tell all of you that it has been a struggle and yesterday was a moment perhaps of the end of faith for many of us who have covered this day in and day out. but like we talked about earlier, i refuse to give up on the idea that america can't regain its footing as a moral leader of the democratic world. let's start that today. thanks for getting up "way too early" with us. "morning joe" starts right now. ♪ ♪ ♪ i hurt myself today to see if i still feel ♪ ♪ i focus on the pain the only thing that's real ♪

♪ the needle tears a hole the old familiar sting ♪ ♪ try to kill it all the way but i remember everything ♪ ♪ what have i become my sweetest friend ♪ ♪ everyone i know goes away in the end ♪ ♪ and you could have it all my empire of dearth ♪

♪ i will let you down i will make you hurt ♪ good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is thursday, january 7th. the morning after one of the saddest, most chaotic days on capitol hill in history. just hours ago, congress confirmed joe biden's election victory, but let's get everybody caught up on what made that normally mundane task such big news. pro trump rioters, insurrectionists, incited by the president stormed the united states capitol in a failed attempt to thwart the certification of joe biden's win. here was the president addressing his supporters just before the capitol was breached for the first time since the war of 1812. >> and we're going to have to

fight much harder and mike pence is going to have to come through for us and if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country. and after this, we're going to walk down and i'll be there with you, we're going to walk down -- we're going to walk down, anyone you want, but right here we're going to walk down to the capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. because you'll never take back our country with weakness. >> it wasn't only from the president. here's what we heard yesterday morning from his lawyer, rudy giuliani. >> over the next ten days, we get to see the machines that are

crooked, the ballots that are fraudulent and if we're wrong we'll be made fools of. but if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail. [ cheers and applause ] so let's have trial by combat. >> and this was the message from the president's son, don jr., who to republicans who refused to help steal the election. >> guess what, folks. if you're going to be the zero and not the hero, we're coming for you. we're going to have a good time doing it. >> just after 2:00 p.m. about an hour after the president's speech came news of the breach. the senate was forced in to recess, just as senators were debating an objection to arizona's electoral count. an aide was caught on tape telling james lankford, quote, protesters are in the building. chuck grassley was rushed out of

the chamber to a secure location. those inside the capitol building were told to stay away in windows and doors. and that was unfolding in the senate. this is what was happening in the house. those are rioters trying to break into the house chamber. capitol police fired a single gunshot and one woman was killed. >> by the way, those were not antifa as some losers were saying on another network. those are supporters who support trump with trump hats. yesterday was donald trump's day. this all happened because donald trump tried to have these people commit insurrection against the united states of america. and they're wearing trump hats, so go ahead, mika.

let's be very clear -- it's owned 1,000% by trump and all those who have quietly -- >> look at the other side of that door. members of the house and their staff crouched in the house gallery including jason crowe a former u.s. army ranger. meanwhile, calls mounted for president trump to call off his supporters including from president-elect joe biden who delivered a public address denouncing the violence. there are also calls for the 25th amendment to be evoked to remove the president from office. the social secretary has since resigned and more resignations could follow possibly from national security adviser robert o'brien, deputy national security adviser, and transportation secretary elaine chao. >> a little late, elaine. you stood by him after

charlottesville. >> here's how i-tv news correspondent robert moore covered the story for the uk. >> we followed the aggrieved and infuriated trump supporters as they stormed the building. through broken windows and doors they had forced open. and for a few they felt they had won a precious victory. >> usa! usa! stop the steal! stop the steal! stop the steal! >> reporter: they were in the heart of the congressional building.

what's the purpose of storming congress itself? >> because they work for us. >> congress still completed its work. the debate resumed just after 8:00 p.m. the president-elect's win was certified early this morning with vice president pence making the announcement. we heard from biden calling for calm, calling for the president to call off these rioters, these insurrectionists and these terrorists and the president made a very pitiful response. >> and he had to be pressured by the aides who wanted him to say something. he could barely bring himself to put out a tweet. when he did, he furthered the conspiracy theories that the election was stolen before saying we love you, you're special people, talking to the rioters but now it's time to go home. but then two hours ago, the

president released a statement on twitter through one of his aides, dan skow vino. even though i totally disagree with the outcome of the election, the facts bear me out they don't of course, nevertheless, there will be an orderly transition on the 20th. while this represents the end of the greatest first term in presidential history, it is only the beginning of our fight to make america great again. so joe, even there when the obvious is in front of him, when he's forced at 3:49 in the morning finally to say, okay, there will be an orderly transition, he pushes the conspiracy theory and ends after a day like yesterday when we witnessed what we witnessed in that building, he says the fight continues. knowing full well what message that sends to his supporters. >> well, it's continued insurrection. just like yesterday. hey, t.j., i'm going to say a

few things and while i'm saying a few things if you can show pictures of the people breaking inside the capitol, i'd really appreciate it. >> terrorists. >> because i think a lot of us have some questions. a lot of questions. not just for donald trump. i got no questions for donald trump, he's an insurrectionist, he should be arrested today. he should be sent to jail today for insurrection against the united states of america, but i just -- i do wonder this morning why they weren't better prepared for this. why weren't the capitol hill police better prepared for this. why wasn't the city of washington, d.c., better prepared for this. why wasn't the national guard better prepared for this. why weren't law enforcement agencies all across the region better prepared for an invasion. an invasion against the people's

house. against the world's greatest deliberative body. and for those of you who have never been up on the capital, i spent quite a bit of time there and even as a member of congress i had to have my i.d. to get in. if i walked across an adjoining street when no cars were on that street, but i didn't have a walk sign, capitol hill police would scream at the top of their lungs and tell us all to get back on the sidewalk. when i was walking to a state of the union address across the street from the capitol, five capitol hill police started screaming at me, telling me i had to clear the area. and yet, yesterday we saw some of these same capitol hill police officers who -- by the

way, i never complained when they were tough. i want them to be tough. i want them to protect the people's house. yesterday we see them patting terrorists on the back. we see them taking selfies. with people who were committing an insurrection against the united states of america. politely opening the door for terrorists who had scrawled on the door murder the media, who had broken through this glass. letting them just walk through. letting these trump supporters walk through freely and politely opening doors. to the insurrectionists. and then letting the terrorists walk out of the same capitol they had laid siege to and threatened the lives of members

of the house and members of the senate who they said they were coming to get including mike pence. there has to be an investigation. how many of these capitol hill cops are members of donald trump's cult? how many? >> it is a cult. >> how many allowed this to happen? and i do want to know where the hell were the d.c. police? where the hell -- how did this happen? this hasn't happened since the war of 1812 when the british stormed washington, d.c. it's obvious, this was coming. >> yeah. >> donald trump promised this day was coming. he was -- he and his golf caddy

dan scavino were putting out videos saying it was going to be wild, january 6th was going to be wild. we were warned that january 6th was going to be a dangerous day. not just in social media, not just in the media, but in our lives. people would come up to me and ask what do you think is going to happen on january the 6th? well, what happened was the capitol hill police weren't ready, the d.c. police weren't ready, the national guard wasn't ready. nobody was ready! >> or was it okay because they are white? i just have to ask. >> oh, my god, oh, please. please. >> because i don't think this would have happened with black lives matter's protesters. >> let me tell you something. we don't have to even go there. if these insurrectionists were black, they would have been shot in the face. and my god, if these insurrectionists were muslim they would have been sniped from the top of buildings.

so i want to know from the capitol hill police, what is it, is it just white people or is it donald trump supporters? why do you scream at people for walking across the street three blocks away from the capitol? why are you not as bad asses is around the capitol, but then trump supporters come in and you open the doors for them! you open the doors for them. and let them breach the people's house. what is wrong with you? i also want to know are we a nation of laws? are we a nation of one man? donald j. trump called for the insurrection against the united states of america. he called for it.

rudy giuliani called for combat justice. just an hour or two before this happened. donald trump jr. said we are coming for you. that's insurrection against the united states of america and if donald trump jr., rudy giuliani, and donald trump are not arrested today for insurrection and taken to jail and booked and if the capitol hill police do not go through every video and look at the face of every person that invaded our capitol and if they are not arrested and brought to justice today then we are no longer a nation of laws

and we only tell people they can do this again. and guess what? this is what i have been saying about oregon, about portland for months. for months. if you put out a curfew, if you have laws, you either follow them or anarchy follows and you encourage more anarchy. it's that simple. let's bring in the retired four star army's admiral stavridis. admiral stavridis, i want to start with you and then bring in david ignatius. was yesterday an insurrection against the united states of america? >> of course it was. anybody who turned on the television and watched it saw that and the supporters were bringing the trump flags.

for me the saddest moment was trying to take down the flag of the united states and trying to put it a trump sign. this is a 9/11 moment, in sense we'll remember what we were doing, what we were doing and when we turned on the television and watched the events yesterday. it was searing in my view. i for one will never look at a maga hat again without thinking of this day. and if you are a decent american, put away your maga hat. put away your trump flag. remember what those symbols were used for on this day. i'll tell you, joe, what it reminds me of and i don't mean to be melodramatic and that's 9/11. bush gathered the admirals and

the generals of the military and he said, remember this. remember this day. the buildings still smelled like cordite, like i suspect the capitol today smells like tear gas. we need to remember this day so that we can understand what happened and yes, we need a serious national level investigation into what has happened specifically in the failure to protect the people's house. but even more importantly, we need to get at the root causes here and ensure that we don't fulfill de tocqueville's promise about democracy. it's a world institution, but the tragedy comes if you elect the government you deserve. i think it's time to recognize this is not the government of the people of the united states of america. put away as they maga hats, put

away those trump flags. let's get a new president in place. let's sail on. >> david ignatius, you warned this was going to happen in your last column. you said, yeah, trump's going away but we're not out of the woods yet. and my god, those words became way too prescient yesterday and i agree with the admiral. we had another 9/11 event. unfortunately the attack against the capitol was from within. >> it was shocking for everyone to watch it. i distinguish between two strands of this. first, for months, donald trump has been inciting against our system. he's been threatening that he wouldn't abide by the election results after the election. he defied the courts, he defied every objective attempt to establish that joe biden won. and then there's a second more

immediate tactical question, how was the security of the capitol breached? everybody who was involved in the planning for this, joe, knew that the likely course was that these insurgents -- i won't call them protesters anymore, would march from the ellipse to the capitol and might try to storm the capitol. when i asked my sources involved in the planning what are you going to do that's the responsibility of the capitol police. there will be 500 to 600 of them. they'll expand the perimeter and will keep the people out. they radically underestimated the numbers. the top number of people was about 20,000 and it probably all told there were more like 40,000 gathered in the demonstrations on wednesday. the capitol police simply did not defend that barricade. they let people walk through. we have all seen the pictures. and then just a series of things

happened. the -- these people had planned very carefully how they were going to operate, where they'd enter, how they'd move. they fancy themselves as modern day freedom fighters. you can see the smug look on their faces in the photographs that were captured, so that needs to be investigated really carefully. i want to make one point which is that the planners who are trying to prevent what happened and failed had an overriding mission which was a good one, which was to try to avoid this being militarized. we do not want tiananmen square images to persist. we have 60 million people who voted for donald trump and many feel that this process is fraudulent. the last thing we needed was that kind of confrontation. as timid as this reaction look, the net effect of what happened yesterday was to devalue this

movement. it's lost a lot of support, they popped their own balloon. their actions disgusted a lot of americans who might have been sympathetic before. so i think that's beneficial and really beneficial which our uniformed military needs to fight foreign wars, not be involved in domestic disagreements, was not brought in. i think that really matters. >> you can be sure -- >> -- have the right law enforcement -- >> right. why don't we have the right law enforcement there and why weren't as prepared for the black lives matter protesters? quite frankly, the insurrectionists and terrorists were definitely handled with care. it was pathetic. were arrests made? did anybody get arrested for what happened? is anybody in custody, does anybody know, will arrests be

made for these crimes that were committed as we watched live on television the desecration of our democracy? you know, trump's twitter was locked. his facebook was locked. so the tech companies are better late than never. i mean, seriously. you're so damn late it's not even funny. you locked his account, great. finally, you get it, jack. >> facebook, willie, owns this. twitter owns this. >> you own it. >> mitch mcconnell owns it. josh hawley, more than anybody else at the kansas city newspaper, other than donald trump, he has blood on his hands this morning. ted cruz has blood on his hands. they all have encouraged this through the years, willie. this is where it was going to end up, post charlottesville. we were coming straight this direction and look at that. look at josh hawley. you know -- >> he's so proud. >> so proud that he would be

able to do something that no terrorist organization has been able to do. no foreign power has been able to do since the war of 1812. invade the people's house. lay waste to the people's house, commit insurrection, sedition, treason against the united states of america. josh -- josh, i went to southern state schools. no, put the picture of josh back up there. i went to southern state schools, josh, maybe i'm just stupid, but is that what they really taught you at stanford, how to commit treason, how to encourage insurrection against the united states of america? how to have blood on that fist of yours, josh? this is you, buddy. this is your moment. it was your insurrection. you know the constitution. you went to yale law school. you know exactly what you were doing. you were the one that stirred up

this insurrection along with donald trump and it hangs around your neck, ted cruz's neck and donald trump's neck and add rudy giuliani's combat comment and add don jr.'s threat -- threat, we're coming for you. and all of that into the mix, willie geist, these people were the leaders of the insurrection against the united states of america yesterday and it all played out on television. there will be sufficient evidence for prosecutors to bring those charges today. >> just so our viewers understand what they're seeing in the photograph of senator hawley, that's him walking into the united states capitol, turning to the trump supporters who would break their way into the capitol, run through the capitol police into the capitol. sit in nancy pelosi's chair, carry a confederate flag. cause lockdowns and gas masks.

that's senator josh hawley of missouri -- >> break windows. >> -- raising his fist to those people as if to say, power to you, go get them. that's josh hawley and it's worth pointing out after all this when congress reconvened late at night to finish its business and certify the electoral college vote, josh hawley got up again after watching this for six or seven hours and made the case that he should be voting against the electoral college certification. that he should be objecting to it. that there was some credence to the conspiracy theories that drove these people in to washington at the urging of the president of the united states and caused this insurrection that we saw. and mika, we don't have to wonder what it would have looked like if these were black people. we saw it in june of last year after the murder of george floyd in minneapolis when the black lives matter protests in washington, the national guard was out. there were layers of them up the steps of the lincoln memorial, protecting the memorials and the

buildings of washington. yesterday, we saw a feeble attempt to stop trump supporters as they marched right into the capitol and i will point out, there were more than 50 arrests made yesterday and last night. most of them for breaking the 6:00 p.m. curfew in the city. admiral stavridis, you know, david ignatius makes the point about not getting the military involved. we understand that. people didn't want the military involved on june 1st when they cleared lafayette square so president trump could go through the tear gas and hold up a bible in front of the church. the next 13 days ahead of us, what does it look like from your vantage point because as i said at the top, president trump has vowed to continue to fight to make america great in his words. >> well, we are going to have a pack of troubles overseas as a result of this and we shouldn't lose sight of that. think about how this is going received. yesterday, i got dozens of emails from senior military and

political figures abroad saying, jim, what's going on in your country? this will have long-term impact on our ability to bring our allies together. do you think the europeans want to stand with us against china after watching scenes like this? they'll have their doubts. exact swing countries like vietnam, which way will they break in all of this? and finally, moscow, beijing. tehran. pyongyang, talk about high fives, talk about opportunity. if you're sitting in beijing, you are thinking, what can i do to take advantage of this? if you're in moscow, and, by the way, i wonder how many russian operatives were in that space which of course the capitol is full of classified documents and if you don't think there were russian intruders in that, you're naive.

and think about the opportunities in terms of all of our opponents, our allies are weakened this morning, our opponents are strengthened. this is a dark day in our military and does need to stay on the sidelines domestically, but needs to be very alert internationally for the next 14 days. >> mika, as you look at these pictures that's the house gallery yesterday. where you have officers' guns drawn as trump supporters try to push their way into the house chamber. you showed a photo a few minutes ago that stayed with a lot of people of jason crowe the democratic congressman of colorado hunched over, protecting his colleagues, comforting his colleagues. jason crowe served three terms a an army ranger, in iraq and in afghanistan and he earned the bronze star and he found himself hunched up in the gallery of the

house of representatives trying to protect himself and trying to protect his fellow congress men and women as if they were in battle as people tried to get into the house chamber. >> and that's what we heard from a lot of congressmen who -- and women who had served in iraq and afghanistan. that the only thing that reminded them of this moment was this. being in combat. being in combat. but again, combat that was spawned from within the halls of congress, from the republican trump supporters who let this happen and egged it on. >> and who encouraged this over the last month and a half. you can -- >> four years. >> four years but specifically over the past month and a half, two months, encouraging wild, baseless conspiracy theories.

and yes, there were republican members of congress calling in and talking about how pathetic it was and it reminded them of their days in iraq. let's bring in former commissioner of the nypd, bill bratton. mr. commissioner, what the hell happened yesterday? how could something like that happen when they were made aware of the fact that january the 6th was a date to circle because the white house had been saying quote, it's going to be wild on january the 6th. what happened? >> yesterday was a colossal failure on many fronts. one, the intelligence gathering. you reported the fbi was estimating crowds of 20,000. may have been as many as 40,000 or 50,000, from what i'm hearing. secondly, the planning was obviously incredibly deficient. operationally an abject failure. talking to my law enforcement colleagues, we can't believe

what we're witnessing yesterday. going forward several things have to happen. we have the inauguration coming up, they have to learn very quickly from yesterday's event to prevent a similar event leading up to the inauguration. secondly, i'd advocate an 9/11 commission something of that magnitude to take a look at exactly what happened relative to these failures. the idea that that capitol -- we think of it as well protected, it is not. you've worked there. i have been in and out of it over the many years i have been law enforcement. they have great security at the building but the perimeter is incredibly deficient. capitol police, 2,200 of them from my understanding only about 500 on duty yesterday. think of that, 500 to guard eight or ten buildings. also, the idea that the national guard had been brought in but they were put on traffic duty. no, i share your anger, i share your frustration. and i'm embarrassed for the

american law enforcement profession. heads are going to roll on this and need to roll. >> commissioner bratton, we're looking at video right now of a sole capitol hill police officer backing up -- >> i watched that video, willie, half a dozen times. >> he's backing up the stairs. thank god he got away from the group until some backup came up. we didn't know where that was headed, but just walk us through the preparation. you have done this, you have done this in cities across the country. we talked to the mayor yesterday of washington, d.c., on this show. they felt like they were prepared, obviously she doesn't oversee the capitol police. she thought the city was ready for this. she later put the curfew in and extended it, by the way, for several days now. people watch this, how, a place hard to get in to for anybody. joe talked about not being able to cross the street against the crosswalk. the question for people is how, how do you not prepare for something that was announced

weeks ago that donald trump said was going to be wild. these people knew the stakes and yet, they let everyone roll right in. >> you're making the case for the comprehensive commission to analyze this, but the mayor's comments are indicative of the failure yesterday. by all accounts, it appears the capitol police were operating by and large on their own. washington, d.c., metropolitan police who are expert in dealing with crowd situations were doing their thing. it is the most heavily policed city in america with all of the agencies that are there, but there appears to have been for this event a colossal failure to collaborate. the idea that the capitol police seemed to be have an island to themselves, the d.c. police who appear to have been doing their own thing, again, i have no answers for you at this point in time. other than the fact what happened yesterday was a major embarrassment to american law enforcement in the nation's

capital. it needs to be analyzed carefully so it doesn't happen again and particularly in two weeks' time when we have the inauguration of the new president -- thank god, the new president of the united states to get rid of this one who is a clear and present danger to the country. >> just a reality check though, doesn't it take, admiral stavridis, a president to set up a commission to look into this? at my last check, this president said he loves this people. do you think he's going to hold the people -- the terrorists accountable or the what he told them to do and what of the next 12 days or whatever is left in this god forsaken presidency? are we going to stand by to watch to see what he'll do next and are we going to be shocked again? are we going to be shocked again when he commits crimes against our country, when he assaults our democracy, he cuts through it with a knife.

we're just going to wait, we're just going to wait 12 days and just see what happens. oh, who do i sound like? donald trump. we'll see what happens. oh, we'll just see what happened, there are people on the other side who think this was good. are we going to allow this? what is the accountability? what are the possibilities here? what should be done to stop this man now? >> well, if this were the navy and we were on a ship and we had a commanding officer who encouraged the crew to debark the crew, march down the parade field on the base and storm the base headquarters, that commanding officer would be gone. whether that is conceivably possible in the next 14 days, i'll leave to political analysts. but it is certainly clear to me that after the departure, we

will have the opposite party in control of both houses of congress and the white house and i think, mika, there will be time for accountability and i agree with commissioner bratton, a commission is a good place to start. but there has to be tactical accountability as well. i know he would agree that we have the technology to analyze the video, to look at the faces, to track down the people. i think there will be in fact a great deal of accountability coming, but it will not come, you are correct, until we get through these next few weeks. >> commissioner bratton, how does this change now preparations that you were just talking about for the inauguration? it comes in 13 days. among the disturbing images we saw yesterday, where thousands of people lounging hanging out, pushing their way up the stage that set up on the west front of the capitol for an inauguration every four years. what conversations are happening this morning? obviously that's been and always

has been a different security operation than something like a protest. what changes now? >> a lot changes. one, much more perimeter security. two, many more law enforcement and probably national guard personnel on the scene. you need to project strength, you need to project security and have security in depth. echoing also the as martial arts's comment -- admiral's comments, the video, there are thousands on the social media celebrating their activity yesterday, putting their faces out there so the commission and the investigation will effectively go after every one of the characters and charge them with whatever laws are available and trespassing is probably at least the beginning stage. so in terms of the next two weeks, all the lessons learned from yesterday, the intelligence

gathering will be much more significantly strengthened. the visibility of law enforcement will be much more significant. this inauguration was already going to be very different because of the covid issues and we had understood clearly in the last several days how different it's going to be and what's even more different we'll see more security for this inauguration than at any time in our history. >> former defense secretary-general james mattis issuing a statement that reads this. today's violent assault on our capitol an effort to subjugate american democracy by mob rule was fomented by mr. trump. his use of the presidency to destroy trust in our election and to poison our respect for fellow citizens has been enabled by pseudopolitical leaders whose names will live in infamy as profiles in cowardice.

>> he's talking about you, josh hawley and ted cruz. >> and members of the president's cabinet, quite frankly. >> of course. >> where is jared and ivanka his advisers? are they making money in the middle east right now? >> i'm sure. >> our constitution and republic will overcome this stain and we the people will come together again in our never-ending effort to form a more perfect union while mr. trump be deservedly left without a country. and i'm worried about the next few days and anyone who doesn't do everything they can do owns what happened and owned what happened yesterday. we can't be surprised anymore that this president is a maniac and will do whatever it takes to hurt this country. >> let's bring in right now washington anchor for bbc world news anchor, katty kay and from

the university college, london, columnist for "the washington post" and the host of power corrupts podcast, brian klass. his latest column is why the storming of the capitol didn't shock me at all. of course it didn't because you predicted this was going to happen in a column back in may. talk about it. you predicted this exact thing was going to happen and you were right. in may. >> yeah. may 14th, i made three predictions that donald trump would reject the election results and bogusly claim it was rigged and then stoke violence. political violence is not difficult to discern and authoritarianism is easy to diagnose. what republicans did in response to it they encouraged it and coddled it and now they're waking up and pretending that

after being arsonists for months and months that they're actually secret firefighters. we're in a situation that we knew this was coming. anyone who was paying attention to what donald trump was, he didn't hide it. he showed us who he was. and for the people who said it can't happen here or couldn't happen here it just did. we need to end this presidency and 13 days is too long. twitter and facebook have deemed that he's not fit for social media, but he's still in charge of the world's most powerful country and the world's most powerful nuclear arsenal and the time to act and put the country first for republicans is right now. >> and david ignatius, how telling it was yesterday what when officials started to call around to try to get the national guard involved, it was not donald trump that was on that call. it was mike pence who was the acting secretary of defense. it was mitch mcconnell, it was nancy pelosi. it was other people in trump's

administration, but not donald trump. the reins of power in effect were turned over to mike pence yesterday, because he's the one who had to make the call in the national guard. >> you know, joe, i think that's one of the hidden benefits of what's happened is that trumpism as a movement as a insurgency is much weaker today than it was 24 hours ago and in a sense, power is already passing from donald trump to his successor, joe biden, but also to those around them. whether the 25th amendment or some other mechanism can be used to prevent him from having control over nuclear weapons, instruments of government in the final 13 days, i don't know. but i do know that his movement that threatens our country not just this week, next week, but for the rest of my lifetime is weaker because of the

insurgent -- the reckless violence and insurgency that happened. one of the technical issues ahead for the next 13 days it is true as commissioner bratton and others have said that more people will be needed. there's an effort by people who are directing the law enforcement and defense department response to get far more national guard available. the estimates are that they'll have 7,000 to 8,000 drawn not simply from simply but from maryland, virginia, delaware, pennsylvania and new york. they will be pulled toward d.c. over the next several days and there's an understanding that once this process of anarchy has started you can't predict where it's going to go. people want to be better prepared. a part of this that we don't know about, that i think is going to be end up being really important and maybe heroic is how the capitol was cleaned

inside when these crazy anarchists took over, were sitting in speaker pelosi's chair, et cetera. i'm told that the fbi sent in its very best units including the hostage rescue team into the capitol along with other superb law enforcement tactical units that did this door to door, room to room cleaning of the place to secure it. so that people could quickly get in and finish their business. we don't know that the details of that story yet, but i think that's one that we're really going to want to savor. so i think as we have been saying all morning, the mistakes that were made here that allowed the breach of the capitol perimeter were outrageous. terrible mistakes. and they're going to have to be corrected. there's a feeling that this still for everything that's happened should largely be left in the hands of law enforcement because that's the image we want the world to see. that we don't have troops in our streets. this is not tiananmen square, this is america.

there's a hope that law enforcement backed by the national guard can get it done. i think there's a reason we should all hope that works. >> we can go back a lot further than may to find your warnings on this show and in the newspapers and the books about the dangers of the trump presidency and frankly over the last 4 1/2, 5 years when you'd come on the show or call him dangerous, people would roll their eyes, come on, it's america. there's only so much he can do. and yet, here we are. we arrived at january 6, 2021. so my question to you as someone who studied authoritarianism, what happens after this? i'm not just talk about the next 13 days, but how do you come back from a day like yesterday? >> it will be very difficult and the reason -- something i have learned when i have seen the movements in other countries once you create the monster, once you accept you'll feed the monster for your own cynical

gain, you can't control it. and i'm very worried about the future political violence. trumpism as a toxin in american politics does not end at noon on january 20th. and the people that are in this movement, the conspiracy theorists, the violent, delusional people who want to subvert democracy, they don't stop existing on january 20th when trump leaves the white house. so i think that the only way that this can end in a way that avoids violence is that the republicans decide a wholesale pivot away from donald trump as soon as possible. it's too little, too late but it's on the thing they can do to salvage what's left of a movement that's grown out of control and a monster they have unleashed on american democracy and politics. >> we have seen time and again, when we don't respond to violence whether it's violence in the streets in portland or violence in other places that it only encourages more violence. this is now breached america's

most sacred political institutions. we have to send a strong message. this is not about trumpism. trumpism comes to an end in the next 12, 13, 14 days. this is about all of the political movements that follow. be they outshoots of trumpism or be they anarchists or be they movements from the left, populists movements from the right, we have to make an example of those people yesterday who torched american democracy with their insurrection. there is no other option. katty kay, how embarrassing for so many americans to have to watch basically not lectures but words of sympathy coming from our democratic allies, from across europe and across the

world. the united states of america long has held itself up as freedom and democracy across globe and how ironic it is that some of the same stooges, some of the same criminals, they said they voted for donald trump because our standing in the world had fallen. my god, it's never fallen as low as it did yesterday. >> yeah. i mean, world leaders and allies in particular who had held their tongue over much of what donald trump has done since the election didn't hold their tongues yesterday. and the worlds that were used boris johnson called what he saw disgraceful. there was a mixture of sadness and shock and dismay about what people were watching on capitol hill amongst america's allies, but more damaging perhaps and i reached out to people in moscow and china overnight was how america's adversaries were looking at what was happening on capitol hill yesterday.

already america's standing in the world is much diminished, joe, because of the country's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. but yesterday, i think we really saw the acceleration of the shift of power away from the united states of america and it was indisputable that the last century was america's century. i think after the events of the last year and the events of the last 24 hours, a lot of people are watching china now and thinking china is going to accelerate the process of taking power in the world and we're going to look at a century in which china and not america is the world's preeminent power. what you saw yesterday was not just the storming of the capitol, it was emblematic for america's adversaries and america's allies of so much of the problems in this country at the moment. the racial injustice, the deep divisions, the political turmoil, bitterness, the inability to get things done. it was all on display in those images beamed right around the

world. all through china, all through russia they were watching what was happening yesterday. >> editor-in-chief of atlantic magazine, jeffrey goldberg, his latest piece is entitled mass delusion in america. some might say, i might say there's a criminal holding our country hostage and there was a terrorist attack on our country yesterday that came from within, that was fomented and promulgated by that criminal, the president of the united states. twitter gets it. they have silenced him. facebook gets it. they have silenced him. what about republicans? will they get it? what about the next 12 days of this presidency are we going to be shocked about if we don't prepare for in some way? >> well, what we could be shocked about is not to put too fine a point on it, perhaps a

psychiatric breakdown -- public psychiatric breakdown of the president of the united states. sorry to say it so plainly. but his grip on reality which was never particularly strong. obviously he's good at creating his own reality around him seems to be somewhat tenuous. but the realization that he actually lost is too much for him to bear. so, you know, it's interesting. the point has been made numerous times but he's been banned from twitter temporarily, but he has the nuclear codes. that's sort of an astonishing dichotomy there. in terms of his followers, i was out there yesterday. i mean, there's a direct causation. i was with them when he was whipping them up. he whipped them up, they got on to pennsylvania avenue, they marched down and they tried to sack the capitol. and, you know, from everything

we know from the reporting inside the white house, he was under the impression that this was a good thing. that they were stopping the vote. they were stopping, you know, the steal as they were chanting. stopping the steal of the election from him. so like i said, there -- we have a grip on reality problem. >> yeah. >> what to do about it. >> mark meadows sat there enabling this president and his fascist actions, which mark meadows has been doing since he went to the white house. but reports -- one report after another, that aides were pleading with donald trump to please give some sort of message to the rioters, to those committing insurrection against the united states of america and he simply refused to do so, because he loved what was going on as jeffrey said. it's exactly what he wanted to

happen. because he saw it as slowing down and stopping the constitution process of certifying the electors that would make joe biden the next president of the united states. jeffrey, it is interesting we're going to see what happens to the republican party moving forward. obviously, mitch mcconnell, lindsey graham, a lot of the president's top enablers over the past several years had some tough words last night. but a little late, obviously, for not only donald trump but for the party himself. when donald trump became president, republicans controlled the senate and republicans controlled the house and republicans controlled the white house. yesterday, yes, while all the rioting was taking place, joe biden was certified the next president of the united states and mitch mcconnell lost his majority leader status and democrats are now the ones who control the house, the senate

and the white house. trumpism is exacting an extraordinarily heavy toll on the republican party, as so many of us have said it would. but when is the republican party going to wake up? >> well, you know, it's interesting. i mean, what is mitch mcconnell most of fended about? our guess he's most offended about losing his majority status. you know, there are many republicans today claiming to be shocked -- shocked by the events of yesterday, the behavior of the president over the last two months. since election day, he's really failed to perform as president. i mean, let's just not kid around. i mean, this is a guy who launched his candidacy by calling mexicans rapists. he launched his candidacy by openly mocking one of mitch mcconnell's most revered colleagues john mccain for being captured as a vietnam era pilot.

there's no new donald trump here, so i find it rich that they're shocked and surprised that this is the man who's been president for four years. i have to imagine -- well, i don't want to speculate, but what politicians like to do most is win. they like job security. they like continuity. and so if they assess the base to be shifting in some noticeable way they'll shift with them. there are no profiles in courage -- i mean, there is mitt romney. if the base shifts then the base shifts but yesterday if it's any proof, there's a hard core of trump supporters who are not going to let's say take the right message from the events of yesterday. >> yeah. it's a cult. it's a cult. very dangerous cult. still ahead on "morning joe," we'll be joined by two members of congress who were forced to take shelter amid the

rioting on capitol hill yesterday. senators debbie stabenow and tim kaine. plus retired four star general colin powell will be our guest on "morning joe." we'll be right back. ack. ack. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ so give your businesss more than resolutions... give it solutions, from comcast business. work more efficiently with fast internet and advanced wifi. make your business safer with powerful cybersecurity solutions. and stay productive with 24/7 support.

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we witnessed today the damage that can result when men in power and responsibility refuse to acknowledge the truth. we saw bloodshed because the demagogue chose to sow distrust of his own fellow americans. let's not abet such deception. let's reject this motion. >> trump and i -- we have had a hell of a journey. i hate it being this way. oh, my god, i hate it. from my point of view he's been a consequential president. but today, first thing you'll see. all i can say is count me out,

enough is enough. >> now we gather due to a selfish man's injured pride and the outrage of supporters who he had deliberately misinformed for the last two months and stirred to action this very morning. what happened here today was an insurrection. incited by the president of the united states. those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of the legitimate democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. >> in 13 days, president-elect joe biden will take the oath of office on capitol hill. it will come on the heels of yesterday's riot there where supporters of president trump egged on by president trump

stormed the capitol. >> incited by president trump to go up to the capitol, weakness will never do it, they have to choose strength. >> his son pushed them along. >> he said we're coming after you. >> rudy giuliani. >> rudy giuliani talked about trial by combat. i mean, that is -- talk about inciting an insurrection against the united states government, against the capitol. and done specifically -- think about this. we'll have lawyers on and be asking questions whether donald trump actually could be charged with insurrection against the united states of america. it's not really even a close call. >> yeah. >> it's not a close call because what he did and what don jr. did and what rudy giuliani did and what all of these people did they did explicitly to stop the united states congress from doing their -- from their

constitutional duty. the united states constitution required them to get together yesterday and approve electors from the state. ordered by the constitution of the united states to do that. donald trump committed insurrection and encouraged insurrection against the united states of america to undermine the constitutional protections that our founders gave it. mika, if that's not a crime, if it's not -- if rudy giuliani didn't commit a crime yesterday, if don jr. didn't commit a crime, speaking at a rally to stop a constitutional process, i don't know why they would have that statute on the books. >> well, it is, but the thing is, like everything else with this president, he will move forward with this day very proud of what he's done. he will be supported by people, sycophants, members of his cult, who will stoke his ego and

stroke it and he will be very proud of what he's done. there will be no accountability. >> well, he can be proud of what he's done -- >> unless people step up and give him accountability. >> he needs to be arrested. he needs to be fingerprinted. he needs to be put behind bars. they can decided to whether he deserves bail or not, but let him be proud behind bars. let him be proud while he's wiping the ink off of his fingers. >> it won't happen. >> well, it needs to happen. members of congress had to take cover yesterday. police officers outmatched because donald trump's calls for insurrection and the bastion of american democracy was soiled in the eyes of the free world. >> this country will long remember the leading role played by republican lawmakers like ted cruz and josh hawley who today call for law and order after fanning the flames of the most

deranged among us. here is what helped trigger it all, the words of donald trump and his closest enablers. >> and we're going to have to fight much harder and mike pence is going to have to come through for us. and if he doesn't, that will be a sad day for our country. and after this, we're going to walk down and i'll be there with you, we're going to walk down -- we're going to walk down, anyone you want, but i think right here we're going to walk down to the capitol and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women and we're probably not going to be cheering so much for some of them. because you'll never take back our country with weakness. >> over the next ten days, we get to see the machines that are crooked. the ballots that are fraudulent and if we're wrong, we will be

made fools of. but if we're right, a lot of them will go to jail. [ cheers and applause ] so let's have trial by combat. >> guess what, folks? if you're going to be the zero and not the hero, we're coming for you. we're going to have a good time doing it. >> my goodness, sick. absolutely sick. let's bring in -- >> i want to go to willie first. again, just a simple reading of the statute on -- being part of the conspiracy for insurrection against the united states government, clearly covers donald trump jr.'s language yesterday. we're coming after you. if you don't vote the way we want you to vote, we're coming after you. donald trump talking about marching up and trying to show strength, not weakness. you can't be weak.

sounding just like mussolini, a fascist. we've been saying for some time he's a fascist, at least i have. and rudy giuliani, trial by combat. all of this was followled by the sacking of the u.s. capitol. all of this was filed by the insurrection that stopped the constitutional process of counting electors to determine the next president of the united states. it doesn't seem to get much clearer than that. >> yeah. the thing with them always has been that words are cheap. they can say whatever they want. they don't have to suffer the consequences. they're not standing in that building trying to hold a line with the capitol police as thousands of people stream in. they went out and said all those things and we can't underline enough what you said earlier, joe, we you this was coming. yes, it's shocking to long at the pictures but not surprising. anyone who's followed what's happened online, what's happened with qanon online and what donald trump has been

encouraging out in the open knows that this was the plan. they weren't coming to washington to have a nice peaceful stroll down pennsylvania avenue. they were coming to stop this vote very specifically. so what did that mean to them? it meant getting inside the capitol building. this isn't something we have to look at after and say, my gosh, how did it happen? we can watch how they talked about it and planned it before it happened and that's why it's so frustrating that we weren't better prepared that the police force -- that the national guard wasn't better prepared for what happened. and we ought to point out, joe, after all of this, all everything you're seeing right now these disgraceful images of people parading through the capitol of overrunning police, of causing damage, sitting at the desk in nancy pelosi's office, of removing the placard from her office, joe, you had one outside your office, of the confederate flag being walked through the united states capitol. after that, here's the list of republican senators who got up

late at night and still voted to object to the results of the electoral college certification. so the conspiracy theories that drove all of those people to washington yesterday and that pushed them into that i would being to do what they did, are supported by this list. ted cruz, josh hawley, john kennedy, cindy hyde myth and roger marshall. ted cruz, rick scott joined in from florida. cindy hyde-smith, cynthia loomis, roger marshall and tommy tuberville. this is not before hand. this is after the riot we saw. the insurrection inside the united states capitol, they still got up and made the case that what the people who rushed into the building yesterday did was valid because of conspiracy theories they heard about online and were validated by the group of senators yesterday. >> despite the fact that every

senator on that list knows that everything that donald trump is saying, all of these bogus claims, were all lies. again, in the united states of america, they understand as well because when -- >> look at this. >> the best law schools in america they understand if you have questions about the legality of the voting process, how a state conducted the polls, it's going to be determined. but it's going to be determined in courts, in state courts and in the federal court and possibly even at the united states supreme court. not done while giving speeches on january the 6th, trying to whip people into the frenzy to commit acts of insurrection and treason against the united states of america. >> i'm confused, we have two weeks left of this, of the president and the losers who follow him.

ted cruz -- these losers. >> they're not losers but they're criminals. >> they're going to be left in charge, president trump is as well? another day is going to go by with no accountability? if you happened in your home, people watching us right now, if people came in and vandalized and terrorized your home, trashed your home like they trashed the offices of the u.s. capitol, the police would come and would pull them out and would arrest them. this was worse than our home. this is the people's house which was trashed and desecrated and, by the way, during the process of democracy and what is being done to take care of the criminals who started this? >> well, of course, the people's house and the world's most deliberative body trashed by a party who, first of all, is very

critical of the black lives matter marches this summer. and also by a party who claimed to be the law and order party. but the leaders of the party -- >> only 13 more days of this? >> were cheering this on. let's bring in debbie stabenow of michigan. always great to talk to you. we served together in the house. i never in a million years -- i know you never did either, never expected to see a day like this at our capitol. tell us about it. take us through if you can what happened yesterday while you were trying to do your constitutional duty. >> well, joe, mika, willie, it's always great to be with you. it was pretty frightening yesterday i have to say. i came in to the senate in 2001 and experienced 9/11 and i have not felt since that time anything like i felt yesterday. but the difference is though that those were foreign

terrorists that attacked our capitol and our country. as you have said rightly, this was encouraged and incited by the president of the united states. so when we were sitting there and it's all of a sudden, we started to hear some noise outside the chambers, we weren't seeing what everybody was seeing on tv. i began to get some texts from my staff that people had been able to into the second floor of the capitol and, you know, were stunned and then all of a sudden, the vice president is taken out and then the capitol police take over and start shouting, lock the doors, lock the doors, lock the doors, which they did immediately. a little while later, i don't know how many minutes it was, they told us to get up and go. literally there was a -- they were saying go go go go go go, and they sent the -- we went out and down the back stairs, down to the basement, over to the capitol office building -- the

hart office building where we then spent a significant amount of time. i'll tell you what was important to me, joe, is that we finished the job. we made the decision as the united states senate that it helped -- whatever length of time it took to get the chambers back in order, we were going back into the chambers. we were going to complete our work and frankly these mobs, these terrorists, this person who calls himself president of the united states was not going to stop us from accepting the electoral college votes and making very clear that it may take 12 days from now, but joe biden will be president of the united states. >> good for you, senator stabenow, the country needed to see you all conducting the business no matter how long it took or how late it went. so commending you for doing that. i was texting with people on the hill, some of your colleagues and early in this and i said,

how are you doing, what's going on there? my staff just texted me to tell me where the gas masks are in the storage closet, so not so great. i'm curious to know what you think happens from here. we have 13 days left in this presidency. this is clearly and obviously a dangerous president. should he somehow be removed from office? should there be something in place to stop him for these last two weeks? >> well, i agree that we should do whatever we can to get the support to do, the 25th amendment and what the cabinet should do or whether it's going back and making a motion to reconsider the impeachment. i mean, a year ago, right now, we were in the united states senate debating whether or not this president could be removed from office just a year ago and in fact, if we had a bipartisan vote there we wouldn't be where we are today. we wouldn't have had the last

year of inciting and conspiracy theories and all of the other things that have happened that are so, so damaging to our country. far beyond this person being in office. so if there was a way, if there was the political will, i certainly would support doing that. i think when people say what can he can do in 12 days, well, look what he did in 12 hours yesterday. so i do think -- i think it's a serious time. >> now, it's not just the president, by the way, senator stabenow, thank you very much. i don't know if there's the possibility of impeaching or removing or 25th amendment, but it's hawley, ted cruz, rudy giuliani, hello, something going to be done? isn't there recourse for inciting violence and leading to the desecration and terrorizing

of capitol hill? >> it -- >> in the process of democracy? >> it's far more clear for rudy giuliani and don jr. than it is for ted cruz and josh hawley. ted cruz and josh hawley, obviously public servants and are protected for many of their actions, but that doesn't change the fact that the voters now w now -- the kansas city newspapers wrote about it yesterday, that josh hawley and ted cruz both have blood on their hands. they will pay for it at the polls if there's any justice, if the people of missouri and the people of texas still give a damn about this constitutional republic, there will be justice. let's bring in retired four star army general barry mccaffrey, he's an nbc news military analyst. general mccaffrey, you have been risking your damn life trying to take care of clowns like those who committed insurrection against the united states yesterday. i'm wondering what your thoughts

were as you said, wait a second, i fought my entire lime against people like this so this would never happen and now, it happens that the enemy is from within. >> yeah. well, look, you know, i got sworn into the armed forces at the age of 17 and i never encountered anything like in my entire life. half a dozen years in public life in the cabinet. this was clearly an insurrection against the united states, personally incited by trump. and it would shut down the premiere branch of our government while trying to carry out the constitutional duty and i think we ought to recognize what we're facing as we've got a couple of weeks left with a dangerous man who has enormous power. i think the congress of the united states are going to have to step forward and take

decisive action to make sure he can't wreak more havoc on this democracy. a shameful situation. >> general, what are your biggest concerns over the next 12, 13 days? >> well, look, you know, there's a whole series. i think he's melting down. he's surrounded by a squirrely group of people in the white house. he's put acting people in charge of the department of justice, homeland security and the department of defense. these are the three organizations that have guns and coercive power. there literally is no check legally on his ability to give orders. now, i think we're in good shape in the sense that the uniform military will not violate the constitution for any reason. it's not going to happen.

but his power in foreign policy and to take emergency measures is literally unlimited. so congress is the one on the spot here. this fellow senator cruz and hawley, both brilliant, educated people, have been clearly inciting violence and enabling trump's authoritarian measures. so congress has to step up or we're in trouble. >> general mccaffrey, yesterday's events have been called a riot, been calling them an insurrection this morning. what do you call it? what did we watch yesterday? >> well, i think there's no question in my mind that we have a coup led by the president of the united states against the constitution. this was personally incited by mr. trump. he brought them to washington. he then essentially enabled their assault on the congress. by the way, something else ought to be said.

this is the lesser problem, but the security of the congress of the united states was shamefully inadequate. we need to get in there and fix that. not just the complete failure of law enforcement leadership, but also the lack of some of the thought through physical barriers. would we allow a mob to surge in to the supreme court and hold the justices hostage? those congressmen were in physical danger if they hadn't been hustled out of there. would we let a mob surge into the white house and take control of a national command center? i mean, why wasn't any force required authorized to protect this branch of government? if you break into the pentagon, they'll use lethal force. if you break in to buckingham palace, they'll kill you. so it was just an astonishing failure by law enforcement in

d.c. that's got to get corrected immediately. >> so general, i know this isn't quite in your natural domain, but obviously you have run much larger operations than an operation that would entail the protection of the capitol and capitol grounds. what are some of your recommendations, just looking at the terrible images that were going across your television set yesterday and reading about what happened. what should d.c. leaders be doing? what should capitol hill police force be planning for, not only over the next 12 days but also moving forward to make that -- that ground more secure? >> well, you know, i think you can bring in the outside commissioner of professional law enforcement people and they'd sort this out literally in 30 days. it might take a year of construction to adequately redo

the congressional barrier system. but i think by at the end of the day, there ought to be a new head of the capitol police. we had a fellow on msnbc saying he needs to see where the evidence of failures was before he can criticize them. it was to shut down one of the branchs of government. it was preposterous, would we let a mob surge into the cia headquarters if you try to enter an air force base where there's nuclear weapons storage, we'll use lethal force. we simply cannot surrender the security of our institution of government to a mob even when it's incited by the president of the united states. this is not rocket science, securing one set of buildings on federal property in d.c. and then it has nothing to do with the mayor of d.c. this is a federal

responsibility. the capitol police don't work for trump, they work for the congress. so it was a massive, inexplicable failure. >> the capitol police was very confused as to who they worked for yesterday. or they just felt because white people were walking in it was different. i don't know. i'm asking. but i'm looking at video right now which we'll show you later, nbc news video, of what hand after a draft of the senate health care bill was revealed a couple of years ago. let's see, the capitol police dragged people out. people who were protesting in wheelchairs were dragged out of the capitol physically removed and yet, these people were allowed to stroll right in and vandalize the u.s. capitol. something is very wrong. >> retired four star army general mccaffrey, thank you.

let's bring in the panel. from the host of hell and high water podcast, john heilemann. the former chairman of the republican national committee. i sure would like to take that off of his resume right now, and political analyst, michael steele. and host of andrea mitchell reports, andrea mitchell. and also from bbc, katty kay. john heilemann, what happened? >> all hell broke loose and you're doing a good job of talking about it. i think the broad outlines of what happened are obviously clear at this point. you know, we had in some ways, you know so much of the trump administration have been shocking but not surprised. it was, you know, stunning on some level, but obviously when it's all opened up in the clear light of the day, this is the most inevitable story. a president of the united states who spent directly spent several

weeks and more indirectly spent months upon months working for this moment of inciting directly and told them to come to washington, d.c., to participate in his attempted coup. and they did. and the most stunning things about it were what i saw at the insurrection which was something you guys have been poking at all morning. which was the -- i think, you know -- i don't want to cast with a broad brush and say this is true about all of the capitol police. it was evident being up there yesterday from not at the moment of breach, but from shortly after the moment of breach and then for several hours after that the capitol police has a large -- some large element of a fifth column inside the capitol police. there was an incredible degree of chumminess between the capitol police and the rioters. the insurrectionists. again i don't want to slip and

call them protesters. this was not the kind of what i expected which is to see clashes between law enforcement and the rioters to try to retake control of that facility and those grounds as rapidly as possible. what we saw up there was the rioters loitering. the ones who were not in the process of breaching the capitol and going inside, thousands of them hanging around in a kind of state of self-satisfied, smug, triumphism, with the capitol hill, not being driven from the grounds but hanging out for hours. again, i don't know exactly what happened. everybody has raised the right questions here, but what you did not see anything like what we have seen in the past. anything like the kind of show of force that was rolled out when there were black lives matter protesters last summer.

nothing like what you saw in lafayette park when donald trump cleared the park with tear gas for his photo-op in june of last year. nothing like that. what you saw was an atmosphere that was -- although that it was hostile and aggressive on one side it was also strangely calm. you had lots of confederate battle flags and lots of state flags, not just the ballot flag but the circular battle flag and an overwhelmingly white crowd and people who were overwhelmingly pleased with themselves for being there. talking about themselves, talking about how they were standing up for america, standing up for donald trump. i have -- and i'll -- the last thing i'll say is that the tonality of the thing and the aftermath of the thing concerns me deeply about what's going to happen today and in the days ahead because there was nothing

about this that sent a message to these rioters that said, you have been rebuffed, you have been quelled. you have been defeated. what they saw was an enormous victory for themselves yesterday and the incentives are all to try to do it again, not just in washington, but potentially in the state capitals around the country over the next few weeks. >> he said he loved them. >> yeah. he said he loved them in the video that the president did and in the video put out by scavino said it's only the beginning of the fight to make america great again. that's the president acknowledging finally that he will oversee an orderly transition of power. we're well beyond that at this point given what happened yesterday, but he promised to fight to -- to continue to fight. we know what message that sends. michael steele, i want your impressions of what we saw yesterday. john's right and barry mccaffrey is right, it was a massive

failure of law enforcement. we want to say there were a lot of officers fighting for their lives quite literally. we showed the video of the single officer backing up the steps, and thank god he got out of the way. there was a massive failure, no question about it. then there was the question of the republicans who made all of this possible. this is something you have been talking about for years now during the trump administration. lindsey graham finally -- i don't know, 3:00 in the morning, 2:00 in the morning last night saying enough is enough on january the 6th. he said that of 2021 with less than two weeks to go and after someone had been killed inside the capitol in the middle of a riot. what do you make of, what to you say to the republicans who enabled this and who still after the riot of yesterday late in the night voted against the electoral process and the certification of the electoral college in a couple of states? >> well, yesterday was a

heartwrenching day for me personally in many ways. as a native washingtonian growing up about a couple of miles from the u.s. capitol, it holds a special place. you know, it is our home and it is our back yard, if you will, and to see it violated so thoroughly by those who support a president who incited the moment. but was more galling for me as a republican was knowing that that inciting and egging on was manifest in the words and actions of members of my own party. we should show that list every day and we should remind the american people that these are the individuals who caused yesterday to happen. josh that now infamous photo of hawley with his fist raised

saluting the crowd, this is on you. you may wear the lapel pin of the united states congressmen, but you're no better than a thug right now. you're no better than those who ravaged the offices and threatened the security and threatened your fellow members so what's your explanation for that? you stand up on the house floor, you stand up on the senate floor and you start yapping about what? conspiracies that you know aren't true? this is the leadership we have right now in this so-called party. this is the leadership not just in terms of the party, but in the country. so they should be held accountable. and they should -- we should know who they are. and that for me is what comes next. let the commissions and all of the other studies that go in to what actually happened there, how the breach occurred and why

there was such a failure, but we should understand the men and the women behind it. don't come to me with your platitudes talking about enough is enough. enough was enough four years ago. there was a lot of us telling you how this was going to end so don't me give your shock and surprise now. >> well, we've got some platitudes last night, but, you know, i think let's underline the fact that josh hawley, no platitudes from josh hawley. he continued to spread the lies. he continued to spread the conspiracy theories. that led to the violence, that undermined american democracy. that led to these acts of sedition. that led to these riots. yesterday, he's encouraging these people who he knows have been lied to over the past several years about rigged elections and over the past several months it's intensified.

and his hometown paper, the "kansas city star" wrote yesterday, as much as anybody, as much as donald trump, josh hawley has blood on his hands and is responsible for the bloodshed in the united states capitol yesterday. andrea mitchell, barry mccaffrey, as i said to the general, spent a lifetime going around the world protecting and defending the constitution of the united states, protecting this country from the type of invasion that we saw yesterday. you and i know general mccaffrey well and we have for some time, but the general said this earlier this morning, we have a coup led by the president of the united states against the constituti constitution. you have been a great reporter for a long time. i'm sure you've never heard anybody say anything as chilling as that about a sitting president. >> never in my life. i worked on capitol hill -- i

covered the hill. i love those halls. those chambers are sacred places and i found myself tearing up while we were on the air, on msnbc, for hours yesterday. watching the scenes and then our producer, they were on the floor. we were talking to members, to people i have known for decades. women in congress who were grabbing their gas masks and we saw the pictures of congresswoman jayapal and escobar and i talked to a number of them who were just scared. they were hearing gunshots. the tear gas. i interviewed elissa slotkin who had been at the pentagon and the cia. she said, you expect an attack like this when i served in iraq not in the halls of congress. haley talbot our producer said this was the one place in

washington i thought we'd be safe. she was in the gallery, in the chamber and kept writing notes with dramatic, heart breaking commentary of what was going on around her. and then the capitol police -- i know there are some good, brave officers, but the capitol police were trying to stop the reporters from finally getting into the safe place and trying to force them out with the mob. and congresswoman abigail spanberger intervened and said, don't you dare do that and she got them into the congressional office for where they could hide. there was no excuse for what happened or for josh hawley. the president of the united states in previous protests he did a drive-by once. he did a flyover once, but this time he not only invited and encouraged them to come on this day, constitution day, january 6th, he knew what he was doing. he tried to take away from what

was the legally proscribed constitutionally proscribed process for more than 200 years. and then, not only goes to them, but you heard his rhetoric. telling them that i'm going to march with you. march to the capitol. urging them, egging them on. it's his rhetoric and then safely retreating while saying he's going to lead the charge and people watching it there at the ellipse said that almost immediately when he said that, they started their march. they were not congregating and breaking through and getting on the steps and once they got on the steps there was no way to stop them to the level where the house and the senate chambers are and they're breaking the windows and breaking in. i'm sorry, i was very emotional yesterday and it's hard to find that balance but this place is so special. and i covered the white house,

i've covered the state department. i can't even imagine a breach like this occurring in any other branch of government, except the president of the united states has demeaned congress and has done it for four years or more since he was first running for office. >> so to andrea's point i want to go to katty kay. you can take it to andrea, but barry mccaffrey said that this was a coup led by the president of the united states. so i have a question -- i have a question for the justice department. i have a question for the department of defense. i have a question for lawmakers. i have a question for everybody in the white house this morning. when someone commits a violent act and that person or persons are still at large, the danger continues. so what can be done to stop the criminals who are still at large? katty kay, the newspapers around the world are headlining it for

what it is. assault on democracy, anarchy in the u.s., democracy under siege. this was an assault. a violent one. >> apparently, we don't have -- katty? so andrea, i'll take it to you, having covered the united states government and the presidency for decades, where does one go with this for justice and the safety of our democracy? >> well, larry tribe -- laurence tribe wrote yesterday supporting the effort for impeachment saying let the house vote to impeach. they need to do more than censure. there doesn't do have to be a senate trial, they won't do anything about it anyway or let them prevent evidence. let them impeach, one final blow. something needs to be done to

express the horror about what happened. it was inciting a riot. there was no question about it. when you see the confederate flag being marched through statuary hall you know there's something wrong. it comes back to hawley and the others and the president of the united states. he said he can go out on fifth avenue and shoot five people and nobody would do anything about it. look at all of the rallies. look at the behavior that had become normalized, the rhetoric that had become normalized. yesterday, nato leaders, boris johnson, we had the head of the general assembly in turkey saying how terrible that america doesn't understand democracy like we do here, you know, in r erdogan's dictatorship where dissidents are jailed.

the turkish leaders laughing at us. the center of democracy and a beacon of hope around the world. for shame. >> erdogan with the high ground this morning, incredible. andrea mitchell, thanks so much. thanks for your reporting yesterday. so john heilemann let's talk about what happens next as we were discussing earlier in the show. yes, joe biden will be sworn into office in 13 days and the people who started the riot yesterday, the sentiment that brought them there, the things they have heard from their immediate channels last night and today which are shocking and outrageous and we won't repeat them, explaining what happened, conspiracy theories, that stuff is not going away in 13 days. so what does joe biden do? how does he lead this country now, 13 days after the images we saw yesterday? >> it's a really good question. it's a long-term question. i think there is a an intermediate question which is

how do question get through the next 13 days and i know mika and i have been at the -- mika and i have been the most i think -- not that everyone hasn't been worried, but i feel like mika and i have been partners in like seeing this like cassandra for lack of -- like the better part of last year and it's turning out to be as bad or as worst as we imagined. we have not hit bottom yet, guys. david ignatius, you guys predicted this period was the maximum period of peril we are only beginning the period that david predicted as the maximum period of power. what will donald trump do, enboldened by what he saw yesterday and desperately clinging to power? what will he do on the domestic stage, on the foreign stage? these are profound questions and i think it raises not only symbolic acts like impeaching the president, but there's some

genuine discussion of the 25th amendment is the right and proper thing that should be going on in the government right now. but willie you asked about joe biden and all i can say is i don't know the answer. well, what i think is key is he must approach governing the political situation, the divide in this country with the kind of clarity that he is approaching tackling the pandemic. the most encouraging thing that we have heard from joe biden in the last couple of months has been that he's not under any illusions about how challenging it is going to be and get a handle on the pandemic. the first step to beating this pandemic is understanding the gravity, the severity of the situation. he's very clear eyed about that. what i hope is he and his people will be as clear eyed on -- in terms of understanding the depth of the political division this this country that they're facing. as they are about -- about the scope of the pandemic, because

if they have illusions about anything about how that there was -- they're able to kumbaya their way into bipartisanship and unity, the calls for unity are inspiring for joe biden. it was the right message for the election, but man it is going to be very hard to bridge the chasm that we have seen open up over the last four years. really over the last 20 years but in these last two months in particular, we are staring into the abyss. the only way to get across the abyss is to know it's an abyss and that's what it is. >> michael steele, let's talk about other news. it's hard to talk about other news of the day when the president of the united states attempts to lead an insurrection against the united states government. and an auto coup against the president-elect, but that obviously swarmed all the headlines but you look at the front page of "the wall street

journal" and the front page of "the new york times," on the bottom of both of those front pages is political news that is going to have far bigger impact on the next two years than anything that happened yesterday and that is that joe biden was officially certified as the president of the united states on the same day that democrats took control of the united states senate. something that no one would have predicted two months ago after the democrats failing in the mid term elections. >> yeah. >> not the midterm elections, i'm sorry, in the november elections. the democrats' failure in the house and the senate races. >> right. that is -- you know, in other circumstances would be the big news that we'd be talking about this morning and would be talking about for several days because of not just the political importance of it, but

the governing importance of it i. now joe biden to john's important points has the opportunity to put forward that kind of agenda that shows the clarity and seriousness with which he's prepared to govern in these tough times. i can see a situation now he's freed up of being a hostage to a side agenda driven by conspiracy theories within the republican party. to sort of set a different pace and a different course. now, yeah, that doesn't mean the republicans are going to want to play with him to any degree, but given what they have done to this brand, i said a few days ago that yesterday would be the day the republican party would seal themselves inside the tomb that donald trump has built for them. they sealed themselves inside that tomb. so this for them is a very

different narrative than going forward than it otherwise would be if they have the senate. so i think right now, joe, your point is exactly taken that this is an earth movement in politics, because you now have the democrats with the house, the senate and the white house. so how the president comes out -- how the president-elect comes out on the 21st on january with that message that john was talking about matters a lot and i think now he has sort of the runway -- not a long one, but he does have the runway to begin to set that pace and move the country in a different direction. keep in mind, donald trump is going to be a former president with the twitter account. i don't know if that twitter account is going to be working but he'll have the platform that's there that he's trying to create to continue what he's doing. we'll have to deal with that, but i think president biden is going to be in a better position

politically to get some things done early. >> we have been talking about the people who enabled donald trump and brought us to the place. this next guest put the country first and let's bring chris krebs. he was fired from the homeland security director after rejecting the false claims of widespread voter fraud and he tweeted out yesterday, quote, what did they think would happen? they own this. chris, good to have you with us this morning. you tried to call out this disinformation, you did call out the disinformation, you lost your job because of it. what is your reaction to what you saw yesterday? >> i -- it's unbelievable that what happened yesterday happened. there will be, you know, one more investigation at the next administration will have to look

at in terms of what the breakdown was at the capitol. but just the fact that we had -- you can't even call it protesters, right, but insurrectionists storming the capitol. the confederate flag in the capitol building never got there in 1800's and it's appalling. i think the sitting officials in the u.s. government right now have some decisions -- hard decisions that they need to make. >> yeah. having said that, just watching these videos again and sitting here one day after, chris krebs, the capitol was invaded by terrorists and trashed. it's just hard to believe that what we're hearing this morning is platitudes. oh, it will be on them. oh, history won't like you very much. that's really not enough at this

point. swift action usually follows a violent crime, not selfies. >> right. >> i guess my question to you would be what is the process to get to justice from this moment? what is the process that secures our 13 days? >> so i think sitting cabinet officials have three decisions to make. first is they can do nothing, which is effectively complicity. second, they can resign in p protest which to me makes things more dangerous because you don't know who's going to come in behind them, and the third is as was just mentioned and has been mentioned since yesterday, they can consider invoking the 25th amendment, and that is going to be, i think, on the top of mind today. i've talked to a couple administration officials, and those conversations are happening. you know, at the cabinet level i'm not sure yet, but that is the fastest course to protecting

the constitution at this point. >> and chris, as you know, we had yesterday -- there was a protest yesterday, which led to the riots yesterday because of what was happening inside the chamber at that joint session of congress where a formality normally became a debate where you had some republican senators, republican congressmen and women rising in objection to the certification of electoral votes in certain states. yesterday it was arizona and pennsylvania, and as we showed that list of names, we should remind people the objections raised were even after the riots, even after someone was killed inside the capitol in the middle of a riot. so what do you say to josh hawley, what do you say to ted cruz, what do you say to that group of senators who persist in pushing conspiracy theories about what happened in the presidential election? >> i just see it as performative politics. there were venues to protest and contest every one of those states. they lodged multiple, dozens,

over 60 lawsuits and they were unsuccessful. i don't want to hear this about that every one of those failed on technical issues like standing. that's not true. cases in wisconsin and pennsylvania and georgia, judges ruled on the merits, and they were lacking to put it mildly. but this is also, you know, what happens next particularly with the senate flipping is something that's been in the works for quite a while. in fact, one of the conversations i had the night i was fired november 17th was with someone in senate majority, and i said you are going to have a major problem in georgia. the president, his supporters, his lawyers continue to undermine confidence in democracy by claiming that the systems have been hacked and can be rigged. you are suppressing your own turnout. you need to fix that now if you want to retain control of the senate. guess what, they didn't fix it. they lost and the next two years they're going to be paying for

that. >> chris krebs, thank you very much for joining us, katty kay, now we have your audio with the papers around the world headlining this for what it is, an insurrection, an assault on american democracy. so far no consequence. do we address the possibility that the president could try this again on a national scale? >> there was nothing in what the president said yesterday that was a repudiation of what happened on capitol hill. in a tweet last night he called those people broken the barri s barriers. people died yesterday, and the president was still calling them great patriots, so they'll take sucker from that. the mood down there amongst the mob was jubilant, and that gives you pause, right? we have 13 more days. they're not going to go away, and do they go away after that? how does joe biden deal with

this poison in american society? i think looking forward the most important thing that the new president can do is restore competence to america. we've had a stunning lack of competence in dealing with the pandemic, in dealing with the economy and getting checks to people that need them, in making government work for people, and if there is hope, it will be that we have a restoration of competence, and that can draw some of the -- if people feel better about their lives and see an improvement in their lives and an improvement in the handling of the pandemic, perhaps that can draw some of the poison out of the situation. the president of the united states, the sitting one, mr. trump's not going to do it. >> still ahead on "morning joe," former secretary of state colin powell will be our guest. plus, senator tim kaine who was among the lawmakers inside the capitol when it was ransacked yesterday. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. ♪ you're not using too much are you, hon?

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we start this hour at capitol hill, the scene of a deadly spasm of violence and insurrection yesterday spurred on by a lame duck president whose term will end in dishonor just 13 days from now. huge questions remain unanswered this morning. why were rioters able to so easily waltz up the steps of the capitol when this was the show of force amid the black lives matter protests over the summer? why did so much of the capitol hill police seem incapable of handling the crowds when in 2017 they had no problem dragging away protesters, some in wheelchairs outside of senator mcconnell's office? we will be looking for answers

to those questions. the other big questions, will donald trump be held accountable? will the criminals face the consequences, and can joe biden put back together the shattered pieces of american government? >> let's bring in right now democratic senator tim kaine of virginia also msnbc contributor mike barnicle is going to be joining our coverage as well. senator, we saw your moving words last night talking about what you learned while clerking for a judge in the state of georgia and the pain that the events of yesterday brought you. take us inside the united states senate yesterday when you first heard that the president's efforts to start an insurrection against the united states congress started to take shape. >> joe, it was very confusing. we were in the middle of the debate, senator langford of oklahoma, who was intending to object but then later chose not

to was speaking, and then they rushed the vice president out of the chamber. that tells us immediately something was up. senator romney tried to exit the chamber, and the security made him go back in because it was dangerous outside, and immediately they started to close not only the glass doors chamber, but then there's these heavy wooden doors as you know in both the house and senate to shut us in. it was a moment of incense confusion after ten minutes barricaded in or so, we were escorted to a secure place in one of the other buildings on the senate side of the capital where we stayed for about five hours. we were determined as soon as we got in there, we're going back into that chamber, and we're finishing this tonight to deny president trump and his mob what they hoped, which is the ultimate disruption in the election. >> god bless all of you for that. senator, obviously you've done everything you can to check the president's worst instincts.

you voted to impeach him a year ago after he tried to use -- leverage his power as commander in chief to blackmail a country against getting military weapons that were supposed to be sent to them that congress authorized for political reasons, but one thing you can control, one thing you do have a say in is answering this question. what the hell happened? what happened with capitol hill police? why were they doing selfies? why were they letting these people that were part of an insurrection? why did they open the doors and let them out? why were there no arrests when you and i both know, i served up there a few years, you and i both know under normal circumstances if somebody, let's say ten black life matter protesters tried to walk through

the capitol, they would have been thrown to the ground handcuffed and sent to jail. what can you do so we can have confidence, so you can have confidence that the most important branch of the united states government can deliberate in peace? >> joe, what an important question, and thank you for starting off by saying i've done what i can to check this guy. look, the enduring sadness of my life is i spent about 105 days on a national picket in 2016 telling americans exactly who donald trump was and exactly what he would do, and he has done everything i said and more. i just couldn't convince enough people of that four years ago, and this is the flowering of donald trump the man. you're right, let's look at yesterday as a massive security failure on the capitol. first, the plan to protect the capitol was inadequate and weak. they were fully aware of social media chatter inviting people to

come. the president was encouraging people to come to d.c. and go wild, and the social media channel was talking about people bringing weapons. they were fully aware of it. the plan was inadequate. second, you have to be a little careful if you look at a 15-second video clip and it appears capitol police are opening gates and letting people in, you want to know more, and there were members of the capitol police and staff yesterday who did heroic work but the plan was inadequate, and then what they did to allow these folks to just take over the capitol, not only put senators at risk, we were less at risk than staff members. i talked to two staff members who had to barricade themselves in a closet for two hours as these insurrectionists ransacked the first floor of the capitol, and they were frightened to death. look, the homeland security committee, which now will have a democratic chair, gary peters of georgia, that's going to be the -- that's one of the first

things they're going to do is dig into the failures and then hold people accountable and come up with a better way to protect the people's house. >> good to see you this morning, glad you and your staff are safe. i'm curious what you thought as you watched across the aisle, as republicans make the case that somehow there was fraud in this election when again and again it's been proven in courts and by intelligence agencies across the country that it is not. there was no fraud in the election. what did you think about those senators who came out like lindsey graham at the 11th hour on january 6th, 2021, and banged the podium and said enough is enough. i can't stand by and watch this. finally brought to that place, not just him by the way, but he was the most prominent after someone had been killed in a riot outside the door of the chamber. >> you know, willie, life doesn't teach you new lessons.

life reminds you of old lessons. there's this great phrase in the bible, i have not been surprised at a single thing donald trump has done in four years. i've been surprised every day by how colleagues of mine who i believe to be good people have been bystanders to his evil. what the history of the world shows is when bad things happen, it's not really because of the people doing bad things because that's a constant throughout history. it's whether they're bystanders or not, and when people stand up against the evil doers, people win. when people are bystanders, then evil multiplies and flourishes. what we've had is a bad case of bystanderism in the last four years in the senate, in the house among republican leadership generally. yes, now some people are resigning. now some people are finding their backbone and vocal chords and are starting to speak out, but they've let this thing go to such a toxic and poisonous level because many of them are like,

well, i can get something by it. i can get reelected. i can get a title. i can get invited to play golf with the president. they sucked up to a would be dictator because they thought they could get an edge, but life has taught them a lesson that it's taught human kind throughout history, which is you don't -- you do not really advance yourself by attaching your legacy to a moral defective, and that's what these people have done, and it's to their ever lasting shame. >> has it? senator tim kaine, thank you. we will see about that. we want to bring in now former secretary of state and former national security adviser and former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff retired four star general colin powell. thank you so much for coming on this morning. twitter and facebook took action to secure their platforms. the president has access to the

nuclear codes. what can be done -- what should be done to secure our democracy for the next 13 days? >> let me say first i'm pleased to be with you this morning as you cover this terrible issue. i've never seen anything or experienced anything like this in my many years of public service. yesterday was a national disgrace, but we'll come through it. we know how to come through things like this. it reminds me a little bit of the riot we had in '92 when we had a riot because of the effect of the rodney king thing, and we were called in, and i was the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and president bush called me and said send in the troops. we did, and we brought it to a conclusion. in this case, though, i do not know what the plan was. i could not tell how many people were going to be there in police

uniforms, why we didn't have more national guardsmen on standby. maybe they weren't there right away, but why weren't they on stand standby, and so i think the plan was not good, and i hope that this will be examined very, very closely, but once again, we see president trump doing things that are absolutely outrageous, criminal claiming that he is going to be the president of the united states when he knows he isn't, but most shocking of it all was that we had to deal with this, and you had congress that was not dealing with it, and so every time i think about president trump i also think about the congress that did not do its job. it did not do its job. it just went along with him, and there you have 12, 14 senators who are right with him. that's not what we should have done. we should have had a congress that realized the problems that existed and did something about it. they've done it before on a number of occasions. they did not do it on this occasion, and we should have

seen what was happening early on as i watched it on television, i could say to myself, wait a minute. where are the cops? where are the policemen? how are they in reserve? who's in reserve? how far away are they? and it took hours for them to respond because they had to go into the building first and take care of that problem. so i think it was a disgraceful performance by our leaders, a disgraceful performance by our military and our police officials, and those who are responsible for those individuals, but we've got to make sure that we're on top of this. but this scares me that it was our congress that for the last four years has put up with this. i'll never forget my first time as a public official when this administration came into being, and donald trump went after mr. obama by saying he was born somewhere else. well, he wasn't born anywhere else, but he sent off -- mr. trump sent off investigators who were not investigating anything.

he was using it as a tool against public opinion, and that's the way he is, and we've watched this now for four years, and here it is four years later. he has lost the election. it has been demonstrated three times by testing that he has lost the election, and he is not going to be the president again, and nobody would accept it. president obama was gone, of course, but president trump would not accept that, and that was a disgrace, and why didn't more people speak out against it and say, no, and keep something like this from happening? as a soldier in my old days, i don't remember quite the layout of troops that we had. where were the backup troops? who was in reserve? where was the guard? where are the active duty troops? that's doable, and it wasn't done. hasn't been done well, and so i hope that when president biden comes in, he will address this problem, and i have great experience with the president and i'm sure that he has what it

takes to be on top of a situation like this. i've known him for many years. i've worked with him, and i'm quite sure he will be doing a good job. >> mr. secretary, you four years ago warned americans that donald trump was a national disgrace. you said he would be an international pariah, all of that has proven to be true. we had every living secretary of defense at the behest of dick cheney write a letter, sign a letter warning about what he could do in the remaining days. what are your biggest specific concerns? what should government leaders, what should members of the house and the senate be concerned about over the next 12, 13 days that donald trump could do to further undermine american democracy? >> he must not be allowed to do anything like this. we have to make sure that the military knows its job and that

the congress is being protected and the congress is being protected, but we have to make sure that congress is ready to step in if he ever tries anything like this. he shouldn't be able to get away with it. we have a system and the congress is part of that system, and they've got to do something and not just stand there and watch it go by. >> general powell, it's willie geist. so let's be specific about what you mean, congress stepping in, the military being ready. what should they be ready for? what do you see as possible in these final two weeks? >> i'd be surprised if we had anything like yesterday, but we have to be alert to that possibly happening. so we should have a reserve of forces, national guard, active army, marines, whatever we need, whatever the military thinks might be appropriate to have standing by. so that if something like this does break out, within minutes we have troops on the way and they are carrying weapons. some of the people who are in this startup yesterday were not

even carrying weapons. carry weapons, and if these guys, these sort of trumpers start to respond, then you counter attack. what was shocking to me is to watch these guys literally march into the building as you see now on television and nobody was going after them. how can this be? how should this be? this was a central part of the american government. i see some soldiers moving in now, but it was a little late, and it's not clear where they were going or what they were doing. so i believe it is up to cabinet officials and up to the congress to do what is necessary to make sure that something like this never happens again, and it's up to all of our intelligence agencies and all of our other rapid response organizations to make sure something like this never happens again. i'm not surprised about mr. trump. i remember when he said, you know, he was born -- president

obama was born in another country. it was wrong. it was a lie. i knew it was a lie. we all knew it was a lie, but it stuck, stuck to about 35% of the population. we cannot tolerate that kind of i idiocy anymore, and we have to speak truth to the american people. we're counting on congress to speak truth. we're counting on our officials speaking truth. we want our cabinet to speak truth, and we want of all things a president of the united states, and i think we have one now in the form of joe biden who will speak truth to the american people. we haven't had truth responsisp us in four years, and we would get in a discussion with another country and a vote would come up about some kind of agreement, and it was always 100% democrats for it, 100% of all republicans against it. this isn't the way the country's supposed to work. this isn't the way democracy is supposed to work, and so we got to get back on track. we know how it's supposed to

happen, and if any of these folks show up again in the next 10, 12, or 13 days, whatever it is, i want to make sure, they want to make sure that there is a force present, ready to not let them get into the building and to not let them stand on the platform. what drove me a little nutty, the rebels stand on the balconies all afternoon and evening. i know what was going on, they were trying to protect those who were inside, but if you had more troops, you could have done more with them. you could have done more with it, and i don't know why it took so long to get the reinforcements on site. >> the rioters were very comfortable yesterday, some of them strolling through statutory hall. mike barnicle has a question for you. >> general powell, you took an oath as a young soldier, and you've maintained that oath honorably throughout the rest of your life and your career, but as we speak this morning for the next 13 days this country is under the command of a badly deranged commander in chief

donald j. trump, do you think, could you envision anyone at the pentagon from general milley on down refusing to obey a direct command from this particular commander in chief? >> if there's an illegal command or an illegal order -- and you can determine whether it is or isn't, you do not have to obey. i think at that point you go to the congress. you go to the leaders of the congress, you go to the vice president of the united states, and you get somebody who will interfere with this order and make sure it doesn't exist any longer. and you know, as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, i knew that i was only responsible for executing lawful orders and not those that were unlawful. fortunately i never had to deal with one of those, but i also knew that we had nuclear weapons and we had to make sure we protected and guarded them, and that we were ready to go to war if necessary, but you know, my spirit of thinking about strategy is avoid wars.

go make conversations with potential enemies and friends, and reach peace, and above all, don't go around insulting everybody, especially your own people, and you're shocking the rest of the world by the insults that the president is giving to the american people. how dare he? how dare he say things about the american people when the whole world is watching and the whole world is shocked. they can't believe what has happened, but the whole world will be surprised when in some time ahead and not that far in the distance we will have learned our lesson and get back to being the americans that people want to be looking at. i think our president coming in will do that, and i think he will select a cabinet and hopefully we will have officials in the different elements of government who understand what their responsibilities are, and this incident should be a lesson to all of us that we have to stick with who we are and what we are and what the constitution

says, not what somebody screams at us. this is the constitution of the united states that gives me guidance and gave me guidance as a soldier and as a diplomat for the entire 50 years that i served in government. i never doubted who i was responsible to. president, yes, to the congress more so, and fortunately i always was able to do that. >> former chairman of the joint chiefs, former secretary of state and retired four-star general colin powell, we thank you for being here, but more importantly we thank you for fighting to protect and defend the constitution of this united states over the past half century. we are forever grateful, sir, thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you all very much. >> mika, i want to also briefly point out we've been talking this morning of course of the shameful behavior of so many republicans. we of course have mentioned, though, that mitt romney has been a strong voice supporting

the constitution of the united states. i brought up dick cheney, former secretary of defense under george h.w. bush, former vice president obviously, also we need to be grateful to vice president cheney for writing that letter warning us -- in effect, he warned us along with don rumsfeld and the other living secretaries of defense about what was coming, warned us that we needed to be on guard, and of course those who understood, read in between the lines of that letter knew exactly what dick cheney, don rumsfeld and the other living secretary of defenses including two who served under donald trump, what they were trying to tell us. also, liz cheney. >> yeah. >> who is one of the top house leaders, for every irresponsible

act that kevin mccarthy has led my former republican party through in destroying its viability in the future, liz cheney has actually defended the constitution, defended the institution of congress, defended science, defended those former republicans and democrats and independents who don't expect to agree with members of congress 100% of the time, and i certainly don't agree with many members of congress 50% of the time, but i expect them to do the sort of thing that liz cheney has been doing over the past, you know -- >> and she did it on fox news over the past 24 hours, a network that is struggling to cover this story for what it is and for her to show up there and set it straight and look at this for what it is is appreciated,

is very appreciated. mick mulvaney, by the way, president trump's former chief of staff and current special envoy to northern ireland said this morning that he is resigning from his diplomatic post. i called secretary of state mike pompeo last night to let him know i was resigning from that. i can't do it. i can't stay mulvaney told cnbc in an exclusive interview. those who choose to stay and i have talked with some of them are choosing to stay because they are worried the president might put someone worse in. he also said that other officials may follow suit. >> that is the question, willie, i mean, we heard somebody say earlier this morning that, yes, people certainly can resign in these last 12, 13 days, but the fear is that somebody even worse

could follow them. the question is what damage could donald trump do in the next 12, 13 days, a lot. >> and mick mulvaney made that specific point actually in his interview with cnbc. he's talked to a lot of people who want to resign but may not because they're afraid of who comes next. i just do have to say and i'm sure a lot of our viewers are thinking it right now, resigning on principle on january 6th, 2021, just rings a little hollow. i'm sorry. >> it's painful, yeah, but what about -- i mean, there is another option, isn't there? >> well, for cabinet members there certainly is the option to continue talking about the 25th amendment. anybody that can look at yesterday and believe that this president should not at least temporarily be removed from the position of the presidency, temporarily for 14 days, obviously are putting something in front of the constitution of the united states. if the 25th amendment has any

legitimacy at all, has any relevance at all in this country, then those cabinet members and vice president pence should be moving forward today. >> that's just what we saw happen yesterday. he has 13 more days. still ahead on "morning joe," what trump and his mob taught the world about america. anne applebaum joins us with her new piece for "the atlantic." you're watching "morning joe," and we'll be right back. we just had a violent mob assault the u.s. capitol in an attempt to prevent us from carrying out our constitutional duty, and there's no question that the president formed the mob. the president incited the mob. the president addressed the mob, he lit the flame. it the flame stay restless with the icon that does the same.

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some other reaction to yesterday's events on capitol hill, "the washington post" editorial board wrote responsibility for this act of

sedition lies squarely with the president, who has shown that his continued tenure in office poses a grave threat to u.s. democracy. he should be removed. conservative writer david french wrote in "time." there is deep sickness in the united states of america. trump is not its sole cause, but he and his devoted allies are making that sickness worse. there is a long road to a cure, but it can begin by purging a seditious president from the oval office. the "new york times" reported it this way, quote, the political fallout of mr. trump's tenure is now clear: his single term in the white house will conclude with republicans having lost the presidency, the house, and the senate on his watch. and this from president george w. bush, his statement reading in part, quote, i am appalled by

the reckless behavior of some political leaders since the election and by the lack of respect shown today for our institutions, our traditions, and our law enforcement. >> president bush also said this is how election results are disputed in a banana republic, not in our republic. bill clinton put out a statement saying that it was an unprecedented assault on our capitol, our constitution, and our country, and jimmy carter wrote in a statement also that he was praying for this country and said -- and with jimmy carter, here's a man who spent much of his post-presidency, spent decades looking at election processes in other countries, and carter said he and rosalind were deeply troubled by the day's events.

this is a national tragedy, and it is not who we are as a nation. having observed elections in troubled democracies worldwide i know that the people can unite and walk back from this precipice to peaceably uphold the laws of our nation and we must. we must join our fellow citizens in praying for a peaceful resolution so our nation can heal and complete the transfer of power as we have for more than two centuries, but mika, as colin powell said and as we said quite some time ago, the united states constitution, james madison and alexander hamilton, they foresaw a tyrant taking control of the executive branch. they never foresaw a compliant congress sitting back and allowing -- >> and cabinet. >> -- allowing that tyrant to run roughshod over the united states constitution. that has happened. yesterday of course was the

latest shock and the latest result of republicans quietly sitting back and being compliant and being complicit in the breaching of our united states constitution's norms. >> let's bring in staff writers for "the atlantic" magazine anne applebaum and david frum. ann is the author of the book "twilight of democracy" and david's latest book is entitled trumpocolipse, and let's bring in eddie glaude jr. anne, you study how authoritarians rise to power. my question to you is for anybody who thinks, okay, we can just wait 13 days and it will be okay. what's your response to that? >> i unfortunately think that would be a mistake, and i also think it's a mistake to say as so many people did including in one of the articles that you

quoted that this is not who we are. i'm afraid this is who we are now. this was a presidency that was built above all on creating an illusi illusion, on an illusion that trump and his supporters were always winning, that there was no such thing as loss. that there were no hard decisions, that there were no nuances in politics. one of the bases of authoritarianism has always been you create a kind of world of conspiracy of hack lies that people live in and you get them to go along with it, and trump successfully did that in the united states, and we are going to be living with that problem, with the people who live in an alternate reality, the people who thought yesterday the assault on the capitol was great, the people who think the election was stolen, they're not going away. they're part of our society, and we're going to have to find a way to live with them. >> and david, anne applebaum laid this out, laid it out like it was -- read like it was from a playbook because it was.

it was a totalitarian leader's playbook. she wrote about how it happened in germany and across europe in the 1930s, talked about how it happened in poland, the conspiracy theories, the conspiracy theories that are still spreading through hungary today, and here we are, i don't know, a year after, six months, nine months after anne's book came out warning about creating a world of conspiracy that leaders will follow or that people will follow, and yesterday was the result of it. people that live in an alternative reality who stormed the united states capitol to try to stop a constitutional process from putting in the next president of the united states. >> we've had an escalating crescendo of pro-trump political violence over the past four years. remember the pipe bomber, he was unsuccessful because his bombs weren't properly made. had he done a better job making

the bombs, there could have been half a dozen or a dozen people killed. the mosque shooter in new zealand left a manifesto behind, one of his questions was do i look to president trump as a leader and he said he's not my leader but he's my symbol. as a symbol i look to him. the violence has become increasingly organized. we've had the organized attempt to kidnap the governor of michigan and we have had attacks on state legislatures before. this should not have come as a surprise. it was advertised well in advance. anybody with a facebook account, everybody could see it happening in realtime, and the police had every reason to know that it was coming. it was announced, and the president himself urged it beforehand, promised january 6th would be a wild day, endorsed it in his statement afterwards, i love you, and important this very morning, important voices in american life are praising or at least sympathizing, condoning

with the violence. the whole thing was in service of an idea about this election that was untrue. one of the regular talk show hosts who supports the president on twitter said who are these people? where did they come from? it was mark le vin who wrote the article urging that vice president pence set aside the election on january 6th and president trump re-tweeted mark levin's article calling for the election to be set aside. how is that to happen except by violent force. so many people were in on this and they're going to be today winking or denying it or justifying it or condoning it. this is not an isolated incident. this is not the work of a lone wolf. this represents a secession from american democracy of the political elite. >> hearing anne talk about the idea that this is not who we are calls to mind something you've been saying on this show and in our private conversations for years now during these trump years which is a difficult and painful truth to confront that it is who we are. those people that we saw

yesterday causing a riot, streaming into the building didn't come kodown from mars. those are our fellow citizens. they're our neighbors. their kids go to school with our kids. this is our country. this is real. it's in front of us. 74 million people voted for donald trump and support all the things he's done for the last four years. this is -- it's tough to say -- this is who we are. >> absolutely, willie, and you know, i was sitting here thinking historically about how we might respond. what are we going to do? who's going to be held to account? and i was thinking about even if abraham lincoln had not been assassinated he would have executed his proclamation of amnesty, the south who rebelled would have been integrated back into the union with relatively little cost outside of their dead. you think about the wilmington massacre in 1898, all those people who were killed, a coup, a coup, what happened to charcharmalfred waddell, what happened to charles acock, he became the

governor. who will be held to account, the reason why folk aren't held to account, willie is because we have been coddling and cuddling these white supremacists since our birth because they are our brothers. they are our sisters. they are our fathers, our uncles, they are our aunts. this is us, and unless we finally address it directly, we will find ourselves not just on the precipice of losing our democracy, we will lose it altogether. >> you know, anne, there's so many things i want to talk to you about this morning, but let's move even beyond your book and let's talk about i think one of the most important articles that were written in 2020, and that's when you studied east germany. instead of going straight back to nazi germany like i do too often, you studied east germany, and you asked the question who was complicit with the communists, and who was part of

the resistance for democracy, and you always -- in your article you said that it was hard to predict. you also brought up a guy like mitt romney, who would have guess that h guessed that mitt romney would have taken as many brave stands as you did. you have mitt romney on one side, josh hawley on another, a guy with a stanford and yale law degree. you've got liz cheney on one side and then you have mark meadows on the other, and i think it's so important, you say something in your book and forgive me for going on, but it's so important that people read your book to understand what happened yesterday. you talk about the lazy eight stereotypes that trump and his people put on followers, that they're not the great unwashed. they're not the teaming masses, often they are people like ted cruz who went to princeton and

harvard. they're people like josh hawley who went to stanford and yale. it is the elites that give energy to these insurrections. >> one of the things i wrote about in germany was because as the years went on it was less violent than nazi germany and actually easier to lead. you needed a more complicated explanations for why people stayed there, why they went along with the regime, who rebelled and why, and of course it's a little extreme to compare the modern united states to a system like that, but the point of the comparison was not to say, you know, america's east germany. that would be silly. the point was to say that the motivatio motivations, the kinds of impulses that persuade some people to stick to a set of ideals and other people to give up those ideals are remarkably similar across societies, and it's actually, i think, quite a useful thing for americans to remember. we are an exceptional nation in

many ways. we're exceptionally lucky and exceptionally blessed and exceptionally prosperous, in fact, but we aren't -- we haven't dodged many of the flaws of human nature, and many of the moods and -- that have brought down -- one of the things that has -- >> yeah, okay, we've lost anne's sound. but i'm going to develop on her point, especially going back to my first question and anne confirms the next 13 days could be very dangerous. >> yeah. >> besides the 25th amendment, which we can only hope that members of the cabinet would do the responsible thing, this man still at this point has proven that he can wreak violence on our country. what should we be looking ahead to, and is there any other recourse to secure our

democracy? >> well, there are a lot of signs of what is happening, which is that there's been a kind of treaty struck between vice president pence and some members of the cabinet on one hand and president trump on the other where they've said to him you have to be good. you have to agree to let the national guard be called out. the president obviously resisted that, and there's a question that we're going to need to ask, why wasn't the national guard there? how complicit was the president. but they've got a deal where president trump undertakes to be good, and maybe they are gullible enough and fool enough to believe the deal. i wrote just last night that we need to restart the impeachment and removal process, and we need to do that partly to put the republican party on record a second time in the shards and wreckage of the capitol will they defend this time. there are more democratic senators than there were last, so you need fewer republicans, and the impeachment process can also end with an impeached official being refused

permission to ever serve in government again, and it also begins a process of indelibly marking this as unacceptable. the key thing, and as anne was saying, trump is not a solo actor. the president of the united states is not a dictator. he acts through others, and this president has from the beginning acted through others, and what happened yesterday was the work of many, many hands. impeaching -- the process of beginning impeachment, beginning removal, asks people to say this are you for this what happened yesterday or are you against it? are you with law, or are you against law, and it makes it difficult for the president to step and his now somewhat abashed supporters, but who were there at the beginning, it makes them a little to disavow the responsibility for what they did. >> mike barnicle. >> eddie, yesterday as the world witnessed it, a large mob of terrorists turned the capitol, our capitol into a crime scene,

and the ring leader of that mob is still today this morning at large and free in the oval office, in the white house but as david frum just alluded to, there are a lot of accessories before and after the fact of the violence that the world witnessed yesterday. what are your thoughts on who we do about all those accessories before and after? people like kevin mccarthy, mitch mcconnell, and a long, long line of others. do we forget them and move on, or do we go after them? >> you know, thanks, mike, for that question because it actually connects with what i was trying to say earlier that we have to hold people to account if we're requestigoing actually get beyond this. if we don't, it will continue forward and we will just see it in another form later on, a few years down the line, a couple of decades down the line. what does it mean to hold mccarthy accountable? what does it mean to hold cruz

accountabili accountab accountable? what does it mean to hold hawley accountable? it means that we have to in some ways confront the ideology that informs and shapes their choices. i don't know what that will look like. joe has said over and over again on this show today that some folks need to be arrested. they need to be behind bars. we need to acknowledge that the blood is on their hands and that trump is just the tip of the iceberg. he's just an indication of the rock that's at the heart of denmark as it were. so we need to in some ways i think begin this conversation, mike, of what accountability will look like. the one thing we cannot do is move on and talk about couple b kumbaya and talk about unity and the like. >> i am a conservative. i've been a conservative my whole life. people have been confused over the past four years because i don't like the tyrant at the

white house, but when you break the law you need to be arrested. if you break the law crossing the border you need to be arrested. if you break the law in the streets of partlaortland you ne be arrested and if you break the law going into the people's house, you need to be arrested. you need to be sent to jail, and if you're part of an insurrection you need to be jailed for years even if you're president of the united states. i see that we have anne back. anne, wrap it up for us, if you will. >> i think i agree with both of the previous speakers. we need accountability. we need the president's breaking of the law to be explained to his followers, and we need to find some way to reach them and bring them back into the world of truth. we need to have a national conversation about how we can, you know, it's not about ending polarization. it's about bringing one group of people who now live in an alternate reality back into the

real reality, and we're going to need help from the republican party. we may need help from the tech companies. we may need a bigger and broader national conversation about how to do that. >> for sure. anne applebaum, david frum, and eddie glaude, thank you all. coming up, we'll be joined by washington, d.c., attorney general carl racine who is calling on vice president mike pence to invoke the 25th amendment. we'll be right back. ♪ ♪ [♪] think you need to buy expensive skincare products to see dramatic results? try olay skin care. just one jar of micro-sculpting cream has the hydrating power of 5 jars of a prestige cream, which helps plump skin cells and visibly smooth wrinkles. while new olay retinol24...

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♪ all right. let's bring in the attorney general for the district of columbia, carl racine. i am asking all morning long what is the plan for the next 13 days? how does this democracy remain secure, become secure again after the unbelievable breach that we witnessed yesterday? >> well, let me first say that i would gladly give up the time that i have to listen to that extraordinary conversation that you were having with frum, applebaum and the great dr. glaude. what we have to do is what david

frum said and that's to invoke the 25th amendment. donald trump needs to be held accountable. he's unfit for office. the 25th amendment empowers the vice president and a majority of the cabinet or majority of the congress to remove a sitting president. it would be the first time that happened but we know it's deserved. >> mr. attorney general, what should we do to make sure that those who committed insurrection against the united states of america yesterday, that those rioters that breached the security -- >> trashed offices. >> -- of the united states capitol, what can we do to make sure they face justice? >> i think as dr. glaude said, we need a full accounting with full law enforcement and accountability. and that means fbi, the videotapes, the photos, the social media. go lady and fully investigate and fully prosecute those who

terrorized the capitol. i would also add in addition to necessary law enforcement, we've got to be really deeply honest with us. and i'm recalling now james baldwin's book, the fire next time. and here's what he said about hate. imagine one of the reasons why people cling to their hate so stubbornly is the sense that once their hate is gone, they'll be forced to deal with their pain. and, joe, you were right. politicians and leaders are actually manipulating vulnerable people who need help from the government in order to scapegoat others -- black, brown, asian, immigrants. it's a diversary tactic that has gone on too long. we need profiles of courage. people like sasse and romney to finally have the kind of human

accounting that this country needs. >> mr. attorney general, we've heard of about 53 arrests, most for curfew violations in washington. as you look at the pictures yesterday and contemplate what happened yesterday, this morning, why weren't more people arrested? >> well, i think there were two facets, if you will, of the events yesterday. there was the initial gathering and protest. and, of course, march to the capitol. and the incursion on the capitol. federal law enforcement officials should have been prepared for that. i do ask you to go ahead and pull the video from june 1 when black lives matter was to protest before the capitol. you remember the bureau of prison wardens, homeland security, remember national guards from 20 states who appeared before the capitol in military gear to protect against

peaceful protesters. thank you so much. contrast that with what you saw yesterday. so that's what happened with the federal officials. and that rests right at the footsteps of the person who should be, who should have the 25th amendment invoked against him. d.c. law enforcement officers, frankly, they did their jobs. and they went out and afterwards, they helped the capitol police restored order and arrested folks pursuant to the curfew order that mayor bowser invoked. our federal partners let us down. >> yeah. the racial component to this is just outrageous. and it's something that we need to talk about in the weeks and months to come because that was so obvious it was painful. mr. attorney general, you talk about what should happen. there need to be arrests and fbi pictures, all these things. will it happen? will there be accountability?

>> i -- i am going to advocate for it. i can tell you as the president of the national association of attorney general, the president who has got an initiative against hate, i'm going to be focused on getting democrats and republicans to actually call for a full accounting. now we know that under president trump his attorneys general have not, frankly, been responsible. they've not applied the rule of law in a check and balance, but i certainly hope that future attorney general merrick garland and the u.s. attorneys that are appointed and nominated and consented by the senate will indeed investigate and follow the law. accountability is critical. and that needs to happen soon. >> mike barnicle, i know you have a question for the attorney general. i have a question for you. somebody who has known capitol hill cops, somebody who, you have done your beat around cops

for years and have had a great relationship with them, what do you think happened yesterday with the capitol hill police force which bill bratten rightly says is one of the biggest in america? >> they lack complete planning and preparation for what was about to happen, and they knew it was about to happen. the march had been scheduled for days. the president of the united states tweeted about it. said it's going to be wild. they knew they were totally unprepared, and they got steamrolled. and the thing that bothered me the most, joe, about watching that was, first of all, turning the capitol into a crime scene. that, obviously, was offensive. but secondly, the ease and the comfort that these people felt going through this building filled with the shadows of history, both real and present. it shocked me. it just totally shocked me. the general, i'd like to ask you

a question. is incitement to riot a crime in the district of columbia? did the president of the united states commit such a crime in full view of the world on television? if so, why isn't he under arrest? >> well, i think that incitement, riot is a crime. it's a federal offense, and certainly being an aider and abetter who encourages that kind of conduct should, in fact, be arrested. here's the problem, mike. the district of columbia is not a state. the federal government has extraordinary powers over the district of columbia. my office, for example, is not the predominant prosecutor for the adult offenses that were committed yesterday. the united states attorney's office with the united states attorney appointed by president trump is the prosecutor. i certainly hope those career prosecutors and i do have faith

in career prosecutors, will do the right thing, and i know that merrick garland and his new u.s. attorney for the district of columbia will prosecute. >> attorney general for the district of columbia, karl racine, thank you very much. and i guess, as we close, joe, before i throw it to you, it's just a question for members of donald trump's cabinet. are you going to wing it over the next 13 days? you just going to wing it and hope nothing happens? maybe cower a little bit, cringe a little bit, say behind his back that you wish he would stop acting this way, or are you going to act to protect our democracy from an openly clear, criminal who incited an attack on our capitol. are you going to invoke the 25th amendment? joe? >> well, really quickly, those that rioted, those that committed insurrection, need to be brought to justice.

those that pushed them to do that, that inflamed them to do that and preached insurrection, donald trump, rudy giuliani and donald trump jr., should also be brought to justice. and we need a new police chief for the capitol hill cops. >> the media wagons are circling already this morning around donald trump and around those rioters yesterday. the same information bubble online and on cable news that brought us to this place is already at work this morning saying they, those people we saw yesterday inside the capitol, are the victims. >> well, that does it for us this morning. stephanie ruhle and hallie jackson pick up the coverage right now. >> hi there. i'm stephanie ruhle, live from msnbc headquarters in new york city. it is thursday, january 7th. the day after the stunning sickening events that took place at the capitol. but this