tv Deadline White House MSNBC July 14, 2022 1:00pm-3:00pm PDT
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hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. there are new details in the direction of the january 6th investigation today as well as what the public may expect to see from the committee in the days and months ahead. committee chairman bennie thompson telling nbc news that that unnamed witness who received a call from ex-president trump is a white house employee. cnn, who was first to report these details about this witness reports this, quote, the support staffer was not someone who routinely communicated with the former president and was concerned about the contact according to sources, and informed their attorney. the call was made after former trump white house aide cassidy hutchinson testified publicly to the committee. the white house staffer was in a position to corroborate part of what hutchinson had said under oath according to the sources. donald trump's call to this witness underscores the threat the committee's probe clearly poses to trump and trump world
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that the panel having accumulated a veritable treasure trove of juicy details on the trump coup plot, that trove growing by the day, as more and more witnesses testify before the committee. tomorrow investigators will hear from a prominent stop the steal conspiracy theorist with deep pockets and that would be the overstock guy in the words of former white house counsel pat cipollone and his name is patrick byrne and the former ceo of overstock.com. the former furniture industry executive joined lawyer sydney powell and rudy giuliani as well as former national security adviser in the oval on december 18, 2020, days after the electoral college certified that joe biden had won the presidential election. while many of trump's legal advisors had accepted that he had lost the election, byrne and others were pushing an idea that the president could use the national guard to seize voting machines. byrne's oval office access
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appeared to agitate those staffers hoping to redirect trump's attention away from conspiracy theories. imagine that? the prospect of more critical information making its way into the hands of the investigators, information the committee feels must be made public has select committee members refusing to rule out holding more public hearings after the one scheduled for next thursday night. nbc news is able to report this, quote, committee chairman bennie thompson says new evidence uncovered by the committee could prompt additional surprise hearings like the one last month that featured key witness cassidy hutchinson. the final congressional report on trump's, fort to overturn the 2020 election which culminated in the deadly attack on the capitol will come some time in the early fall, thompson said. in late september or october, before the november midterm elections. thompson confirmed that the committee is likely to hold a public hearing when it releases its sweeping report which is
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expected to include many details not yet covered in the hearings. in the backdrop of the committee's work and uncovering the full extent of trump's plot to overturn an election he lost, the driving force behind the plot and the worst attack on the united states capitol in centuries is of course trump himself. guess what he's doing? he's reportedly plotting to announce a run for the precedence ney 2024. "the washington post" is reporting this. the former president now eyeing a september announcement according to two trump advisors. trump has begun talking to advisers about who should run the campaign and his team has instructed others to have an online apparatus ready for a campaign should he announce soon. the january select committee racing against time to tell the full story of the insurrection in the face of opposition from trump and trumpism is where we start today. jackie alemany is back reporter from the washington post and also msnbc contributor.
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now an msnbc legal analyst. tim miller writer at large for the bull work and also msnbc political analyst and author of a fantastic new book and ben ginsberg testify at one of the early public hearings held by the january 6th committee last month on trump's debunked claims of a stolen election. he now has a new report out on the topic and we'll spend some time on that in a few minutes, but jackie alemany and i'll start with you and the new information that we have from this witness who received a phone call from donald trump. what do we know? >> nicole, we can confirm most of the elements of the reporting that was first reported by cnn confirmed by post that the former president did attempt to call a member of the white house staff who has been in talkses with the house select committee. that occurred as liz cheney laid out after cassidy hutchinson testified earlier this month.
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we are also about to report that this member of his support staff worked with cassidy hutchinson in some capacity. we have also learned that this person is actually still in public service and really, that's all we know at this very moment and all we can reveal and we've been asking around today to members that whether or not this is someone who could potentially appear before the committee in the coming weeks or maybe will appear publicly for one of these live hearings because we also noted this investigation is going to go on a bit longer than previously anticipated. >> i know. everybody checking their summer travel plans with that part of the news from chairman thompson. i want to play a little bit more of what he said, jackie, to reporters today about this witness in particular. >> will we hear from this witness? >> i would doubt it, you know?
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we are concerned, obviously, about the witness and would not want to put that witness in an unnecessary -- >> is it your opinion that there was evidence to make an attempt to intimidate these witnesses. >> from my vantage point it's highly unusual to do that and that's why we more or less put that in the hands of the justice department for them to make that decision. >> and this was just one missed phone call? >> that's all that i'm aware of. >> so, jackie, it's curious. i wasn't aware that there was a bucket of witnesses who have testified and -- and they have no intention even before they've come in of ever showing us that testimony, but it does show a deeper corroboration effort, perhaps for that written report that we know of, and the second is in that interview and in that gaggle, chairman thompson describes this witness as someone who is a white house
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employee, and there are no political appointees and from the trump white house in the biden administration that i can think of. does it put this person in the category of someone who was in the park service. they have a lot of employees in the building or military officer. do we have some categories in which this person might fall? >> thank you for playing that clip because i actually missed chairman thompson because i was racing up here to file the daily and that was helpful intel there. i was not previously aware that this person was not potentially going to appear even via a videotaped deposition, but we do know that there are potentially hundreds of videotaped depositions that the public is not going to see or maybe will never see until this investigation is over because there's only so much room that the committee has, right, to show to the american public
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during these three-hour presentations, and also for the issues of protecting these witnesses. certain people will only come forward to testify and to appear on certain conditions and depending on what the committee agrees to if this person is valuable enough that it makes sense to protect their identity and do anything at all possible on their terms, the committee is willing to do that, and they've made that really clear in these past few weeks with all of these references to witness tampering. you saw pete aguilar on your airwaves a few nights ago stressing that the committee would do everything possible to refer these matters to the department of justice and encourage them to investigate whether or not this outrage from the former president and his allies, and the three examples have so far been mentioned by liz cheney amount to criminal activity. >> you know, neil, we've talked now for 18 months and we've
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pressed you all sorts of different ways. i hope not to a point that it's uncomfortable to try to understand why it doesn't appear that doj is investigating donald trump himself for his role in inciting the deadly insurrection. is investigating donald trump for witness tampering as complicated? could that take another 18 months? >> no. it's a much simpler thing, and i do think that this is a really grave matter for donald trump. witness tampering is a standalone crime. it's one of the most serious crime and that's a 20-year sentence and you're interfering with the truth-seeking function of an official proceeding and that alone is evil and punished very heavily and his defense as you and i talked about two days ago right after representative cheney made the allegation in the hearing his defense was likely going to be, i didn't
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know she was a witness and i talk golf, putin, who knows? who knows what he could have said? but this is why the report today is so important because it says this isn't someone that trump regularly talked to, and that's going to blow a hole in his defense and the statute of the criminal law, 1512, criminalizes not just intimidation of witnesses or tampering, but an attempt to do so. so when you ask what is the justice going to do it's pretty easy. you bring trump in as you would anyone with an allegation of witness tampering and you ask them under oath with the section 1,001 of lying to a federal officer and you say did you intend to make this call? what did you intend to talk about? now, look, trump has a non-existent relationship with the truth. of course, he would be tempted to lie. the problem is if he said to anyone else, hey, i'm calling
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this person, here's why i'm calling that person and that person gave evidence. now you have two crimes that trump is staring at. on the other hand, you're concerned and i would have thought that a regular law enforcement office practice would be let them call while the fbi is listening and see what is being said. when you think about the investigative techniques that were used with linda tripp and bill clinton and all of that, this looks like kid gloves at least according to what we know thus far. >> well, we don't know who this is, we don't know if it's a male or female and we don't know what the purpose of the call is, but we do know it's someone who is still in public service and chairman thompson, unless he misspoke says this person is a white house employee. so, neil, i think we can rule
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out that it's someone he calls to talk about how much they miss vladimir putin with unless someone identified who is a career civil servant -- i mean, this seems -- i mean, i don't want to jump to any conclusions, but neither do i want to act willfully ignorant of the kind of person bhold still be working in a white house 18 months after trump left. >> that's exactly right. there's another theory floating around on newsmax that trump butt dialed this person. it's someone he wasn't intending to. who among us hasn't butt dialed someone with congressional testimony against us? it's so ridiculous, and ultimately, i think, nicole, what this shows is donald trump getting more desperate about the january 6th investigation because last week when we learned about other witness
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tampering with cassidy hutchinson. there was a cutout that did that. one of trump's friends called cassidy hutchinson called and said we know you'll do the right thing. trump knows you'll be loyal, and blah, blah, blah. this time he didn't use a cutout. he may not have a cutout anymore as people watch these hearings even these die hards might say you have to do it yourself. >> ben, are you disappointed that republican elected officials didn't find their way to a microphone to condemn witness tampering? >> well, yeah. it is a little bit disappointing and this whole period of time since the election has been one where are for whatever reason republican election officials have not stepped up about any number of things.
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well, that's true. i want to show some of what you testified to which in the light of seven public hearings now having transpired still feel so foundational to the case that this committee is making, and everyone around donald trump knew he lost and everyone around donald trump told donald trump he lost and it was just about how and when he knocked out this conspiracy stuff as bill barr testified to. let me play some of that. >> the 2020 election was not close. in 2000, that was 537 close. in this election the most narrow margin was 10,000 and something in arizona and you just don't make up those sorts of numbers in recounts. and when the claims of fraud and irregularities were made, you've heard very compelling testimony from mr. stepien, from max
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morgan and that put the trump campaign on sort of a process of bringing cases without the actual evidence that you have to have in which the process is designed to bring out. >> ben, from the seven public hearings that have been broadcast it's clear that from what you're talking about, bill stepien, the trump campaign manager telling him on election night it doesn't look like you're going to get there and you and i have been in those rooms for those conversations on both sides of them, and the campaign manager can say, the data guy comes in when things don't do well to read out the counties based on the last tracking poll which goes through sunday night before tuesday. what's clear is that there was
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never any doubt that he lost and there was never any evidence of voter fraud. the whole thing was manufactured and what's clear from the jeffrey clark testimony and the donohue hearing and the pence hearing and the eastman evidence is that it was never predicated on suspicions of fraud. the fraud was always a pretext for cheating. do you feel that that's been made clear by this committee? >> i think it's gettinging there. i mean, she did have the right to bring out the core cases and that's the way the system works. you do get to context elections if loent like the outcome, and muthing off it at campaign rallies, and accepting that law
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is. conservatives put out today in taking a long look at those court cases is that there is just no evidence of fraud and saying there are fraudulent elections is doing real harm to the democracy. >> not to push back, but to put a finer point on it. it was his right to go to court. but i'm not sure it's your right to go to court with 61 frivolous lawsuits. he lost all of those cases and lots of them were thrown out before they even made it particularly far. i mean, that is a broader, fraudulent and bad faith effort to manufacture something that never existed. >> yeah. i mean, but you know that in retrospect, and at the time he did have the right and republican officials who noted that were, i think, correct. the comeuppance came in all 64 cases going the wrong way except for one minor case in
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pennsylvania, and i think the broader point is that after losing those cases he had a responsibility to accept the decisions of the courts which he went to to try and get his justice, and that's, to me what the real fraud is is in this matter is not accepted that he's lost an, that there was anything wrong with this election it certainly won't stolen from him. >> there's been so much evidence to the manufacturing of excuses to overturn a result that he didn't like and the fraud is only one of them now. another one was the space lasers. another one of them was venezuela and they were all talked about at donald trump's direction when he didn't like the results that rudy had in 64
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cases, he lost 63 of them and then he let the pillow guy in and the overstock guy. he was forum shopping for other ways to overturn the election because i think the committee has proven is that it was clear from the start, to everyone, from behm stepien, inand down the food chain that it wasn't brought. >> it's weird to have my old lawyer while giving my opinion, but i'll do my best to be candid. i'll go a step further than that, not only do they know and was it intentional -- an intentional a term. to deceive and were those lawsuits, sure, did they have the right to put them out? but did they knowingly submit them with the knowledge that they were largely punked? that only some of them had merit based on some of the boxes, et cetera. many of them had no hope from
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day one, yes. here's another thing. internally from these meetings it's impossible to find somebody to believe that he had won the election and this is why when we get back to the overstock guy. that's why it's the overstock guy and lynwood and the cracken lady and the pillow guy and this is why they're not actual professionals because all of the professionals knew and the political process is to step back in. why are there no professionals around? >> because they knew. in part because cowards and they didn't want to deal with the backlash from are from the washington post line and what's the down side, and that siement dynamic is still happening where he's got insane people around
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him that are continuing to push the line and the people that know better aren't speaking up about it and being clear that's groundhog day all over for this. >> neil, what so are we expecting and what brazen conduct should we expect and the rule of law. should we hold our breath for him to be held accountable for inciting a coup and wanting to take down the mags and march with the armed supporters? should we hold our breath and expect that this justice department will hold him accountable for attempted witness tampering? what is a real expectation of what happens now particularly with him, i don't know, where he communicates with, tweeting or truth social about running again? >> i think that an indictment is
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the least we can do and the most of what we should be expecting from merrick garland. >> i think merrick garland doesn't want to be the first to indict a former president and ng can has forced his hand by showing him the light of the evidence. in light of the evidence by declining to indict donald trump would be the greatest failure to launch since truth social, and so i think that an indictment is more likely than not at this point, nicole. i want to say one other thing against ginsburg. he's a longtime republican lawyer who is his attorney and for him to do this, testify on january 6th, to write this committee report and to write it with so many distinguished conservative voices and judge tom griffith, judge michael lewding and judge mcconnell and
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ted olson, i think about the best of this koipt country over party. it is so important and it is what we fleed ton about. >> ben, you want to say anything? >> thank you. it was a great honor, and i appreciate those words, but it was a great honor to work with the group of lawyers and political professionals that put together this report because we thought it was really important to go deep on the actual charges that donald trump and his supporters filed and we were all taken by the testimony of stephen ayres on tuesday who was the trump supporter who found himself in the capitol and said at the hearing had he realized there was no evidence behind the charges of the fraudulent
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election he never would have gone into the capitol, never would have been an adherent in the way that he was of donald trump. and so the purpose of writing the report, of course, we didn't know about stephen ayres at the time, but the purpose of the report was to talk to our fellow conservatives, people like them -- like him who don't realize that there is absolutely no evidence to support the charge of a fraudulent election and how important it is for the country to restore faith in our elections. >> it is so important and you are far more likely to be a trusted source than just anybody else that's out there. ben sticks around. nick katyal, i know you have to go. everyone else stays. there was news that broke just before we went on the air. less than a few minutes the family confirmed that first wife
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ishlgs vanna trump had dried and she helped build his real estate empire. the couple ascended to power couple status in many new york city circles. they divorced in the year 1990. she has been a tabloid staple for much of her life since her marriage to donald trump. the former president wrote this on his social media account, said that ivana was a wonderful, beautiful and amazing woman who led a great and inspirational life and that her children were her pride and joy. a statement from her family just now reads in part, quote, it is with deep sadness that we announce the passing of our beloved mother ivana trump. our mother was an incredible woman, a force in business, a world-class athlete, a radiant beauty and caring mother and friend. when we come back we'll keep this information about the 1/6 investigation going with some news from committee member adam
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kinzinger on who they still want to reach and talk to and interview and whether criminal referral may be imminent for donald j. trump. plus, conservatives and right-wing media dismissed and sought to actually erase the true story of a pregnant 10-year-old rape victim who was forced to leave her state to receive health care, to receive an abortion. now the undeniable reality of their lie and pitiful response after the arrest of the alleged rapist who did it. harry dunn will be here and he has been at every single one of the january 6th committee's public hearings this spring and summer taking in every witness, every flew piece of evidence that led to the insurrection at the capitol that forever changed his life and the lives of his fellow officers. we'll talk to him about that and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. please stay with us. a protein.
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. there's more breaking news from the january 6th select committee at 35,000 feet. one of the committee's two republicans who are set to lead the testimony next tuesday night adam kinzinger tells "the wall street journal" this, the committee could also discuss whether to issue a subpoena to the former vice president to try to compel him to testify, he said. the committee is also weighing whether it will ask trump to testify, kinzinger said. we are back with our panel. jackie, again, there is so much that the committee is still
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gunning for in terms of evidence and witness testimony that it explains the very uncertain path ahead for public hearings, but this would be huge for pence and/or trump. i think you're on mute, jackie. >> sorry about that. we're having technical difficulties. >> that's okay. you want to start over? >> i should point out that the former aides and current aides to the former vice president have told us repeatedly that vice president mike pence is unwilling to appear publicly to this committee. whether or not he might have changed his mind and wants to appear behind closed doors and provide a taped deposition is maybe in the realm of possibilities, but he has told his aides that he believes that appearing publicly is beneath the office that he held. he also has a political future he's looking ahead to and has
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tried to extricate himself from this committee putting forth just his aides and we heard from brett jacobs and we saw a videotaped deposition from mark short, and the former president himself has also told our colleague that he would be open to answering questions, but it's also unclear if that is actually something he would be willing to follow up on. there are still some outstanding people like jimmy who have talked a big game saying they would come forward and cooperate, but we have yet to hear from them, and there are a bucket of people who might potentially ask the president to waive executive privilege and those are people like steve bannon, that still is up in the air whether we'll hear from him, but as is very clear in this moment there are still people, people like this support staffer who worked for the former president who donald trump just tried calling and patrick murray
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who was involved in trying to implement the scheme to seize voting machines and vote with rudy giuliani, sydney powell and the figures whom the committee is still speaking with and getting information from. >> ben, you and i both know and worked with liz cheney in 2000 and 2004. what do you think when you watch her investigative chops. you watch her questioning of republicans in these depositions, but her turning into everything that she believes it means to be a republican, reverence for the constitution, reverence for the rule of law and disgust, not just with the lies told by donald trump, but the violence that threatens our country today, right now as we sit here because of it. >> yeah. you're absolutely right. she is acting according to her principles and according to her values in a way that may damage
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her politically, and she seems to all the world as if she is at peace with that decision to potentially lose a house seat because she's doing the right thing, and you know, that's one of those lessons that we all teach our kids and our grandkids and -- but not everybody follows it. so hat's off to her. >> tim, what to you make of the way the public opinion at least among independent voters has moved with this committee? it's in part their decisions in terms of how and what they present, and there's some reporting today of when they added cipollone to the hearing this week. they lost some of the story they would tell about trump associates and their ties to extremists, but they are sticking, not just to a script, but to a length of public testimony that they believe is digestible and they won't be
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here, come today, gone tomorrow. >> i think they've done a nice job of trying to reach people outside of the super engaged political bubble. you see this on social media. i think the cassidy moment really broke through. if you look at -- i don't think judging the committee's work on polls, i don't ascribe to that outgrowth and you have seen weakening of the form president of maga voters to try to understand and keep in touch with what they're seeing and hearing, and we've seen some softening of their, they haven't gone full anti-trump or anything, but maybe more moving from hey, i'm for trump to maybe it's time to move on from this guy which is a noticeable shift. we'll see if that stays. we've seen that before from republican voters and they'll move back into him when the media spotlight is off for whatever the controversy is. i want privilege on the mike
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pence thing. it's something that i've been wanting a member to do, and to the extent that pence's staff is keeping him from testifying, that he has a political career going forward. i think it's totally wrong and beneath the vep not to testify before the committee when he has materiel info for a attempt. i think the notion that mike pence is going to win over maga voters is preposterous. the fact that he would win over maga voters that are mad at him because he would speak the truth about a coup or riot that came to kill him shows the deeply warped inside the beltway brain, and so i would hope that -- i don't think he will reconsider, but i hope he would reconsider
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which is what is called for. >> jackie, i'm thinking of all of the ways that pence unlocks the accomplices in congress because pence had to open the door that let the fake slates come through and we know johnson had a hand in that evidence that the committee has put forth on the floor of the senate on the 6th? pence seems to me not only advance the committee's pursuit of the truth, but to greatly imperil the accomplices of trump's coup plot. >> absolutely, nicole, and i think what we've heard from the hearings is even if we've known certain pieces of information and unhinged episodes that have happened, there's nothing more person who were involveded in that set, and this entire series of hearings is him deciding to
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stick everyone in the in the car and get out of the capital and safety and mike pence is here, and to hear that in his own words it would be extraordinarily powerful and at the end of the day this committee's mandate is to sway public opinion and to tell a comprehensive, explanatory story for the american public to better understand what happened that day. there is no better person to do that than mike pence, the person who was at the center of it all and who was the targets of it all. the target of every single pressure campaign that was going on who was in all of those meetings with john eastman trying to convince him that there was some constitutional wiggle room for him to actually intervene and send the results back to the states and the person who liz cheney said at the end of the day was the person who called the military, called the dhs secretary and call the defense secretary, not donald trump, but his aides,
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again, they were in the room for a lot of those things too and they maintain they can speak to those things, as well and they can speak to those things, i for hear what you're saying and i think it's wishful thinking to think he had some sort of a political future instead of trying to insulate himself to some extent from completely alienating all of trump's supporters and the base. >> i think that there is a pathology of ex-republicans that we never stop wishing that these people who have broken so bad will do the right thing. in pence's case, he already did the right thing. he refused to overturn the results of the election. if maga people are going to hate him because he didn't steal the election from joe biden, they're already gone. i think the miscalculation is thinking that you look like a strong lead are by hiding from liz cheney. it's ludicrous.
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jackie alemany for your reporting and for being for us again, ben miller, ben ginsburg, ben's report if you want to see more about it "debunking the 2020 election lies" is online now and we will tweet it from our account as well and up next for us, at the arrest of a man who braked a child and they are re-writing the abortion debate to be about lies and misinformation and disinformation that they go out of their way to create. how would that be? we'll ask next. o create how would that be? how would that be? we'll ask next
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a gold-owner. visit invest.gold to see why gold is everyone's asset. the rape and ensuing pregnancy of a 10 1/2-year-old girl has received nationwide attention over the last couple of weeks as news of her having to seek abortion care in a nearby state, indiana, because of the new abortion ban in her state. npr has written about how the story spread, quote, abortion rights proponents including president joe biden pointed to the incident as evidence of the cruel consequences of the court's decision, but in the initial absence of any public corroborating details beyond an indianapolis obstetrician's account, they repeatedly cast doubt on whether the incident happened at all. there were headlines from all over the right calling the story
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into question. fox news, quote, still not verified by fact checkers, they wrote. "the new york post" publishing an op-ed, activist tale of a 10-year-old rape victim's abortion looks like a lie. even an editorial board of "the wall street journal," lots of people still respect that editorial board wrote, quote, an abortion story too good to confirm, end quote. then there's always a jim jordan angle. ohio congressman who tweeted and deleted this, quote, another lie. is anyone surprised? conservative media going above and beyond to shoot down a story, rushing to pile on this lie about the most heinous event of a little girl's life. why? this anti-abortion movement has to erase the truth. we'll play some of this for you, some of what happened on the right because it's important to
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understand what they're doing. >> the biden administration speaking of lying just repeated a story about a 10-year-old child who got pregnant and then not allowed to get an abortion. >> we don't know if this story is even true. >> the sole source of this story is dr. caitlin bernard, a notorious abortion activist who never passes up the opportunity to be on tv. >> if she lied she's a sicko. >> have you had anyone come to have a police report filed? >> we've had local police and sheriffs and not a whisper anywhere. >> if you are helping a 10 1/2-year-old rape victim would you call any of them? the last person you heard from there is important to this story, he's ohio's attorney
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general, ohio's most senior law enforcement official. instead of spending his time trying to get to the bottom of this trying to protect a 10-year-old constituent of his, he went on fox news, national cable news to attack her, call her rape a hoax. just hours after that appearance, though, law enforcement officials in ohio arraigned a 27-year-old man for raping the 10-year-old girl. late last night indiana's republican attorney general said he'll investigate the doctor who treated the 10-year-old pregnant rape victim. fox news blasting her photo and information all over national television. wow. joining us now, president of nairou, and the media correspondent, and i've been following. i really -- i really try hard not to take in too much of the right, but it is so central to
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understanding where they're trying to take abortion in america. talk about what you've covered in terms of this tragedy. >> well -- [ indiscernible ] >> david, we're going to fix your audio so we can capture everything that you're saying. i don't want to miss any of it. minnie, i want to come to you and i wanted to understand what your theory is for the pro-life movement, this is more than what they dreamed of. this is an extreme supreme court who overturned roe versus wade as donald trump promised they would when he appointed them even though that's not what the justices said in these confirmation hearings and on the heels of it, the vitriol, the disdain for the truth and the willingness to sacrifice the
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youngest victims in our country, a rape victim who is 10 1/2 years old does represent a terrifying new low. >> you know, nicole, you saw -- you just laid out the right wing trying desperately to debunk the horrible story, and they don't want to face impact on real-life people. there is a girl within the story who deserves to be treated with respect, who deserves to be cared for. there are pregnant people across the country who deserve the same and this extremist gop does not want to acknowledge them and that's really terrifying, and i think what you're seeing is a desperate attempt of a party and their leadership to demonize anyone they can but themselves because they've overreached and they succeeded and now they're seeing the backlash. >> david, this feels like it goes beyond this information to erasure.
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they have to erase the fact of of a 10 1/2-year-old rape victim. why is that so present in the ways they're doing of right-wing media. there's repetition and there's either denial or deflection and at the moment, what you've seen is an an effort to deny the story initially and then deflect attention from what it's about fundamentally since we've seen a pivot from a number of conservative pundits and anti-abortion public officials to focusing on the fact that the accused, the man accused of raping the 10-year-old girl, is in this country without legal documentation. and that that somehow is the most salient factor, without any acknowledgement that just hours before, they were calling this likely a fabricated story by "the indianapolis star." one of the things that stroke me reporting on this with sara, our terrific reporter who covers abortion for npr, is the way in
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which this story had gone from a human tragedy to an anecdote that sort of was attempt by "the indianapolis star" to capture what the implications were seeming to be of the new swift and very restrictive new laws put in place by ohio lawmakers as a result of the overturning of roe v. wade to instead a launching pad for political rhetoric as a way of sort of jiujitsuing -- this seems to be a story that is talking about how the effects of the abortion restrictions are rough. we're going to turn that story on itself to discredit the people involved. the source was on the record for the indianapolis star. we believe in verifying facts. you know, ronald reagan's phrase, trust but verify. i believe in that in journalism, and yes, it was a one-source story so there are ways in which to question or ask, are there ways to substantiate it beyond what was presented to the public? in this case, the on the record
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source, herself an ob/gyn, turned out to be right. and you haven't seen any kind of grappling with that or acknowledgement of that in any serious way except -- >> i want to ask you guys -- we have to sneak in a break, but i want to ask you what this says about their trepidation about what they have done in overturning roe vs. wade and putting emotion near outright bans in close to 20 states. mini and david stick around. t bans in close to 20 states mini and david stick around.
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we're back with mini and david. mini, how do you counter this assault on the truth about the most vulnerable victims of rape in america? >> you know, we've been doing a lot of voter education, a lot of information sharing. i think stories like this, as disgusting and disheartening as they are, they really shed a light on how extreme these policies are and the unintended consequences of these bans. you know, leading into the supreme court, you heard opponents of the ban in mississippi saying that a 15-week ban is a reasonable compromise, and now you see clearly why bans do not work. bans are deeply problematic, because you cannot understand the nuance of every single person who needs an abortion and all of their circumstances. and bans are not designed to address that. there's been a lot of discussion around, you know, she could have stayed in indiana. she could have contested it.
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what planet can a 10-year-old rape victim take one minute longer to go to court and contest the circumstances of her abortion? this is a perfect example of how deeply out of touch, deeply out of step the extremist gop is with the values of the vast majority of american people, who support safe and legal abortion, and you know, you counter it by making it very, very clear to the american people that this is what happens when you have abortion bans. >> it's unbelievable. mini and david, thank you so much for spending time with us. a quick break for us, and then we will be joined live by capitol police officer harry dunn. don't go anywhere. live by capitol police officer harry dunn dunn don' for you and emily. these are... amazing. thank you wayfair.t go a.
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we would show up. that's courageous. that's heroic. so, what i ask from you all is to get to the bottom of what happened, and that includes, like, i echo the sentiments of all the other officers sitting here, i use an analogy to describe what i want as a hitman. if a hitman is hired and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to jail, but not only does the hitman go to jail, but the person who hired them does. there was an attack carried out on january 6th, and a hitman sent them. i want you to get to the bottom of that. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in the east. perhaps more than anything else i have heard from the 1/6 committee, that has stayed with me the most. that emotional and powerful plea by capitol police officer harry dunn to get not just the hitmen of 1/6 but the person who sent the hitmen. it was made to the january 6th select committee almost exactly
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one year ago. since then, the committee has presented seven more public hearings with at least one more that we know of to come, each of them chock-full of details and harrowing testimony that show that the ex-president knew what was happening, that he knew the insurrection was not remotely some protest that got out of hand. each hearing has shown a different aspect of the campaign by trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election. all of them build to the same conclusion. he knew what he was doing. he knew what he was going was illegal, and he did it with gusto anyway. officer harry dunn has been at every single one of the committee's public hearings. he sits in the front row, taking in every detail about the day that changed his life and the life of so many of his colleagues forever. sitting next to him are his colleagues, the other officers who also testified one year ago, people like capitol police sergeant gonell, whose recent op-ed in "the new york times" we shared on this program on monday with all of you.
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sergeant gonell says he feels betrayed by the ex-president. we'll read a little more from his piece. he wrote, "although i experienced the brutal onslaught of the insurrectionists, i was shocked to hear ms. hutchinson explain the extent to which donald trump incited the people who almost killed me. of course, i never would have imagined that an american president would not only not come to the aid of law enforcement officers defending capitol but would encourage that crowd to march on it. instead of being notified about the danger, my colleagues and i were kept in the dark, and thus, we walked into an ambush." since sergeant gonell's piece was published, the select committee held tuesday's hearing, which put in the starkest terms yet how the rioters and extremists were fueled by and directed by trump's lies and how they took a mid-december tweet by the ex-president as a call to arms and a call to action. next week, we will learn exactly what the former president was doing during the 187 minutes
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between leaving the rally stage on the ellipse and when he finally sends out what looks like a hostage video, a video telling his supporters to go home. we know that's when officers have testified to having been engaged in hand-to-hand medieval combat. it's where we start the hour. joining us now, it is a pleasure to welcome u.s. capitol police officer harry dunn. he defended the u.s. capitol on january 6th. he has attended the committee's public hearings. officer dunn, i have to say, i admire your service. i admire your voice. i'm so grateful to get to talk to you today, and i admire that you used your platform to talk about taking care of your colleagues and taking care of one another. it's a pleasure to get to talk to you. how are you doing? >> i'm well, thank you for asking. i'm glad to be here with you. nice to talk with you. >> what do you think of the hearing this week that makes so clear that, on both sides of the equation, trump wanted the extremists there, who hurt you
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and hurt your colleagues, and they were there because he asked them to be there? >> one of the -- i wish i could say i was shocked about a lot of the revelations that have happened from the committee. i've always had my opinions and my thoughts about what happened and what occurred, but just knowing that this is what really happened and it's not my opinion anymore, these are facts, is like sergeant gonell said in his op-ed, the betrayal. maybe i was hoping for a long shot that there was a chance that, no, there's no way this could have happened. okay, i was wrong. but no, it came to fruition that the president knew about it, he sent them, and he didn't do anything about it. >> i mean, there's something in your testimony from a year ago, and i mean it, i've played that hitman clip probably 30 times on this show, where you either knew it because of what you all faced and what you heard from trump's
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supporters, or you just knew it when you called for them to get not just the hitmen but the person who hired the hitmen. right? you saw this coming. >> yeah. yeah. well, when we were there on the 6th, they would -- the people who were there, who were attacking us, who were beating us, who were beating my coworkers, spraying us, they told us that that's why they were there, the president sent us. so, we knew on january 6th why they were there and who sent them. they told us. so, you know, obviously, there are people on the other -- the right side of the aisle who have said, you know, the president's supporters, who have said that this was an inside job or the -- they had fbi informants there and all that stuff. okay. i'm not going to go back and forth with people. let's let the facts -- lay all the facts out on the table and let's get to the bottom of it, period. no opinions, no hypothesis, just
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straight facts, and why should anybody be against that? and i have been saying that since day one. let's lay all the facts out on the table, and i'm glad that the committee is doing that. >> are there any part of hearing the facts that's just too much? i mean, i was thinking -- and i think we saw images of all of you when cassidy hutchinson's testimony about the radio traffic, that they knew that trump's supporters were in trees with ar-15s. they knew that they had self-fashioned spears. i mean, some of what we see on the video is the spears and the flagpoles used as weapons against all of you. i have had the privilege of interviewing officer gonell. is any of it too much, or do you need to be in there? >> it's not too much. it's a lot. but i guess too much would mean i would have to leave, but it's more important for me to see it all the way through and sit there and be there. one, because i want to show the committee that i am there.
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i am not going anywhere until we, me, myself, and the american people get answers. and there are people that can't be there, people who have lost their lives, who would want to be there, so the least i can do is suck it up and just tough it out. yeah, it's not easy to sit there and watch those images, the video clips of officers getting beat. nobody wants to relive that no matter how mentally strong you are. it's not easy. but i owe it to this country. i owe it to my coworkers. i owe it to the officers who can't be there. i owe it to the families of those officers who lost their lives or took their lives. and it's necessary, and it has to be done. >> this committee's work is bipartisan, you know, liz cheney is the vice chair, and adam kinzinger is there too, but
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there's only one party's members who were at the white house in december conspiring with the white house on how to overturn the election. is it weird when you see them? do they say things privately that they don't say on tv? has anyone apologized to you for their role in helping to further donald trump's lies about the election? >> no. when i'm at work, i'm doing my job, i'm focused on being a capitol police officer, and you know, providing a secure environment for -- no matter what member it is. it doesn't matter. so, i try not to get into those discussions while i'm at work. i do my job no matter who it is that i'm protecting, the right, the left, trump supporters, non-trump supporters, it doesn't matter to me because at the end of the day, it's all about defending democracy, and that's what's important to me. and january 6th shows that -- how important us to keep that forefront of -- the mission at the forefront, that defending
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democracy is what we need to do, and not just the capitol police, but all members of america need to do that. it's very fragile as some of the people -- the political pundits have said. it's a talking term how fragile democracy is, but it was on full display on january 6th. and it continues to be put on display with all the threat that's going on, the ongoing threat to, you know, the elections and everything like that. we heard in the testimony that one of the oath keepers says he's worried about the '24 election, what are we going to do to continue to defend our democracy? >> you know, after 9/11, we talked so much about the failure of imagination. people didn't think that terrorists would turn airplanes into missiles and fly them into buildings and the capitol. you could say there was a failure of imagination, maybe, although by the end of the hearing, i'm not sure we could even say that. it sounds like everybody knew
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exactly what they were putting into motion on january 6th. do you -- i mean, to your point, that democracy is still very much in danger, that donald trump could re-enter politics, not that he's really ever left, what are your fears when you stand there on duty, not treating anyone differently based on their political affiliation, but do you feel like there will always be a sort of before and after january 6th? >> well, one thing that i realized the most about january 6th and those people that attacked the capitol, that attacked democracy, that attacked us, they thought that they were right. and why did they think they were right? because the most powerful person in the world told them to do it, and he told them that they were right. so, how could you not feel emboldened and have the audacity to do what they did? the only reason that they could have that audacity is the most powerful person in the world told them to do it. so, that's what the danger is. you have to -- we have to call
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lies out. we have to speak out against mistruth. what's wrong is wrong. and i would -- i would have more respect for individuals that didn't perpetuate lies but just more so said that they didn't care about the truth. it's really -- it's so infuriating that these people just -- they create these narratives that don't even exist, that have been debunked over and over and over again. i would just have more respect for them if they just said they just don't care about the truth, rather than just pushing lies. >> right. or just own it, right? lies help me get where i'm going. this came up, and it involved you, an image that was seen around the world, and i know you fielded questions, i'm sorry for asking you again, but what are we to make of an insurrectionist like mr. ayres' remorse? it seems that on the front of deradicalization, it's important that he doesn't believe the things that he believed to the
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degree he believed them on january 6th. but it feels like he asked a lot of you. just tell me how you see mr. ayres and anyone who sees those lies as lies now? >> i mean, good for him for acknowledging that he saw these lies, but i also have to question, you had, just like what i just said, during the -- his testimony, congresswoman cheney asked him, do you still believe that the election was stolen? what did he say? not so much now. he couldn't even fully denounce that the election was stolen. so, he needs to come to terms with whatever he needs to come to terms too. as far as the apology, good for him for apologizing, but i'm not in a position now to accept that apology. how can you focus on forgiveness and healing when you still have justice that's still outstanding? there's no accountability. i'm still focused on that right now. then we can focus on healing.
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but until then, i don't have anything as far as forgiveness. and forgive me, he did say that his life had been turned upside down and he lost his job and, you know, he's kind of like the "woe is me" thing, and it sucks. however, there is an individual there sitting with us, erin smith, whose husband, jeffery smith, defending the capitol, killed himself a few days afterwards, so go on and talk to somebody else about losing everything. or officer sicknick. tell that to his mother about you losing everything. i'm sorry, i'm short on the sympathy with him, but good for him for apologizing. >> what does justice look like for you? do you need to see an investigation from the justice department that comes from this congressional probe? >> i mean, it's only fitting. it's in their name. the justice department. right? i guess they're the ones who determine what justice is. i look at accountability as,
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i've struggled to answer this question, what does it look like, because i want everybody to go to jail. that's just the selfish take that i have. it's not realistic, though. just accountability, i guess. whatever it takes to make sure that not only these individuals but future people do not do this crime or this again. >> i want to ask you one personal question, just as a follower of all of your social media posts. something that you have sort of gifted all of us is this connection, check on each other, get help. where does that come from? how are you -- how have you lived that, and how are you able to talk about this thing that just, regardless of whether people have been through such a public trauma, is so hard for most people to talk about? >> you know what, i believe in creating the own narrative, create the day that you want to have. don't let people talk about you and create things for you.
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you own it. you create it. you create your experience, your mindset. sure, it's able -- and sports, i used to play football, and our coach used to tell us, if you had a good play, yes, celebrate it, but move on. if you had a bad play, don't dwell on it. move on. like, life comes at you fast, and you have to keep going up, down, it doesn't matter. life doesn't pause because you had a down moment or you had a good moment. you have to ride the wave. it's a continued wave. i always say that healing is a journey. it's not a destination. so, you have to continue going, and i -- honestly, it sounds like -- people say that, you've got it all together. i am figuring it out as i go. i don't have a clue what tomorrow's going to bring. i don't have a clue what i'm doing. i'm just figuring it out as i go and leaning on my support system, leaning on people that are there for me. you got to -- people that feed your fire. that's the people you have to
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lean on and not listen to naysayers and stuff, because there have been a lot. >> well, i'm so grateful for your voice in this debate in this country, in this crisis, and i'm grateful to you for taking some time to talk to us. thank you so much. >> it's a pleasure to talk with you. thanks for having me on. you have a good one. >> you too. you too, my friend. when we come back, we'll bring in our panel on where the january 6th committee's investigation goes from here, and will it do what officer dunn wants it to do? will it spur accountability? will it spur the justice department into action? that's next. later for us, a horrific new attack on an office building in central ukraine. the rising death toll includes young children. we'll have a live report from kyiv. later in the program, wnba superstar brittney griner is back in court in russia as the demands to do whatever it takes to bring her home grow louder. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. ome grow lo. ome grow lo. "deadline white house" continues
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sometimes i run into them in the hallway, and then they pretend not to see me. they avoid me or bolt to the right or to the left or pretend to be doing something else. in a year and a half since i was injured, they know my injuries, only adam kinzinger and liz cheney have approached me from the other side. it's disheartening. i'm not saying that i need that from them, but that shows a lot from the people who claim that they support the police and back
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the blue and are pro-law and order. >> joining our coverage, joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and law professor at the university of alabama. also joining us, frank figliuzzi, former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence, and ben rhodes is back, former deputy national security advisor for president obama, all msnbc contributors. frank, it was hard for me to -- it's hard to imagine listening to these hearings and this testimony of trump's enthusiasm for the violence, his knowledge of not just his supporters being armed but exactly what they were armed with, and to imagine these officers who were the frontline victims of that violence sitting through all that. >> you know, this theme of contrition is interesting. i'm told that people in recovery, recovery from addiction and who are in 12-step programs, are often counseled to make amends, apologize directly to the people they've harmed or
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damaged. and so, to the extent that we have a large part of our population that was addicted to disinformation and to the extent that our whole nation needs to go through some form of recovery, then it's healthy for people to apologize, if it's truly genuine, but i know, as you said, it's worth noting that that gentleman's apology there in the hearing to the officer came after accountability had happened to him. and so, you know, we aren't going to get that kind of contrition from the people you're talking about, trump and meadows and giuliani, until there's accountability. so sometimes, you know, you can't apologize until you acknowledge the harm done, and we've yet to see that happen, and i think it's only going to happen at that level when accountability comes. >> and this is the whole conversation, joyce. i don't know if you ever grow uncomfortable with our probing
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about what the justice department is doing and what it appears not to be doing, but it comes from this raging confusion as to how we restore the rule of law without restoring the rule of law to the person who seemed to enjoy flouting it the most. and that would be donald trump. and i wonder, when you hear from the victims, the law enforcement -- i mean, the victim, obviously, is american democracy, but the victims of the physical violence are these officers who paid with their limbs and their lives so that no one who worked in the building would be hurt that day, and it seems disgusting to me that republicans walk in and out of that building, pretending like the 1/6 investigation isn't happening or continuing to disparage it or promising their revenge should they prevail in the midterms. what do you make of the burden to restore the rule of law in america facing merrick garland and lisa monaco? >> so, you asked if i ever got tired of the probing, and i'll tell you, honestly, i don't, because i think it's the
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obligation of every person who serves in the justice department and all of us who used to serve at the justice department to shoulder part of the burden for restoring the rule of law in this country. it would be ludicrous at this point to try to pretend that the rule of law has been restored or that it was maintained throughout the trump administration. the truth is, it's stretched and it's tarnished, and you see the pain in the face of someone who just wants justice, a police officer who is defending one of the most sacred places in our capitol and who instead of being applauded and honored for that has been in some ways ignored and dismissed. and i think the way that his statement lands with me, what i hear is what frank hears. this need for accountability that is the essence of the rule of law. you know, the justice department is the only cabinet level agency in our government whose name is a moral virtue, and that should mean something to us.
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that means that the deputy attorney general and the attorney general are obligated to perhaps get outside of their level of comfort, which i think that they're both well qualified to do, and to think in a very outside of the box way, that no leadership at doj has ever been asked to do before in our country's history, to think about how do we handle this difficult situation, this fraught situation, in a way that restores not just people's confidence and a way not just brings about accountability, but a way that makes us move forward with some semblance of what we had in this country before a rule of law that held people accountable and delivered justice. >> ben, i want to be really frank, and more blunt than i have been before. i hear from people who say, why are you so hard on the justice department? wait and see. i'm happy to wait and see, and i hope for the best, and i am still optimistic that the man
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who prosecuted oklahoma city will see the threat of violent extremism in this country the way that liz cheney does, and understand that you can't just prosecute the stephen ayres of america but the person who conceived of it, and that's donald j. trump. but my fear and my own reporting is that what this leadership team views as restoring doj means investigating and following the facts in maybe a hunter biden investigation, wherever they may lead, and not treating him the way trump would have his cronies and family members treated. that the aggressive prosecution of enron and other corporate entities that lisa monaco is known for would not apply to an ex-president because that's a red line in a democracy. that's the stuff of banana republics. what is your sense, and what are your conversations with your former colleagues say is the
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mindset of merrick garland and lisa monaco when it comes to holding donald trump accountable? >> well, like joyce, i'm friends with some of these people and i actually go out of my way not to discuss some of this stuff with them, because i know that's how scrupulous they are about these matters. and i think the impulse and the instincts that i felt from people coming into the biden administration were very much in line with what you said, that this was an enormous opportunity in many ways to restore the rule of law and to show, through our actions, what it means to have the equal administration of justice in this country. like you, nicole, i think my concerns are that these crimes, which we continue to learn about in lurid and specific detail, you know, these go to the heart of the functioning of american democracy, and the absence of accountability for an effort to overturn an election creates a sense of impunity that really may be enduring, and the reality is, given the nature of politics
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in this country and given how much trump and the republican party is clearly willing to politicize the justice department, if we have a return to trump or even any other form of republican executive branch rule after the 2024 election, you know -- you just know that that window is going to shut, and that there may never, ever be accountability for serious crimes that run the gamut from acts of violence that killed and harmed individuals to acts of violence against american democracy. and that is not an opportunity and a necessity that we want to lose because we are going out of our way to avoid the appearance of politics. and let's be very clear here. it creates asymmetry where if one side of american political life is willing to toss out every other rulebook, and then the other side is trying to demonstrate that it's going to go the extra mile to be seen to
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be playing by a set of rules that no one else is playing by anymore, i think that creates a very dangerous and volatile situation, and you may find yourself in a position where you're going so far out of your way to avoid the appearance of targeting a politician like donald trump, that you're actually not administering equal administration of justice, because that would require that if somebody named donald trump commits a crime, he's going to fascinating the same wheels of justice that someone named john doe would face if they committed a crime. >> and frank, make no mistake, the reason donald trump called a support staffer who still works at the white house is because no one has ever held him accountable for anything. the day after mueller testifies, he calls zelenskyy and says, i need you to get some dirt. you know, the -- after he's elected and inaugurated, he calls in comey and says, see to it to let flynn go. i mean, the reason that he continues to tamper with witnesses, lie, threaten to run
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for president, is because no one has ever held him accountable for crimes committed in full public view, brazenly, over and over and over again. >> yeah, he appears to, at least on the civil side, throughout his life, throughout his professional life, he's been able to sue and countersue and evade all kinds of accountability, but that's also equally, nicole, why it's so essential that doj get this right, because if they charge, and believe me, i do -- i've said this publicly, they've got enough now to predicate an investigation five times over. they probably have got enough to go to a grand jury. we can talk about indictment and successful prosecution later, but they've got enough here, but they've got to get it right, because if they lose, that is going to be -- going to create more violence and more radicalization and more empowerment of trump and people like him, so i think they're being methodical about this, but i will admit, i will confess to you, right here, i'm going to
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tell you that i have good days and bad days on this, right? i see signs of grand jury sitting. i see signs the doj is looking at both the alternate slate of electors plan and the violent preparation plans. that's good. and then i have days where i see reporting that doj was surprised by cassidy hutchinson's testimony. they didn't have it, allegedly, some say. that's troubling to me. why not? why is there a congressional committee ahead of you? there are days when i get encouraged by hearing that there were raids -- i should say, search warrants executed and subpoenas served on clark and eastman. great. great. fbi's at it. then i hear, no, it really wasn't the fbi. the fbi might have tagged along, but it was really the doj inspector general just looking at its internal folks, and so, yeah, good days and bad days. but they've got to get it right. >> joyce, i want to come back to the nexus of donald trump, his knowledge of violence and weaponry, and ask you just
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specifically what they should do with this, assuming frank's right and the performing is right and they didn't know what cassidy hutchinson knew. here's cassidy on trump and violence and weapons on january 6th. >> something to the effect of, take that f'ing mags away, they're not here to hurt me. let them in. let my people in. they can march to the capitol after the rally's over. they can march from the ellipse. take the f'ing mags away. >> to be clear, anyone that hasn't worked in the white house, actually, a lot of schools have mags these days, which is a tragedy to discuss another time, but they detect metal and weapons. trump knows they have weapons, and he says, take them away, they're not here to hurt me. it would seem that knowing that they had guns and weapons and spears and who they were going to hurt and who they were not going to hurt is enough to get going, no? >> absolutely. and you know, let's put the usual caveats on the table.
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the congressional process is not anything like a grand jury or a trial process. there's no cross-examination of witnesses. so, is her recollection 100% something that the justice department could prove? we don't know that for certain and let's acknowledge that and move forward. because there's now an abundance of evidence coming together that suggests that the former president was aware that the mob was armed, did make these sorts of statements that suggested he was willing to let an armed mob march on the capitol, and that looks awfully close to, you know, if you open up the dictionary and look up the word "insurrection," what you see is a picture of an armed mob marching on the seat of government in a democracy, so to have the president of the united states being aware, assuming that doj could prove that, and encouraging that process to continue, you know, i'm going to adopt frank's comments. it may not be enough to prosecute, but they should damn well be in there investigating with everything they've got.
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>> so, i traveled everywhere with the president, and it's really easy to find out in a day if you're doj whether that's true or not, because a president doesn't go anywhere alone. goes everywhere with a doctor, the guy with the nuclear codes, and multiple secret service agents so it seems if you wanted to know what he knew, you could find out pretty quickly if you were doj. joyce vance, frank figliuzzi, thank you. ben sticks around. we will shift gears. there's been another devastating and tragic attack in the war on ukraine. russia has clearly targeted civilians. we'll have the latest in a live report from kyiv after a quick break. s. we'll have the latest in a live report from kyiv after a quick report from kyiv after a quick break. we've been married 53 years. we love to walk on the beach.
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the death toll is rising in a city in central ukraine after russian missiles struck an office building in vinnytsia. at least 21 people are dead. that includes three young children. more than 50 people are hospitalized with many more people still missing. in an attack that ukrainian president zelenskyy calls a deliberate attack on civilians. russia's attacks happened as president zelenskyy and members of 40 countries met at the hague to discuss investigations and prosecutions of potential war crimes in ukraine by the russians as they continue their brutal assault on that country. and what our friend ann applebaum describes. "random attacks on random places far from the front lines and
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with no military significance whatsoever are now a daily occurrence in ukraine. in truth, the war in ukraine now has a different nature than most of the wars we have seen this century. in the eastern part of the country, soldiers on both sides fight for territory on either side of a discernable front line, but elsewhere in ukraine, something else is happening, something that looks less like war and more like multiple acts of terrorism." let's bring in ali arouzi, live in kyiv. ben rhodes is still with us. ali, tell us about this attack today and if you agree with this assessment and if the ukrainians agree with this assessment, that they are being terrorized by the russians. >> reporter: hi, nicole, well, it was another devastating attack today, took place at about 11:00 this morning. they hit an office building, which was sort of shops in the bottom and a car park. three russian missiles that killed 23 people. amongst them, three children. 34 people are in serious condition in the hospital. five others in critical condition.
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and 39 other people are missing. so it's hard not to disagree with those assessments. one of the stories and one of the videos we've seen of that tragedy this morning was a 4-year-old girl walking along with her mother, pushing her stroller. half an hour later, those russian missiles came raining down. the little girl was killed. her mother's leg was blown off, and she's in hospital now, fighting for her life. so, i mean, that really is terrorism, especially considering there was nothing military that could be construed as military in this town. it's southwest of kyiv. it's very, very far from the front lines. there's no military activity going on there, so you can see the outrage from the ukrainian people and from the icc and these criminal courts calling it what it is. and the reality also is, nicole, that these are happening with alarming regularity and huge amount of violence. just in the last five days, the russians hit that city in the
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donetsk area. they killed 48 people there. they've killed 23 people here. so, in two attacks and five days, they've killed over 70 people, all of them civilians, and they've been timed to cause maximum damage. the one in the apartment building in donetsk happened early in the morning when everyone would have been at home. this was an office building and a shopping facility at 11:00 in the morning on a sunny day when people are out and about doing their business. they know what they're doing. they are certainly terrorizing the population here. >> and what is available to president zelenskyy in terms of protecting his country from terrorist attacks from russia? >> i mean, look, the western support of weapons is probably the most important thing that they can give him to push the russians back, and i can tell you now, nicole, the russians are feeling the heat. they are causing an enormous
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amount of damage in this country, but these mlrs's that they're getting, these advanced rocket systems, are starting to impact the russians. you're seeing the ukrainians hit russian weapons depots, barracks, over and over again, especially over the last couple of weeks as they've gotten more of their systems, and the russians are now having to push back their ammunitions, their barracks, further east rather than coming further west, and this is one of the reasons why they keep hitting the civilian population here, because they're feeling it in their military, and they do the cowardly thing and hit the civilians here. but rather than crushing the morale here, it really just stiffens the resolve of the ukrainian people, because as we've seen since the outbreak of this war, they are incredibly strong, resolute people, and the more they get attacked by the russians, the stronger it seems to make them. but they still do need those weapons, and they need them in large order.
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i mean, you hear them say, time and time again, that they are extraordinarily grateful for the weapons they're getting from the west, but it's simply not enough to push the russians out of their territory, and they need a lot more of it a lot faster. but they also do recognize that it's not that easy to get a whole lot of that equipment so quickly into this country. it's expensive for the western manufacturer and get it over. i saw an amazing statistic, those javelins that have really tipped the balance into ukraine's favor, hitting russian tanks, the u.s. only makes 600 to 800 javelins a year. they've given ukraine over 5,500 javelins in 180 days. that's almost an eight-year supply. so it's not an easy thing to do, and i think the ukrainians realize that, but they also realize it's going to be a really tough slog without those weapons. >> ali arouzi, thank you so much for your reporting. i saw those images too of the 4-year-old girl who was killed,
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violence against civilians, many of whom are nowhere near the fighting. the attacks are not errors or accidents. in truth, russian bombs are targeting not only random people, shops, medical buildings, pets, they're also targeting the whole apparatus of international law governing war crimes, human rights, and terrorism. with every bomb that russian forces knowingly drop on an apartment building, with every missile they direct at a school or hospital, they are demonstrating their scorn and contempt for the global institutions russia was once so desperate to join." it's pretty obvious they don't belong on the united nations security council, but is the world acting like they see the terrorism that russia is meteing out against the ukrainian people? >> not really, nicole. i think you could say that the united states and most of europe is acting in a way that recognizes what's happening, but you know, if you look at the rest of the world, and if you look at the kind of business as usual where you have china and india buying more russian oil than they were doing before the
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war, you don't see the kind of revulsion and reform to an international system that vladimir putin has had to his favor that is necessary here. and so, i think what you're going to need is efforts by the united states and like-minded countries to impose consequences on russia through the delivery sanctions and war crimes investigations aren't going to stop putin right away. they're not going to stop him today or tomorrow. but he depend on several thousand people to keep the machinery of government moving. high level civil servants, order takers. you want to get into those heads. these are people that are going to be around after putin is
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gone -- as part of the picture. >> i want to ask you about whether a designation of russia as a terrorist state moves in that direction. does that do anything? does that strengthen our hand with other countries around the world that we deal with? >> i don't think so. i mean, i understand the impulse in that direction. i think the most important thing -- investigations -- so to keep this -- g-20 or anywhere elsewhere the united states isn't laying out evidence of these war crimes. isn't holding other countries' feet to the fire and saying, what are you doing to stop this? if the u.n. security council is going to be completely obstructed by russia, we're
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going to find other ways, maybe through the u.n. general assembly. the united states is going to have to be relentless. what russia is counting on is war of attrition. they're taking inch by inch in eastern ukraine, terrorizing the rest of ukraine and weaponizing foot shortages around the world. the united states and other countries can't allow that to wear down our resolve. this unspeakable violence in front of people and try to elicit this effort on behalf of ukrainian sovereignty and survival. >> ben rhodes, thank you very much for spending time with us today. we'll be right back.
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>>. today a proper and final farewell to a world war ii hero. member of congress paid their respects to woody williams as he lie in the honor at the capitol. he was known for his bravery and instrumental fight while alone under fire for several decisive hours at the battle of iwo jima in 1945, for which he was awarded the military's highest honor for military service and going above and beyond the call of duty. he was 22 years old at the time. after 20 year in the marines he spent years advocating for marines and gold star families. at 98 years old, he was the last living medal of honor recipient of the war. it was his final wish to lay in
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honor at the u.s. capitol to represent all of them. we'll be right back. u.s. capito represent all of them. represent all of them. we'll be right back. were delayed when the new kid totaled his truck. timber... fortunately, they were covered by progressive, so it was a happy ending... fortunately, they were covered by progressive, our best deals on every iphone - including the iphone 13 pro with 5g. that's the one with the amazing camera? yep! every business deserves it... like one's that re-opened! hi, we have an appointment and every new business that just opened! like aromatherapy rugs! i'll take one in blue please! it's not complicated. at&t is giving new and existing business customers our best deals on every iphone. ♪ ♪
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there's something out here. - nope. - nope. nope. nah. no. nope. - hell no. - no. thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. >> hi, nice to see you. welcome to "the beat." tonight's news begins with the question that swirled around this entire exercise of these significant insurrection hearings. when are they going to directly confront donald trump? the answer is complicated and
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