whatever your politics, whatever you think about the outcome of the election, we as americans must all agree on this: donald trump's conduct on january 6th was a supreme violation of his oath of office and a complete dereliction of his duty to our nation. >> in the end, this is not as it may appear, a story of inaction in a time of crisis. but, instead, it was the final action of donald trump's own plan to assert the will of the american people and remain in power. >> the eighth public hearing, the second in primetime by the house committee investigating the january 6th attack on the capitol documented former president donald trump's dereliction of duty for choosing not to act to stop the assault

on the u.s. capitol. instead, for 187 minutes, between leaving the ellipse and telling the mob to go home, the 45th president of the united states first argued with secret service agents who refused to take him to the capitol. then after returning to the white house, sat in a small, private dining room off the oval office, transfixed by the violence he saw playing out on fox news. which showed the capitol under siege. trump learned just 11 minutes after returning that the protest had turned violent, but he did not make any calls to intervene. failing to reach out to the secretary of defense, the attorney general, or the department of homeland security. instead, he demanded a list of senators' phone numbers, calling and encouraging them to delay or object to the certification of the electoral college count.

while the president's official call log from the white house that afternoon is empty, trump placed at least two other calls that day. not to the military or the police but to rudy giuliani. for hours, trump ignored pleas by his aides, members of congress, and even his own daughter to call off the violence as it unfolded before his eyes. even refusing at one point to include the word "peace" in a tweet. while the vice president, mike pence, gave orders to the military to stop the attack, trump tweeted out that pence lacked courage. this while members of the vice president's secret service detail called their loved ones to say final farewells. they knew their lives were in jeopardy, as rioters came within just feet of the vice president. it was only after those officers defending the capitol began to turn the tide that trump relented and recorded a video in

the rose garden, telling his supporters to leave the capitol. but he ignored the prepared draft of his remarks and, instead, praised them, telling them, "go home. we love you." at 6:27 p.m., donald trump left the white house dining room to go to the residence, reflecting on the day's events. he said nothing about the attack. instead, he reportedly turned to a white house employee and remarked, "mike pence let me down." >> mike pence let donald trump down. mike pence, whose life was in danger, mike pence's wife, whose life was endangered, mike pence's family, whose life was in danger because of donald trump, and because donald trump poured kerosene on the fire when mike pence was in his gravest danger and his family was in its

gravest danger, by sending out a tweet attacking mike pence. knowing full well that it would only incite the mob even more. he also resent a speech after being notified that the capitol was under attack. he tweeted. what did he tweet? he retweeted his speech from earlier that day, telling them to go up to the capitol. so here you have -- and we have a theme here with donald trump's republican party. here you have an east coast elitist, an ivy league billionaire, that's playing phony populist, lying to the american people, lying to his supporters, whipping working class people into a frenzy that followed him closely, getting them to come up because they believed that the election had been stolen.

it's what he'd been telling them nonstop. and what does he do? he sits there and lets them beat the hell out of police officers, beat the hell out of cops. he's not the only ivy league elitist who did that. we saw yesterday, again, the hypocrisy. we saw yesterday yale and stanford graduate josh hawley, another ivy league elitist who took on this phony populist post. we were talking about it yesterday, dr. oz, you know, mr. san francisco, mr. venture capitalist. >> jd vance. >> you know, jd vance. we've got all these elitists that went to all these ivy league schools playing populous with deadly results. >> yeah. >> here you have josh hawley who, again, went to yale, went

to stanford, the elitist's elitist, holding up his bird power signal. there was a cop who, when he was doing that, cop saw hawley doing that. >> because he was right there near them, and they were protecting them. >> made him mad. because she noted, he was doing this behind the line that they had created, from a point of safety while the crowd was getting riled up. so she's looking at this guy who does this just heinous pose, then we find out later that after he whipped the frenzy up, the mob into a frenzy, he ran like a coward. he ran like a coward from the mob that he, himself,

instigated. there he is running. running away from the mob while cops are getting the hell beaten out of them because of him and because of donald trump. he runs away to safety. the cops are on the front line getting beaten so badly that they're thinking of their childre that they're going to be believing behind. begging the mob, the insur rerks insurrectionists to spare their lives. you have mike pence's cops calling home, saying their good-byes. they thought it was like 9/11. >> these are secret service agents. >> who were -- >> you know, calling home to say good-bye, mika. these cowards, these ivy league, faux populists whip up crowds, have no idea the impact.

hawley had no idea the impact it was going to have. then runs like a coward from the very mob he helped create. >> this is why those text messages from the secret service might be incredibly valuable, because they were saying good-bye to their wives and loved ones. here's the audio, by the way, the committee played of secret service agents scrambling to lead then vice president mike pence to safety, as the mob closed in on january 6th. take a listen. >> as rioters were entering the building, the secret service held vice president pence in his office right off the senate chamber for 13 minutes, as they worked to clear a safe path to a secure location. now listen to some of that radio traffic and see what they were seeing as the protesters got just feet away from where the vice president was holding. >> hold, they've entered the building. >> hold. >> harden that door up.

>> if we're moving, we need to move now. >> copy. >> if we lose any more time, we may have -- we may lose the ability to leave. if we're going to leave, we need to do it now. >> they've gained access to the second floor, and i've got public about five feet from me below. >> copy. >> they are on the second floor. moving in now. we may want to consider heading out and leaving now. copy. >> will we encounter the people once we make our way? >> repeat. >> any individuals as we make our way to the -- >> [ bleep ]. >> there's six officers between us and the people that are five to ten feet away. >> i am going down to evaluate. >> go ahead. >> we have a clear shot if we move quickly. >> we have smoke downstairs. standby. unknown smoke downstairs. >> by the protesters? >> is the route compromised? >> we had the [ bleep ] is

secure. we will bypass some protesters being contained. there is smoke. unknown what kind of smoke it is. copy? >> clear, we're coming out now. all right. make a way. >> the president's national security council staff was listening to these developments and tracking them in real time. on the screen, you can see excerpts from the chat logs among the president's national council -- national security council staff. at 2:13, the staff learned that the rioters were kicking in the windows at the capitol. three minutes later, the staff said the vice president was being pulled, which meant agents evacuated him from the senate floor. at 2:24, the staff noted that the secret service agents at the capitol did not, quote, sound good right now. earlier, you heard from a security professional who had been working in the white house complex on january 6th, with access to relevant information

and a responsibility to report to national security officials. we asked this person, what was meant by the comment that the secret service agents did not, quote, sound good right now? in the following clip of that testimony, which has been modified to protect the individual's identity, the professional discussing what they heard from listening to the incoming radio traffic that day. >> okay, that last entry on the page is, the secret service doesn't sound good right now. >> correct. >> what's that mean? >> the members of the vp detail at this time were starting to fear for their own lives. there were a lot of -- there was a lot of yelling. a lot of, um -- a lot of very personal calls over the radio. it was disturbing. i don't like talking about it, but there were calls to say

good-bye to family members, so on and so forth. it was getting -- for whatever the reason was on the ground, the vp detail thought that this was about to get very ugly. >> and did you hear that over the radio? what was the response by the agents -- the secret service agents who were there? >> everybody kept saying, you know, at that point, it was just reassurances. i think there were discussions of reinforcements coming, but, again, it was just chaos. they were just yelling. >> obviously, you've conveyed it was disturbing, but what prompted you to put it into an entry, as it states there? >> if they're running out of options and getting nervous, it sounds like we came very close to either something happening to have to use legal options or worse. at that point, i don't know. is the vp compromised? is the detail? i don't know. we didn't have visibility but if

they're screaming and saying things like good-bye to the family. >> we found out later, of course, what he couldn't have known that day, in that moment, that they were 2 to 3 minutes away from being trapped and possibly being -- confronting these rioters, this mob, this angry mob that donald trump and josh hawley whipped into a frenzy. and this mob that wanted to hang mike pence. so that's one of the things that we found, is things were far more dangerous for mike pence than originally thought. even when we knew that the guy was close to being captured by the mob. and, again, to underline this, donald trump, when he knew mike pence and mike pence's wife and mike pence's family, when he knew they were in danger, that's when he sent out a tweet attacking him, to whip the mob into a greater frenzy. of course, that's when pottinger

and so many others, matthews and so many others decided to quit, at that moment. because they understood the danger that donald trump had put him in. and what was that sociopath's final words that day? "mike pence let me down." he is a heinous human being. >> watching the secret service -- >> he is a heinous human being. >> something -- >> by the way, there are people all around him who has had extraordinarily horrible judgment, who enabled him through charlottesville, who enabled him through everything. >> covid, ukraine. >> these people were calling, begging him to stop. his family members were begging him to stop. fox news hosts were calling, begging him to stop. his children were begging him to stop. everybody around him was begging him to stop.

and he was the sociopath that stood above the crowd. he was even more vile and more repugnant than everybody else around him. and wanted his vice president to die. said his vice president deserved dying. my god, i mean, you listen to this testimony, and you wonder -- i'm not criticizing merrick garland. i want to be very clear. not criticizing merrick garland. be very clear. but you wonder how this guy is not already in jail. it's staggering. >> public servants, public servants protecting the capitol, secret service, cops, with no president. with the president on the side of the attackers. that is wrenching. >> mika, you had mike pence,

according to testimony, chairman of the joint chiefs calling and having to call to get support. send in the military now. said he was very firm, very direct. then you had mitch mcconnell calling them, too, calling the acting secretary of defense, saying, "get down. clean this up. we're not going to let them stop this vote. clean it up, and tell us when we can go back and start voting again." so you have the vice president, you have mitch mcconnell, and then you have the other republican, donald trump, who won't do a thing. >> so let's bring in the host of "way too early" and white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. member of the "new york times" editorial board mara gay.

historian michael bbeschloss. former officer with the cia, mark. and jonathan swan. perhaps a rapid fire, key takeaway. >> let's do that. michael beschloss, i know this hasn't happened before. i asked during the trump years, is there a historic parallel? i don't have to ask that. i don't play by the marcus of queensbury rules. i'm not going to ask it. >> hope not. >> i'm going to ask you to give me your thoughts as an american, as a historian. >> biggest takeaway. >> you know, my biggest takeaway is people are talking about dereliction of duty, and i almost don't like that. that implies that this was a spontaneous uprising at the capitol, and donald trump was sort of reacting to what was happening. i think hearing by hearing, everything we're finding out suggests that he was at the

center of a blueprint for a coup. ginni thomas was calling back and forth to donald trump's chief of staff. he was calling members of congress. we certainly know the secret service was involved. there was a possibility, as you've been both saying, mika and joe, this morning, that this involved intended assassinations. never thought i'd say this about an american president, intended assassinations of the vice president of the united states. we certainly have that quote from trump saying mike pence deserves to be hanged. also, do we think he would have been unhappy if someone, god forbid, had gone after nancy pelosi or other congressional leaders? you look at authoritarians in history who try to overthrow governments. there's usually an assassination. that, i think, is one question that we've got to ask about the secret service.

>> yeah. there was a part of the testimony last night, marc, that hit you personally. it was when the secret service started calling home to say good-bye. you said you had done that yourself while working in the cia, but never imagined that cia -- that secret service agents would have to make the same call because of a president's actions. >> that's right, joe. you know, i remember clearly the day it happened. september 12th, 2006. at a u.s. embassy in the middle east. my wife and i were in the embassy. al qaeda attacked the embassy. car bomb went off. a shootout on the street. grenades and ak-47 fire hitting the embassy. my wife and i call family members and say good-bye. make no mistake, that was al qaeda attacking the embassy. in my view, and hearing the testimony of the official, and

the secret service transcripts brought me back to that day. but this happened in america, in our nation's capitol. it reinforces the notion that this was a domestic terrorist attack. boy, for a lot of us, you know, who were in the arena, you know, serving overseas and had to say good-bye, you know, to family members when we go off and do dangerous things, it was harrowing, listening to that last night. >> yeah. jonathan lemire, you obviously cover the white house during the trump and still are. what was your takeaway from what you learned last night? >> yeah, there was so much last night, joe. certainly that moment there, the agents calling to say good-bye. perhaps the most powerful. but i think to put up on michael beschloss' point, this was donald trump choosing not to act. this was not the president at that moment being unable to or failing to. he chose to not act. and i think that's what is so striking. we'll get to later in the show that even after the violence on

the january 6th, when he put out a twitter video later on the 6th and gave a speech on the 7th, we saw outtakes with him still refusing to go against the rioters and saying he didn't want to admit the election was over. that was most striking. despite what he saw, despite knowing, and those national security chats, the president also knew the vice president was in danger within 15 minutes of the rioters breaching the capitol. he didn't care. what he cared about was the lie. he and rudy giuliani kept pressing that point with republican senators, calling them even during the violence to say, "hey, don't give up the fight. we can still win this election." >> i mean, if you wonder, perhaps, why it's taking so long for perhaps the justice department in whatever they're doing to figure this out, it may not be that they don't see a problem. it may be that there are so many problems here. there are so many issues.

which way to go? where, where is their criminal behavior with the most intent beyond a reasonable doubt? whether it is dereliction of duty or actual criminal acts, something really hellish went down at the capitol, and president trump was at the core, is what this hearing really put to the table last night. mara gay, what was your biggest take away? >> i think for me, it's the continuing and ever-present threat that's so disturbing the. because it is, unfortunately, not just one day we have to worry about, but we have a rolling coup attempt. we have a group of people in the united states, a small but dez dedicated and violent group of people willing to use violence to overturn our democracy. that has not gone away. i think when you see the people who enabled this and who stirred up the crowd, it's not just donald trump. i was extremely disturbed seeing that image we just saw again of josh hawley, which is the perfect example of this. he's still a part of an

ascendant movement in american life. that is not going away. you still have missing text messages from secret service agents. we still have questions about why it is it took four hours to deploy the national guard. so there's a lot left to unpack in terms of how to strengthen our democracy, and we really need to accept that there was a violent attempt to overthrow the dually elected president of the united states, or to prevent him from coming into office. >> yeah. >> we need to think about this as an ever-present threat. it's not just one day. >> jonathan swan, to mara's point, the president is still making calls right now, saying the election was stolen and trying to garner support. we know that violence is the outcome of pushing this big lie, pushing that anger to a breaking point. >> i spoke to a member of the select committee probably a couple months ago, and they were

expressing to me their concern that, with our obsession in the media about secrecy, you know, what is happening behind closed doors, where's the smoking gun, as they were thinking about preparing these hearings, this member of the select committee said to me, you know, it is a who done it, but we know who done it. they said, what i worry about, i'm paraphrasing them, what i worry about is so much of this happened in plain sight. we tend to, in the media -- i do this, i'm guilty of this. we all do it, i think. we devalue what is right in front of our eyes, and we always look for the thing that's hidden. so much of this happened in public. one thing they tried to do last night was to counter a narrative that some republican members of congress and others have been pushing, which is that this was basically just a bunch of tourists, you know, happy boomers taking photos on a retirement lap around the capitol. that's part of why they wanted

to show that, actually, no, this was very violent, menacing, and the people who were, you know, really hard core security people, police and others charged with defending the capitol members, were scared for their lives. that's what i thought was striking about last night. it recalled to me the conversation i had. part of the select committee's mission is actually just reminding americans what they saw with their own eyes and what happened in public, and not that we need to see something that we don't know about or a smoking gun or an incremental private detail that is suddenly going to be revelatory. we know what happened. >> we know what happened, but as mika brought up about the investigation into this, and as mara brought up about how long it took to move, michael beschloss, we still have so many questions that need to be answered. we need to know, as mara asked,

why did it take four hours for the national guard to move when everybody was watching their tv across this country and saying, "where the hell is the national guard?" why did the secret service destroy evidence of donald trump, the main plotter's actions that day? why did they destroy that evidence after they had been put on notice by an inspector general at the united states congress that they were to turn over that evidence? why did the inspector general of the department of homeland security take part in a cover-up to not let congress know that the secret service had destroyed the evidence that would have told us exactly what donald trump was doing on january 5th and january 6th? there are a lot of questions. i'm the first, and sometimes my wife suggests that i'm a bit too optimistic about this country,

but i'm the first to talk about all the ways the system held. all the federal judges that stepped up and did the right thing. the republican officials from georgia and michigan that stepped up to do the right thing when they knew it'd probably end their political career. i can go down the list of ways the system sustained itself when faced with this fascist attempt to overthrow a united states election. that said, we have so many questions. the failures of the secret service. the failures of the national guard coming in. failure of law enforcement to step up and move faster. so many questions now that still remain. >> if we believe in the tooth fairy, all those things happened accidentally. donald trump just happened to have other things to do for four hours rather than calling up the national guard and saying, "protect our congress. protect our vice president.

protect our country." maybe it was an accident that the secret service destroyed all these texts. and maybe it was also an accident that donald trump, in that dining room next to the oval office, said, "no pictures." if we believe in the tooth fairy, this is one accident after another. i don't believe in the tooth fairy. i think that this was a plan from the beginning to try to wage a coup d'etat against our democracy that might have resulted in the murder of mike pence on that gallows outside, a physical assault on nancy pelosi and others, with people running through the hall saying, "where's nancy?" that didn't happen by accident, either. i believe it was a close call, because if someone had grabbed those wooden boxes with those electoral votes inside, anddispd if the election had not been certified that day, or if mike pence was, god forbid, harmed or

taken to some undisclosed location, we could have had a hostage crisis. we could have a president invoking martial law. this was a very close call. all of us have to resolve that we, as americans, will never allow ourselves to live through a moment like that ever again. >> yeah. although you've broken the hearts of many children -- >> many children. >> -- about the reality of the tooth fairy. >> let me say, kids. >> it does exist. >> michael was joking when he said there is no tooth fairy. there is. >> right, right. >> bottom line, reality matters and we have to face it as a country. michael beschloss, thank you so much. everyone else, stay with us. we have so much more on donald trump's 187 minutes of inaction on january 6th. what happened at the white house the day after the insurrection? we'll play for you the never-before-seen outtakes of trump's january 7th speech. plus, the latest on the secret service scandal connected

to the capitol attack. a criminal investigation will now look at what led to agents deleting critical text messages from before and after the riot. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> here's the worst part, donald trump knows that millions of americans who supported him would stand up and defend our nation were it threatened. it would put their lives and their freedom at stake to protect her. and he is preying on their patriotism. he is preying on their sense of justice. and on january 6th, donald trump turned their love of country into a weapon against our capitol and our constitution. he has purposefully created the false impression that america is threatened by a foreign force controlling voting machines, or that a wave of tens of millions

of false ballots were secretly injected into our election system, or that ballot workers have secret thumb drives and are stealing elections with them. all complete nonsense. with them with them all complete nonsense. if maga republicans get their way, abortion will be banned nationwide, with no exceptions. medicare and social security will end in five years, with no replacem elections will be decided by politicians, with no regard for your vote. if maga republicans get back in power, your rights, benefits and freedoms will be in danger. democrats will protect your rights. and the only way to stop

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talk to your doctor about rinvoq. learn how abbvie can help you save. a monster was attacking but the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. or... his nose. during this chaos, what did president trump do at that point? he went back to calling senators that try to further delay the electoral count. while the vice president was being evacuated from the senate, president trump called senator tommy tupperville, one of his strongest supporters in the senate. senator tuberville said he had to end the call to leave the chamber himself. >> he called somebody else, they handed to me, and i said, "mr.

president, we're not doing much work right now because they just took our vice president out. matter of fact, i'm going to have to hang up on you. i've got to leave." >> 14 minutes after former president trump criticized his vice president in a tweet, he sent another saying, quote, please support our capitol police and law enforcement. they are truly on the side of our country. stay peaceful, exclamation point. we learn trump argued against including any mention of peace in that tweet. congressman adam kinzinger laid out how militia groups like the oath keepers took president trump's half-heartened denouncement of the violence as a signal to continue. watch. >> president trump's message was heard clearly by ali alexander, a stop the steal organizer. 2:38, he told another organizer, potus is not ignorant of what his words would do. rioters storming the capitol

also heard president trump's message. in this video, you'll see surveillance footage from the ro roh rotunda. you'll hear jessica watkins, charged with conspiracy, her walkie-talkie communications as they communicate about president trump's 2:38 tweet in real time. again, we warn the audience this clip also contains strong language. >> cnn just said that they evacuated all members of congress into a safety room. >> there's no safe place in the united states for any of these [ bleep ] right now. let me tell ya. >> they understand that we are not joking around. >> it's military principle 105. military principle 105, cave means grave. >> trump just tweeted, "please

support our capitol police. they are on our side. do not harm them." >> that's saying a lot, but what he didn't say, he didn't say nothing to do anything to the congressmen. >> well, he did not ask them to stand down. he just said stand by the capitol police. they are on our side, and they are good people. so it's getting real down there. i got it on tv, and it's looking pretty radical to me. cnn said that trump has egged this on, that he is egging it on and that he is watching the country burn two weeks before he leaves office. he is not leaving office. i don't give a [ bleep ] what they say. >> we are in the main dome right now. we are rocking it. they're throwing grenades. they're shooting people with paintballs, but we are in here. >> be safe. be safe. god bless. godspeed. keep going. >> get it, jess. do your [ bleep ]. this is what we [ bleep ] lived up for.

everything we [ bleep ] trained for. >> we're going to the capitol. overran the capitol. >> we're in the [ bleep ] capitol. >> marc, of course, you listen to that, this was planned all along. donald trump, he had it planned. he knew exactly what he was doing. he knew exactly what impact his words would have. he knew exactly what message would be sent when he told the proud boys to stand back and stand by. recruitment went up. he knew the signals that he was always sending. it's pretty remarkable, we get it firsthand from the people that -- the mob that -- the leaders of the mob that were attacking the capitol that day. you know, while on the other side of pennsylvania avenue, you had everybody in donald trump's orbit, everybody begging him to send a message out that would stop the rioters. he just simply refused for another two hours.

>> that's right. so, you know, joe, i spent my entire career running counterterrorism operations. this was clearly a preplanned event. this was not spontaneous. you're not going to find anybody in my old line of work who would make that argument. but as i watched the hearings last night, and, of course, i remember the terrible day, i think of my friend, former cia officer and congresswoman abigail spanberger who, that day, performed heroically. she was asking other members of congress to remove their pins so they wouldn't be identified if the capitol was overrun. she was helping shield members of the press. you know, when you hear stories like that, i talked to abigail numerous times, i think, you know, president trump's -- and i wouldn't say inaction, i would say deliberate lack of action, you know, that really disgraces those police officers who fought back that day. congresswoman spanberger who performed heroically. look, the world is watching. one of the things that i take, you know, from this entire kind of really necessary

accountability of what happened on january 6th, is that sometimes americans don't understand, the world is watching us. failure to hold those accountable is something that's going to really damage the united states in the national security field. our allies are watching because they see the degradation of democracy, and our enemies are cheering this because they see the united states which, for a long time, you know, when we saw russians, iranians or chinese diplomats at international forum and talked to them about what america meant, right now, they say, "look, you don't practice what you preach. look what happened in your country." this is really an important, seminole moment for the united states. accountability does mean deterrence. >> it does. mara gay, it's -- it seems to me that anybody who claims this is political just doesn't understand the law and what the meaning of our democracy is. it's not political at all. this was many, many crimes committed against our government and driven by one man, if you

watch these hearings and listen to this sworn testimony. and i'm curious, hearing from these different groups, the oath keepers and the militias, to hear the recordings, they begin to listen to trump parsing words. it makes me think of those two words that were said on the debate stage, stand back and stand by. this was their moment. >> it's heartbreaking. i think it is extremely important that we start repeatedly using the phrase domestic terrorism. because that is what this is and was. you know, we also need to try and reflect about why it is that our law enforcement agencies so underestimated the threat that these militias and others like them posed, not just on that day, but also just the ongoing threat they continue to pose to our democracy and to fellow

citizens. i think as a black american, honestly, it is doubly heartbreaking because when you're a black american, you're never american enough. you don't get to be american. so you can't help but contrast those images that we just saw and that footage we listened to of militias bragging about being urged on by donald trump, that they're going to take this country back, essentially. you contrast that with eugene goodman, the black capital capitol police officer who is there trying to save members of congress. the contrast is striking. you don't get to be an american patriot when you're black, but, yet, there's donald trump sitting in the white house, in the office abe lincoln sat in, deliberately doing nothing as american democracy is on fire. so what does that tell you?

we need to really reflect as a country about what this means and what that day stood for and was about and continues to be about. >> yeah. and as i said, on january 7th, the day after, that crowd had been black, things would have gotten ugly very quickly. there's no doubt the national guard would have been called in immediately, maybe protesters would have been killed. if they were muslim, as i said the day after, they would put snipers on the roof and start shooting. it's just -- that's just the reality. you know, i sat there enraged like all of you did, like americans did. >> screaming at the tv. >> just let them walk through the capitol. didn't call any backups. just absolutely outrageous. i will say, if any american doesn't think officer goodman is

not american enough, they don't -- they're not members of my country. i mean, they're just not. i mean, that's an extraordinary example. >> and there's so many. >> many extraordinary examples that day of capitol hill cops who stood in the breach and helped -- >> held the line. >> -- protect and defend our democracy. jonathan swan, as bad as it was, you have new reporting on how the second term that donald trump is preparing for could even be worse. >> joe, what i have today is the first of a two-part series i've been working on for months, which shows that there is much more detailed work and planning going on for a second term trump administration than has been previously reported. obviously, trump himself remains obsessed with the 2020 election, as you've outlined, calling officials, trying to overturn it. but what he has done quietly is he has empowered some of his key, trusted, former advisers and senior officials in his administration, and he's funded.

he's wired money to their groups. what they're doing is quite vast. i laid out in the piece, it can't easily be summarized on tv, but it's got multiple elements. the core of it is they're already building databases of names, potential personnel, who they're vetting as being loyal to donald trump and committed to his america first ideology. they've gots of name already, multiple databases, and are working in loose coordination with each other. there is another dimension based around a legal strategy, which most of your viewers probably don't -- haven't heard about. it is called schedule f. this was a plan that trump's team developed during his administration, in complete secrecy. they issued it as an executive order 13 days before the election. it got media coverage at the time but was buried in the crazy chaos after the election. what it does, it is quite radical. it allows a president to

reassign tens of thousands of federal career civil servants in a new category that they're calling schedule f. what that allows them to do is it removes all their employment protections. it allows the president to fire them and replace them with loyalists. so if you think about that, what the preparations that are going on right now, biden rescinded that order immediately, but trump going to put it back in straightaway if he gets back in. this is why they're building such a huge labor force, is because they're not intending just to replace the 4,000 political appointees that are normally replaced every administration. they're looking at more beyond that, career civil servants who typically continue from one administration to the other. anyway, i encourage people to read the piece. i put a lot of -- there's deep reporting. there's a lot in there. it is a two part, one today, one tomorrow. tomorrow's piece goes really deep into how they're making these vetting decisions.

the scenes at mar-a-lago and some of the characters that are now in trump's inner circle and likely to get big jobs. one of the people i describe in detail is jeffrey clark, who was the only official at the justice department willing to use the force of the justice department to try to contest the election. trump kept him in his orbit. he is on the payroll of a key group. he was at mar-a-lago in one of these sessions, talking about the potential top-level staffing of the doj in 2025 under trump. so there's a lot in there, but we thought it was important to publish it at length. you know, this is really serious. it's not just -- >> yeah. >> -- a bunch of people who sort of are bloviating. it's people who worked in the administration, who are adept, working on these plans with trump's blessing and, in some cases, trump's direct funding and fundraising support. >> buying them off. >> of course, if you read anne

applebaum's latest book, "twilight of democracy," she talks about how strong men, when they take power, the first thing they do is they gut the government of competent bureaucrats. who do they put in place? loyalists. it all becomes about loyalty. it all becomes a personality cult. all of those people who pushed back on donald trump the first term would not be pushing back against donald trump in the second term. you have a guy that knows about oil spills, that wanted to take over the justice department. of course, we laugh about it when we heard it, but, again, this is deadly serious. it is exactly what strong men do when they take over. they get incompetent loyaltyists in their government so they end up with something like, well, russia. you have vladimir putin in power, and nobody can check him, even when he does something that is destroying his own country. >> again, showing donald trump

is still very much in action on all of this. >> yeah. now, i do want to say, though, jonathan lemire, these hearings politically, i believe, have left a mark. you look at fundraising for donald trump. down significantly since the hearings began. you look at fundraising for republicans, especially the senate races. they're getting -- in key senate races, they're getting absolutely obliterated by democrats. a lot of that may have to do with the supreme court decisions. a lot of that may have to do with the mass chaos because republicans support 18-year-olds with mental defects being able to buy weapons of war without any safeguards. but at the same time, though, donald trump, there is no doubt he, according to people close to him, he's obviously, if not panicked, very, very concerned that these january 6th hearings have had a real impact.

>> yeah, jonathan swan's reporting provides this split-screen. trump and his loyalists are preparing for a new administration, but the events of the last weeks really endanger that possibility. i think we should be clear up front. trump is still the favorite right now for the gop nomination in 2024, were he to run, but he's definitely taken on some damage here. people close to him recognize that. that is where there is a sense from the former president, that's why his timetable is accelerating. though most republicans want to talk him out of declaring his candidacy before the midterms, thinking he'd be an unnecessary distraction, it is not clear they're going to be successful. he is getting antsy. he wants to be out there and try to fend off a challenge within the gop, but also to protect himself, perhaps, from criminal prosecution. also to change the topic of conversation from these hearings. the problem with that is it's the only thing he talks about. he is obsessed still with january 6th and obsessed with the 2020 election. as much as other republicans

want to look forward, he still wants to relitigate the past. to your point, joe, that's why some in the gop are seeing an opening. his former vice president, mike pence, and desantis are taking steps toward running, even if trump does. while they do believe he is the most powerful voice in the republican party, he is wounded and perhaps more vulnerable than ever before. >> jonathan swan, mara gay, thank you both very much for being on this morning. still ahead, we're going to have much more from last night's primetime hearing, including reaction from former trump campaign officials to the former president's silence on the death of capitol police officer. plus, a dhs watchdog has launched a criminal probe into the circumstances surrounding the destruction of those secret service text messages that may have been relevant to inquiries about the capitol riot. nbc's julia ainsley joins us

with her new reporting this morning. also ahead, what the white house is saying about president biden's coronavirus diagnosis. we'll check in with the white house covid response cooperator, dr. ashish jha. "morning joe" will be right back. because it works... and so do i. ♪♪ hydration beyond the hype. ♪♪ "morning joe" will be right back

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we have evidence from multiple sources regarding an angry exchange in the presidential suv. including testimony we will disclose today from two witnesses who confirmed that a confrontation occurred. the first witness is a former white house employee with national security responsibilities. after seeing the initial violence at the capitol on tv, the individual went to see tony arenado, the deputy chief of staff. he was there with the president's lead secret service agent. this employee told us that mr. arenado said that the

president was, quote, irate when mr. ingle refused to drive him to the capitol. mr. ingle did not refute what mr. ornato said. the second witness is retired sergeant mark robinson of the d.c. police department, who was assigned to the president's motorcade that day. he sat in the lead vehicle with the secret service agent responsible for the motorcade, also called the ts agent. here's how sergeant robinson remembered the exchange. >> was there anything description of what -- of what was occurring in the car? >> no, only that -- the only description i received was that the president was upset and that he was adamant about going to the capitol. and there was a heated discussion about that. >> when you say heated, is that your word or is that the word described by the ts agent? >> the word described by the ts agent. meaning that the president was

upset, and he was saying there was a heated argument or discussion about going to the capitol. >> about how many times would you say you've been a part of the motorcade with the president? >> probably over 100 times. >> and in that 100 times, have you ever witnessed another discussion of an argument or heated discussion with the president, where the president was contradicting where he was supposed to go or what the secret service believed was safe? >> no. >> so, again, more evidence reinforing that the text messages, the missing text messages from the u.s. secret service on and around january 6th, whether it be pertaining to this altercation that happened inside the president's motor vehicle with the secret service and with others, or what also was revealed last night is that

secret service agents felt their lives were in danger. knew that this could end very badly. some were even calling loved ones for final good-byes. text messages would be happening in moments like that. those text messages being lost after several requests to retain them. now, there are new developments this morning. joining us with that, nbc news homeland security correspondent, julia ainsley. julia, this is heading into an investigation. among other thing, there are secret service agents now retaining counsel. >> that's right. we'll separate those two things, mika. first, we have learned that the ongoing inspector general investigation from the department of homeland security into those missing text messages is now criminal in nature. in fact, they informed the secret service of that wednesday night, telling them to stop doing internal investigations because they want to be able to

go in and do this work themselves. the fact that it is criminal means now that they believe that there may have been -- that there is evidence that there may have been a criminal violation in the deletion of these text messages. that doesn't necessarily mean that it was done intentionally, on purpose, or for a nefarious reason. they could have just violated the documents act. the inspector general has the ability to do this, and they can then refer anything to a u.s. attorney in d.c. to be prosecuted if they find evidence of criminal wrongdoing. on the other side, we're talking about the secret service, we're talking about the incident in the car we were listening to being described. we now understand, because congresswoman zoe lofgren told reporters that the driver of the car and ornato retained outside counsel. likely, it is because of cassidy hutchinson's testimony which was explosive when we learned of the incident. likely the men thought, look, i'm going to be asked about this. i need to figure out what my

duties are here in terms of how i can protect the president and if i need to comply with congressional subpoenas. you can imagine they've all been asked to share their stories because we keep trying to get closer and closer to the inside of the car. cassidy hutchinson heard that secondhand. now, we hear from the policeman who was hearing that through his radio. now, we want to hear from the people inside. it makes sense they'd retain lawyers. that's separate from what is going on at the inspector general's office, though. it is complicated for the secret service. not to give them any more favors than they deserve, but they do have a complicated task now. they can't do internal investigations, but they have to comply with a now criminal investigation from the inspector general. they also have to do enough work that they can comply with subpoenas from the national archives and the january 6th committee. sources are saying they're a little confused about exactly how they're supposed to comply with the new information they're getting from the inspector

general. that you're under criminal investigation, and you need to freeze your actions. >> all right. nbc's julia ainsley, thank you so much for your reporting. i see another assist from your mom today. >> yeah, definitely. >> yes, this is my last day at my parents' house. i'll be back in d.c. it's been lovely. >> looks lovely. thank you so much for being with us. greatly appreciate it. you know, marc, again, i've looked at january 6th and the events surrounding it. often remind people of how the system did hold. it was close, but the system held. there are things, though, that these hearings have brought out. there are things that the investigations brought out, though, that are deeply disturbing still and things that need to be fixed. thank god, it look like the senate is moving forward, as the "wall street journal" wrote today in theirmoving forward wi legislation that will make a january 6th less likely in the

future. the bill needs to be toughened up even more. so there's some things that give us reason to hope, but the secret service scandal that's erupted over the past week, the fact that you have a law enforcement agency destroying evidence of a coup by the main coup plotter. let me say it again. we have a law enforcement agency that destroyed evidence central to the investigation into a coup attempt. a fascist attempt to overthrow the united states government. how disturbing is that for you as a former operations officer with the cia? >> well, let me just say, i worked for the secret service for years. i have friends who are former secret service agents. this actually is a bit of a painful issue for me. you know, the nature of their job is extraordinary. members of the protective detail

are there to give their lives to protect the president or vice president or others. but this whole thing certainly does not look good for them. so, you know, the takeaway that i have on this, again, it's critical for an investigation to go forward. it is critical for accountability because it is base on the deterrent factors. so this doesn't happen again. ultimately, i think what seems to have happened is members of the detail and members of the secret service got too close to the person they were trying to protect, former president trump. perhaps that'll be the best takeaway from this from an investigation. you know, it is absolutely fundamental to their job to be apolitical. to abide by the rule of law. the more we hear from these hearings, things don't look like -- it seems to have turned. i share your optimism act america, joe. i look at my friends serving overseas. consular sections of u.s. embassies are filled with people trying to get visas to come

here. america is still seen as the land of opportunity, with political and economic freedom. we can't ever forget that. it actually makes it more important that we get this investigation right. >> our economy is the strongest economy in the world. our military is the strongest military in the world. culturally, we have the most power. culturally, our soft power is stronger than anybody else's power. other countries could never replicate what we have done here with our economy, with our country, what we've done from, you know, geez, from the east coast to the west coast, silicon valley, you name it. we have immigrants who just came a generation ago that have come to this country, have started companies in silicon valley, that have changed the world and kept america on the cutting-edge. there's so much to celebrate. unfortunately, that doesn't extend to washington, d.c. that's something we have to stay mindful of.

right now, we don't have a government that represents the greatness of this country. americans deserve much, much better. marc, one final thing before we let you go. you need to put red sox gear back up in your room, all right? don't be a front runner just because we've lost a few games. doesn't mean we won't be in the hunt at the end, okay? >> i think he's embarrassed. >> i'll be there in a couple weeks at fenway when the yankees come. >> sounds good. former operations officer with the cia, marc, thank you. as always, thank you for your service to america. in last night's hearing, the committee played testimony from trump white house counsel pat cipollone that everyone in the white house that day wanted the rioters to leave the capitol. well, not everyone. >> i believe more needed to be

done, okay. i believed that a public statement needed to be made. >> when you talk about others on the staff thinking more should be done or thinking that the president needed to tell people to go home, who would you put in that category? >> well, i would puthershman, overall mark meadows, ivanka, once jared got there, jared, general kellogg. probably missing some, but -- kayleigh, i think, was there, but i don't -- dan scavino.

>> and who on the staff did not want people to leave the capitol? >> on the staff? >> in the white house. >> i -- i can't think of anybody. on that day, who didn't want people to get out of the capitol once the -- particularly once the violence started, no. i mea -- >> what about the president? >> yeah. >> she said the staff. so i answered. >> i said in the white house. >> oh, i'm sorry. i apologize. i thought you said who else on the staff. i can't reveal communications,

but, obviously, i think, you know, yeah. >> let's pause on that last statement. although pat cipollone is being careful about executive privilege, there really is no ambiguity about what he said. almost everybody wanted president trump to instruct the mob to disperse. president trump refused. >> it really is remarkable. everybody in the white house, cipollone tells us everybody in the white house wanted the mob to disperse and stop terrorizing police officers, stop terrorizing people that worked inside the capitol, stop attempting to overthrow the united states government, except for donald trump. by the way, i have a say about

cipollone, hershman, donahue, these guys, when they make the movie, and it'll be a hell of a movie, the lawyers need to play themselves. again, i certainly was vehemently opposed to so much of what they did in the defending of donald trump through impeachment and, of course, a lot of other issues. i will tell you, as it pertains to january 6th, they've offered some of the most compelling testimony. you go back to hershman's testimony early on. it really framed so much of the january 6th hearings. same with donohue. they took us inside the white house. >> clearly stood between the president and us falling over the edge. >> yeah. they did. there is no doubt they did. pretty remarkable testimony. >> fair to say. >> remarkable testimony from cipollone. very funny -- not funny.

i guess in a very dark way, but cipollone's reaction to some of the questions. she said, who in the white house didn't want the rioters to disperse? who? nobody. >> nobody. >> everybody wanted them to disperse. i remember them asking, when did you start advising the president after, you know -- when did you advise the president to do something to stop the riots? he goes, when? he's like, immediately. see, that's the thing. somebody said earlier today that all of this happened in plain view. sometimes, you know, it's so much more dramatic when we get the tapes from nixon and you can get that out. oh, he's been revealed. again, everybody has always said it, donald trump does everything in public. so, again, it is shocking. it was shocking when he did it. it continues to be shocking. but sometimes, just the

statement of the most obvious thing jars you back to reality. oh, my god, look at what happened. let's bring in pulitzer prize-winning columnist and associate editor of the ""washington post,"" eugene robinson. executive editor of the "recount" and host of "he will l hell and high water" podcast, john heilemann. elise jordan, former bush administration official. and jonathan lemire. cipollone did exactly what cipollone could do last night. he couldn't, in that case, you had cipollone because of executive privilege, because he was the president's lawyer, he couldn't reveal direct communications, but he does everything but going, you know what happened. >> right, right. i mean, it was -- it was actually kind of clever, the way he did it. >> yeah. >> absolutely no doubt as to

what he was saying. everybody in the white house wanted them to disperse except the president. and that's -- you know, last night's hearing was stunning because as bad as you think donald trump's behavior was, criminality was on january 6th, it was worse. it was actually worse. and i think maybe we should stop accusing him of inaction because he did act. it wasn't inaction. it was malfeasance. it was criminal activity. what he did was encourage the rioters. what he did was spent his time on the phone, not to the pentagon or the department of homeland security or anybody who could help stop the riot, but on the phone to senators, trying to egg them on to continue to further delay the certification of the election. it is -- and stunningly, even when he finally, finally, at the

end was going to give a statement, he, you know, can't say the election is over. the election is not over. he acted all right. he acted in furtherance of an attempted coup against our government. and so the next question really is accountability, i think. you know, what is the justice department going to do? it has to be accountability. accountability. the president has to be accountable. >> yeah, no doubt about it. and you are so right, there's no inaction here. this is all action. this is all a plan. it's all a deliberate plan. he's at a presidential debate, and he tells a hate group, a white nationalist hate group, to stand by. he spent six months telling everybody that will listen to him at his rallies that it is going to be a rigged election.

he whips them into a frenzy with a tweet in december after he realizes he can't do it legally. what does he do? he goes to his personal residence in the middle of the night, tells people to show up on january 6th, quote, it will be wild. he gives a speech on january 6th to that crowd that's assembled, who has listened to him, to the proud boys who stood by and came up to washington, d.c. what did he do on that day? said you've got to be tough. you've got to be strong. you've got to be -- you can't be weak. you've got to march up to the capitol to save democracy. there was no inaction here. it was all action. he was a coup plotter that whipped up the mob, released them, then sat back and watched. sat back and watched because why would he stop something he spent six months preparing for? john heilemann, you have not

just donald trump but you have other people not fairing so well in the january 6th hearings. why don't we start with a certain junior senator from the state of missouri. >> well, highlight that was last night, joe. you know, your friend of mine, josh hawley, the insurrectionist with the bird hands, who we got to see yesterday. you know, we've all seen that picture. such courage, that man, behind the united states capitol, egging on the rioters before the ceremony started. you know, egging on the gathering insurrection. then we got to see -- i know you played a lot of this video already. we were watching last night and thought it was interesting, how the committee went after josh hawley, showing the picture of him doing what i think will be in every attack ad on josh hawley the rest of his life. i don't know if you can call

that running or prancing, but whatever it is that the bird handed insurrectionist was doing through the halls of congress, being chased by the mob that he whipped up, it is pretty classic. there's also great sound out there of what happened in the committee room when they played this. >> let me actually -- >> a room where there is not a lot of laughter. there's not a lot of laughter. >> play it right now. [ laughter ] >> yeah, that's not a good sign for a guy, john heilemann, who tried to play tough. again, holding up a fist when he has a very delicate bone structure, like a bird, in fact, which is why you say what you say. >> like a bird, yeah. >> he takes his tough man pose like all these guys do, when they tell you to tan your testicles to be bigger.

and -- >> he did that while capitol cops were protecting him. >> that's what they do. i've never seen so many people question their own masculinity. >> joe. >> and talk about a war on manhood. anyway, they do. josh hawley does for good reason. there he is running like a coward. again, he whips these people into a frenzy from the safety of behind police lines, then it's the police that end up, after he whips them into a frenzy, getting the hell beaten out of them. josh hawley is protected by them, then he flees like a little coward after he whips them into a frenzy. >> nice. >> yes, they're getting -- they get beaten while they protect him, and there he is. i'm just glad there is video of it. it should be memorialized, this behavior. as i said, the laughter in the room is telling. that is a committee room that's not had a lot of levity over the course of the hearings, and rightly so.

there is solemn and serious stuff they're contemplating. the fact that room in washington, d.c. involuntarilyl good sign for josh hawley. i wanted to come back to the point you and eugene were making, of where we are now. the committee says, liz cheney says, both cheney and the chairman, bennie thompson, said they'll do more hearings. i think, good, break. the dam is breaking, keep going. they've done an incredible job and service for the country. right now, what we have is a case where the justice department is now faced with a big choice. i don't think there's very many lawyers that i talk to who don't think the case they've laid out, the evidence they've shown, that donald trump criminally obstructed congress is pretty close to open and shut. if not, it is certainly enough to issue an indictment. the question is the conspiracy charge. what you saw of action, inaction, what we saw last night

is where is a road map for the investigation at the doj level? the 187 minutes, donald trump, as you said, it's not that he is not doing something, he is actively doing something, which is to, through his not calling off the mob, he is provoking the mob. we also don't really know what's going on in the room. he decided not to sit in the oval office because that's a place where there's a lot of traffic. he went to a place where he could be more secluded. we know he didn't let the white house photography in there to take picture of him. we know there is no call log in that period of time. all of that suggests that trump was doing everything he could to make sure that, for as long as possible, that afternoon, 187 minutes, people wouldn't know what he was doing, wouldn't be able to have visibility to what he was doing, and there would be no record of what he was doing. the department of justice has -- that is a target-rich environment for the subpoena power and the ability, potentially, to pierce privilege that the doj would have if they

decided to really go after and make the case against trump. if you watched that last night and you're merrick garland and lawyers at doj, and i talked to a couple former ones last night, they're like, it sticks out like a sore thumb. the 187 minutes and being able to take people like pat cipollone and try to strip that privilege that was holding him back. you need to know what trump said to these people. you need to take that to court, test the privilege, and hopefully get it pulled away so we can learn exactly what the interactions were and not make informed speculation. i think this is the moment, the next couple months, where merrick garland has to make a giant, monumental, historic decision. the committee has done an incredible job teeing it up for them to make the right one. >> the photography tried to take pictures of the president. as you know, the photographer is always around, documenting what the president is doing, especially in key, critical times. she was pushed away, no, no

photos. stay away. the phone logs, no record of any phone calls. that's been stripped away. >> well -- >> nothing on there. they completely, as far as evidence goes, they have bleached the entire time that trump came back to the white house while the riots were going on, from inside the oval office. >> and there is sworn testimony, under oath, obviously, that the committee gathered together, and the committee made it clear that while the attack was unfolding, trump never made any phone calls to law enforcement or national security officials. >> are you aware of any phone call by the president of the united states to the secretary of defense that day? >> not that i'm aware of, no. >> are you aware of any phone call by the president of the united states to the attorney general of the united states that day? >> no. >> are you aware of any phone call by the president of the united states to the secretary of homeland security that day?

>> i'm not aware of that, no. >> did you ever hear the president ask for the national guard? >> no. >> did you ever hear the president ask for law enforcement response? >> no. >> so as somebody who worked in the national security space and with the national security council, if there were going to be troops present or called up for a rally in washington, d.c., for example, would you have known? >> yeah, i would have. >> do you know if he asked anybody to reach out to anybody in the national guard, dod, fbi, homeland security, secret service, or the capitol police about the situation at the capitol? >> i am not aware of any of those requests. no, sir. >> we have confirmed in numerous interviews with senior law enforcement and military

leaders, vice president pence's staff and officials, none of them, not one heard from president trump that day. he did not call to issue orders. he did not call to offer assistance. >> instead, it was left to congressional leaders and former vice president pence, hunkered down in safe spaces, as the rioters were searching to harm them. >> we're not going to let these people keep us from finishing our business, so we need you to get the building cleared. give us the okay so we can go back in session and finish up the people's business as soon as possible. >> amen. >> mr. secretary, it's senator schumer. some people here in the capitol police believe it would take us several days to secure the building. do you agree with that analysis? >> i'm not on the ground, and i do not agree with the analysis. >> what is the earliest that we could safely resume our

proceedings in the senate and house chambers? the earliest we could safely resume. >> here's my assessment, but i prefer to be on the ground. i personally would prefer to be right now, but i need to be here. in that case, we're looking at four to five hours. >> vice president pence, two or three calls with vice president pence. he was very animated. he issued very explicit, very direct, unambiguous orders. there was no question about that. i can get you the exact quotes, i guess, from some of our records somewhere. but he was very animated, very direct, very firm. to secretary miller, get the military down there. get the guard down there. put down this situation. et cetera. >> yeah, you know, it's fascinating,hearing mitch mcconnell there. i've been told by a progressive who was inside the room that,

despite the fact she had no, nothing in common with mitch mcconnell, that it was mcconnell who, more so than even democratic leaders, was saying, "we will not let the rioters get what they want. we are going to go back on the floor today. we are going to cast these votes. we will not wait until tomorrow. we will not wait until the next day. we'll get it done." there is, of course, also mike pence, telling miller to get there. but, you know, you look at the fact that donald trump wouldn't do this, elise, and then you juxtapose that -- you put that on top of what cipollone said. which was, everybody in the white house wanted the riots to stop. every staff member. everybody in the white house. fox news hosts were calling, begging him to stop it.

his children were begging him to stop it. his biggest supporters were begging him to stop it. he stood alone wanting the riots to continue, which is why he wouldn't call the national guard, why he wouldn't put it down, and why it fell, in the end, to mike pence and mitch mcconnell to tell them, get down here and clear it out now. we're going to go back on the floor and finish the people's business. >> joe, you put it correctly in the first hour when you said it was the behavior of a sociopath. who but a sociopath would just be idle and watch on fox news as a great symbol of american democracy was being desecrated? the men and women who had taken an oath to protect it are also at risk. where your vice president was at great physical risk of being killed. it still is just simply

astounding. and we still don't know exactly what went down in the oval dining room when donald trump went in there. mark meadows was in the room. mark meadows knows what went down. is the justice department going to finally get to mark meadows, and are we really going to learn what donald trump was doing during those hours? we have a pretty good idea. also, did anyone help donald trump author the tweet that egged on the mob to go attack mike pence? that's a question that i still have about what went down. >> they're still gathering evidence. still ahead on "morning joe," liz cheney lays to waste the complaints from trump loyalists, that the witnesses haven't been cross-examined by trump's aallies. also ahead, this morning, president biden is quarantiing after the white house revealed he tested positive for covid.

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this committee has shown the testimony of a dozen republican witnesses. those who served president trump loyally for years. the case of donald trump in these hearings is not made by witnesses who were his political enemies. it is, instead, a series of confessions by donald trump's own appointees, his own friends, his own campaign officials, people who worked for him for years, and his own family. they have come forward, and they have told the american people the truth. for those who think the evidence would have been different if mccarthy wouldn't have withdrawn his people from the committee,

let me ask this. do you think bill barr is a delicate flower, that he would wilt under cross-examination? pat cipollone, eric herschmann, jeff rosen, richard donoghue? of course not. none of our witnesses are. >> last night, we learned more about what happened at the white house the day after the insurrection. committee says trump's staff felt he needed to address the nat refused to give it. there was a text exchange between sean hannity and kaylee cenany. the former president was told about the possibility of being removed that he finally agreed to give a speech. the outtakes from the january 7th show trump was hesitant to condemn the rioters and refused

to give up his big lie about the election. >> whenever you're ready. >> i would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack. to those who broke the law, you will pay. you do not represent our movement. you do not represent our country. and if you broke the law -- can't say that. i'm not going -- i already said you will pay. the demonstrators who infiltrated the capitol have defied a seat of -- defiled, right? i can't see it very well. okay, i'll do this. i'm going to do this. let's go. but this election is now over. congress has certified the results. i don't want to say the election is over. i just want to say, congress has certified the results, without saying the election is over,

okay? >> now congress is -- >> yeah. >> now congress is -- >> i didn't say over. let me see. go to the paragraph before. okay. i would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack yesterday. yesterday is a hard work for me. >> just -- >> take the word "yesterday" out because it doesn't work with the heinous attack. on our country, say on our country. want to say that? >> no. >> my only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote. my only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote. >> john heilemann, he had trouble saying, "if you broke the law."

he didn't want to say, "if you broke the law" and, of course, refused to stop lying to the american people. refused to end the lie that created the riot by just saying, this election is over. what's your take on the outtakes? >> well, i feel like i've been waiting to see them the entire time since the committee started the investigation. you knew there would be outtakes because of the way trump normally behavbehaves. we heard from people there were complications around both of those. i heard more from the one on january 6th. someone had video, and the committee was trying to get it. it doesn't change much or our understanding, though. here's the reality, he wasn't willing to say certain things on january 7th about what happened on january 6th. he still isn't willing to say them. i mean, in the immediate aftermath, he wasn't willing to say the election was over. he wasn't willing to denounce

the rioters, the terrorists, the insurrectionists, right? in the course of the last two years, joe, he's given speeches where he talks about this being a great, patriotic day. he talked about the rioters as having been engaged in a fight to actually stop the steal, what he considers the steal, that joe biden stole the election. even with all the passage of time, he continues to essentially defend what happened on january 6th. what we learned is that the behavior, the attitude, the bigness of this lie, which was born not that day, as jonathan lemire's book points out, he started giving weight to the big lie in 2016, that even in the immediate aftermath, he was starting to think about how central maintaining this lie would be to his political future going forward. we've seen that now. we can see it in the outtakes. we can see him already doing the

complex calculations, or not complex calculations in his mind. what i shouldn't say now because i know what my rhetoric will be later. that's what, i think, is on display in the clips. >> john heilemann couldn't be more right there. gene robinson, it is about the then president refusing to condemn his supporters. those are his people. that's one of the themes last night. he wouldn't alienate them. that was him also refusing to suggest that the election was actually over. he sort of said, well, congress certified it, but i'm not conceding. to this day, he's still never conceded. on one hand, seeing him go through the outtakes and slamming the podium in frustration almost was a little bit amusing. he seemed sort of help else and futile. but it also, i'd argue, may be the scariest thing we saw last night. >> yes. >> it was clear, though donald trump was lost, donald trump was not giving up. it's donald trump, what we saw in that very moment, has shaped the last year and a half and potentially shaping the

republican party and his presidential candidacy in 2024. >> that's absolutely right. i mean, we heard a lot of scary stuff last night. you know, for me, it was the secret service agents on mike pence's detail who we learned were calling their famiies to say good-bye because they felt their lives were put in such danger by the mob. but you're absolutely right. john heilemann is right, that he was calculating on, certainly by january 7th, certainly earlier, he was calculating how he was going to play this. how he was going to maintain the fiction that the election had been stolen from him, and so he couldn't say the election was over. he can never say the election is over because he was -- he knew he was going to make that central to his attempt to remain the most powerful figure in the

republican party, perhaps to run for president again. to be this powerful figure in american life. and he clearly believed that once he conceded, once he conceded that he had lost, that he lost that power. you can argue whether some is calculation or whether it is his psychosis about being a loser, because he was a big loser in 2020. but that almost doesn't matter. what matters now, and, again, i sound like a broken record, but what matters now is how is this man going to be held accountable for what he did and did not do, but what he did on january 6th, what he did leading up to january 6th, what he did after january 6th, how is this man going to be held accountable for that? i just don't think we can just sort of say, oh, well, now we

know all this stuff, and let's move on. there's got to be a reckoning here. >> yeah, trump certainly could not admit that he had lost, and his concern about the 25th amendment or a possible conviction in the impeachment trial would have prevented him from running again. he was already thinking about 2024. we'll have more on january 6th hearing coming up on "morning joe." next, we'll get an update on president biden's covid and how he is feeling. topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day, that's effective without topical steroids. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin he is feeling. some as early as 2 days. that's rinvoq relief.

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ashish jha. thanks for being with us this morning. let's start with this, how is the president feeling this morning? >> good morning. thanks for having me here. last update i got was from 10:00 p.m. last night. i've not had a chance to check in with his medical team this morning. as of 10:00 p.m. last night, he was feeling just fine. his words were, "i'm doing just fine." he had a busy day with lots of meetings and phone calls and zooms. not in-person meetings, of course. and worked through the evening. then as of 10:00 p.m., as i said, he was doing just fine. my plan is to touch base with both his medical team this morning, but also to speak to the president myself, get an assessment this morning, and we'll be, obviously, happy to report back once i've had a chance to do that. >> you'll have updates then. give us a sense as to what today likely looks like for the president. give us a sense of the paxlovid,

which he is on for the diagnosis. i assume some meetings, some rest. give us a sense. >> let's talk about those two things. in terms of his medical issues, the bottom line is, you know, this is a president who is fully vaccinated, double boosted. his immunity is about as strong as it can be for this virus. then he's getting treatment that we know has a dramatic impact on lowering risks of serious outcomes. by the way, this is not just kind of world class presidential treat treatment. this treatment is available to every american. one of the things this president is focused on is making sure vaccines and therapeutics are widely available, easily accessible, and they are. so in terms of that, he's obviously on the best care -- he is getting the best care there is. in terms of his schedule, i know he is meeting with the economic team. he is meeting with his national security team. he's got a pretty busy day ahead, all, obviously, by zoom, by phone. he's going to be connecting with his medical team. i'm going to have a conversation with him.

we are going to let him try to get a little bit of a break in there, but i know he wants to have a busy day. we'll see what we can negotiate in terms of making sure he gets at least some kind of a break. he's got a packed day ahead. >> all americans, of course, remember that the last time a president got covid, which was donald trump, in october presid which is president trump he was airlifted to walter reed medical hospital. that was a far more lethal strain of covid than now. this new sub variant very contagious. give us a sense of the concern of the president being 79. so give us your concern about that. but also, an update on any close contacts. we know the first lady spent time with the president. she tested negative yesterday. have you got any updates on her or anyone else in the white house who may have now tested

positive? >> in terms of the president and risk, if you think about the with an i that you protect the president is the way we protect all americans. making sure their immunity is up to date which he was. making sure that he had access to sort of life saves treatments as all americans do. we have done everything that's clinically appropriate to lower the president's risk. in terms of other contacts, that's ongoing. the first lady was a close contact. and right now that is being run out of the white house medical unit. they have cdc contact tracers embedded. i'm not personally aware of anybody else that tested positive. so i'm not aware of those.

those kind of contacts are being identified and notified. they were yesterday and ongoing into today. >> the president traveled the day before. that is part of the effort. the vice president tested negative yesterday. dr. jha, thank you for joining us and looking for more updates. up next on "morning joe," a lawmaker who led last night's hearing. also ahead, an alarming plan if trump returns to the white house. new reporting on how the allies want to gut the federal government later, are the january 6 hearings driving voters away from trump and the gop? be right back. the gop the gop be right back.

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the eighth public hearing and the second in prime time by the house committee informs gaiting the january 6 attack at the capitol documented former president donald trump's dereliction of duty for choosing not to stop the assault on the u.s. capitol. instead for 187 minutes between leaving the ellipse and telling the mob to at last go home the 45th president of the united states first argued with secret service agents who refused to take him to the capitol. then after returning to the white house sat in a small dining room just off the oval office transfixed by the violence. trump learned is 11 minutes after leaving that the protest turned violent. he failed to reach out to the secretary of defense, the attorney general, or the department of homeland security. instead he demanded a list of senators' phone numbers calling

and encouraging them to delay or object to the certification of the electoral college count. while the official call log from the white house is empty, trump placed at least two other calls that day. not the military or the police. but to rudy giuliani. for hours trump ignored pleas by the aides and members of kopg and even his daughter and refusing to include peace in a tweet. and while vice president mike pence gave orders to the military to stop the attack trump tweeted out that pence lacked courage. this while members of the vice president's secret service's called the loved ones to say the final farewells. it was after the officers defending the capitol began to turn the tide that trump recorded a video in the rose

garden telling supporters to leave the capitol but he ignored the draft of the remarks and praised them telling them go home, we love you. at 6:27 p.m. donald trump left to go to the residence. reflecting on the day's events he said nothing about the attack but reportedly turned to a white house employee and remarked mike pence let me down. nbc news senior washington correspondent hallie jackson breaks down the big moments from laths night's hearing. >> reporter: the january 6 committee releasing never before seen footage of donald trump the day after. lawmakers arguing what mr. trump refused to say says it all. >> this election is now over. congress has certified the results. i don't want to say that.

congress has certified the results. okay? >> reporter: the footage shared by the january 6 committee -- >> my only goal was to ensure the integrity of the vote. >> reporter: the picture of mr. trump's dereliction of duty watching coverage of the violence for hours from a dining room. >> president trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the ellipse and telling the mob to go home. he chose tot to act. >> reporter: at the same time at the capitol, agents vice president mike pence searched for a path to safety. >> we need to do it now. >> reporter: the agents feared for their lives and some saying good-bye to family members and focusing on republicans' responses the day of the hearing.

josh hawley before the capitol attack raising the fist to the crowd and later running in the capitol as rioters attacked. playing to laughter. focusing on mr. trump and laying out how aitd said never made a call to the law enforcement or military for help. a former aide he gave a green light to the violence. >> should have been telling the people to go home. >> reporter: mr. trump accusing that witness sarah matthews of in his words clearly lying in the testimony. republican vice chair cheney ending with a powerful question for all americans. >> can a president willing to make the choices donald trump made in the violence of january 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in the great nation again?

>> so, john heilemann, tell us how it fits into the narrative that his run through to the january 6 committee hearings. >> joe, i don't think that last night compared to the earlier committee hearings not a one big bolt from the blue piece of news. it felt like a summary. a very powerful summary and focusing on trump and that 187 minutes, what was donald trump doing while rome burned? what the whole night was built around i think to make the argument when we talk about while the capitol was under siege donald trump did nothing. but that's the wrong way to think about this. how we need to think about it was that while the capitol was under siege donald trump was doing everything in his power to try to provoke and stoke and

encourage that very siege. we now know the totality of trump wanting to march to the capitol with the tens of thousands of incipient insurrectionists. we heard a national security official say inside the white house they understand that if trump went to the capitol what could have been characterized as a normal democratic event would cross the line. he said that's when we knew, we inside the trump white house, if trump led that army up there it would be a coup was the word he used. so we have that and then you have the 187 minutes in which trump by not calling off the mob, by not talking to the podium in the white house press room or an oval office address making the affirmative choice to

keep it going. i think matthew potteringer said he was pouring gasoline on the fire. what was he doing exactly? the committee did a great job of putting together what we can piece together about the 187 minutes. he wasn't in the oval office where the president would be. there's access to it. he's in this dining room that he commandeered to keep them out. barred the white house photographer from coming in. no phone logs from that time. he was on the phone but who he was calling and saying are questions now that have been teed up perfectly for the next phase which is the accountability phase and what the justice department should do and certainly is investigate the questions of seditious

conspiracy and obstruction of congress. get a grand jury. we'll see if indictments come out of that. i think the committee gave the ball to merrick garland and find out the questions that we have not been able to and the answers to the questions with your ability to convene a grand jury. >> joining us is congresswoman elaine luria of virginia. thank you for being on. >> thank you. >> i think what was especially wrenching was the visual image and minute by minute of capitol cops, secret service members, d.c. cops, the vice president, the speaker of the house under attack with a president who did not have their back, with a president that was rooting for the other side.

all these public servants represent the united states of america. democracy in action. and the president not only didn't act he made a point of not acting. do you think that dereliction of duties the only potential real takeaway from the president's actions on january 6th? >> i think we framed it in dereliction of duty and that's not explicitly a criminal act. but when you look at the totality of this and we have laid it out leading up to this one focusing in. this is what he did and didn't do. this was an inaction for 187 minutes. when that is deliberate he's not acting. when he has the tools to act and urged by the people around him to act that's a deliberate choice that he's not acting

because that's part of the plan to let it play out and on the phone. continuing to talk to rudy giuliani, talking to senators, apliging the pressure. what maybe his inaction, what we expected him to do as the president to stand up in front of the podium and tell these people to stop and go home and will hold you accountable if you broke the law. he doesn't do that. it's one of the things where people frequently ask the committee, are you going to do some sort of criminal referral, for example. what i would say is our job as a congressional committee is to put the information out there. the justice department doesn't need to wait on us. i hope as hell that merrick garland has a criminal investigation into donald trump. with the information publicly available, this is all done in public. no one needs to wait for some

formality from our committee to have that ball in motion. >> you pointed out something last night. we have never heard about the officers who died defending the capitol. you revealed texts from two formal trump campaign officials who said that callous omission is by design. take a look. >> on january 9, two of president trump's top campaign officials texted each other about the presidents glaring silence on the tragic detd of capitol police officer brian sicknick who succumbed to his injury it is night of january 7. his came pain members were the director of communications and a deputy. here's what they had to say about their boss.

murtaugh, also [ bleep ] not to have acknowledged the death of the capitol police officer. that's enraging to me. everything he said about supporting law enforcement was a lie. a reply, you know what this is? of course. if he acknowledged the dead cop he'd be faulting the mob. and he won't do that because they're his people. and he would also be close to acknowledging that what he lit at the rally got out of control. no way he acknowledges something that could ultimately be called his fault. no way. >> my god. if you can give us a sense of how this president was slowly messaging and in many different ways with actions and inactions

to extremist groups. it is not a dereliction of duty not to honor a capitol cop defending the capitol. >> this text exchange i included that last night because it was so powerful to me and said everything about donald trump and the way he thinks about this. like he can't acknowledge the death of a law enforcement officer. as it was laid out in that text message chain because if he does that he admits that his people were involved and admits complicity on his part and it's a cycle of silence that then implies something. i look at the message that he gave at 4:17 where he says we love you. go home in peace. it is coded language in a way that people are hearing it, the people he wants to talk to hear it in a way. i felt like that this is just

the call for the next time. go home in peace. wait in the wings. like stand back and stand by all over again so that just -- it's -- gut wrenching to know that there is this means of communication that's just a rallying cry for something like this to happen in the future. this isn't just about one day and vie leapt acts at the capitol. this is about the future. and when we talk about the congressional committee we are supposed to make recommendations to prevent this from happening. i hope the takeaway is that this is still a danger. this is just waiting to come back. that is something that we as americans have to understand and guard against. >> congresswoman, you did -- the committee january 6 committee did an incredible job of putting the facts out there and made i believe the case that donald

trump intended to incite this riot. going forward there won't be more hearings until september. what will we see in september that further bolsters this case? >> i would say the reason after this hearing which we thought we would conclude the framework and the series of hearings laid out with this one but there's so many new people coming forward and so many paths that the investigation is taking i can't lay out right now but we heard from more people and lots of questions about this information around the secret service. we have new witnesses who provided things to follow up and witnesses coming in before. knowing what we know now we probably need to call the people again because we have a better

understanding of the circumstances so that we can go back and ask some more pointed questions. >> january 6 select committee member congresswoman luria of virginia, thank you, thank you so much for coming on this morning. the committee showed deposition testimony of members of the administration who chose not to resign despite being appalled by trump's actions. >> and then, after that, some people were resigning obviously over january 6. we know who they were. did i consider it? yes. did i do it? no. concerned about if people in the council's office left who would replace me? and i had some concerns that it might be somebody who, you know, had been giving bad advice. >> on the morning of the 7th the decision i arrived at the most

constructive thing i could think of was to seek a meeting with the cabinet. you know? i thought that trying to work within the administration to save the ship was likely to have greater value than simply resigning. after which point would have been powerless to effect things in the administration. >> she thought that there should be a cabinet meeting. >> do you know why? >> i don't remember why. i think it probably had something to do with the mark's view of how the president would react and things like that. >> there were a couple of calls where, you know, meadows and or pompeo but more meadows, how's the president doing? pompeo might say how's the president doing?

meadows would say he's in a really dark place. like here, for example, on the 7th of january, so this is a day after, right? potus is very emotional and in a bad place. meadows. >> one president trump to convene a cabinet meeting. he put a request in the memo to the president. you can see that secretary scalia requested that the president no longer publicly question the election results after wednesday. no one can deny this is harmful. secretary scalia also highlighted the importance of the public knowing the president would invoke his cabinet in decision making and not certain private individuals. secretary scalia did not say it, he was referring to rudy giuliani and the rest of the so-called clown car working with president trump to try to overturn the election.

secretary scalia understood that the president needed to do more to reassure the public about the last few weeks of the trump administration. >> joining us now former defense secretary william cohen, prior to joining the clinton administration secretary cohen served in congress for more than two decades as a republican senator and a member of the house judiciary committee where he played a critical role in the watergate hearings. leading to the resignation of president nixon. subsequently he was a central member of the iran-contra committee which examined the abuses of power. >> thank you so much for being with us. as someone who played a pivotal role on both sides of pennsylvania avenue, i'm curious your reaction to what you heard last night a ten january 6

hearings in general. what they say about the trump administration, the government's response to that and warnings for the future. >> i would say i was inspired by the members of the committee. liz cheney, adam kissinger and representative luria so it redeemed my faith in the legislative process to have oversight over something so critical to the safety and security of this country. secondly i was somewhat depressed during the course of the hearings i recall judge ludwig saying that president trump presents a clear and present danger. i believe that to be the case. i believed it before he took office and in office and even more after listening to the testimony. here's the commander in chief

whose duty it is to protect and defend and took time out and reminded of the gap in the taped conversation that president nixon had. was on the 18:30 gap? some said an evil force deleted them. we found out that richard nixon and rosemarie wood deleted those 18:30. we found out what they basically were trying to do at that time. here we have a such ways equivalent of me say the troops in syria under attack. mr. secretary, what should we do? i'm having lunch and talking to the estate planner and there are russians and friends of the president. what would that mean for me? i would be unfit to serve as secretary of defense.

the former president is unfit to serve. i was feeling i watched an organized crime meeting. we were investigating okur nized crime with men and women wearing hoods so they could be protected. now members of an administration in a lawful country who need to have their voices moderated or covered and appear only in profile for fear they will be harmed. one final point. when members of congress, those who had the termerity to criticize the president and said he was responsible for doing the heinous things they said but if he's the party nominee i'll vote for him.

what? what are you saying? after you have seen everything he has done to the country you will vote for him? party over country? party over constitution? because you fear his supporters will attack you or your family? what is driving as you a to say i know what he did for the country and i'll vote for him again. that's a real crime of this case and one final thing if i can say it. we are looking at whether he was a coconspirator. i would suggest there's an element he could be charged with being an accessory before the fact and after the fact. crimes were committed on capitol hill. and in the traditional law enforcement if you are a participant by encouraging with a runaway car you are an accessory before or after the

fact. i think they have a look at at the justice department. make haste. start the investigation or assemble the grand jury and bring in people including the secret service. >> one of the witnesses of last night detailed how the events of january 6 impacted america's standing in the world. >> but our national security was harmed in a different way by the 6 of january. that is that it -- i think it emboldened our enemies by helping give them to ammunition to feed a narrative to the system of government doesn't work, the united states is in decline. china, the putin regime in russia, tehran, they're fond of

pushs those narratives. i heard from friends in europe, in asia, allies, close friends and supporters of the united states they were concerned about the health of our democracy. >> mr. secretary, i want to talk about the health not only of the democracy but this country. i say every morning on this show talking about the decline of the united states, we have the strongest economy. we have the strongest military. not a close second there. we have the strongest cultural reach with soft power. we have people in countries across the world going to u.s. consulates every day begging to come to america. yet we have a government in washington, d.c. that is so terribly dysfunctional. we have guests like james fallows coming on saying that when they go out to america,

whether by car or plane and go through red state america it takes five minutes to go, we're okay. we're fine. talk about the disconnect between the strength of america and the dysfunction of washington d.c. and how did we get to this place? >> we got to this place with members of congress who had decided to continue to drive a wedge amongst our people. we have racism in this country. we have difference of religion, culture and members of congress feeding off that at the behest of the former president of the united states seeking to divide us. frankly we talk about how we survived. it is by a thread and the run of a risk coming back that wants to

cut the thread. as far as the comments it struck me in the chest because i deal with the leaders of other countries and i think they are afraid that trump is going to come back and we are going to go back to the four years he was in power seeing a man not dedicated to forging alliances and had no interest in human rights. they fear he is coming back with someone who will be trump with greater allegiance to the right. we are in an i think dangerous spot. i was inspired last night and the people that came forth and the republicans that stayed in the white house for fear that the president would nominate worst people for those spots and willing to serve but my

colleagues, where are you? >> where are they? >> how could you not come forward and testify? >> totally agree. william cohen, thank you so much for the strong words this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," how members of the oath keepers reacted in realtime to something former president trump tweeted out during the insurrection. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. morning joe. morning joe. we'll be right back.ids. a monster was attacking but the team remained calm. because with miro, they could problem solve together, and find the answer that was right under their nose. 80% of couples sleep too hot or too cold.

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our way of showing our appreciation.- with rewards of all shapes and sizes. [ cheers ] are we actually going? yes!! and once in a lifetime moments. two tickets to nascar! yes! find rewards like these and so many more in the xfinity app. the president's national security counsel staff was listening to the developments and tracking them in realtime. on the screen you can see excerpts from the chat logs among the president's national security counsel staff. at 2:13 the staff learned that the rioters kicking in the windows at the capitol. then the staff said the vice

president was being pulled which meant agents evacuated him from the senate floor. at 2:24 the staff noted that the secret service agents at the capitol did not quote sound good right now. earlier you heard from a security professional working in the white house complex own january 6 with access to relevant information and a responsibility to report to national security officials. we asked this person, what was meant by the comment that the vivint smart home agents did not quote sound good right now. and the following clip of that testimony which is modified to protect the individual's identity the professional discusses what they heard from listening to the incoming radio traffic that day. >> okay. that last entry on the page the secret service does not sound good right now. >> correct. >> what does that mean? >> the members of the vp detail

at this time were starting to fear for their own lives. there was a lot of yelling. a lot of -- a lot of very personal calls over the radio so -- it was disturbing. i don't like talking about it. but there were calls to say good-bye to family members. it was getting -- for whatever on the ground they thought it was about to get very ugly. >> and did you haefr that over the radio? >> yes. >> what was the response by the secret service who were there? >> everybody kept saying, you know, at that point reassurances or i think there were discussions of reinforcements coming but it was just chaos. yelling. >> obviously you've said it was

disturbed but what prompted as you a to put in it an entry? >> if they're running out of options and nervous it sounds like we came close to a surge needing legal options or worse. at that point i don't know. if the vp compromised? i don't know. like we didn't have visibility. they're screaming and saying good-bye to the families. >> you covered the white house in the trump years. still are. what was the takeaway from what you learned last night? >> so much. certainly the agents calling to say good-bye perhaps the most powerful. this is donald trump choosing not to act. this was not the president at that moment being unable to or failing to. he chose to not act. that's so striking. getting to later even after the

violence on the january 6 when he put out a twitter video and a speech over the 7th we saw outtakes of condemning the rioters and admitting that he lost. that is the most striking is how despite what he saw and knowing and the national security chat it is president knew that vice president was in danger within 15 minutes of the breach of the capitol. he didn't care. he cared about the lie and he and rudy giuliani calling the senators to say don't give up the fight. we can still win the election. >> if you wonder perhaps why it is taking so long for perhaps the justice department in whatever they are doing to figure this out it may not be that they don't see a problem. it may be that there are so many

problems here, so many issues. which way to go? where, where is their criminal behavior with the most intent beyond a reasonable doubt? dereliction of duty or criminal acts something hellish went down at the capitol and president trump was at the core is what the hearing put to the table. >> for me it is the continuing and ever-present threat that's disturbing. not just one day but a rolling coup attempt and a group of people in the united states willing to use violence to overturn the democracy. that's not gone away. when you see the people who enabled this and stirred up the crowd it is not donald trump. i was disturbed with the vision of josh hawley. he's still a part of a movement

in american life. and that is not going away. you still have missing text messages from secret service agents. we still have questions about why it is it took four hours to deploy the national guard. there's a lot left to unpack to strengthen the democracy and we need to accept that there was a violent attempt to overthrow the duly elected president of the united states or to prevent him to coming to office and think about this as not just one day. >> to the point the president is still making calls right now saying the election is stolen and garner support. we know that violence is the outcome of pushing this big lie and the anger to a breaking point. >> i spoke to a member of the select committee probably a couple months ago and they were

expressing to me the concern that with the obsession in the media with secrecy and what's happening behind closed doors, where's the smoking gun, as they were thinking about preparing the hearings the member said it's a who done it but we know who done it. this is them, what i worry about is so much of this happened in plain sight. and we tend to in the media -- i do this. we all do it i think. we devalue what is in front of the eyes and look for the thing that's hidden. so much happened in public and tried to do last night was to counter a narrative that some republican members of congress and others have been pubbing that this is tourists, happy boomers taking photos on a

retirement lap around the capitol but they wamted the show it is vie leapt, menacing and the hard core security people, ples and others charged with defending the capitol members were scared for their lives. just recalled to me the conversation i had. part of the select committee's mission is reminding americans what they saw with their own eyes and what happened in public and not that we need to see something that we don't know about or a smoking gun or an incremental private detail that's going to be rev la tori. we learned that former president trump didn't call law enforcement but he did call some republican senators in an effort to further delay the elect ral count. we are taking a look at that next on "morning joe." a look att a look att next on "morning joe." "shake your thang" by salt n pepa

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during this chaos what did president trump do at that point? he went back to calling senators to try to further delay the electoral count. while the vice president was being evacuated from the senate president trump called senator tommy tuberville. as the senator recalled he had to end the call to evacuate the senate chamber himself. let's listen. >> didn't call my phone. called somebody else and handed it to me. i basically told him, i said, mr. president, we are not doing much work because they took our vice president out and i'm about to hang up on you. i have to leave. >> 14 minutes after former prurp f president trump criticized his vice president in a tweet he sent another saying quote please support the capitol police and law enforcement. they are truly on the side of our country. stay peaceful exclamation point

and trump argued against ion colluding a mention of peace in that tweet. militia groups like the oath keepers took the half-hearted denouncement as a signal to continue. watch. >> president trump's message was heard clearly by stop the steal organizer. he told another organizer potus is not ignorant of his word. rioters storming the capitol heard president trump's message. in this video you will see footage from the rotunda that shows a group of oath keepers including jessica watkins. you will hear her walkie talkie communications with others communicating about president trump's 2:38 tweet in realtime. we warn the audience that this

clip also contains strong language. >> cnn just said that they evacuated all members of congress into a safety room. >> there's no safe place in the united states for any of these [ bleep ] right now. let me tell you. >> if they understand that we are not joking around. >> it's military principle 105. military principle 105. cave means grave. >> trump tweeted please support our capitol police. they are on our side. do not harm them. >> that's saying a lot by what he didn't say. he didn't say not to do anything to the congressmen. >> he didn't ask them to stand down. he said stand by the capitol police. they are on our side and good people. it is getting real down there. i got it on tv and it is looking

pretty fricking radical to me. cnn said that trump egged this on. that he is egging it on and watching the condition burn two weeks before he leaves office. he's not leaving office. i don't care what they say. >> we're rocking it. we're in here. >> be safe. be safe. god bless and god speed and keep going. >> get it, jess! this is what we [ bleep ] trained for. >> took over the capitol. overran the capitol. >> we are in the [ bleep ] capitol. >> mark, of course, you listen to that. this is planned all along. donald trump, he had it planned and knew what he was doing, what impact the words would have. he knew what mess and would be

sent when he told the proud boys to stand back and stand by. recruitment went up. he knew the signals he was always sending. we get it firsthand from the people that -- the mob, the leaders of the mob attacking the capitol that day. while on the other side of pennsylvania avenue you had everybody in donald trump's orbit, everybody begging him to send a message out to stop the rioters. he simply refused for another two hours. >> that's right. i spent my career running counter terrorism events. this is preplanned. you won't find anybody in my line of work to defend that? i think of a colleague that

performed heroically. asking members of congress to not be identified. shielding members of the press. i talked to abigail numerous times. i think president trump's -- i wouldn't say inaction. i would say deliberate lack of action disgraces the police officers this fought back. the congresswoman that performed heroically. the world is watching. a thing that i think from this entire kind of really necessary accountability of what happened on january 6 is that sometimes americans doesn't understand is the world is watching us and will damage the quite in the national security field. allies are watching. our enemies are cheering this seeing the united states for a long time seeing russians and chinese diplomats and talk to

them about what america meant right now they say you don't practice what you preach. look what happened in your country. this is an important moment for the united states. accountability does mean deterrence coming up, the brand new reporting on how trump and allies are preparing for a second term in the white house. we are back in just a moment. he he we are back in just a moment good for you, but shingles doesn't care. because 1 in 3 people will get shingles, you need protection. but, no matter how healthy you feel, your immune system declines as you age shingrix protects. you can protect yourself from shingles with a vaccine proven to be over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older.

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incoming! hey, what does this button do? no, don't! welcome to the fastest internet on the largest gig speed network. are you crying uncle ed? no! a little. only from xfinity. unbeatable internet made to do anything so you can do anything. jonathan swann, as bad as it was, you have new reporting on how the second term that donald trump is preparing for could even be worse. >> joe, what i have today is the first in a two-part series i've been working on for months which shows there is much more detailed work and planning going on for a second term trump administration than has been previously reported. obviously trump himself remains obsessed with the 2020 election, as you've outlined, calling

officials, trying to overturn it. but what he's done quietly is he's empowered some of his key, trusted former advisers and senior officials in his administration and he's funded, he's wired money to their groups. what they're doing is quite vast, i lay it out in the piece, it can't easily be summarized on tv, but it's got multiple elements. the core of it is they're already building databases of names, potential personnel who they're vetting as being loyal to donald trump and committed to his america first ideology. they've got hundreds of names already, multiple databases, and they're working in loose coordination with each other. there's also a whole other dimension which is based around a legal strategy which most of your viewers probably haven't heard about, it's called "schedule f." this was a plan that trump's team developed during his administration in complete secrecy. they issued it as an executive

order 13 days before the election. it got media coverage at the time but it was buried in the crazy chaos after the election. what it does, it's quite radical. it allows a president to reassign tens of thousands of federal career civil servants in a new category that they're calling schedule f. and what that allows them to do is it removes all their employment protections. it allows the president to fire them and replace them with loyalists. so if you think about that, what the preparations that are going on right now, biden rescinded that order immediately but trump's going to put it back in straight away if he gets back in. this is why they're building such a huge labor force. they're not intending just to replace the 4,000 political appointees that are normally replaced every administration. they're looking more beyond that, career civil servants who typically continue from one administration to the other. so anyway, i encourage people to read the piece. i put a lot of -- there's deep

reporting in this, a lot in there. it's a two-part, one today, one tomorrow. tomorrow's piece goes really deep into how they're making these vetting decisions. there are scenes at mar-a-lago and some of the characters now in trump's inner circle and likely to get big jobs. one of the people i describe in detail in a scene is jeffrey clark who was the only official at the justice department willing to use the full force of the federal government, the justice department, to try to contest the election. trump has kept him in his orbit, he's on his payroll of one of his key groups, he was at mar-a-lago in one of these sessions talking about the potential staffing of the doj under trump in 2025. we thought it was important to publish it at length because this is really serious. it's not just a bunch of people who are sort of bloviating. it's actually people who worked in the administration who are adept, working on these plans, with trump's blessing, and in

some cases with trump's direct funding and fundraising support. still ahead, with the midterm elections less than four months away, what kind of impact will the january 6th hearings have on voters this november? we're digging into that, next on "morning joe." e diggin the minions are coming to ihop. with an all new menu you're going to love. "morning joe." excuse me! enjoy the minions menu at ihop. for a limited time kids eat free! and catch minions: the rise of gru.

do you believe, jared, that the president has an obligation to ensure at peaceful transfer of power? >> umm, yes. >> and do you think the president has an obligation to defend all three branches of our government? >> uh, i believe so. >> and i assume you also would agree the president has a particular obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed? >> that is one of the president's obligations, correct. >> i asked what his duty is.