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tv   Deadline White House  MSNBC  June 16, 2022 1:00pm-3:00pm PDT

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hi, everyone. it is 4:00 in new york on a blockbuster day of testimony before the january 6 select committee. that committee presenting the facts against drmpl and illegally and unconstitutionally pressured vice president pence to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and while mike pence refused to do so donald trump turned a violent mob of supporters on pence. watch. >> i hear the pence just caved. >> no. >> is that true? i'm hearing reports that pence caved. i'm telling you. if pence caved we'll drag [ bleep ] through the streets. >> i guess the hope is there's a show of force that pence will decide to -- do the right thing according to trump. >> bring him out.
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>> bring out pence! >> bring him out! >> bring out pence! >> bring mike pence! bring mike pence! [ chanting ] >> much of today's testimony centered around john eastman, an attorney whose theory that the vice president had the authority to nullify the election outcome so laughable that donald trump's own aides, allies and closest advisers described dismissing it outright. here's that evidence. >> made clear with mr. meadows about you and the vice president having a different view about the authority on january 6. >> i believe i did. >> did he explit sy or tacetly agree with you or say that makes sense or okay?
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>> i believe that -- that mark did agree. >> what makes you say that? >> i believe that's what he told me. but as i mentioned i think mark told so many people so many different things that it was not something that i would necessarily accept. that's okay why that's resolved. >> i see. tell me what he told you on this topic. >> you know the vice president doesn't have a broader role. >> communicated to me that pat cipollone thought the idea was nutty and one point confronted eastman with the same sentiment. >> it made no sense to me in the protections built into the constitution for a president to be elected and the steps to be taken or to choose a next president would be sitting with the vice president.
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>> do you know if mr. clarke or morgan -- is it -- viewed about that, thought about that? >> they thought he was crazy. >> crazy came up so many times we lost count. while the taped depositions thrust into the open and become the lynch pin of the select committee's case today's testimony was live testimony from greg jacob that bore witness to the pressure campaign and judge michael luttig that advised pence that what trump was asking him to do was clearly against the law. the recollection of the crisis point in american history sent shock waves through the hearing room. >> and vice president's pence obeyed the orders from his
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president and the president of the united states of america during the joint session of the congress of the united states on january 6th, 2021, and declared donald trump the next president of the united states, that declaration of donald trump as the next president would have plunged america into what i believe would have been tantamount to a revolution
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within a constitutional crisis. >> a revolution within a constitutional crisis is where the coverage begins today. harry lit marn is back. also joining us is ben rhodes, adviser to president obama. now a contributor. former chairman michael steele is here and frank figluzzi is back. now a national security analyst. michael, judge luttig's address was describing mike pence's facing not just a cockamamie idea before, during and after january 6 but puts donald trump atop the chain of command in
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terms of ordering this illegal act on the part of mike pence on january 6. >> absolutely. it was for me one of the most profoundly important legal and political points that the judge was able to convey. that at the end of the day no matter how much you danced around this and tried to dress that pig up, put on lipstick or whatever, it was still donald trump. it was donald trump and always been donald trump. those that worked with him and know him. michael cohen. so many times said everything happens because donald trump wants it to happen. nothing goes in any other direction unless he's the one turning it in that direction and the fact that he was so consistent and persistent in finding a way to concoct a legal theory for his coup and could
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not ultimately do that still did not take him off of his course and the judge made that point i thought very clearly and at the end the most damning part of this for every republican out there who stuck their neck out for donald trump and puts a fine point on the words that liz cheney used is when the judge said that donald trump and the supporters remain a clear and present doing jer that's a powerful moment in the hearing. >> you know, the danger piece played prominently. i'm sure a lot of the footage of insurrection is so dispersed but i had never quite seen put in one place the direct threats against mike pence.
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frank, i wonder if you could speak to the very dire security situation coming the vice president of the united states and the family's personal safety. >> 40 feet. we're talking about a distance of 40 feet between possible serious bodily harm or death and the vice president of the united states. at a point by the way where we have needed him perhaps the most. what struck me particularly was hearing that pence apparently did say to the head of his secret service detail, telling him, sir, we are not going to take you anywhere without you telling us to do so. he looks at that secret service head and he says, i trust you but you're not driving that car. that one sentence just makes the hair on my neck stand up.
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do you understand the significance of that? that the vice president of the united states doesn't trust the secret service drivers and agents other than the guy in charge of the detail, meaning the guy in charge of detail is not really potentially in charge of the detail. >> what is it telling you about the vice president's state of mind that donald trump would carry out the plot by other means? remove him from the capitol? is that the inference, frank? >> i think what hits me the most is pence doesn't know where this is headed. he doesn't know what the president is capable but it's not good because he saw what happened to the capitol attempting to certify the vote.
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we have a vice president wondering whether he'll make it through the day and whether or not democracy makes it through the day. i think we have not heard the last on this topic. we don't have firsthand from the head of that secret service detail who sources tell me was can interviewed. may not agree with the characterization of that conversation. i think we are not done with this topic. >> ben rhodes, i have found it one of the -- anyone that works in a white house cannot countenance the idea of a president not sitting atop the chain of command. george w. bush had a medical procedure and dick cheney was the president. it was a serious consideration but on january 6 nobody, nobody thought donald trump was the country's commander in chief. in the testimony and the photos
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seen for the first time of the vice president in the basement he is on the phone clearly functioning as the country's commander in chief. >> i had the same thought. it's even worse than that though really. having been in the white house for eight years, the apparatus of the u.s. government is set up so the wishes and will of the president of the united states is reflected down through a chain of command that's populated with human beings. not just a machinery. it's human beings carrying this out. watching this what becomes clear is that had essentially split. not that donald trump was doing nothing in the run-up and during the events he was running a play set up by john eastman and donald trump is part of that play is to go out and then incite the mob that was the outside game of the inside game
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that eastman set up and eastman continuing to try to carry out that inside game in the insurrection. even as the life of the vice president is at risk and the mob that wishes to do harm to mike pence that there's still the play so the people that on board with what donald trump was doing are working at the direction of that president of the united states and then you have these somewhat shell shocked public servant who is are just literally all trying to do is carry out a pretty mundane function of the u.s. government. it is a ceremonial thing and suddenly they're cast in a position to make the judgment calls on the fly and they're reaching out to people like eastman saying when will you cut this out? you know? and so it was really the
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fracturing of the executive branch where you have people acting at the direction of the united states to overturn the result of the an election that led to the inciting of a mob that put at risk the lives of people trying to do the jobs and then for those people to do the jobs and to get to the end of the day they basically have to act against the will of the president. we have never seen anything like that in the history of the united states of america and the fact that eastman is trying to carry out the coup after he's seen the physical risk that his plan and donald trump's plan placed even the vice president of the united states in it should be absolutely stunning to anybody. it is not something that's ever happened in american history. >> harry litman, murdering democracy is sometimes hard to get our brain around but if democracy were a woman named
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danielle and john eastman wrote a memo saying that nobody can murder danielle but, mike pence, you can. i wouldn't want al gore or kamala harris to murder anybody, not in any setting. but you, you can commit the crime of murder. it seems that judge david carter's ruling that more likely than not that eastman and trump committed felonies feels like the bombshell of the century after today. >> we have gone way past that. judge luttig said revolution. we were as frank putts it 40 feet away from a situation in which the vice president of the united states and the speaker of the house, the two people in line for presidency after trump
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could have been torn limb from limb. that is like -- that makes the french reign of terror look like a nice game of tennis. it was -- i think you're seeing everyone's stunned reaction to it. as we learned monday that there was ever an iota of any legitimacy and learned today and it was dry to some was that this wasn't just a farfetched theory. it was intellectually contemptible made up out of whole cloth and trump embraced it and the more harrowing consequences almost ensued. i find myself still breathless in the wake of this hearing. >> it was and again i think some of the separation from taking us to law school in that first hour and then showing us almost an
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staccato bit of testimony from the senior aides to trump and pence with two such different feelings but in the substance it was the most devastating. the thing that was elusive covering the mueller investigation and then elusive to mueller himself was knowledge of trump's intent. you have the testimony from the trump end of the trump-pence phone call we know what trump's intent was. it was that mike pence overturn the will of the voters and know who wrote it, john eastman, and unconstitutional. he said he would lose 0-9 in the u.s. supreme court. >> it is 100% bankrupt and that was the whole thing that they were going forward on. as i say many different crimes but really the true sort of
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scenario and this is what i want to say about the mueller report. there was a lot in the mueller report and because of the way it was handled by the attorney general and congress we never got to play it out in a vivid detail. these hearings so valuable because they have taken the sort of sketched charges we have been aware of and put them into such vivid relief that can't be ignored. i think you find basically silence from the mccarthys and the jordans in the world and the revelations you're left speechless and it's indefensible what's been laid out in such wide ranging and granular detail. >> no one is going anywhere. joining us is congresswoman murphy of florida, a member of
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the january 6 committee. i'm sure you're still catching your breath. what would you like us to focus on after sitting through every inch of it. what were the most damning pieces of evidence introduced today? >> once the republican was told by the advisers that he had lost the election he found the eastman theory and the theory both illegal and illogical and yet the president latched on to that and directed pressure at the vice president to get him to do something that's illegal, unconstitutional and culminated in putting the vice president's life in danger. >> we point to the evidence
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entered today that mike pence didn't get in the car because he said in the testimony that he didn't know who was driving the car. can you paint a fuller picture of what he feared? >> i think we will provide additional evidence gathered about this in future hearings but what you can understand from that is that he understood how fragile democracy was in that moment, understood the role to certify the election and fearful that in another way take him away from doing the duty that he knew he needed to execute on that day. to the point where he wasn't trusting even the people closest to him that were charged with keeping him safe because he didn't want to leave that capitol.
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he had a job to be done and as soon as we could reconvene. >> it's so clear that you have the timeline filled out now in terms of what the white house, the chief of staff and the president knew was going on at the capitol and what donald trump did and did not do. it's something congresswoman liz cheney is talking about since before the hearings commenced. do you have evidence that he committed crimes in the 187 minutes? >> i think the federal judge carter has already said that in likelihood mr. eastman and the president committed a crime. i would leave it to the department of justice to determine if a crime was committed or an investigation needs to be launched. >> while the hearings were underway the doj asked for the transcripts of interviews.
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can you share how the committee will respond? >> we are still interviewing witnesses and collecting information. i'm certain that we'll come to an outcome with the department of justice. >> another thing that struck me is we saw taped depositions with two white house staffers who were deep inside the west wing in terms of the chain of command. that is not completely clear to me. a deputy press secretary, maybe a deputy in the affairs office but were seeing the alerts of donald trump's tweets that seemed to threaten mike pence. how much, if you could quantify how many and how much testimony you have from inside the west wing on that day. >> a lot. you will continue to see it during these hearings. we have been able to lay out
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enough information for an inside the white house perspective of what happened on january 6. i think it is an important part of the investigation. you will see the evidence relevant to the topics of the hear. >> what was perhap this is climax today was eastman seeking a pardon i decided i should be on that pardon list after all. what is the significance of john eastman thinking he did enough bad deeds to need a pardon? >> i think it underscores what he knew is that what he was proposing was illegal and didn't have a legal basis and he was trying to cover himself after the fact. >> are we still to be braced for new revelations about not just the white house but the president's knowledge of violence as it was being planned
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and as it was taking place on january 6? >> i think you'll continue to receive new information but the thing that's really important to point out is in the last hearing you saw repeatedly the president told that he lost the election and it was clear he knew. he was told repeatedly there were no fraud claims that were legitimate. he understood there's no fraud and he understood that the legal theory that eastman was pressing was not legal. he understood that. he knew all of these things and yet he went out to supporters saying the opposite in each case. he said he won and there was fraud and a path for the vice president to move forward. he is lying to his supporters. >> that's a really effective sort of sign post i think for
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us. the first hearing established he knew he lost. they told him that he lost. on the eastman memo he was told repeatedly by his own advisers and pence' that it was the constitution did not allow for a man to change the results of the election. third one is that he was awash of violence and a threat to the vice president as he continued to stoke angry and hatred to the vice president. do you in your view having just examined the evidence does this render moot what he cover as to whether or not there will be a criminal referral? seems that is asked and answered. >> the case we lay out to the american people is that we came
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close to losing the democracy. he cared more about the game than the constitution and the country. and i think the other thing that's important to note the charge is a legislative charge. lay out the facts. provide legislative recommendations. department of justice can investigate if necessary. they prosecuted people involved in the attack on the capitol on january 6. they do the job. i imagine it's a matter of time. >> what we knew in terms of the investigation is it focuses on the insurrectionist and that evidence that extended into donald trump's conduct that day. do you think it should? >> you know, what the justice department is looking at is often under close fold and under wraps so i don't know that you can say that they're not
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investigating. i would say that the big takeaway is that president trump was not morally fit for office and that as americans we have a responsibility to secure our democracy by electing people with the kind of good moral character to commit to the rule of law and to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. >> thank you for spending time with us on another extraordinary day of public testimony. >> good to be with you. >> let me bring back into the conversation our panelists. harry, these sign posts she laid out it is like check, check, check. donald trump lost and knew he lost because they told him and seven people did so. he knew the eastman memo was illegal and five people told him. donald trump knew there was vie
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lensz at the capitol. it seems what the committee is presenting and the evidence and the testimony to back it up they are batting 1,000. >> there's no doubt about it. the boxes have long since been checked that the prosecution will be looking at to decide whether or not to bring charges and very good evidence that they are already launched on investigations other than the marauders and has to end with a scrutiny of trump himself. there's no way that the doj can do an investigation of this sort of the eastman, meadows without looking at trump. at the end of the day with trump uniquely whether to prosecute with the other questions of the best interest of the country and i think they are already on that path and as you say on the critical questions of intent
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there's a few different crimes and with conspiracy it is tricky but on other crimes in play on the questions of intent it is now established in three or four different ways. it is not a challenge to prosecutors. one more quick thing. the doj we found out today that they -- doj has a confidential informant who actually said that a proud boys guy that said we would have -- killed pence if we saw him. that's from the doj's investigation. >> as a viewer that feels like being a sociopath but what crime is that? but i mean the knowledge, the knowledge of the violence? cassidy hutchinson testified that mark meadows was aware of
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the probability for violence and two aides told mark meadows to do something. what is the criminal exposure for knowledge of that and doing nothing? >> i tweeted this on the fly. i think frank would agree with me. it is what we have. they are trying to impede with the proceedings. is there actually some kind of an attempted murder or a special statute on threatening the vice president. possibility. one ore way they're trying to impede the election and the certification. that's a crime. >> frank, we cover domestic vie lent extremism. our last conversation about the intended attack in coeur d'alene
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and feels like the extremist threat that persists every day, the threat is the same. a matter of catching them fwfr violence takes place. it is apparent that in terms of the call and answer, the rage and the amplification of the rage, donald trump was symbiotic with the extremists that day and every day since. >> it seems that we are going to go beyond call and response. i think that's where this hearing is head jd the documentarian is startling stuff. i don't believe they bumped into each other. before the insurrection. so there is significance to this. i know the january 6 committee
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is exploring whether or not the likelihood that these extremist groups did not operate in a vacuum but knowledge, direction and guidance and what news broke in the last hour or two? that doj has said to the committee in writing again we need your transcripts now. if you look at the fine print of that, where did that come from? why do they need the transcripts now? it came from a proud boys prosecution ongoing right now saying the prosecutor and the defense in the case are saying we need triptds. we need the transcripts from the committee. doj's going we do. and then it says for ongoing prosecutions. plural. who signed off on the letter? matt olson. the head of nation at intelligence. that's the proud boys trial.
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i get it. but also the head of criminal division said we have ongoing prosecutions, too. need the transcripts. this isn't over yet. >> i want to do two things. i have a mash from the testimony of the trump end of the call to pence on this morning. i want to play that for ben and michael steele because there is history being made in terms of what we're seeing and learning what was for mike pence and the coup for for bill barr. a bridge too far for the most loyal aide. when we come back we'll get to that. don't go anywhere. depression. i just couldn't find my way out of it. the lows of bipolar depression can take you to a dark place. latuda could make a real difference in your symptoms. latuda was proven to significantly reduce bipolar depression symptoms and in clinical studies,
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okay. ask your doctor if latuda is right for you. ahhh! wa-hoo! ha ha!
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no! no ha ha! we're back with the panel. michael steele and ben rhodes, i said i was coming to you two on the combined testimony from white house advisers to trump about the trump end of the phone call. trump's last private pressure campaign before he would taunt mike pence in front of the rioters themselves on the ellipse and then rile them up with the tweet sent. let me play some of that. >> it wasn't a specific formal discussion. it was very sort of loose and casual. >> did you hear any part of the phone call? >> i did, yes. >> all right. what did you hear? >> as i was dropping off a note my memory i remember hearing the word wimp.
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i don't know you are a wimp. you'll be a wimp. >> it is reported that the president said to the vice president that something to the effect that you don't have the courage to make a hard decision. >> worse. i don't remember exactly. it was something like that, yeah. >> do you -- >> like being -- not tough enough to make the call. >> it was a different tone than i had heard him take with the vice president before. >> did he share the details about what happened? detailed about what had happened in the oval office that morning? >> her dad had a conversation with the vice president. >> do you recall anything about her demeanor during the meeting or encountered her in dan scavino's office? >> i don't remember specifically. i think she was uncomfortable over the fact of an interaction between them. >> something to the effect -- this is the wording wrong. i made the wrong decision foush or five years ago.
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>> the word she relayed to you that the president called the vice president -- apologize for being impolite, do you remember what he called him? >> the p-word. >> one of the trump's favorite words. use it on the day of a deadly insurrection in a conversation with his vice president. >> what a petulent little bully. astounding to me when you put it together like that. that what comes across is this man was such a bully. he tried to bully pence, tried to bully those around him and then susceptible to it. because they wanted to ingratiate themselves to him. people would do that. he could bend them over backwards in any shape he wanted them to be in. he ran into an obstacle. a man to told him over the phone
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i can't do that because the constitution of the united states won't allow me. and he persisted in the bullying, the name calling. i don't know what more we need to know and hear from this man for these folks out here who still think that he should be the next president of the united states in 2024. for a party to continue to adhere to what he is out here still selling. the big lie. it just to me is astounding that we are seeing this now realtime, hearing from people in the room. and yet there's so many americans out there think that this is a crock. all fox news. all made up. we won't cover it. this is not important. it is important. and i hope americans dig deep inside themselves and see what's
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at stake here. i go back to the first segment and luttig's words that this is an ongoing proposition. it's still a clear and present danger and the bully behind is donald trump. >> ben rhodes, i would like to associate myself with the comments of my friend michael steele. i want to show another piece of evidence that goes to a bully and a petulent one and a liar. here's the efforts and reminiscent of the mueller probe. a statement donald trump puts out. mike pence and i agree with the authority to overturn the will of the voters. >> the statement say it is vice president and i are in total agreement and the vice president has the power to act. is that incorrect? >> i think that the record shows that's incorrect.
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>> essentially the president's sendsing out a baldelli false statement about being in alignment with the vice president despite the respective positions? is that what happened? >> i interrupt the statement as false. >> did he ask you to retract the statement? >> no. he just i think i want wept right to what's the process for putting out a statement for meeting with two people in the room. the tone was very clearly that he used some language to defer that the vice president strongly disagreed. >> it was suchl such a crush of evidence we might be focused just on this. this is a statement that the white house put out that pence and trump see it the same way. that was never the case.
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ever. >> yeah. i think the important thing is that they don't think that rules apply to them. they don't think we live in a country with the equal administration of justice. that he should be subject to any of the laws of gravity applying in a statement like that or trying to overturn the results of an election. i want to connect to the ivanka trump statement. it wasn't specific or formal. that's code for my dad donald trump being crazy donald trump. he is the president of the united states of america. every conversation is specific and formal. right? but they like the rest of us to see this as some casual reality show where, yeah, he lies and threatens and uses bad languages, curses out and insultings the vice president of the united states but that's
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trump. what's so important about the hearings is reminding us, no. we won't accept where the rules don't apply to him as a character. he is the president of the united states issuing an order to the vice president of the united states to overthrow the election and then trying to bully him when he refuses to do that and then he feels like he can just lie with impunity to try to cover the tracks on that. any other one of us that did anything like that from the white house, i can't believe we are debating if this is a crime. it is absurd. >> not all of us. >> the man committed crimes. his own attorney who helped him asked for a pardon and took the fifth a hundred times. i don't do that unless i committed a crime here. lying and obstructing of the
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investigations what's happening in the white house. they work for us. their response, the way to try to wriggle out of it is to say that's trump being trump and something to laugh about. it is not something to laugh about when it's the democracy of america. it is the lie to the people that lie died of january 6. it is not playing into the game of not specific and formal. no. those were crimes and we are witnessing the evidence of the fact that donald trump is guilty of committing the crimes. >> let's bring in olivia troy director of the republican accountability office. you are honest and forthright when mike pence disappointed you
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permly. how did you feel about your service to him in watching the hearing today? >> i'm proud of the former boss and while law enforcement held the line outside and trying to and keep people safe he held the line for the democracy. we -- he deserves credit for that. that is the man i got to know and thought was mike pence and i'm glad to see that come through and glad that the american people seeing that the pence team held together when person after person knew that trump was trying to do something illegal. but yet the bully was in the room continuing to pressure pence to do the wrong thing and for the sake of the democracy thank goodness that he didn't and honored the oath to the constitution and the office. >> let me play some of vice
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chair cheney ice opening statement setting up mark short's testimony. >> what the president wanted the vice president to do was not just wrong. it was illegal. and unconstitutional. we will hear many details in today's hearing but consider two points. first president trump was told repeatedly that mike pence lacked the constitutional and legal authority to do what president trump was demanding he do. >> pick up on that. was it your vice president the directly conveyed his position on these issues to the president not just to the world but directly to president trump? >> many times. >> and had been consistent in conveying his position to the president? >> very consistent. >> are you aware of any incident before this where the vice president conveyed a refusal to
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carry out an order many times from donald trump? had there been a case where pence said know to trump before? >> i have certainly seen mike pence push back on trump and behinded closed doors and in meetings but i think this was an exceptional situation where mike pence really stood up and stood up to the bully and the best way to put it but fully knowing to bring consequences which we have seen and fully knowing that it was going to create this dynamic where donald trump was going to bring the wrath his way. watching this play out and the tweets and the statements put out and knew what it was leading up to. when he gets crossed and you do something you don't take the orders and disobey and take a
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stand. it leads to potential threats to the life which is what happened that day. he brought the wrath of the people to mike pence and relentless that day as it was beginning to unfold and started to watch this and that to me is i'm in disbelief. watching the footage of 40 feet of the vice president no american should give that a pass. no american should continue to support an individual who would endanger and send the mob after the vice president. i refuse to believe we'll be that way when the threats continue because the people are still out there pushing this lie. eastman is talking to communities and lying and out there radicalizing americans everidy. >> he was i think the latest stop in wisconsin. one more thing. this is number ten.
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this is never before seen photos of mike pence that day. >> select committee obtained photos from the national archives that show vice president sheltering in a skush location as rioters overwhelmed the capitol. at 4:19 p.m. vice president pence is seen looking at a tweet the president had just sent, a tweet asking the rioters to leave the capitol. after four and a half hours spent on working to restore order the vice president returned to the senate floor to continue the certification of electors. >> what do you think when you see those pictures? >> i'm just thinking about the ongoing threat to him and his family. seeing that picture of his daughter next to him trying to figure out how to control the
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situation, how to actually do his duty, do trump's duty who should have been protecting the lives of the see those photos today while i sat in the hearing, knowing everything that was going on, hearing firsthand witnesses talk about these scenes. greg jay job, who was there with him and greg jacob is one of my closest colleagues. i know the character that he possesses and is, and i have to say, i was left speechless and it just -- i can't tell you how grateful i was that mike pence was there. it could have been someone else. it could have been someone who would have succumbed to maga and trump, but he didn't. >> let me show all of you -- this is number 12.
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this is when eastman decides that, you know, sort of like, uh-oh, maybe i need a pardon. >> dr. eastman emailed rudy giuliani and requested that he be included on a list of potential recipients of a presidential pardon. dr. eastman's email stated, "i've decided that i should be on the pardon list, if that is still in the works." dr. eastman did not receive his presidential pardon. >> you know, harry, there's something like, i've decided to give up, you know, gluten about the way it all gets tossed around in this world, but eastman, to olivia's point, continues to sow distrust in our democracy, distrust in our elections, and when we talk about 2024, that's the urgent mission, but people should understand that people inside this movement are still for decertifying president joe biden's win in 2020. that's some of what john eastman travels around the country
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urging legislatures to do. and somehow having this smoking gun that he sought a pardon for his conduct leading up to january 6th and beyond makes his conduct today about continued efforts to decertify 2020 and sowing distrust in the process for future elections, all the more disgusting. >> it does, and we've seen the results of that as recently as tuesday, when big lie proponents were actually elected. but look, i think you've seen all the sort of reeling in disbelief and outrage this hour. let me try to offer up a couple sort of silver clouds that i saw. the first is, it's impressive to me that what made it easy for pence, even though he, you know, wrung his hands about it to, have such steel and backbone, was because it's a constitution and we have such respect for the constitution and that wouldn't happen in other countries. the second thing i want to say
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is we've been waiting all this time. when will the republicans stand up as goldwater and baker did in watergate? that's happening with elected representatives, but it is beginning to happen, i think, in these hearings. they're doing it very effectively with members of the gop establishment, like luttig and barr, who we saw today, people who are standing up and saying that trump has no clothes. so, i think you're absolutely right, as to the menace, but the question will be, will there be a substantial enough erosion -- it's never going to all go away -- that it becomes not such in the words of luttig, a clear and present danger. there's some seeds for hope, i think, as a result of these hearings. >> i'm never one to discourage that optimism. i wonder if you share it, frank figliuzzi. >> i share some optimism that i think doj is not only paying close attention but they're on this.
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i really am optimistic about that. i want to just say something that, you know, each of the hearings so far has been a hybrid of kind of a made-for-tv drama and a criminal grand jury presentation. today, for me, was more on the side of a criminal grand jury presentation. i know there was drama. i know we're focusing on that. but let's just go through a couple of things here. and we tend to treat the president, the former president, and his associates as special and not like we would treat people in an average city field office with the fbi, right? if this were a city manager in kansas city, and we heard that the mob had come to him and threatened to ruin him, his reputation, even to kill him, unless he proposed a certain zoning ordinance, we'd have that open and in court in a heartbeat. what we heard today was the
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bullying of a vice president, the threat publicly to ruin him, and call him out by the president of the united states. i'm not going to like you anymore. you're a wimp. you're the p-word. and then tweeting -- he didn't do what he we needed him to do. and then 40 feet away from violence, that's the city manager not zoning the ordinance for the mob and that's coercion, extortion, intimidation, public corruption. when we see people like eastman saying, you know, i think i need a pardon. yeah, because you know you did something criminal. what we saw today was beyond a doubt for me, taking away the, oh, willful blindness or maybe trump is insane. no, no, no. deliberate choices were made to choose criminality over legality. that's what i saw today. >> well, and frank, just to follow up, what the evidence does, again, for the first time in the trump presidency, is show us the irrefutable proof of his knowledge, his knowledge that he lost. his knowledge that the eastman
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plot was not only unconstitutional and illegal but that mike pence wasn't into it. and his knowledge of violent threats against his own vice president. >> yeah. knowing, willful, deliberate. you know the words we're using right now? they're statutory elements to criminal charges, and that's where i think this is going. and you know, on the issue of, should there be a criminal referral or not? it's there. i wish that bob mueller, with his report, had been more formal and clear and blunt, hey, here are the crimes, doj needs to go for it. i think we need to do that. but it's there, whether they do it or not. >> believe your eyes and ears. my thanks to all of you, harry litman, ben rhodes, frank figliuzzi, olivia troye. don't go anywhere. we have more, another hour of reaction to today's blockbuster
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hearing. select committee member elaine luria will be among our guests. e luria will be among our guests because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. wayfair has everything i need to make my home totally me. sometimes, i'm a homebody. can never have too many pillows! sometimes, i'm all business. a serious chair for a serious business woman!
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across the road before i would have let the vice president overturn the 2020 election on the basis of that historical precedent. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york. we're continuing our coverage of today's extraordinary public hearing by the january 6th select committee. today, we all witnessed alarming
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new testimony about just how persistent donald trump's pressure campaign to have his own vice president, mike pence, stop the counting of the electoral votes on january 6th and how he, as well as people around him, knew that the specious theory he was basing that demand on was unconstitutional. you just heard former federal conservative judge michael luttig who even ted cruz, his former clerk, has referred to this way, as like a father to me, conveying the extreme lengths he personally would have gone to rather than follow the theory presented by attorney john eastman, that mike pence had the authority to stop the certification of the electoral college count. judge luttig saying if pence had gone through with trump's wishes to overturn the 2020 election results, it would have plunged the united states into a revolution. but what we heard from the committee's presentation today was more than just about the illegality of what trump was asking pence to do.
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it was about the sustained campaign that would ultimately and perhaps even to this day put mike pence's life at risk. we've compiled several examples of the committee's demonstration today of the uncertainty and turbulence between the president and his own vice president, leading up to january 6th based on eastman's theory. watch. >> did john eastman ever admit, as far as you know, in front of the president, that his proposal would violate the electoral count act? >> i believe he did on the 4th. >> this was one of the many points that we discussed on january 5th. he had come into that meeting trying to persuade us that there was some validity to his theory. i viewed it as my objective to persuade him to acknowledge that he was just wrong. what most surprised me about that meeting was that when mr. eastman came in, he said,
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i'm sheer to request that you reject the electors. so, on the 4th that had been the path that he had said, i'm not recommending that you do that. but on the 5th, he came in and expressly requested that. >> as vice president pence prepared a statement on january 5th and 6th, explaining that he could not illegally refuse to count electoral votes, he said this to his staff. >> the vice president said this may be the most important thing i ever say. so essentially, the president's sending out a baldly false statement about being in alignment, purported alignment with the vice president, despite all of the predicate that you indicated had gone before about their respective positions. is that effectively what happened? >> i interpret the statement as false. i'll let you figure out who sent it out. >> when marc short contacted
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you, he was upset? is that what you said? >> he clearly was not pleased. >> tell us what he said. >> what's the process for putting out a statement for a meeting where only two people were in the room? >> the vice president had finalized his statement overnight. we were in the process of proofing it so that we could get that out, and we were told that a call had come in from the president. the vice president stepped out of the room to take that call, and no staff went with him. >> i remember hearing the word "wimp". either he called him a wimp -- i don't remember if he said, you are a wimp, you'll be a wimp. "wimp" is the word i remember. >> all we are demanding of vice president pence is this afternoon at 1:00, he let the legislatures of the state look into this so we get to the bottom of it and the american people know whether we have control of the direction of our government or not.
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>> mike pence has betrayed this president, and he has betrayed the people of the united states, and we will never, ever forget. >> yeah. >> all we are demanding of mike pence, john eastman says? today, we learn more gripping, harrowing details about the vice president's refusal to leave the capitol complex as the mob came hunting him. here's greg jacob, pence's former chief counsel, who was with him on the 6th. >> the vice president did not want to take any chance that the world would see the vice president of the united states fleeing the united states capitol. he was determined that we would complete the work that we had set out to do that day, that it was his constitutional duty to see through. and that the rioters who had breached the capitol would not
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have the satisfaction of disrupting the proceedings beyond the day on which they were supposed to be completed. >> it's where we start this hour with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. jackie alemany is here. her byline is on some dramatic new reporting that we'll get to. also joining us now, katyal, former acting u.s. solicitor general, now a georgetown law professor. with us at the table, not really a table, sort of a spaceship, right, guys, on the set, basil smikle is back, the director of public policy at hunter college, and nick confessore is here, "new york times" political and investigative reporter and an msnbc contributor. i start with you, jackie. for all of the pulling back of the curtain that you and your colleagues and other news organizations have been able to do on the select committee's work, and little tidbits that have slipped out, nothing really prepares you to hear senior trump advisor after senior trump
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advisor, including the president's daughter and senior pence aide after senior pence aide describe in pretty dispassionate tones an illegal and unconstitutional effort that donald trump was willing to endanger mike pence's life to get carried out. >> yeah, nicole, i actually was remarking to someone in the room, in the hearing earlier today, that even though we reported on these emails between greg jacob, who we all saw testify today, in-person, and john eastman, last october, my colleague, josh dawsey, and myself, and the rest of our team, we uncovered this series of pretty aggressive exchanges that were happening in the midst of the insurrection where john eastman was continuing to push greg jacob, even after they were already under siege, to go through with the plan to halt or delay the electoral certification. that those emails hit a little
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different after you saw the actual video footage and new photos of vice president pence hiding out in the bowels of the capitol where rioters were 40 feet from him. so, there were tons of new, really in the weeds details that painted an even more vivid part of this story, along with some bombshells, quite frankly. i mean, john eastman asked in an email for a pardon to rudy giuliani. perhaps realizing after the fact that his plan had gone haywire and he might have some legal problems on his hands. you know, there was a myriad of moments that really stuck with me, but at the end of the day, those photos of the vice president and his team were counting how everyone got in the suv after secret service whisked them out of the building to safety from the rioters who were trying to kill the former vice
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president or at least threatening to, but everyone but the vice president stayed in the building. those were some pretty gripping moments. >> neal katyal, to jackie's point, we know that john eastman's plan was one that he knew. he said this. "well, yeah, you're right, we would lose 9-0." he knew he would lose every supreme court justice. we know from judge luttig that there was no basis in the constitution or laws of the united states at all for the theory espoused by mr. eastman. at all, none, was his quote. and we know that eastman's thought process, his mind had wandered to the need to be put on the list for pardons. what kind of exposure does john eastman have criminally? >> well, i think as donald trump would say, huge. it's massive. and the picture that was painted today, both with what you're saying, nicole, and more generally, like, you get this picture of donald trump going
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attorney shopping, trying to find an attorney who's going to say the nonsense that he wants them to say. he finds eastman, and then eastman goes kind of legal theory shopping. he tries to come up with whatever theory he can. that one, you know, when one gets thrown out, you know, as 9-0 loss or something like that, he then pivots to another one and another one and ultimately goes and resurrects the first one, the one that was supposed to lose 9-0. it's bad. i mean, you know, what the testimony today showed, basically, is that eastman knew what he was doing wasn't right and he did it anyway because he wanted to keep his guy in power, and i know today felt a little more technical and a little drier in some moments, but that's because, nicole, i think the audience today, unlike the first couple of hearings, wasn't as much the american people. that's obviously an audience. but part of that multiple audiences here. another one for today really was the justice department. i really did feel like today's presentation was done so that
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prosecutors could watch us and go, oh my god, eastman. and then, who was eastman conspiring with? a guy named donald trump. >> neal chooses his words carefully, basil. he chose the word conspiring with. i want to show you another compilation we have of the committee's exhibits of this pence pressure campaign. >> i hope mike pence comes through for us, i have to tell you. i hope that our great vice president, our great vice president comes through for us. he's a great guy. of course, if he doesn't come through, i won't like him quite as much. >> was it your impression that the vice president had directly conveyed his position on these issues to the president, not just to the world through a "dear colleague" letter but directly to president trump? >> many times. >> and he had been consistent in
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conveying his position to the president? >> very consistent. >> i am -- i am aware to the fact that the president was upset with the way pence acted. >> are we to assume that this is going to be a climactic battle? >> i think a lot of that depends on the courage and the spine of the individuals involved. >> that would be a nice way to say, a guy named mike -- vice president mike pence. >> yes. >> i think we've been clear as to what the vice president's role is. i think the vice president made clear with the president, and i think i have been clear with mark meadows. >> i think the vice president is going to throw down tomorrow and do the right thing, because lou, like i said before, this is a time for choosing. people are going to look back at this moment tomorrow and remember where every single one of their elected officials were. did they vote for the rule of law in getting these elections right? or did they give it away to the democrats and the people who cheated and stole their way through this election? >> definitely the, you know, i got back into town the 5th and the 6th. the president was, you know, all
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the attention was on what mike would do or what mike wouldn't do. >> the vice president really was not wavering in his commitment to what his responsibility was, and so yeah, was it -- was it painful? sure. >> painful to side with the constitution. >> right. you know, as i'm looking at this and listening to the language, which is really important, they don't have knives and guns in their hands, but they're clearly threatening the vice president. and he should have felt threatened. for all the fealty that he showed to donald trump over the years, i didn't think i would wake up and end the day sympathetic to vice president mike pence, but i will tell you, it is shocking. it is chilling. and for judge luttig to use the term "revolution" and you were talking earlier, he seemed to choose his words very carefully. >> very. >> painfully so at times. but for him to use that word -- and i add that to testimony of a
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capitol police officer, i think last week, who said that she had been trained for a lot of things but not for combat. and that is what she believed was happening outside of the capitol. so when i put those two things together, i don't know that even as things are being played out that we could have ever believed how close we came to complete disaster and overthrow of our government, and i felt that for the first time, really, today. >> yeah. >> this is a -- so, if, you know, mike pence, i don't know what he does after this. but it is clear that someone needs to take the mantle and change the direction. we went through fake science. we are now today talking about fake law and fake history. and this -- someone's got to make sure that this is documented repeated, taught, if we're not banning books, taught, because we can't forget this moment. we cannot forget this moment. for someone to use the term, revolution, a republican, a conservative, to use the term "revolution" is shocking.
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>> and he's not just a republican. he is -- it's hard for me to explain to anyone not sort of in conservative politics just how conservative he is. and just how trusted he is by not just the right but even the trump right. and i thought -- you have a feeling, watching these and covering these, that it is history in the making. but when he placed donald trump in the middle of the story, with his first words, he said, if mike pence had followed an order from his president, donald trump, he erased any doubt that this is about -- this is not going to be like impeachment one or like mueller. well, what did trump know and when did he know it? did he intend to take help from vladimir putin or did their missions just align? no questions like that. this was about mike pence being ordered by donald trump to do something that was illegal and unconstitutional. >> and he knew it. >> and he knew it. >> and he was told it was unconstitutional and against the law by the same person advocating for the plan, john eastman. he went into the office and
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said, you should do this. it's illegal, effectively, but you should do it anyway. i don't think we should ever take courage for granted in politics. we often do. people with strongly held views on the right and the left, but this man came in. he is a pillar of the legal establishment on the right, member in good standing, in the highest standing, so those words were quite chilling. the other part that was revelatory to me, it wasn't just that they were putting political pressure on mike pence and perhaps we'll see more video in the show later. there was a lynch mob outside the capitol saying, bring us mike pence, let's hang mike pence, and they weren't kidding. they weren't joking. we can see that in the video. and further, we hear now today there's evidence the proud boys intended to kill mike pence if they could get to him. so, not only were they putting pressure on mike pence's career, they were threatening his life for not adopting this illegal plan to keep donald trump in power. >> well, and to the degree that eastman is still out there, as
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olivia troye said, spreading these lies and hopping from legislature to legislature, i'm sure there are still people who blame mike pence for his conduct that day. i want to bring into our coverage congresswoman elaine luria of virginia. she's a member of the january 6th select committee. congresswoman, i asked your colleague, congresswoman stephanie murphy earlier, i think people are so riveted and so distressed by the inner workings of what was horrifying from the outside. tell us what you hope people take from today's testimony. >> well, i think today, as you mentioned, it went into a lot of depth. it went into a lot of depth about this legal theory, who briefed whom, and you know, looking at what happened and how this was truly the inner circle with the president. we talked about this meeting that happened on january 4th where the president, the vice president, eastman, and others were there, and eastman himself says, you know, this theory, it's not really legal. but then he says, but the
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electoral count act, his personal opinion, he says, i think this is unconstitutional, it's been on the books since 1887. no current constitutional challenges to this but he says, just disregard this and this is what the vice president can do. and comes up with this plan to adopt a fake slate of electors or to send it back to the states and delay. and then, the next day, the pressure continues. the vice president's legal advisor. and what was just so shocking to me is that on january 6th, after this violence in the capitol, after, you know, the rioters have been cleared out and were getting back to work of certifying the election results, there's this email exchange, and in that, you know, he basically says, now that we see the electoral count act is not, quote, unquote, so sacrosanct, i.e., they took longer than two hours to debate a particular state in the midst of a riot, why don't you just violate it one more time, just go ahead and do it and essentially wakes up the next day and says, i really think i need a pardon here.
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so it's a pretty clear story that the people involved in this knew what they were doing was illegal. they were directly pressuring via the president, for the vice president to break the law. and he stood up, he stood for our democracy, he stood for his belief in the constitution, he did the right thing. but that really saved our democracy and our democratic institutions on january 6th. >> the committee entered into the record, in the most sort of in the clearest way, vice president mike pence's reluctance to get into his own vehicle. he says to his agent, tim, i trust you. but i'm not getting in that car. is there more? i mean, does the committee tell a fuller story of what mike pence feared? >> well, you know, it's shocking to see these videos of mike pence and his family being evacuated and evacuated down into the basement of the capitol. he's on a loading dock where the car is waiting. there's no chair. he's the vice president of the
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united states. he's calling, trying to reach heads of agencies and others to make sure that things are being taken care of, is law enforcement coming, all the things that you would expect him to do in this role and if he's sitting on the edge of the car with his feet out and the door open. it's the only place he has to sit, but he is literally taking a stand. i think of it as someone who was in the navy for 20 years, it's like, don't give up the ship. he is the one who has to carry this process through to the end to certify the election results, and he's not going to give up the ship. he's not going to leave or let someone take him away from the place where he needs to be, to ensure that he does his duty that day. >> ivanka trump's deposition is woven in such an interesting way through these episodes, and today, we learned that she was uncomfortable with what her father was saying to mike pence. last week, we learned that she
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believed bill barr, not donald trump. just talk about the importance of her observations of her own father in these moments. >> well, you know, of the people we're hearing from, through these hearings and his testimony has been presented, there's probably no one closer than a daughter to their father and understanding their thought process and the fact that she has come forward to the committee and been able to share her observations that day, her thoughts about what was happening around her i think is incredibly powerful. probably some of the most important testimony and to his thinking, thought process, and i think we'll hear later what role did she have on january 6th? we'll talk about that when we have a hearing about the 187 minutes of that day. what role did she play? >> we also saw two, i think, new faces for the first time, two west wing advisors who, one is kayleigh mcenany's deputy, the deputy white house press secretary, and another, i think, was in a legislative affairs staff. both of them go into feet away,
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steps away from the oval office to pursue white house chief of staff mark meadows. and ask him to get the president to tweet something out, because mike pence is in danger and the riot is, in their words, out of hand. how much of the investigation and the public hearing is focused on what liz cheney has described as dereliction of duty, the president, and it would appear mark meadows, refusal to do anything other than these very weak tea and late tweets to quell the violence? >> that's something we're definitely going to cover in depth later. in the hearing where we talk about the 187 minutes, that three-hour period on january 6th. it truly was dereliction of duty. the president had a duty. he has, under the take care clause in the constitution, the responsibility to ensure that our country's laws are faithfully executed. yet we've laid out already in the first few hearings that he was trying to undermine them. and so, we will go into detail about the information we've
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gathered from a variety of witnesses of what happened during that 187 minutes and the inaction that took place in contrast to the violence at the capitol, which you can see behind me. >> you have a special insight of the importance of this question, but i wonder if you can say now, and this came up in the first hearing, it was reinforced by the photo evidence and the testimony about mike pence, who was the country's commander in chief on january 6th? >> well, the president is the commander in chief. he was the president on that day, but he was not taking action and he was not fulfilling that duty, in my opinion. of what he should have done. when a violent act happens in our nation or a national emergency, one anticipates that the president immediately picking up the phone, bringing everyone in, all the advisors, everyone from every agency who could help and assist in something like this violence, and we'll go into a lot of
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detail and we've already stated in our hearings how not a single one of those calls was made that day. >> the testimony of conservative judge michael luttig was perhaps the most cinematic of the day. it was dramatic in some points. it was halting. but he said, perhaps, the most provocative thing that anyone has said since the public hearings have commenced. he described donald trump as giving an order to mike pence that would have led to a revolution. is that your view? >> i think that his words were very powerful, and i think that the way he spoke in a very measured and thoughtful tone as well as based off of his years of experience on the bench as a conservative judge, you know, the fact that those words came from him are very powerful, and it was clear through what we presented today that this was an order. it was pressure from the
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president on mike pence to take an action that was illegal and leading to a revolution. i mean, what more do you need to see than thousands of people violently attacking the capitol, trying to stop the functioning of our government, essentially leading to the death of multiple people and police officers? i mean, his words, you know, they really fit the circumstances of what we saw that day, what led up to it, the totality of it and what this investigation is looking to provide information about to the public. >> it's such an important point, and it's his words and it's who he is. it was really a dramatic piece of testimony. congresswoman elaine luria, thank you so much for spending time with us on what i know is are a very busy day. we're grateful. >> thank you. you know, it's a similar point to the one you were making. i mean, the testimony and the evidence now matches the things we saw with our eyes, but didn't really have. have a narrative to sort of meet what we knew we were all seeing. >> you know, i think what's most
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surprising to me about these hearings is how well they tell a story. and i don't say that to minimize or trivialize what's happening here. it's hard to communicate what's happening on this day. a lot was happening on this day. i write stories for a living. it's very hard. and i think what's so compelling about these as television, as political theater, is that they are helping the american people understand in a clear way what was happening. it's not too technical, i don't think. they make great use of video and depositions. it's easy to follow. it's a model for bringing accountability in these situations, but one crystal clear thing we now know is that president trump had every reason to know that what he was asking to be done was against the law. >> yeah. and she makes that point, you know, here with us, that he had something that we never knew for sure if robert mueller had nailed down. we know his intent.
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>> well, that's exactly right. and to your point, the storytelling is very important. the juxtaposition is very important from the words to the actions. you know, what did they want us to know? what were they telling their supporters, and then what were the supporters going out to do? and my, you know, we always talk about elections mattering. my exhortation to democrats, to young people in particular after we are hearing all of this, is that it's not just about the person whose name is on the ballot. you're also electing staffers, people around them, that are making critical decisions every single day, advising their principal what to do, what not to do. those people matter so much, and they clearly have mattered a lot in this case. we've been staffers. we know what that feeling is like to be able to brief your principal about, you know, yes or no. imagine if they made different decisions in these moments. we would have had a very different outcome.
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and it's shocking how close we came. >> i just want to add one point to that. if, in his first term as president, president trump, didn't have a flock of people to bring into the administration, he relied on many people who were republicans in good standing, members of the party for years, lots of experience in government, and he fought with them constantly, and we see that happening on january 6th, that many of the people who were fighting against this plan of action were his own appointees. if he is re-elected and runs again and is back in office, i suspect we will have fewer of those people working in the white house when things like this happen. there is now a critical mass of people who are trump loyalists who will come into government and the guardrails provided on that day by those people will be gone. >> gone. >> someone said to me, you think bill barr is, you know, whatever you think of him. wait until you see the jeffrey clark justice department. i want to come back to you, neal, on sort of a broader question, in terms of what you think this committee has sort of communicated and storytold so
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far, and what for you, you still want to hear and understand, what pieces of the story? >> yeah, i think that nick's right. the storytelling has been amazing, and it's particularly so because kind of the two key figures in the story, nicole, aren't actually -- we don't get to hear from them. we don't get to hear from donald trump directly, and we don't get to hear from vice president pence. to me, the pence thing is a big missing piece. yes, they've done a great job filling it in with all these other people, but if pence wants to basically fulfill his historical and constitutional obligation here, he obviously did the right thing on january 6th, great, but the idea that he can sit on the sidelines during this hearing and not tell the american people, not tell posterity, not tell the justice department what actually happened in his words, to me, i find unforgivable. so, you know, it's great to lionize him for what he did last year but i want to know, and i want to hear from him on what
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actually happened in his own words. that's not necessary for either a criminal prosecution or the types of electoral reforms that people should be contemplating, but it does seem necessary and kind of to get a full complete accounting for the history books if not for the american people right at this moment. >> no, i mean, look, it's such a good point, neal, for history, it's needed, and in terms of telling the complete picture, legally, but also politically. i mean, as a staffer, to see him sort of leave his staffers out to dry, it's really hard to watch. >> yeah, 100%. i mean, if he -- and he obviously believed this stuff. you listen to judge luttig. he listened to the legal advice he was getting. he had exactly the right constitutional impulse, which is, our founders that divided government would have never given the power to pick a president and vest it in one person. that's just, you know, the most
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insane legal theory, something only someone like john eastman could believe and it turns out john eastman didn't even believe it. so, you know, if you're there already, why aren't you coming before us right now and telling us what actually happened, what you think, and how do you leave that gap and leave your staffers out to basically tell part of the story? >> well, and jackie, i mean, this brings us to you. your reporting suggests that the investigation is very much still under way, even as these public hearings have commenced. and before the committee blew our mind, your story this morning blew our mind. take us through what you have reported about john eastman and ginny thomas. >> sort of drafting off the great reporting by my colleague, emma brown, who has uncovered a lot of the emails that ginny thomas was sending to state legislators in arizona, we dug a little deeper to see what the committee had obtained after that ruling came out last week from judge david carter ordering
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john eastman to turn over 400 or more emails to the committee and we found out that the committee has obtained email correspondent between ginny thomas and john eastman who obviously was central to the hearing today and i think we're going to hear a lot more about. but essentially what these emails confirmed is that thomas's efforts to overturn the results of the election and her involvement in some of these schemes are wider than previously known, and you know, today, we just saw the committee change their minds about ginny, and they sent her a letter, according to chairman thompson, who huddled with reporters after the hearing and said they had sent her a letter requesting that she come in for a voluntary interview. we are still trying to get a better sense of what these emails entail, what they were talking about, ginni thomas, for her part, told the "daily caller" she was looking forward to coming in and, quote, unquote, clarifying her side of the story.
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but there is obviously a lot more to be learned and i'm eager to get my hands on some of these emails between the two of them. >> yeah, to your point, chairman bennie thompson said, we've discovered some information that refers to ginni thomas and then as you've already pointed out, the "daily caller" reports that ginni thomas says this, "i can't wait to clear up misconceptions. i look forward to talking to them." that makes, what, 60 million of us who can't wait for her to testify before the committee. is testimony or a deposition on the table? or is this just sort of happening in the press at this point? >> so, that is a question that we currently are waiting for an answer back on, but based on what we've seen the committee do so far, it's possible that if she actually does agree to come in and interview with investigators who have been prominently featured throughout
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these hearings in those video depositions, every single one of these depositions has been recorded in some way, that we could potentially see clips of that deposition, or maybe -- and we're not sure if this is under discussion. we know what's under discussion right now is potentially explaining to the american people her involvement in the efforts to overturn the election, not that necessarily they would ask her to come in as a live witness. that is not under discussion, at least as far as i know at the moment. but again, as you said right off the bat, nicole, this is a live investigation. it's similar to watergate in that sense, that there are -- they are making new discoveries as we go along. it's not necessarily coming out in the interviews that they're conducting before the american public, but because of the ongoing legal battles, john eastman's emails just arrived, i believe, in the past few days.
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so, lawmakers are scrambling to incorporate that and i think that's why we didn't -- we might not have seen the full spectrum of john eastman's efforts today and are likely to see it in the coming weeks, especially on tuesday during adam schiff's hearing on the alternate slate of electors. >> everyone sticks around. there is much, much more to get through this hour. we're going to sneak in a quick break. ugh this hour. we're going to sneak in a quick break. your heart is at the heart of everything you do. and if you have heart failure, there's entresto. entresto helps improve your heart's ability to pump blood to the body. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby. don't take entresto with an ace inhibitor or aliskiren, or if you've had angioedema with an ace or arb. the most serious side effects are angioedema, low blood pressure, kidney problems, or high blood potassium. ask your doctor about entresto.
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mr. jacob, did donald trump ever call the vice president to check on his safety? >> he did not.
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>> mr. jacob, how did vice president pence and mrs. pence react to that? >> with frustration. >> i want to show you some of what we saw was happening at the time that the pences were, according to testimony, frustrated that donald trump didn't call to check on them. these were the rioters. >> nothing but a traitor, and he deserves to burn with the rest of them. >> this all escalated after pence -- what happened to pence? pence didn't do what we wanted. >> pence voted against trump. >> okay. and that's when all this started? >> yep. that's when we marched on the capitol. we've been shot at with rubber bullets, tear gassed. >> we just heard that mike pence is not going to reject any elector vote. >> you're a traitor! >> boo. >> that's right. you heard it here first.
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mike pence has betrayed the united states of america. >> boo! >> mike pence has betrayed this president, and he has betrayed the people of the united states, and we will never, ever forget. >> yeah! >> it's real simple. pence betrayed us, which apparently everybody knew he was going to, and the president mentioned it like five times when he talked. you can go back and watch the president's video. >> this is our capitol. let's be respectful to it. there's 4 million people coming in, so it's a lot of control. we love you guys. we love the cops. >> neal katyal, when we talk about the first amendment, we talk about it not being absolute. you can't yell "fire" in a movie theater. donald trump did a lot more than yell "fire" at an ellipse when
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it comes to endangering his vice president. what is the correlation between his acts, his tweets, his threats against the vice president, and the violence that ensued? >> yeah, so, there are incitement possible charges that could be brought, and you know, when people like me try and outline the legal complaint against donald trump, we don't really use incitement, in part because of this first amendment defense. he's going to say this is all about speech and even though everyone with half a brain knew that when he is tweeting the things he did and taking the actions he did, it's, you know, it's lighting the match on the fire, and we knew this all the way back in december when that georgia election official said, mr. president, stop this, someone's going to get shot. someone's going to get hurt. someone's going to get killed. even though we all know that as a kind of practical matter, legally, it's often hard to bring an incitement charge. i'm not going to say it's
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impossible but it's so much easier here and what the committee has done such a good job of is explaining the conspiracy between trump and eastman and the decision to try and obstruct that official proceeding on january 6th of counting the electoral votes. that itself is a separate, very important federal crime. both of those are available, and so to the extent the justice department does get into this, and i sure hope they do, nicole, because i cannot imagine how our rule of law survives when we've seen all these images, we saw what the president did, and then think, you know, he gets to go scot-free? i mean, if you or i did that or someone else, they'd be in jail in a heartbeat, even if they don't have the machineries -- the apparatus of government power at their disposal. donald trump did. he should have known better. he was in a position where he had to know better. and instead, he blew all that off and we've seen the results. >> jackie, we know that liz cheney, at least, has already named the statute, criminal
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statute, she thinks that donald trump violated, it's the obstruction of official proceedings. she read from it, i think, back in january. in terms of the evidence you've seen so far, how much more do you think liz is holding on to in terms of what is being very strategically and methodically revealed to the public for the first time? >> a ton of evidence. we have how many hearings left? we're on three. >> many. >> we have at least four hearings left. and the final hearing is going to go through those 187 minutes where we did not hear from trump as the violence was under way and i think that might be the hearing that goes out with the biggest bang and potentially reveals a lot of new evidence that details the full scope of the potential criminality of trump's actions. but it's not just trump, that statute that cheney mentioned about trump's intent to obstruct an official proceeding.
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there are other crimes that the committee has previously argued that trump and co-conspirators have committed in legal filings made by them previously. for example, when they were trying to get these john eastman emails, we've talked about this court filing several times. the committee argued that trump had committed multiple crimes along with john eastman. that was trying to defraud the american people, obstruct an official proceeding, and i believe there was one more that is escaping me at the moment, but the committee is not divided on whether or not trump committed crimes. they have essentially said so already. what is dividing them is how they're going to communicate that. is it going to be explicit in a criminal referral laid out in a letter so that the public can see it and that the doj does not miss the memo? or are they going to be a little bit more nuanced about it, present the -- a watergate road map of sorts and hand over a full report with a prosecutorial arc that gives them exactly what
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they need in order to prosecute trump and any potential co-conspirators? >> jackie alemany, neal katyal, grateful to both of you for spending so much time with us today. basil and nick stick around. some frightening testimony today from conservative former judge michael luttig about the danger to democracy that the ex-president poses today, still. our friends eddie glaude and tim miller will be our guests. e glam miller will be our guests. bipolar depression. it made me feel trapped in a fog. this is art inspired by real stories of bipolar depression. i just couldn't find my way out of it. the lows of bipolar depression can take you to a dark place. latuda could make a real difference in your symptoms. latuda was proven to significantly reduce bipolar depression symptoms and in clinical studies, had no substantial impact on weight. this is where i want to be. call your doctor about sudden behavior changes or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report fever, confusion, stiff or uncontrollable muscle movements,
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today, almost two years after that fateful day in january, 2021, that still donald trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to american democracy. i don't speak those words lightly. i would have never spoken those words ever in my life except that that's what the former president and his allies are
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telling us. >> a stunning, even watching it again, that still is. that was retired federal judge michael luttig. he is the man who advised vice president mike pence on january 6th, describing the real and del and ongoing threat that the disgraced twice impeached ex president and his supporters posed then and continued to pose to our entire democracy. joining our coverage, tim miller, writer at large for the bulwark and the host of the new podcast, history is us. tim miller, your thoughts? >> i thought it was powerful. obviously he is not a performer. this was not a performer meant for primetime. the reason his testimony was so important was because of the substance and who it's coming from. i know for some people, all republicans are the same stripe, but he is not a moderate mitt
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romney republican like i was, right? he comes from the scalia, alito school of the hard right constitutional conservatives. he's on the short list to be on the supreme court, to have the alito seat when bush was president. this is a person with the utmost credibility work conservative credentials. he still is in good standing with the pences and mcconnells of the world. this is in the a never-trumper. his testimony was he was ready the throw his body on the road to prevent donald trump from stealing the election, and not only that, that he remains a clear and present danger going forward. so i thought coming from someone with that level of gravitas, you know, made the testimony as important as it was. >> eddie, let me just for the record say tim and mitt romney are only moderate by today's standards. they were real card carrying conservatives back in the day. i fell in the category as a
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swish. now i'm off the spectrum on the right and gladly not on the spectrum anymore. what is your sense of what the committee achieved today, eddie? >> well, i want to pick up on something that nick said, right, about the story. the committee has done something very nowerful. they let us know trump knew the claim the election was stolen was a lie. they let us know his attempt to overturn the election was illegal and let us know he didn't give a damn about one and two. he didn't care. the result, is that now reface a tragic choice. and the tragic choice is either we're going to indict and hold these people accountable, hold trump accountable and, understand that violence may follow from that. or two, we witness the end of the rule of law in the country. and that's what i think we're beginning the see. now, they're going to draw concentric circles. we're going to get more actors in this, but he knew he was
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lying. he knew what he was doing was illegal, and he didn't give a damn. that's very clear to me. >> eddie, i think the other thing they prove is he knew his vice president was in danger, and he sent out a tweet siding with the insurrectionists. the only other tweet to your stark choice is we've already seen the violence. not enforcing the rule of law has already ushered in violence and a pervasive threat of ongoing domestic extremism. >> absolutely, and what the judge did by saying it's a clear and present danger, he also in some ways got our gaze from looking backwards to looking forward. we have 100 trumpists who have won primaries. what have we -- we see voter nullity communication across states, secretary of states. the ongoing revolution, without the constitutional crisis is still happening right now. >> you know, tim, i think that ivanka trump's testimony is being used very sparingly, but in a very fascinating manner. when it came to bill barr versus
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donald trump, she believed and sided with bill barr. and when it came to mike pence versus donald trump, she felt bad for mike pence. she was in the room when her father used the "p" word, the same place her father believes he can grab women. the disgust his own daughter had through her deposition is fascinating. >> i think the committee has been really conscious of this, of wanting to use trump's innermost circle. obviously use stepien. but now we're getting inner inner, the family. and using that testimony against them -- this is for the type of people that aren't watching cable news all day. this is not just arranged anti-trumpers that are doing this or wide-eyed anti-trumpers. this is his own family that knew what he was doing was illegal and wrong. they felt bad for the people he was prerp traiting the attack on.
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i'm happy they used an ivanka clip. one thing that's left a little cold is i wish we'd have mike pence's testimony. it's a little odd. >> said the same thing. >> i think it's odd he sent his chief of staff and his spokesperson there -- or excuse me, his lawyer to act as his spokesperson. mike pence is getting a lot of praise for doing the right thing, and he did the right thing, but if he wants to live up to his oath and responsibly, he needs to finish the job. it would be nice to hear what was heard from his voice in primetime next week. >> yeah. the rihanna song, "take a bow". bennie thompson saying the most effusive things about his patriotism and courage. why is he not there? >> i don't know, but he needs to be there, and to tim's point, he needs to finish this story. it really begin and ends with him based on what we saw in terms of his life being threatened. look, an lapd police officer came up to me today because he recognized me and said, i man, i looked at the videos of people
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taking pictures in the capital, and they were doing reconnaissance. he said, what are y'all going to do about that? i think that to the points made earlier it does come down to accountability. all of this is great, wonderful, but can we get real accountability here at the end of the day? because this is about a clear and present danger to our democracy, and quite frankly, to touch on something eddie said, there are republicans running for the governorship for the state of new york trying to figure out how close they can get to trump. that's happening all over the country. are we going to be in a position the marginalize them so we don't normalize that behavior? >> last word. >> i think the second important question here is, what will democrats and republicans in congress do with what they learned from this committee? the ally of the president will control congress. they have a few months.
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they're not going to pass a huge omnibus gerrymandering thing. they have to think, did we learn anything from the hearings with numbers we have now with the votes of some republicans that will be with us. >> amazing day. thank you so much for spending time with us. a quick break for us. we'll be right back. right back. bipolar depression. it made me feel trapped in a fog. this is art inspired by real stories of bipolar depression. i just couldn't find my way out of it. the lows of bipolar depression can take you to a dark place.
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latuda could make a real difference in your symptoms. latuda was proven to significantly reduce bipolar depression symptoms and in clinical studies, had no substantial impact on weight. this is where i want to be. call your doctor about sudden behavior changes or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report fever, confusion, stiff or uncontrollable muscle movements, which may be life threatening or permanent. these aren't all the serious side effects. now i'm back where i belong. ask your doctor if latuda is right for you. pay as little as zero dollars for your first prescription.
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a monster was attacking but the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. vo: climate change has hit california hard. more wildfires, more drought, unhealthy air, destroying property, hurting the economy and taking people's lives. some say it's not a problem. they say we shouldn't act. tell that to our kids. this is about their future. we need to act now to reduce carbon emissions and prevent wildfires from destroying our state. before things get worse. hi, i'm denise. i've lost over 22 pounds with golo in six months and i've kept it off for over a year. i was skeptical about golo in the beginning because i've tried so many different types
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of diet products before. i've tried detox, i've tried teas, i've tried all different types of pills, so i was skeptical about anything working because it never did. but look what golo has done. look what it has done. i'm in a size 4 pair of pants. go golo. (soft music) it's a hearing day, which means i will be back in two hours for special recap and coverage. but for now our breaking news continues on "the beat" with ari melber who will also be back in two hours. >> i want to welcome everyone to "the beat" and the blockbuster. today's hearing show the grave and extreme danger then vice president faced on january 6th. >> nothing but a traitor, and he deserves to with the rest of them. >> mike pence is not going to

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