of the capitol grounds on the per outside. this are people squared up. what you saw was earlier this hour, tear gas, flash bang, grenad grenades. especially, you saw this action by law enforcement slowly push people back away from the capitol grounds here. i got to tell you, there is one individual that came up to us before we went live and said if you don't hear our voices tonight, you'll see our muskets tomorrow. that is where what you saw over the course this afternoon and evening where thousands of

individuals take part of an insurrection and over took the inauguration mplatplatform. you saw 10,000 to 20,000 folks between the capitol and washington monument where the president held that rally or attended that rally today and what you saw were people here in support of that effort. you saw everybody from young kids to older folks here, and this was not just an event in which all of us bared witness to perhaps ten years ago in the form of a tea party rally or trump rally we came used to over the last four or five years. what you saw was an open push back against these law enforcement individuals. you saw up here until the sun was going down windows at the front of the united states capitol being smashed in before you saw that big puff of tear

gas, that orange, yellow gas come up from the center of the capitol building coming out of literally where joe biden 14 days from now is slated to walk down to take the oath of office. those very doors, those very steps were over taken by these individuals here and i can tell you, brian, i hear the bells. striking 6:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m. is the curfew here in washington d.c. and over the last hour that you saw those thousands, most of those thousands disburse and essentially you have the last 1,000, 2,000 here for what we could under unfortunate circumstances describe the last stand here in washington d.c. here tonight. >> vaughn, thanks. we're assuming that line will hold. rachel maddow, the night of lafayette square i will never forget a word you used on the air as we were looking you were

anchoring during live video of the head of the joint chiefs mark milli in camo walking the streets as you put it contemporaneously like a viceroy in northwest washington. he was, for whatever regret he expressed afterwards, that he was sucked into it that he had no idea when he left the west wing he would be part of that photo op that will come to identify and symbolize part of the trump administration over these past four years. he was the face, the embodiment of the militarized law enforcement that night in our capitol city with the white house in the background. a far cry from what we're seeing now in terms of law enforce 789. our u.s. capitol having been invaded today. >> that's exactly right. i think about