very busy day of breaking news. president joe biden today becoming the second u.s. president to contract the coronavirus since its arrival in the united states in 2020. president biden who is vaccinated and twice boosted is reportedly experiencing very mild symptoms. he's participating remotely in all of his planned meetings and that's according to the white house. we will speak to white house chief of staff ron klain about all of it about the west wing later in the program and we begin with what's happening tonight the capstone hearing from the january 6th select committee set to start in a few hours focused squarely on the ex-president's conduct on january 6th. it's a hearing on which the committee plans to bring to bear a mountain of evidence to close the case that it has been making for the last several weeks that the brutal and shocking violence that played out on january 6th was exactly what donald trump

wanted to happen that day, that it was the pre-planned and desired result of a wide-ranging coup attempt by donald trump and orchestrated by him and his close allies and just like they did in other hearings, the committee will use team trump's own words to describe what happened on january 6th with video of trump's own advisors and trump's own allies and trump's own lawyers and trump's appointees, a sneak peek was posted by committee member adam kinzinger who will be co-leading alongside his colleague congresswoman elaine luria shows trump officials in effect corroborating one another, each of them testifying to the fact that as vice president mike pence and lawmakers fled from a mob of trump supporters filled with white supremacists and domestic violent extremists, donald trump was in the dining room watching tv. watch. >> was the president in that

private dining room the whole time that the attack on the capitol was going on or did he ever go to the oval office or the white house situation room or anywhere else? >> to the best of my recollection he was always in the dining room. >> what did they say? mr. meadows or the president at all during that brief encounter with you in the dining room? >> he was watching tv. >> do you know whether he was watching tv in the dining room when you talked to him on january 6th? >> it's my understanding he was watching television. >> when you were in the dining room in these discussions was the violence happening, the physical on the screen? >> yes. >> those all took place separately, apart from one another, but they all had the same answer. he was watching tv and all of it amounts to what congresswoman elaine luria calls, quote, a picture of inaction.

here's what she told nbc news. >> if you were president wouldn't you just jump into action? wouldn't you call everyone in your administration? your cabinet who could come in and help quell this and monitor the situation carefully? he really sat in relative isolation and didn't take action even at very strong urging of the people around him. >> we should point out at this point congresswoman luria will be our guest later in the program, as well. the committee has repeatedly used trump's own words against him to build evidence against his criminal culpability and this is no exception on the pattern and that's according to brand new reporting on "the washington post" on the day after the attack. the post says, quote, he struggled to do it over the course of an hour of trying to take the message. trump resisted holding the rioters to account, trying to call them patriots and refusing to say the election was over. that's according to individuals familiar with the work of the house committee investigating

the january 6th attack. the public could get its first glimpse of outtakes from that recording tuesday night when the committee plans to offer a bold conclusion in its eighth hearing. not only did trump do nothing despite repeated entreaties by senior aides to help end the violence, but he sat back and enjoyed watching it and reluctantly condemned it. in a three-minute speech only after the efforts to overturn the 2020 election had failed and after aides told him that members of his own cabinet were discussing invoking the 25th amendment to remove him from office. the january 6th select committee going inside the trump white house before, during and after the capitol insurrection. that's where we begin today. frank figliuzzi is here, former fbi assistant director for counterintelligence and an, in s nbc national security contributor. we are joined by nicholas gru for politico and yamiche

alcindor, nbc news washington correspondent and also the moderator of "washington week" on pbs. yamiche, i'll start with you. one of the remarkable things this committee has done and one of the risky things it did was to set the expectation up here and every hearing has exceeded what people thought they were going to see. what do you expect tonight? >> what i expect tonight is new information and new details about this sort of black box which is this 187-minute period that bennie thompson, the chair of the committee has always said is at the heart of this and it's that time period that three hours of former president trump was watching this on tv as a mob of his supporters broke into the capitol and tried to bring american democracy to its knees and during a time period when he decided to do absolutely nothing and then when he sort of was doing nothing proceeded to form a mob that was directed specifically at former vice president mike pence.

not only was he sort of watching it, enjoying it and cheering them on, but he was actually directing them to try to get even more violence put upon former vice president mike pence. so i'll be watching for that. there is obviously the talk of the outtakes of whether we'll see video of what trump wanted to say versus what he actually said and i am interested to hear from matthew pottinger and sarah matthews both of who were at the white house on january 6th and matthew pottinger because he was the most senior person at the white house to resign on january 6th. i was talking to mike short, and he told me matthew pottinger isn't something that trump can say i don't know this guy. i don't know who he is, which has been his refrain and this is someone who absolutely knew what the president was saying in real time and he'll have real information. the other thing i'm interested in is the impact of this hearing. i've been thinking overall of what is the breadth of of this

sort of narrative that they've played out and what does it mean? i spoke to judge luttig -- >> yeah. clear and present danger. >> who testified during the third hearing and he told me the committee has done their job and trying to be successful and laid out in clear details on how president biden tried to overturn the election and it's clear that lawmakers are trying to go after intent and they're trying to hammer home and he was very judicious in saying he didn't want to talk about intent as a judge, but he also said it was something that's clearly on their minds because of the doj referral and i'm interested in what impact lawmakers have both on public opinion and also literally on criminal charges and whether or not they think they've changed anything there. >> frank, yamiche has laid out perfectly the narrative aims of this evening, but she's getting at what is not a secret that this committee aims to close the loop on proving that the acts

and the intent were krukt and therefore securing a criminal investigation of donald trump. talk about what pieces of tonight's presentation fit into that? >> you know, in a sensual of us, all members of the public are serving as a kind of grand jury, right? and we've seen a presentation of evidence of pieces of a puzzle. the puzzle being what was going on in trump's mind and the puzzle pieces so far in chronological order have included disregarding, a choice for him to disregard the official experts he had all around telling him there was no fraud and then a choice to side with very fringe and even looney characters and lawyers telling them things that were unlawful and made no sense to anyone else and then a choice to pick up the phone and call georgia and ask for just one more vote because we won the election and then a choice to go really over the cliff and appeal to the crowd at the rally and at the ellipse and

just tried to do something physically about his insane ideas that disproven idea. so what happens tonight? a more final piece of the puzzle and the piece of inaction. a choice -- inaction is a choice, right? so that choice to not act is not necessarily a criminal charge and i keep hearing people say dereliction of duty and that was a specific military term and a military charge which only applies to actual members of the armed services and not ironically to the commander in chief, but nonetheless, inaction is a piece of the overall puzzle that we're getting presented to as a kind of a public grand jury and even more specifically, what i'll be looking for tonight is within that inaction period is the struggle that he's had with trying to go public and tell people to calm down and leave, right? we'll allegedly see outtakes tonight where he can barely get out of his mouth the words that tell people to be peaceful and

go home, despite all of his advisors telling him, the cabinet is talking about the 25th amendment. inaction and inability to get the right words out and how many takes it must have taken to do that. it's all a piece of the larger puzzle and that's what doj will be looking at is the mindset that might turn into a criminal mindset. >> nicholas, wittingly or unwittingly, this committee has sought to torch what were the inadequacies of previous efforts to hold trump accountable by shining the brightest spotlight on the pieces of evidence that reveal his intent and in some ways these outtakes are more than a blooper reel. they show what he really felt about the insurrectionists. he felt they were patriots and he felt even in the version that had to be released because they had to put out something and he had to say "i love you." we've never heard him say "i love you" publicly to anyone

he's related to. what should we make -- how should we view these outtakes after the insurrection tonight? >> the committee does present the outtakes. this is further evidence of how they're trying to get at trump's mindset that day. they're looking at what the president knew and when he knew it. we've seen in previous excerpts of testimony released from the committee interviews and court filings, they asked aides when exactly people in the white house knew about violence at the capitol, for example. and this is where they start to bridge from the attack into the aftermath and we saw the text message exchange between pearson in the aftermath of the attack and there might be contrast with that -- with what's in the optics. if we do see the former president struggling to condemn

the violence whereas we know that there was a great deal of concern and remorse among his top aides and allies in the aftermath of the insurrection. >> no one's going anywhere. i want to bring into our conversation congresswoman zoe lofgren of california. she is, of course, a member of the january 6th select committee, always generous with your days. just start with a viewer's guide of the evidence that the committee expects to present this evening. >> well, you have to tune in and see, of course. >> thank you for that, we want that, too. >> but as has been mentioned by other members, we will sort through what happened sort of minute by minute on the day of the riot, what was the president doing and what was happening at the same time that he was doing various things or more to the point choosing not to do some things, who was urging him to do what and what was his response? and i think there's new evidence. i wouldn't overplay the outtake

issue. there are some outtakes, but it's the accumulation of evidence and information that i think will lead people to a conclusion that i have sadly reached which is this mob attack on the capitol was intended by the president. he summoned the mob and he knew they were armed, and he asked them to go to the capitol, and he refused to call them off. why? because he wanted to overturn the election. that's really the bottom line. >> he wanted to obstruct the official proceeding. it's a statute, your congresswoman liz cheney said in the end of last year and the beginning of this year. you've been more cautious than other members of the select committee to always articulate your mission and the doj's and

it's undeniable that you've presented evidence to clearly illustrate the acts that trump committed and did not commit in the case of what he did during the insurrection and his intent, his deep knowledge that he had lost the election and his deep knowledge from multiple aides and advisers that the eastman plot was illegal and his deep knowledge of the violence and the weapons that his supporters were carrying and his commitment to being there anyway. where should we look for tonight's evidence to build? is it in the acts or in the lack of action or is it in the sort of vein of his intent? >> well, i think people will have to reach their own conclusions as i have, but it's an accumulation of evidence, of what he was being told, what he knew, what others were saying and the like. i think that you can reach a judgement that, you know, we're not a legal -- we're not a

charging body. we're a legislative committee and you can reach a conclusion about what happened. that's a different matter than the department of justice faces. they have to come up with a case that they believe they can win in court and that's their job, not my job, but i'll say this, as well. more evidence is coming in. this is an investigation that is very much ongoing and we will be working through the summer to track down some of this new information. >> will that include additional hearings next month? >> well, i'm not in a position to announce that. that's always done by the chair and vice chair, but as has been acknowledged publicly, we will have an interim report this fall and i would be very surprised if there wasn't a public presentation at least of that report and there may be other

public events, but there have been a lot of evidence in a constrained format. there are so many hours and they are quite telling. we may be releasing some of that evidence throughout the summer as well that we just couldn't fit into the timeframe of various hearing, not only this one, but some of the previous hearings that i think are important. >> one of the things that has come out in the last 48 and 24 hours is the very obvious fact that the secret service deleted text messages and that they've known for a long time that text messages on or around january 5th and 6th shouldn't be deleted. in terms of the secret service's duty to protect the protectees, the president and the vice president of the united states

and their families, i can't fathom anyone deleting any of their communications from that day, from the agency in charge of protecting their lives. what is the path forward for finding out what was on those devices? >> well, we're going to dig in as best we can to find out. there's been a lot of concerning elements to this. first, on january 16th, this was before the january 6th committee wrote to the department of homeland security and ordered them to retain all of the records. 11 days later the secret service went ahead and engaged in a tech update that involved erasing that very same evidence, so that's of tremendous concern. honestly, i'm concerned that the inspector general had sat on this information for a considerable period of time. we just learned about it last

friday, last thursday. it's been a week. he's known about it for months and months and months. why didn't he tell us before now? why did we learn only now from the secret service and the inspector general about this? we're going to try and find out as much as we can. it's not just the text messages, obviously, that we're interested in, but all of the communications in -- that the secret service has and we're going to review all of the radio channels, look at all of the emails and all of the other documents and we only got one text message and it could have been captured, frankly, through the person it was sent from in a different agency that did not erase their records. so it's a concern. >> what is the sort of sense of

what the motives are? i wouldn't have said this before seven public hearings had been put on by the select committee, but it's clear that at least two of the hearings have featured sworn testimony around a movement, a presidential movement with the cassidy hutchinson hearing, the committee took pains to explain something very opaque to normal people that a president moves in two different ways and one is an otr and the secret service does and the principle does and the other is a planned movement and cassidy testified to how donald trump's desire to visit the capitol is an otr and yet rioters knew he was coming which is a complete breach of every security protocol that i'm aware of in working the white house for six years. the other testimony that involves the secret service is this altercation in the vehicle. it wasn't the beast. it was an suv. the secret service seems so essential. do you anticipate subpoenaing

some of the agents? do you want to talk to them again? >> we do want to talk to them. they have retained private counsel which is unusual, but they have a right to do that. we -- there will be more information this evening on the effort of the president to move to the capitol and one other testimony earlier was that this is not a last-minute decisions. i mean, rudy giuliani told miss hutchinson on january 2nd that they were going to walk to the capitol. this was not a last-minute deal, and it was not a casual deal. the president was obviously very serious in wanting to do it. so i would urge -- watch the hearing tonight and you'll learn more about that. >> you know that i'll be watching. it also is the part of the

public hearings that ensnares republican leader mccarthy, cassidy hutchinson testified to being on the phone with him while donald trump was giving that speech on the ellipse saying you told me he wouldn't come, are you interested in the republican members that haven't been subpoenaed, but they're been invited to chat with the committee? >> absolutely. we'd very much like to hear from them and i honestly don't understand why they don't come in. you know, when you look at the statements that lead are mccarthy made on the 6th, he blamed then president trump and he was right to do so. he had conversations that day we'd like to hear about. i just don't understand why they wouldn't come in and help the american public understand the whole picture. >> let me ask you something about the secret service. had they newly retained private

counsel or have their interactions with the select committee been through private counsel? >> i think is new. >> since the evidence had been presented by the public? >> i can't give you an exact day, but it is new. >> that's also an interesting development, whether it leads to anything or not, that's always an interesting tell. congresswoman, my last question for you is if nothing happens in the sort of legal arena, if there is no accountability for donald trump or his inner circle, will the mission and the performance and presentation of the committee have still been of vital importance? >> will, i think what we're doing is important. the assignment the committee got was to find out all the information that we account about what happened to the sixth and we made tremendous

headway -- >> the second assignment we had was to recommend changes in lgd that would make it safer in the future. liz cheney and i have been working on a reform to the electoral contract. we are not quite ready to roll it out, but we're close. we have actually reached out to a broad array of academics and judge -- retired judges and the like, super conservative and not to get a broad input, and i think we have something that would make us safer. obviously, as dr. eastman admitted his plan violated the electoral count act and that doesn't mean that you don't want to make it less easy for people to violate it, so that's something we're looking at. we may make other recommendations and changes in

law. we've always known that we're not prosecutors. the information we have may help or not the department of justice and they have a different obligation, but i think it's most of us have reached the conclusion that the president has tremendous culpability for what happened on the 6th. >> congresswoman zoe lofgren, thank you for being so generous for your time on what i know is a long day. >> you bet. take care. >> frank figliuzzi, i want to come with you with news she just made there and that is that the secret service has newly and recently retained private counsel. what do you hear when she says that? >> yeah. that's significant, and i was going to ask this follow-up if you didn't, nicole and you did. so timing is everything, right? everyone has the right to counsel, of course, but the timing is important here because if they didn't invoke right to counsel, they didn't -- if they

didn't acquire counsel because they didn't think anything was wrong and they weren't under criminal scrutiny and they did it after figuring out we're in trouble here and we don't know when they heard that the dhs inquiry had turned criminal which now nbc news is reporting, that would be significant. that would be significant. so i get it if you're under criminal inquiry, you should retain counsel, but if they retained counsel earlier that knowing that dhs had formally opened a criminal case, that means they thought they did something potentially unlawful to begin with and that's very significant. >> first time many of us heard that today. everyone sticks around. when we come back, there's brand-new reporting that pulls the curtain back on the number one political enemy, liz cheney and the work on the january 6th committee which she describes as the most important work of her life and the threated secret service texts which has turned

criminal and the story of those now missing messages from january 5th and 6th and steve bannon's defense was to put up no defense in his contempt trial and his fate should be in the hands of the jury as a trump strategist faces very real jail time and all of this when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere today. ues aft. ues aft. don't go anywhere today.ith rin. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq plus, they felt fast itch relief some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach

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[ heavy breathing ] so you can do more incredible things. [ heavy breathing ] [ heavy breathing ] [ ominous music playing ] run! did you hear that mr. trump at one point wanted to add language about pardoning those who took part in the january 6th riot? >> i did hear that, and i understand that mr. meadows was encouraging that language, as

well. >> thank you, and here's what you told us previously about that. >> you said he was instructed not to include it. who was instructioning him not to include that on january 7th? >> understood from white house counsel's office that they didn't think it was a good idea to include that in the speech. >> that being pat cipollone? >> that's correct. >> it was a stunning moment featuring cassidy hutchinson where hutchinson toughers to the committee that trump wanted to mention pardons for the rioters in his speech the day after the attack on the capitol. we are back with the panel. it feels possible that that could be in one of the outtakes we hear tonight. >> that is something that clearly ail be watching for and so many others will be watching for because we knew that former president trump just in watching that video in real time on january 6th and january 7th he was reading from a teleprompter. you can tell his staff had told

him this is a really dark history in american politics. half of your staff or at least a number of your staff are resigning in realtime. remember, we had to do the big graphics of the revolving door that was just spinning and spinning of january 6th of people who had lived through the different scandals and then saw an insurrection in the capitol and said i'm done. and so president trump saw that and thought oh, these are my people, and i think it connected with what cassidy hutchinson was talking about when it comes to pardons. i think that directly connects with president trump saying, yeah, the people with the guns and all that stuff in. they're not here to hurt me. he felt safe among these people because he knew they were sort of drinking from the well he had been pouring them. he was giving them all of this false information and these lies and they were drunk off of them, but they were not going to hurt him. so i am interested in seeing what he had to say in real time about that and i also think about when we think about pardons and what he was thinking about these people, i'm interested in hearing if he sort of talked about these people

being the people that -- that were standing up for him when all of the people around him he thought were failing him. let's remember that attorney general bill barr and so many other people had so clearly said this is the line that you cannot cross and he was now finding this new group of people, and to me, it continues to signal something that as a reporter, i reflect on a lot which is that january 6th was the beginning of a new phase and they were looking at the people, and the truth social crowd of people that he wanted to galvanize and turn into the people that were backing election deniers and getting into poll worker purposes and it will be interesting to see these outtakes because it will be made for tv. >> so, frank, some of the people yamiche has been talking about have been charged with seditious conspiracy and that's the most serious charge that donald trump wanted to pardon.

how much more distance does the committee have to travel to close the loop between his participation and that conspiracy? >> great point because tonight we'll hear about inaction, omission, failure to act, all a choice, but then if you -- if you wrap that around and complete it with the notion that i also wanted everybody to go off scot-free. why is that? because they were doing my bidding. they were doing my bidding. let's just recap. so far we're above 850 defendants indicted, charged by doj for participating in january 6th violence. as you said, nine oath keepers, five proud boys charged with seditious conspiracy, in my opinion, the second most severe charge available to the federal government only after treason and by the way, as of today yet another defendant convicted at trial. every time they've chosen to go to trial doj has won.

the defendant today by the name of bledsoe, guilty on all charges and what did mr. trump want to do? he wanted none of that to happen. none of it. he wanted to pardon all of them. look, we're focused on tonight. i know with regard to secret service and the text messaging and we should be and i have a column that just got released today from msnbc calling for a different kind of leadership at secret service, and i am also intrigued as to whether we will learn anything from the time trump is sitting watching television in the white house, whether the secret service was talking about moving him to a safer location. this has always intrigued me. you have clear evidence that the capitol, a secure building has been breached violently. you would think that from would be discussion about moving the president, right? into a bunker, into a safe room, and did that happen? did he say no? did secret service understand that he wasn't in any danger just as he said they're not here

to hurt me earlier in the day? that gets to the heart as to whether trump thought there was a threat and if secret service understood none of this was a threat to trump. >> what frank just brings up this idea of what the white house felt in real time and someone standing on the lawn on january 6th, looking at these pictures and seeing the surreal scene that was the capitol. i remember the birds sort of chirping and the silence at the white house, right? >> i was, like, am i still in the same city as it was happening, and it was so calm at the white house. former president trump told them exactly where they needed to go. he didn't tell his supporters, come here. he said go to the capitol, i'll be there and he was on the couch watching this all play out at the white house. i have to tell you, as someone who was there i was shocked at

how calm and quiet the white house was on january 6th and everyone was in awe and startled and all of the white house press secretaries were sort of running around wondering what to say because everyone was thinking of quitting or they were trying to figure out if president trump was going to do something. it's a good question of whether or not the secret service had a different feel of the place because they are obviously trained to look at the security issues there. >> and when they think it's a threat do you think what thai do? they look at the women who are wearing heels. they said take off your shoes and run and i've been at the white house when it was under threat and it doesn't look like what you describe. i want to read it to you. cheney watches the video mike pence huddled away from a mob of trump supporters threatened to hang him. when she does that she sees the vice president on another day of danger. quote, every time i see it it brings to image of jimmy scott

recalling how vice president dick cheney was rushed to an underground bunker as a hijacked airplane hurdled toward the nation's capitol on september 11, 2001. quote, that evacuation was because al qaeda was targeting washington, d.c. mike pence was evacuated because a violent armed crowd that donald trump sent to the capitol was invading the capitol. for liz cheney, trump is similarly and existential threat to the institutions of american society and she has made it her single-minded mission to expose what the former president did and stop him from doing it again. the piece goes some distance in explaining liz cheney's singular focus on not settling for the prosecutions or the rioters, but trying to get to the head of the fish, donald trump. >> exactly. what congresswoman cheney is doing here is in some ways looking beyond just the walls of congress, right? she's looking at what will be

the legacy both for the republican party and for the nation as a whole, and it's important to remember that she's facing an incredibly competitive primary election in a few weeks. there's a trump-backed challenger, and right now is leading, and clearly, this is something that she would have to be cognizant of as she takes on this higher profile stage and tonight with covid and sharing this remotely, congresswoman cheney will be quite literally front and center in the proceedings. >> nicholas wu, so great to have you here. yamiche, so great to have you here. a controversy surrounding the purged secret service text messages including what we learned from congresswoman zoe lofgren that the secret service has retained private counsel. we'll have more on that next. inl inl we'll have more on that next♪ tr on the hedges ♪

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we do want to talk to them. they have retained private counsel which is unusual, but they have a right to do that. >> we heard a little bit of news made in that statement from january 6th committee member congresswoman zoe lofgren. the secret service has retained private counsel which she said is their right to do. as we shared earlier, the agency's watchdog has raised the bar in the controversial deleted

texts from january 5th and 6th. nbc news has learned that the dhs inspector general joseph cafari has directed to halt the investigation. it follows the stunning update from "the washington post" carol leonnig that he learned back in february that the secret service had purged all texts and he chose not to alert congress something also confirmed by congresswoman lofgren, at least not until last wednesday. nbc news has learned that in addition to the two emails agents received reminding them of their responsibility to preserve texts and telling them how to do it before the migration. agents also received a third email on february 4, 2021, instructing them to preserve all communications specifically

related to january 6th. joining me is barbara mcwade, former u.s. attorney and professor. barbara mcwade, what are we to make about escalating potential liability and exposure to the secret service? >> yeah. you know, each day the story gets a little bit worse. >> worse? >> when i first heard about this, having worked in government, i thought human error occurs in large bureaucracies and as unfortunate as that might be, perhaps that's all that there is here, but every day we learned some more troubling facts about request requests that were made to retain these things and nonetheless that they were discarded or erased and now they're circling the wagons of hiring private counsel. ordinarily when you want to get to the bottom of something there's no hiring ever private counsel. there are lawyers within the secret service who work through

the bureaucracy and provide what needs to be turned over and that's that. i suppose the escalation calling this a criminal investigation is what has prompted the hiring of private counsel and it makes me think perhaps there's something there. >> frank figliuzzi is congressman jamie raskin who said this to jeff bennett that rankin said, quote, i smell a rat. that seems like an awfully strange coincidence for those to be banished and in two days was there a violent insurrection since the first new war. >> there is no direct evidence that the damage has been done. the damage to the secret service's reputation can only get worse if an investigation determines that the texts in question were dlib rally

deliberately deleted. it is as barbara said becoming more and more impossible that it was accidental and you look at the data experts that have appeared and most say some of the foremost experts on data retrieval actually work for the secret service. >> yeah. so again, it gets curiouser and curiouser particularly when you know a planned phone migration is ng, you would ordinarily take extra steps as an institution to make sure the retention system is in place and is going to work as best it can. within the department of justice there is this large retention system that tris to ensure that some things don't happen because there is no repository to back up systems and i'm curious as to whether or not we're being looking at a potential problem where someone deliberately bypassed that retention system. we'll have to find out.

the question of private counsel is really intriguing because there are agents, as barbara knows, there are agents' associations and quasi unions and within the scope of the employment and that's a key phrase for all of us that have served in law enforcement. in the scope of employment does doj or dhs have your back? you did something and maybe you screwed up badly and you did it in good faith, doj will say we'll cover you on this one. we'll use our attorneys and we'll defend your actions and the scope. if you go out and attain private counsel and that could be attached to their association, so it went on, and i may not be in the scope of my employment. my agency could walk away from me and that would be extremely significant. >> i said it yesterday and i do want to say it today, and the

secret service has a noble missions and a job requirement to be able to take a bullet for your nominee, too, it treasured and mr. ar nat on migrate back after trump's coup didn't work out. what is the reputational risk to an agency like the secret service, not having such ethical question and an ongoing ethical question hanging over it? >> as you said, nicole, i've always known the secret service of being an agency of the highest integrity and the highest execution of their mission. the motto has always been the people elect them and we protect them. they didn't care about the politics. they cared about the mission. if people are to believe that they are somehow partisan it

erodes that trust that we have in doing the people's work of protecting the officer who holds that position as opposed to a political candidate. tony ornato taking this position is something that the agency should never have allowed. separating the work of the secret service from the political activities of the protectees is an essential part of their mission, and so by blurring those lines i think they've caused a lot of volatility in the agency. they have work to do to remedy that reputation. >> frank and barbara, stick around. a jury will find out if steve bannon is guilty. day four of that criminal trial is up next. e bannon is guilty day four of that criminal trial

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so they shoot it. hmm... back to the miro board. dave says “feed it?” and dave feeds it. just then our hero has a breakthrough. "shoot it, camera, shoot a movie!" and so our humble team saves the day by working together. on miro. day four of steve bannon's trial wrapped up today in washington where bannon's defense team rested their case today without calling any witnesses. steve bannon's lawyer confirmed to the judge that the defense would not be presenting any evidence to the jury, telling the judge that prosecutors failed to give any compelling reason that bannon was guilty of contempt for denying to comply with the january 6th committee's subpoena. the government rested its case yesterday following testimony from just two witnesses, closing arguments will begin tomorrow

morning. we're back with barbara and frank. i saw steve bannon talking about himself in the third person, which is always a bad sign when someone's facing a potential guilty finding. what do you make of where this trial stands? >> well, you know, for someone who said, "i'm going to go medieval" in the defense -- my defense at trial, deciding to not even take the stand is intriguing to me. so much for medieval. i think his attorney probably talked him out of it. i think he could not withstand cross-examination on some of the assertions he was going to make. he wanted to get chairman thompson in from the committee. he wanted -- the judge said, why do you want chairman thompson in here? his attorney said, we think the entire committee should be in here. it was going to be a circus. and i think he's going to be found guilty. the problem is, as barbara can explain far better than i, with a contempt charge, there's very little power the court has to actually make you comply.

they're going to find him guilty likely of contempt with only two witnesses, you know, we're talking about him not putting on any defense. the prosecution only needed two witnesses. is this a valid committee? yes. do they have the power of subpoena? yes. then an fbi agent comes on, you know, did mr. bannon comply or show up? no. so, that was the prosecution. pretty easy. but the devil's in the details with regard to getting him to comply. >> you know, barbara, "the new york times" reporter, jeremy peters, reminded me that in his book, he reports that steve bannon didn't believe in the big lie, never thought that it was true that donald trump had actually won and there had been massive fraud. why does -- just to profile a criminal, why does someone go to jail over something that he doesn't believe in the first place? >> you know, steve bannon is an interesting character. it seems that he can be a martyr here and perhaps make himself

even more grandiose than he already is, and that seems to be his mission in life, to escalate and elevate himself, to have a platform, to advance his agenda, and you know, a prison sentence here will not exceed two years. it will probably be something less. rather than be helpful to the government, he has always been all about tearing it down, and so the last thing he wants to do is enter a guilty plea and be cooperative the way most american citizens who are patriotic americans want to do, and so that's all i can imagine. it's very difficult to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who has a very warped world view, but that's the best psychoanalysis i can do of steve bannon. >> he's not indifferent to jail time, though, because we know he furiously campaigned for a pardon, and i believe he received one of the very last ones that trump doled out. barbara mcquade, frank figliuzzi, what a day to talk to both of you. up next for us, here, white house chief of staff ron klain will be our guest on the president working from the

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[ ominous music playing ] it's here. and catch minions: are you ready? let's go baby! [ screaming ] what happens next? you'll know soon enough. because the president is fully vaccinated, double boosted, his risk of serious illness is dramatically lower. he's also getting treated with a very powerful antiviral, and that further reduces his risk of serious illness. and it's a reminder of the reason that we all work so hard to make sure that every american has the same level of protection

that the president has. that every american has the same level of immunity, and why we have worked so hard to make sure that people have access to life-saving treatments like paxlovid. >> hi again, everyone, it's 5:00 in new york. what a difference two years, two vaccine doses, two boosters and a brand-new president makes. president joe biden is now, of course, the second american president to contract the coronavirus while in office. unlike president trump's 2020 infection in the pre-vaccine phase of the pandemic, this president, president joe biden, is double vaxxed and double boosted. he's being treated with paxlovid. it is a proven antiviral medication. you heard dr. jha, friend of this program, now a white house covid advisor, talk about that. all americans -- the point in this breaking news today, and we showed it in that clip from the white house briefing on the president's condition, is that all americans can avail themselves of this kind of

protection. this afternoon, president biden, whose symptoms are, by all accounts, reportedly mild, released a video message to reassure americans who might be worried about him. watch that. >> hey, folks, guess you heard this morning i tested positive for covid, but i've been double vaccinated, double boosted, symptoms are mild, and i really appreciate your inquiries and your concerns. and i'm doing well, getting a lot of work done, going to continue to get it done, and in the meantime, thanks for your concern, and keep the faith. it's going to be okay. >> the press team at the white house today echoed president biden's message that he is continuing to work, highlighting his busy day of remote meetings while isolating in the residence of the white house, saying he spoke by phone to at least four pennsylvania officials to discuss infrastructure and his safer america plan. white house also saying that the president will continue to isolate for at least five days until he tests negative. they're also promising an abundance of transparency, which will include a daily update on the president's status as he

continues to carry out the full duties of his office. first lady dr. jill biden has been identified as a close contact but says she tested negative today and told reporters this morning that she plans to keep to her schedule but will wear a mask in accordance with cdc guidelines. vice president kamala harris also addressed president biden's positive test today, highlighting his mild symptoms and reporting his good spirits. she, too, tested negative today, though the white house told us she's also considered a close contact. vice president harris herself recently had her own unrelated case of covid within the last 90 days. the news of president biden's positive test comes on an already very busy news day in washington where the january 6th committee is gearing up for a hearing in primetime tonight, focused on donald trump's 187 minutes of inaction as a riotous mob of his supporters stormed the capitol. this as questions continue to pile up about missing text messages from the secret service. the january 6th committee has been seeking.

today, we learned the department of homeland security has launched a criminal probe around the destruction of those missing text messages. january 6th committee member congresswoman elaine luria, one of the leaders of tonight's hearing, will be our guest in a few minutes to discuss all of that. but we start with our top story this hour, white house chief of staff ron klain is with us. ron, how's the president doing? >> you know, nicole, i've talked to him throughout the day. he's doing very well. he's got a sniffle j nose but he is busy at work, doing the nation's business. he's been on the phone with members of the house and senate as we've talked about. he's continuing to hold internal meetings, getting updated on the situation in ukraine and other key priorities of the administration. he is busy at work, feeling very well, and doing his job. >> are you a close contact? i mean, are you -- you're there, and i don't see you in a mask. are you considered a close contact? >> i am a close contact. i've been masking up all day. i took my mask off right now because your people are very far

away from me in this remote location. >> obviously, we started by saying it's a very different time, a very different president and a very different vaccine picture as well as therapeutic picture. does the president view this as a teachable moment? will he have more to say about how the outcomes could have been different? i mean, the last president who contracted covid was very, very, very sick. >> yeah, look, i hope it is a teachable moment. the president does what every other person in america does every day, which is he takes reasonable precautions against covid but does his job, and we all knew there would come a time when, by being out there and doing his job as president, which means engaging with the public, engaging with constituents, engaging with members of the house and all these people, sooner or later, like a lot of other americans, he would get covid. what's different than where it was when president trump got covid is that he has the benefit of two vaccines and two boosters, and he's been publicly advocating for every american to take the benefit of our free

vaccination, our free booster program. there are 90,000 places in america right now, within the homes, five miles of homes from 90% of americans where someone can walk in today and get the same free vaccines and boosters the president got. and then, we have done world-leading work on making paxlovid, this powerful antiviral, available to people. now we've actually just a couple weeks ago made it available where pharmacists can prescribe it. pharmacies all over the country, walk in with a positive test result, and get the same drug the president is getting here at the white house today. >> and he -- just explain to us, i know dr. jha went over this, but for our viewers that missed the briefing, why he was prescribed paxlovid with his positive diagnosis this morning. >> well, we want to see all americans who are over 50 test positive get pax. obviously, there are a handful of cases, because of medical counterindications where you can't get it, you should get it prescribed by a pharmacist or a doctor. but paxlovid is widely available

in this country. we're fortunate. our covid response secured an adequate supply so that hundreds of thousands of americans every week can get paxlovid. it's very different in europe. it is widely available here, and we encourage everyone, if you test positive -- if you feel sick, get a test. if you test and test positive, talk to your medical care provider, talk to your pharmacist about getting paxlovid. >> has contact tracing been able to ascertain exactly where president biden contracted covid? >> no, we don't know where he got it, but we've been contacting the people he has had contact with in the past few days, people he had close contact with, to make sure they're aware that they were exposed and they can take the steps that all of us are taking who are close contacts of masking up when they're around other people now, and you know, getting tested regularly. >> i contracted coronavirus at an event that ended up sickening ten people. i mean, are you able to, at this

point, answer how many people have contracted covid either from the same source or from their contacts with president biden? >> certainly not from the same source. again, we don't know which of these various events he might have gotten at it, who might have exposed him. so far, we're monitoring the close contacts to see if any test positive. we'll see, particularly here at the white house, what the test results are tomorrow, but so far, we don't have any positive test results that are linked to the president's case. >> when i had covid, i binged "lucifer." president biden has something else he could watch on television tonight, that's the primetime hearing of the january 6th committee. do we know if he plans to watch that? >> i don't know, nicole, how much he will watch. he has been watching the hearings when he gets a chance. he does have a very busy job, but more importantly, he's been getting updates and briefings on the hearings, whether he watches them live or not. he understands how important these hearings are. he's been following them. the committee is doing an excellent job of telling an important story the american people need to hear, a story of

an administration, of a president who was willing to help spur an insurrection in this country, a president who was willing to do anything he had to do to stay in power, and a team of people that facilitated that. and i'm sure the committee will continue to lay that out as it has with professionalism and seriousness, and i'm sure that will continue tonight. >> one of the things the committee has revealed through the course of its investigation is that the united states secret service has deleted all the text messages that they sought around the dates of the 5th and 6th of january 2021. congresswoman zoe lofgren confirmed very recently they have retained private counsel. there's also now a criminal investigation, not simply an ig probe into the deletion of those messages. does the president have confidence in the united states secret service today? >> well, first of all, nicole, i'm not going to comment on that investigation. it's being conducted by the dhs inspector general, as you

reported earlier in this hour. and i think the appropriate thing for me, as a political official of the white house, is not to comment on the inspector general investigation. what i will say is the president absolutely has confidence in the men and women who protect him, who put their lives on the line every day to protect him and the first lady and the first family and vice president and her family. these are professionals who do their jobs, and i think that his confidence and his detail and the people who protect him is absolutely rock solid. >> if the -- this president were the president when emails and texts were subpoenaed by congressional committee, would this president want the secret service to comply and turn over those text messages? does he believe that congress has a right to see the subpoenaed texts? >> yeah, i mean, nicole, this isn't just a hypothetical question. this president is the president who had to decide whether or not to assert or waive executive privilege over the vast array of

documents that were at the national archives that the committee has had access to, and in every instance, he has made those documents -- he has exercised his power to make those documents available. he thinks the committee should have access to all documents with regard to this investigation. there is no executive privilege to overthrow the u.s. government. there is no executive privilege to plan and launch an insurrection, so the committee's investigation is outside the scope of executive privilege, and the president has taken affirmative action to try to make sure those documents get to the committee. >> ron klain, i hope you stay healthy. give the president our best wishes for a speedy recovery, and i hope all of you stay in good health. >> i appreciate that, nicole. look, we are very well taken care of here. we're going to do our best to stay healthy, but again, i think if any of us wind up being positive, we're double vaccinated, double boosted, got access to these treatments all americans have, and we're going

to be just fine. >> ron klain, thank you for spending time with us on a day like today. continuing now with the jury excused select committee's primetime hearing tonight, the final hearing in its summer season, if you will. one of the committee members leading tonight's presentation, republican congressman adam kinzinger, tweeted out a preview of what we can expect to see when the panel gavels in and focuses on the 187 minutes in which donald trump did nothing to stop his supporters from carrying out their brutal attack on the u.s. capitol. take a alone. look. >> was the president in that dining room the whole time that the attack on the capitol was going on? or did he ever go, again, only to your knowledge, to the oval office, to the white house situation room, anywhere else? >> to the best of my recollection, he was always in the dining room. >> what did they say? mr. meadows on the president, at all, during that brief encounter that you were in the dining room? >> i think they were watching tv. >> do you know whether he was

watching tv in the dining room when you talked to him on january 6th? >> it's my understanding he was watching television. >> you were in the dining room in these discussions, was the -- was the violence on the capitol visible on the screen, on the television? >> yes. >> so, we got that. beyond any doubt. the congressman -- the members leading tonight's hearings can prove that the president was watching tv. the hearing will be led by congressman adam kinzinger and congresswoman elaine luria, both of whom are military veterans. they will take a minute-by-minute look at donald trump's inaction for more than three hours that day, which the committee says amounts to a clear dereliction of duty. congresswoman elaine luria is our next guest. thank you for spending time with us ahead of what i know is a very busy day for you, in a rainstorm, i can see behind you. we have been following, over the course of the last hour and 15 minutes, the fast-moving

developments on the secret service side, and i want to quickly ask you about that before we turn to tonight. your colleague, congresswoman lofgren, said they had very recently obtained private counsel. are you still seeking all of the evidence and all the texts, or is this moving toward meadows territory of a legal standoff with the secret service? >> well, the committee did issue a subpoena, and the deadline has passed for that to request these text messages from the dates around january 5th and 6th that would provide critical information to give us a real insight into the activities of the secret service during those days. we didn't receive those. we received one text exchange, and as you've been following, there's discussion that the texts were deleted, they're not recoverable, there was a data migration. it's just all very complicated. personally, i feel like we don't have all the facts, and it's something that we'll continue to pursue, because we need that information. i'm just learning today as well, this discussion that there could be a criminal investigation by

the dhs ig. obviously, we will not interfere with any activities that the ig is doing to get to the bottom of the facts, but it's clearly important information. >> congresswoman, are you aware of any government, law enforcement agency or federal agency that deletes messages or is allowed to delete messages in such a short window? i worked at the white house, and nothing that i emailed or texted or phone logs were ever deleted. in fact, they exist to this day, as well as in governor jeb bush's office. i mean, are you aware of any agency that purges its communications? >> well, i know that government agencies, they have procedures for the preservation of records. i'm not intimately familiar with the secret service or any particular agencies' policies but that's something we're looking into as part of this. what was the protocol? and you know, a data migration, getting new devices, is -- it's not an unusual thing.

that happens periodically for everyone. so, looking at what procedures were put in place to safeguard that information as they upgraded their electronics equipment, so those are all questions we're asking as part of this. >> i think most people, every time i get a new iphone, all the video games my son has downloaded are still there. so i think people have a hard time understanding where things go unless you deliberately get rid of them. i do want to turn to tonight. the expectation for tonight is really that the loop is closed around donald trump's enthusiasm for the violence as it played out. can you preview what we will see tonight in terms of the evidence? >> well, you showed some testimony from witnesses who corroborated that the president sat for this 187 minutes, more than 3-hour time frame, basically watching tv in the dining room off of the oval office. what we're going to do tonight is we're going to talk to a variety of witnesses, some in-person, some we've spoken to previously, and we'll show their video testimony, about the events that happened that day. there was a flurry of activity

around the white house. many people attempting in a variety of ways to get the president to take forceful action. he's the president of the united states. he can just walk down the hall, stand in front of a podium, there's a camera on, and he can speak to the nation. that's a microphone that he has, because he has the power to make things happen. as we heard last week from a witness, mr. aeres, he said, we came here on the president's call, and when we saw that message at 4:17, we knew it was time to go home. i'll tell you the message at 4:17 concerns me as well because it also was not a forceful condemnation of the violence. it was not a clear message to say to go home. he told people, you know, go home with love, i understand your feelings. it was not, in my mind, either what one would expect, but it did have, you know, some degree of results in having people know that this was over. why was it over at that time? because it was clear, the police, the national guard, they had been essentially beaten up throughout this whole thing and

overrun, but they were gaining in numbers and able to start pushing the rioters back, so while he's watching on tv, you know, there's a certain point when it becomes clear that this pressure that he's placing on the vice president in order to essentially change the election results or delay or disrupt, you know, we've gone through all those different types of plans, that that wasn't going to work. so, he walked out to the, you know, microphone in the rose garden, filmed a video, and sent that out. but he could have done that so much earlier. >> what is the significance of the vice president not doing what he wanted? it seems that, as important, and at the same time, as the ability by law enforcement to regain control of the capitol, is the vice president doesn't leave the capitol. he, with no warning and no alert to anyone else, remains in the basement, doesn't even get in a car. is that part of the presentation, or is that part of the fact pattern that's important to what the committee's presenting? >> we'll talk about those details. i mean, we'll compare and contrast the violence at the

capitol, what was happening at the white house, the danger that was presented to the vice president, because he got caught in the middle of this mob. i mean, we know at 2:24, when the president sent out a tweet where he basically put a target on the vice president's back and saying, mike pence doesn't have the courage to do what he should do, like it wasn't what he should do. the vice president, he wanted to go to the capitol, carry out his constitutional duty, and essentially certify the election results and move on like every other administration has throughout our history. so, i think that, you know, we'll cover a lot of those things and just put it into the context. i think when people are watching, it's good to look at, how is this different from what you would expect? when there's other times in our country where there's been a crisis, you see the president jumping into action, surrounded by people who are helping solve this problem, create a safe situation, he's calling and relying on every advisor and cabinet secretary and government department that can lend assistance. you know, president trump did not do that on january 6th. >> he didn't do any of it, and

it is -- i mean, you have a military service in your background, i mean, is it -- it seems like it is already clear that the country's commander in chief was not the country's president on january 6th. will that become even more clear tonight? >> i think so, and mr. kinzinger and i are leading the hearing. we're both veterans, and there's a duty that the president has. it's laid out explicitly in the constitution. he has a duty to ensure the laws are faithfully executed. he didn't do that on that day, and something that exists in the military, the uniform code of military justice, so applies to officers in the military, is dereliction of duty. it's not a civilian crime, but what i would say is, you know, he had a moral and ethical obligation and truly responsibility, in my mind, to respond in the way that we need our president to do in times of crisis, if there's an -- a foreign attack, a natural disaster, some sort of domestic issue. we elect the president to respond to those things. he didn't do that on january 6th.

>> the dereliction of duty isn't a civilian crime, but your colleague, liz cheney, has read from the criminal code of something that could ensnare donald trump if merrick garland pursues that, and that is the obstruction of an official proceeding, a congressional proceeding. it's my understanding that you need an act, and you need intent. the committee has proven his intent over and over and over again. is the intention tonight to share more evidence about the actions of sitting and watching tv, of refusing to do anything to stop it? is that part of the purpose tonight? >> well, the purpose of the committee throughout all of these hearings is to lay out the facts as we've discussed previously, you know, we're not the ones who can determine if a crime has been committed. but i'll tell you that the department of justice is watching the evidence that the committee is laying out. there have been cases for criminal defendants in some of the january 6th cases where federal judges have actually cited testimony from our hearings. so, we hope that they'll watch closely tonight where these pieces fit into any work that

they may be doing, you know, the department of justice, they conduct that investigation separately. we're a congressional committee, and we're really forward looking to try to determine what kind of things can be done to prevent something like this from happening in the future and we're laying out the facts now, but the real product of this committee is to provide those recommendations. >> as an expert in the facts, do you personally believe that the facts exist to investigate donald trump as potentially breaking that law of obstructing a congressional proceeding? >> honestly, i think that's pretty clear. it has been for a long time. we have a federal judge who agrees with that, judge carter, you know, ruled that there was -- mr. eastman, who couldn't claim attorney-client privilege because there was potentially a crime involved. so, we've already had a federal judge say on three counts that there was enough evidence that there may be a crime here that they could shield those documents from the committee. >> congresswoman luria, we know you have a really busy night ahead, so we are always grateful

to see you, but especially today. thank you so much for spending time with us. when we come back, there's new reporting on the january 6th investigation, plus our panel will join our coverage with now just a little more than two and a half hours to go until the start of that primetime hearing tonight by the january 6th committee. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. tee. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. i gotta say moving in together has been awesome. no regrets. for you and emily. these are... amazing.

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i, william jefferson clinton, do solemnly swear. >> that i will faithfully execute the office of president of the united states. >> and will to the best of my ability. >> preserve, protect, and defend. >> the constitution of the united states. >> before taking office, every

president-elect takes an oath, an oath to defend the constitution of the united states. it's what makes democracy work. our presidents and our elected officials, putting country above everything else. yet, on january 6th, 2021, ex-president donald trump betrayed his oath, letting or encouraging or directing an angry mob of his own supporters to storm the u.s. capitol and attack our government, and as we will hear in detail from the january 6th committee tonight, he did nothing to stop that attack for more than three hours. joining our coverage, betsy woodruff swan, national correspondent for politico, also an msnbc contributor. claudia grisales is here, and jeremy bash is here, former chief of staff at the cia and department of defense, he is now an msnbc national security contributor. with us at the table, rick stengel, former top state department official, also an msnbc political analyst. i want to start with you, jeremy bash, because congresswoman luria has been so clear about

dereliction of duty, and donald trump's clear dereliction of duty he had to protect the country that day. talk about that as a narrative arc, if you will, for tonight's hearing. >> well, nicole, when you're commander in chief, when you're in a position of command, and your own positions are under attack by terrorists, let's not mince words, that's what the january 6th armed mob were, they were a bunch of domestic extremist terrorists, lethally armed, undertaking lethal action against our representatives, our senators, our citadel of democracy, and when you're commander in chief, and you do absolutely nothing but put your feet up in the dining room and watch tv for three hours, it's not just a sin of comission. it's a sin of omission and in effect, you're allowing those terrorists to hurt, maim, destroy property, and ultimately, lives were lost as a

result of that tragic day, and so i think it heightens the culpability, heightens the moral, the legal, the ethical, the political culpability of the commander in chief that day, and i think tonight's hearing will underscore that and will be, i think, a very effective closing argument to what has been an effective case against donald trump. >> jeremy, the congresswoman made the point that it isn't a crime for a civilian, but we did talk about obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of a criminal proceeding, it's the crime that liz cheney highlighted about nine months ago. i want to read you a tweet that donald trump typed out but didn't send. he writes this. "these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. go home with love and in peace. remember this day forever." no, he ultimately put out, was

different, but still had love in it. he said, "we love you" to the insurrectionists, who you just described as terrorists. where do the -- where does the committee need to, in your view, still sort of fill in the blanks in terms of attaching trump's acts and his conduct or his lack of action to prove that crime that liz cheney cited? >> honestly, nicole, i think they're there. i think the evidence is so overwhelming. i think over the course of these hearings, they have proved that donald trump knew that what he was undertaking was not lawful, was unconstitutional. he wasn't merely exercising his rights as a candidate. he was going well beyond it, violating the law, coercing election officials to find him votes. he was told by his own counsel, by his own advisors, that what he was doing was patently illegal, unprecedented, and unconstitutional. he not only poured the gasoline, he lit the match. he was the arsonist.

to expect him to be the firefighter in all this, i think, frankly, is unrealistic, and the fact that he did nothing, i think, only underscores how much he wanted that capitol to be stormed, how much he wanted his own vice president to be hunted down, how much he wanted lawmakers to suffer physically as well as politically for what he regarded, you know, as a violation of his own personal power. and so, because he did not want to transfer power peacefully, because he did not want to carry out his own constitutional oath, i think it's very clear that he simply did nothing, and that is more than enough to establish criminal culpability, but maybe even more importantly, it establishes constitutional culpability and fundamentally, i think that's what the january 6th committee has established with overwhelming evidence. >> betsy, congresswoman luria initially didn't take the bait, but then under a second run by me at the question about whether doj should be investigating and potentially prosecuting trump for obstructing an official proceeding, she said, well, of

course. i mean, a federal judge, judge carter, said there was likely -- more likely than not, that felonies took place, that donald trump and john eastman committed them. what do you make of what the evidence will do tonight in terms of not just potentially putting public opinion over the top, i mean, a vast majority of people watching think donald trump is responsible for january 6th. a much smaller number think that doj will do anything about it. >> it's a great question, because there are so many details that the justice department is going to have to test and the way, of course, federal prosecutors think about evidence in a criminal case is quite different. it's an important way from how congressional investigators think about these hearings. what i can tell you, though, is that the prospect of charges for obstruction of an official proceeding, which you brought up to the congresswoman earlier on this show, is also the greatest source of concern to people in the former president's inner circle when it comes to these questions about legal exposure.

that's the area where they feel trump himself is most vulnerable, and where they see the justice department's potential investigation as well as its investigation that's touching on people who are very close to him as the most concerning, outstanding legal threat. this is likely to unfold in coming weeks and months, of course. doj is a much less revelatory about the work that they're doing than the select committee has been, which, as the attorney general pointed out, is a feature, not a bug, of the american justice system, as irksome as it might be to some observers. but what we've seen over the last year is that the department has been doing a lot more than was publicly visible in terms of investigating, not just violent domestic terrorists, but also people on sort of the white-collar criminal side of this probe. so, i think it's important not to assume that just because the justice department isn't taking overt steps, that they're not taking any.

>> betsy, as is usually the case, you have new reporting. tell us about it. >> that's right. i obtained an email that christina bob, who was a one america news anchor at the time, sent to a hoes of people on trump's legal team, lawyers working for and with the president. this was on december 13th of 2020, the day before the electoral college electors met at state capitals around the country, and the email is really interesting because bob, of course, was not a campaign employee. rather, she said that she received a briefing from a person who did work for the trump campaign at the time, and then she passed that briefing, basically, up the chain of command. what's notable is the briefing is incredibly detailed, and it shows that a particular source of concern to the trump campaign, on december 13th, was the access that their so-called alternate electors might have to state capitol buildings. they were worried that in many

of the different states where they were trying to put forward these fake electors, states, of course, that biden won but that trump claimed he'd won, they were worried that in many states where they were trying to put forward this fake elector scheme, that their fake electors wouldn't even be able to get in the front door of the buildings where they thought they needed to be in order to move forward with the project. this is a really granular level of detail that bob passed up to a number of people very close to trump, including rudy giuliani, boris epstein, who was a campaign employee at the time, as well as a lawyer working with donald trump, and it shows that the people who were providing trump with legal advice were receiving not just big-picture legal arguments about the alternate electors but very detailed, granular, almost block-by-block descriptions of the steps those electors were taking and wanted to be able to take to move forward on the president's scheme. >> betsy, i know we're losing you to go do some more

reporting, but just one more question on that. it seems that the fake electors investigation is both bottom-up and topdown. you've got eastman putting it all in writing, congressman adam kinzinger describes it as the blueprint for the coup. but you've got the electors themselves ensnared in the criminal investigation in georgia, as well as subpoenaed by this committee and other probes. tell us about how advanced this aspect of the investigation is in those various jurisdictions. >> we know for the justice department, that the alternate elector scheme is something that's a key priority in their probe, and that itself, of course, is concerning to people who are very close to president trump, because this was a scheme he was fully on board with. we also know that particular in fulton county, georgia, the district attorney there has signalled that more than a dozen of the actual fake electors could themselves face criminal charges. the advantage, strategically, of course, that any prosecutor gains when they send a target letter like that, is that it

increaseds likelihood that one of those dozen-plus people might decide to be more cooperative. securing cooperation from witnesses in exchange for potential leniency is kind of the oldest, shall we say, trick in the book or step in the book for prosecutors, and there's a bunch of people with firsthand knowledge who have jobs, careers, lives, who may not want to risk not just conviction but simply prosecution, because of this thing that they did more than a year ago. so, that's a really important thing to track, how do these individual fake electors around the country respond to increasing pressure from prosecutors working in multiple different jurisdictions? >> betsy woodruff swan, thank you for spending time with us. the rest of the panel sticks around. we'll get to them on the other side of a quick break. the rest s the rest s aroundechnology that can scale across all your clouds... it's easier to do more innovative things. [whistling]

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we think that there's a comprehensive and meticulous documentary record of this president's continuing incitement of the mob, his targeting of vice president pence, and his shocking, startling, and unprecedented from the standpoint of other presidents, indifference to the fate of a coordinate branch of government and the people in it as well as his own vice president, so i think all of that is well shown, but also, i hope that people will get the sense, both from the witnesses

who appear, the documentary evidence, and the statements of the members who are speaking tonight about the continuing danger that's posed to our constitutional republic. >> we are back with our panel. claudia, this ongoing threat, this continuing danger has been an animating principle for this committee since its inception. the two witnesses tonight quit over what they saw on january 6th. talk about what we should expect to hear from them. >> right. we understand that matthew pottinger, and this is the former deputy national security advisor to the trump white house, as well as sarah matthews, this is the former deputy white house press secretary, both will be appearing before the committee, in-person. we are familiar with matthews. we saw clips of her in the previous hearing talking about how the former president at that time was in a, quote, fantastic mood the day before january 6th, because sounds from a rally that

evening before were flowing into the white house to the point of shaking the oval and that the then-president had been in a foul mood, and finally, his mood had lifted with all of these sounds of these rallygoers. and so we're going to hear a continuation of that perspective and how what they heard, how what they saw on january 6th forced these trump white house aides to resign their positions. they were obviously alarmed. matthews, for example, talked about it publicly. she talked about how she worked at the capitol and how disturbing it was for her to see what happened. and so, this is what we're going to see the committee bring before us, this continuation of hearing the story of january 6th, the weeks leading up to it through those who were in the trump white house and those who were trying to set off alarms to the then-president and others that this path that he was

continuing on would be dangerous for democracy and the ultimate build-up we saw on the day of the attack. >> rick, to claudia's point, the case has been made by the most senior advisors to donald trump, and the fact that, as jeremy said, tonight is about dereliction of duty. their star witness is a former deputy national security advisor. >> yes, so it is about dereliction of duty, and here is the president's duty. one of the few things the constitution says about what the president does is the "take care" clause. he must take care that the laws be faithfully executed. that's not like you and me. we don't have to do anything if a law is being violated, but as the chief executive of the united states, you're completely responsible for making sure that the laws are executed. if they're not, you're negligent. in fact, that is the first rule of tort law, which is that you're required to take care to prevent something negative from happening. that requirement is even higher for the president of the united states. that's what we're going to see tonight, that he did absolutely

nothing during those 187 minutes, and he has more responsibility to do something, to see that the laws are faithfully executed, than any human being on the planet. >> and jeremy, i think if the pattern of the previous hearings comes to pass tonight, he did nothing in the face of everyone coming in and asking him to do something more than nothing. >> yeah, i think negligence is just the floor, actually. i think building on what richard had said, you know, there was recklessness. i think there's intent. i mean, think about this, nicole. if a congressional delegation of members of congress was traveling overseas and their hotel was attacked by some terrorist organization and they were being threatened, physically threatened, with lethal harm and the president was called and said, please help, make sure that military assets or other diplomatic security elements could go rescue members of congress, and

he sat in the dining room eating a big mac with his feet on the table, twiddling his thumbs, i think he'd say, that's beyond negligence. that's recklessness. that's intent. it's clear he wanted those members of congress to be under attack. he wanted his own vice president to be under attack. he thought that the attack on the capitol benefitted him politically, because he thought it was his way of retaining power, which was his ambitious at all costs. and so, in some ways, the sin of omission, i think, is kind of interesting, but it's the sin of comission, the intentionality, the direct, active participation in this armed assault on the capitol that i think is the most powerful piece of evidence at the january 6th committee has put before the american people. >> it's such a good point, and claudia, we don't know what we don't know. we don't know what they will present tonight. every public hearing has featured something that no one saw coming, and to build on jeremy's point, i mean, in the crimes of comission part, the committee has laid out the

beginning of a case that could paint trump as a participant in seditious conspiracy. >> right. all along, these hearings are presenting a large message this committee has been hitting for a while now, which is they are saying, the then-president committed crimes along the way when it came to this effort to try to overturn the results and then culminating on january 6th in this failed effort to try and force his then vice president to finish that mission for him. and so, this is what the panel has been building up to is this hearing, and ultimately showing that for hours, he sat, watching the television, watching the violence on television unfold and did nothing until finally that video statement where he did tell rioters to go home, but at the same time, he said they were loved and they were very special, and so just the struggle in term of aides trying to get the then-president to

change his tune, took hours just to get him to that moment. so, this is what the panel is getting to when they deliver the details and fill us in on the gaps that we saw that day in terms of what the president was and was not doing. >> and i'm reminded, as you speak, claudia, that there's a -- there are gaps in a phone log as well, so as we look for the gaps to be filled in, i'll be watching for that as well. everyone sticks around. still ahead for all of us, there is another conviction to tell you about of another january 6th rioter, and it comes as we're learning much, much more about what motivated the rioters themselves. quick break for us. h more about what motivated the rioters themselves quick break for us

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it took a jury just a few hours today to convict a self-described loud mouth who was at the at the vicks on january 6th. matthew bledsoe of memphis tennessee, who scaled a wall before entering the u.s. capital tried to convince jurors he thought he was allowed to do that. he thought he was allowed inside. jeremy and rick are still with us. rick, the rioters themselves are the only ones so far to have really faced accountability from the department of justice, but everything we hear suggests that the january 6th hearings may be changing that. what do you think? >> i think they are. the january 6th committee is allowing out a road map for the justice department. they're laying out a road map

for the american people. we have been saying on this program for months now, the obstruction of a legal proceeding is very obvious conspiracy to defraud the u.s., which essentially means the same thing. just before break you talked about seditious conspiracy. i think that's what the 187 minutes is going to show tonight, that he was part of a conspiracy, a seditious conspiracy to overthrow the government. and as jeremy said, it's an active comission, not an act of omission. by doing nothing, he allowed the people who he had empowered to try to overthrow the government and overthrow the election. i think that's crystal clear. >> it's also the why. the what and the shiny object is that he sat there watching tv. but the why is because he was in on it. >> yes, because he didn't want to do anything to interrupt what was happening. >> what he put in motion. >> yes, what he put in motion, oversaw it, and very reluctantly was forced to have to do

something to interrupt it. >> jeremy, so much of the frame that is still used to talk about 9/11 was a failure of imagination. do you think we still have a failure of imagination when it comes to donald trump's depravity? >> oh, definitively, nicole. i think it's so hard to contemplate if you're an institutionalist, or schooled in the classics of political science, or american political history, it's so hard to contemplate the idea that the president would launch a war against our own country, against our own constitution, that he would be the arsonist to try to burn down our democracy. unlike someone who did nothing -- i hope no one says those words tonight. he didn't do nothing. he's like the joker in the batman moves. he set the city ablaze and watched while it burned and did nothing. that is an active attempt to burn down the citadel of democracy. and so, yeah, the prosecutors have been going after the guys scaling walls, trying to break

window, and those were the foot soldiers, but undoubtedly donald trump was the leader of the movement, the leader of the domestic assault on our capital. >> claudia, i'm sorry i didn't introduce you when we came back from break. something compared to to a hit and crime. >> that's what this committee is trying to say -- that inaction by the then president on that day during very critical hours of this attack on the capitol, even his aides pleaded with trump to do something to do something, issue a statement. his own son, his daughter verena hanshaw trump, a white house adviser at the time, were going in to try to get the then president the try to take action, so that's what this whole hearing will present to the american public is that this is the struggle that took

several hours for trump to make a statement, and even then many felt it fell short because it was not a strong declaration for the rioters to leave and what they had done was wrong. >> yeah, i think weak tea is the word for it. claudia, jeremy, rick, thank you so much for being part of our coverage today. we are now two hours away from one of the most important congressional hearings ever. certainly the most important january 6th hearing to date. if you plan to watch, consider watching with all of usle we'll get through it together. you, meet, steph ruhle, chris haste, rachel maddow at the helm, ari melber. we'll start at 7:00 with our special coverage. the hearing starts at 8:00. thank you so much for letting us into your homes on this very busy thursday. we are so grateful. our coverage continues on "the beat" with ari melber after a quick break. stay with us. ari melber after quick break. quick break. stay with us

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welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. we are tracking a lot of news, including what everybody has their eye on, the january 6th committee's primetime hearing, their final hearing expected to detail trump's inaction during the insurrection and comes hour after president biden got a diagnosis today. white house saying it's mild symptoms, he's taking medication and is double boosted. you see the video where he says he's doing well. any update we'll tell you. the chairman bennie thompson has contracted covid also this week, so he'll participate virtually. the focus is on