cannot function this way. >> i've got 30 seconds left, kris, but you think we are making progress? there's been a number of state laws that have been brought in in the last year. it doesn't, does it look like progress to you? >> it really does, ali, it looks like progress. and the biggest note for that obviously is joe biden last year signing our first major federal law that we had in 30 years. the bipartisan safer communities act. we need much more, but the momentum is with us. and people are fed up and fired up, especially younger voters around this issue. >> thanks to both of you for joining me this evening, and i'm very happy 2023 to both of you. ryan busse and kris brown. and that is all in on this monday night. the rachel maddow show starts right now. good evening, and happy new year to you, my friend. new year to you, my friend. >> happy new year to you, ali. great to see you. thanks at home for joining us. happy new year to you and your family. so some states are very easy to

draw. colorado is a beautiful perfect rectangle. wyoming also rectangle. very easy states to draw, right? utah also easy, it's a rectangle with a notch. new mexico is easy. it's a rectangle with a notch in its notch. some states are very easy to draw even if like me you cannot draw at all, but when your state's borders are formed by mountain ranges or by rivers in particular, your state by definition is hard to draw well because its borders are all wiggly. perhaps none more so than the wigglest, kentucky, bordereded by the great mississippi river and over the whole wiggly top of the state it's the ohio river. and on the northern part of that wiggly arc where the

wibble-wobble border sticks out the most there at that spot this week you will find an american political miracle because there at the northern pokey bit of kentucky that sticks out like it's trying to start a fight, there at covington, kentucky, there is the southern end of a huge double layer cantilevered truss bridge, covington, kentucky, on one side and on the northern side of that bridge it is cincinnati, ohio. enough trucks cross the ohio river on that one single bridge every day that somebody finally did the back of the envelope calculation to figure out that that one bridge carries 3% of our annual gdp as a nation every year, just in terms of the amount of freight that crosses it in trucks. one bridge and that very

important bridge is falling apart. it was opened in 1963. when that bridge was opened it was designed to carry just a huge number of vehicles, almost unimaginable number of vehicles at the time. it was designed to carry 80,000 vehicles a day, well, now on some days it carries not 80,000 vehicles but 180,000 vehicles. this bridge between northern kentucky and cincinnati, ohio, it was declared functionally obsolete 25 years ago. it has no breakdown lainey wilsons, its lanes are so narrow, so tight together that you would not be allowed to build a major roadway or a bridge that way today anywhere in the united states. 25 years ago it was declared functionally obsolete and created -- and described as a national priority for repair or replacement. in november 2020, two semi

trucks hit each other on that bridge, 100 feet of it were burned so badly in the resulting conflagration that the whole bridge had to be shut down entirely for a month which absolutely screwed the pooch in terms of cincinnati and northern kentucky traffic, not to mention the literal billions of dollars of freight that travels over that bridge in both directions as part of the big long flow of the interstate all the way to canada. this is so important it keeps up in national politics. president obama gave a speech at the base of that bridge and called on congress to fix it or replace it. in congress the top republican in the house was from ohio. the top republican in the senate was from kentucky. this is a bridge between ohio and kentucky. he thought that was a good pitch. but they wouldn't do it. this is and a or tick lifeline for the economies of both of

those states. one of the worst bottlenecks for freight traffic and by then, by the time president obama was speaking in 2011, pieces of concrete were falling off the top deck and onto the lower deck. i mean, come on. if we can't fix this bridge, president obama made it a priority. he went there in person to try to get people to pressure the republican leader in the house and senate, people that call their members of congress everywhere in the country, but republicans in congress would not do it. and president obama was not the first who tried to do something about this and wasn't the last. previous presidents before him had also singled out that same bridge, called the brent spence bridge. it keeps popping up in national politics repeatedly. the president said it was a national priority to get it fixed and for obvious reasons but never gone done. after the republican congress said no to fixing it under president obama republican

president donald trump specifically said, yes, he would fix that exact bridge by name. he agreed that he would make sure that repair or replacement of that bridge would get done while he was president. but then it never got done. he never tried for it. he never actually tried for an infrastructure bill of any kind. even though he kept crawling into semi trucks on the white house lawn and, you know, declaring a new infrastructure week at the white house every time his courthouse communications office realized somebody else from the office was going to get indicted. this one key bridge connecting cincinnati, ohio, on the northern side of the ohio river and the northern nub of kentucky on the southern side of the river, that one important bridge has been functionally obsolete for more than two decades. it has supposedly been a national priority to fix this thing for more than two decades. never gets done. except now apparently it's getting done. they're cutting the checks. the day after tomorrow there is

going to be a political miracle. the day after tomorrow president biden will be at that bridge, wednesday, this week with two governors, democratic governor andy beshear and republican governor mike dewine of ohio and he will be there with two senators, republican senate leader mitch mcconnell from kentucky and democratic senator sherrod brown from ohio. republicans and democrats together, cats and dogs living in harmony, formally announcing the fact that the bipartisan infrastructure bill that president biden got passed this past year is finally going to be the thing that fixes that freaking bridge. $1.6 billion to fix this thick. they're going to build a second bridge alongside the brent spence bridge and repair the original brent spence. groundbreaking is set for later this year. they're announcing it this week. finally. decades after everyone agreed it needed to be done and it was dangerous to not do it and it

was super expensive not to do it. finally, finally they are going to do it. cincinnati's mayor aftab pureval said, they got it done when for years others could not. they got it done. it's a miracle. in america this passes for a miracle. or maybe it shouldn't anymore. for all the caterwauling about congress not getting anything done and washington being broken, blah, blah, blah, this last congress did kind of get a lot done. it got that bipartisan infrastructure bill dong, right? a trillion dollar infrastructure bill. $27 billion alone just for fixing bridges like the hugely expensive totally necessary brent spence bridge that everybody has been saying they desperately needed to do for decades. they're finally doing it. it wasn't just that. they got the c.h.i.p.s. and science act, the c.h.i.p.s. act

so the u.s. can start making microchips again. also burn pits coverage for iraq and afghanistan veterans, they finally got that done. that's taken decades and reauthorized the violence against women act and the first gun safety reforms in nearly 30 years. they did the freaking post office reform bill which they also needed to do for decades and should not have been hard but finally did it. they also passed a federal law to protect marriage rights and they did it. and all those things in that list are all things they did on a bipartisan basis. and, yes, there were some things that the republicans wouldn't do and democrats had to do them alone, but they did them too like confirming the nation's first black woman to the united states supreme court, justice ketanji brown jackson, they got that done, also the american rescue plan, right, $400 billion worth of covid aid, right, $20

billion to fund the national vaccine effort, a national vaccine effort that is is now credited with keeping alive 3 million americans who would otherwise be dead because of covid. democrats also got passed the inflation reduction act which is not only the best climate change legislation ever passed in the united states by a mile, it's the reason that as of yesterday our costs for insulin are capped at $35 a month if you're on medicare and prescription drug costs overall for the entire year are capped at $2,000. mostly in bipartisan efforts but some with just the democrats acting alone this one congress over the past two years got all that stuff done. even with the senate just being a 50/50 split they were able to get all that stuff done and they're finally going to fix that frickin'-frackin' bridge even as presidents repeatedly

singled them out by name and said they would get it done. they've done kind of a lot in the these couple of years. who says washington is broken? this past congress got a lot done, a lot of stuff that people said couldn't get done, they got it done. and at noon tomorrow by the power vested in the united states constitution, this congress, this profoundly productive congress will, poof, into the history books. it will end at noon tomorrow. whereupon it is not at all clear that it will be replaced by a new congress. i know over the last few weeks you've probably seen the headlines about kevin mccarthy, the top republican in the house. heading into the midterm elections the republicans thought they'd get, you know, 40, 50, even 60-vote majority out of the midterm elections. turns out they got a net gain of just nine seats. and that teeny tiny majority led to all these headlines which you

have probably mostly ignored because they seem boring about how it's not at all certain that kevin mccarthy has enough votes to actually become the speaker of the house and the republicans are in disarray just as they're supposed to be taking power, blah, blah, blah. if you have been paying attention to this stuff, credit to you. i also don't blame you if you haven't. it really does sound like the world's most inconsequential stuff until you realize that this thing that poor kevin mccarthy is facing is something that never happens. it's like a once in a century deal. if only five republican members of congress decide that they're not going to vote for him to be speaker, five, then he isn't going to be elected speaker. he can only afford to lose four votes. if he loses five he won't be speaker. so far there appear to be as

many as a dozen republicans planning to vote no on him. maybe more than that and the problem with that isn't just that, oh, this is embarrassing for kevin mccarthy and this is going to be a time suck for kevin mccarthy and the republicans, oh, this is bad optics, no, if he doesn't get elected speaker, if somebody doesn't get elected speaker that means there is no congress. a speaker of the house is the presiding officer of the house of representatives. until someone is elected speaker there isn't a presiding officer and that means nothing else can happen including swearing in the new members of congress. i mean, on the calendar technically all the new members of congress are supposed to be sworn in tomorrow at noon when the old congress expires. but if there aren't enough votes to elect somebody speaker, if there aren't 218 votes to elect kevin mccarthy or somebody else to be speaker by that time nobody is getting sworn in. no new congress will start. there will be no house business, no votes, no committees, no nothing until a speaker is chosen.

if they don't get 218 votes when they vote on it, when they take their first ballot tomorrow, the only thing they can keep doing in the congress is just keep taking that vote over and over and over again doing nothing else until someone finally succeeds. and even if this still sounds boring to you, you got to appreciate the last time they had to take more than one ballot to elect a speaker was 100 years ago in 1923. in 1923 it took them nine ballots and three days of voting and actually the headlines from that time are uncanny. look at this headline from 1923. looks like -- this could be today. radicals force deadlock in house as congress opens. republicans are 11 votes short. this is from that article in 1923. the last time this happened, quote, the democrats are keeping hands off in the matter taking the stand that it's purely a republican affair and that if the party is so unfortunate as to have internal complications,

it's no fault of the democrats. that was the news in 1923, 100 years ago, the last time this happened. it's going exactly the same way tonight a century later. and before 100 years ago, before 1923 the last time it happened before then was the civil war. when they started trying to vote for a speaker in december 1855, and they didn't actually pick someone until 133 rounds of voting later in february 1856. and that was the civil war. so, i know that, you know, these headlines about, you know, chaos in washington, brinksmanship in the house, these headlines are like dandelions on your lawn in spring, as unpredictable and exciting as a hangover on new year's day. you don't even notice it anymore. it really is the case this is strange. this is a once in a century

problem that the republicans have created for themselves heading into tomorrow. and, again, for the duration while they are unable to get it together to pick someone, the house of representatives will not exist. which is usually where i would make a crack about how, oh, that might be good or, nobody will notice. what do those crackpots do anyway but the last congress did a ton of practical stuff some which literally people who take insulin are benefiting from financially right now and people who have to go to work near northern kentucky or cincinnati are going to start benefitting from as soon as the bridge gets fixed later this year. this congress did a ton of practical stuff. it would be nice if we had a next congress too and even if you don't have high expectations what this next congress is going to do given the leadership they are one of our branches of government, one that we might technically need and this isn't the time to be giving any of them up.

you might have seen this on the editorial page of "the new york times" today. headline here, a failed speaker vote for kevin mccarthy would be a historic event. and this was written by a man who knows that of which he speaks, brendan buck, an adviser to the last two republicans, john boehner and paul ryan. today he says this, opening day in the house of representatives is typically marked by the usual pageantry and the fleeting promise that this congress will work better than the last. that hope could be immediately dashed this year if the house fails to elect a speaker on the first ballot and descends into a floor fight unprecedented in modern times. a small band of republican misfits has vowed to vote against kevin mccarthy, the party's nominee for speaker, with a razor-thin majority just five republicans voting against him could deny mccarthy the gavel. this would be no small event. the house last failed to elect a speaker on the first ballot in

1923, and it's only happened once since the civil war. electing a speaker is a responsibility given the house by the constitution. allowing the process to unravel into chaos would diminish the entire body. mccarthy still has time to reach an agreement with his critics and should do all within reason to secure the speakership on the first vote. otherwise, a self-serving power play by a small group of republicans threatens to make a mockery of the institution and further cement the notion that the party is not prepared to lead. a failed vote would badly weakening mccarthy or whoever the new speaker will be. this is interesting. the house is a majoritarian institution a speaker's power is ultimately derived from the votes that are needed. if they are unable to muster the votes it will make clear they cannot be counted on to fulfill the body's basic responsibilities such as funding the government and preventing a credit default by lifting the

debt ceiling both of which will be required this year. should mccarthy come up short on the first ballot is could take several more votes and days until we have a speaker. but no matter who emerges as the top house republican the prolonged spectacle would leave the republican majority hopelessly damaged from the start along with the institution of the house itself. this would be damaging to the institution of the house itself. joining us now is brendan buck, serving as a former adviser to john boehner and paul ryan. i appreciate you making time to be here. >> my pleasure. thank you. >> so i feel like you're trying to raise the alarm here that this isn't just washington drama, that there are consequences here beyond the personalities involved. there's consequences for congress as an institution. i wanted to ask you here to talk about that tonight because i feel like i haven't been that worried about congress, i and a lot of others have been worried

about the resilience of our government at large but not worried that congress and its ability to constitute itself and act in normal terms has been at stake. why do you think that's at stake in this fight? >> well, i understand where you come from on that. you see headlines and always seems to work itself out and i think this is a situation where it may not work itself out at least not in the first couple of days. look, the speaker of the house is the second in line to the president. obviously constituting a congress is important. they have basic responsibilities but electing a speaker is important. having a speaker is important. as i said, there are a lot of important things that they have to do. if kevin mccarthy is not elected speaker, they're going to have to elect somebody else and they might have to do that on the fly. completely unvetted. somebody who isn't even running for speaker right now. may end up being speaker of the house in two days. maybe someone not on your radar and that's a reality we're facing. this has not happened in a long time. nobody on the floor going into the process will have ever seen

this before so we'll have a bit of chaos, it could be vote after vote. and ultimately you don't know how it could play out and i think there is some serious consequences to that. it will show the american people the house is completely unprepared to lead. as i said in the piece, 218 votes rungs everything. if you have 18 votes you can do just about anything in the house. if you don't, you can't do much of anything. if kevin mccarthy or whoever it may be starts off showing they don't have 218 vites they don't have 218 people behind them he goes into a negotiation with democrats, he's dead from the beginning, so his ability to get things dong will be eliminated and the house will be a laughingstock and does set up republicans well for long-term success and says a lot about how broken our politics are. >> it's an interesting point you raise about vetting. i've been hearing interesting discussion kind of discussed almost in sports terms about how the people who are against mccarthy or even if they're not

against him they're kind of betting he might not survive this, they're keeping names out of the hat effectively. they're not talking about who might be viable contenders, nobody is really standing up to run. you yourself said in your piece you think representative andy biggs has put his name forward as a place holder knowing he'll never be speaker but willing to put his till out there to be the person that represents the challenge. but this is a further interesting point. by nobody effectively running for it who has a real shot at it and this process starting anyway because of the constitutional imperative of the last congress ending and us needing to start this thing we could end up with somebody being thrust into the very top levels of leadership around whom there hasn't been any more of debate outside their congressional district. it might be somebody who is totally unknown and unvetted on a national level. >> yeah, i don't think george santos is going to be the next speaker but it could be someone who is not at all on the radar

and nobody that has had vetting. there are some interesting strategic decisions going on right now and i have to give credit to the freedom caucus members who are plotting here. i think it's a good strategy for them not to put somebody out there. it will be really hard for anybody to emerge particularly early on in this process and openly say they are challenging kevin mccarthy and actually beating him. the reason for that if kevin mccarthy doesn't get it and i'm not saying he won't, he still has a good chance of becoming speaker, if he doesn't, they still have to turn around and get 218 votes for somebody else. only four people can lose on that vote as well. so if somebody -- maybe a steve scalise, number two says he will challenge kevin mccarthy, that's going to upset a lot of people, a lot of mccarthy backers. whoever is the next speaker will need kevin mccarthy to vote for them if it's not kevin mccarthy so i think it's actually good politics for them to hold back, not put anybody up. if kevin mccarthy is not ultimately the speaker, it's probably going to have to come down to him at some point throwing in the towel.

having enough votes and having enough embarrassment and saying i can't get there, i give up because i don't think anybody can outwardly challenge him or else they're going to find the same trouble they're in too and that person may lose as well. >> and the process as you point out today whoever emerges whether it's mr. mccarthy or somebody else, this process will inherently weaken them to the point where the ongoing control of the congress, the ongoing control of the house in terms of what it's able to do will be in question from the very beginning. as you said today the embarrassment may be the point. brendan buck, you have an invaluable perspective on this, thanks to your experience working as a senior adviser to two previous republican speakers of the house, thanks for joining us. i appreciate your time. >> yeah, i appreciate it. thank you. we've got much more to get to tonight. stay with us.

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as we've been talking about tonight there is a the possibility tomorrow that we're going to have a once in a century anomaly in washington where republicans seem to be on track to not be able to elect a house speaker. a house speaker has always been elected on the first ballot of voting in every congress that's formed in the past 100 years. it looks tonight like they will not be able to do that tomorrow which means the house won't be constituted and working as a congress effectively until they're able to gather together to elect someone after who knows how many ballots. we shall see. but if there is a delay in

electing a new house speaker and therefore a delay in getting a new functioning house of representatives, there might be one silver lining in terms of national security oddly. there might be time for one last bit of business from the january 6th investigation to be resolved. these are letters from the january 6th investigation that were just released publicly last night. essentially these are the letters from the january 6th investigators warning the white house and the homeland security department that certain sensitive nonpublic information that was shared with their investigation might no longer be secure once the republicans take over the house. specifically this is the investigators' warning, homeland security and the white house that they are not sure they'll be able to guarantee that the identities of certain witnesses will be protected if republicans get access to the information that -- get access to information that includes the identities of those witnesses. this from a letter to the white

house, the committee had entered into an agreement with your office to make available for interview redacted names. those personnel then provided very important information for the committee's investigation. under our agreement the committee would do its utmost to protect the names of -- excuse me to protect the identity of these names. well, as of next week meaning tomorrow when the committee dissolve, the committee will no longer exercise control over this material and thus we cannot ensure enforcement of the commitment to maintain the confidentiality of the identity of the witnesses. in other words, the january 6th investigation is making clear that they have concerns about the protecting the anonymity of certain witnesses granted it in the committee's report for their own safety and security. here's just one example. one piece of physical evidence obtained by the committee was this remarkable note scribbled by a white house staffer on january 6th.

it says, one civilian gun -- one-time civilian gunshot wound to the chest at door of house chamber telling the president a civilian had been shot inside the u.s. house of representatives. the investigators were able to establish that trump saw this ♪ and therefore that he knew how bad things were inside the capitol including that a civilian had been shot. they knew that because another white house staffer testified in the investigation that they saw the note sitting on a table right in front of trump. the investigators did not reveal the identity of that witness, quote, to guard against the risk of retaliation. now, though, information like that person's name, information the january 6th investigators chose not to repeal, that technically could end up in the hands of the new republican-led congress. so, in this letter to the white house and in a similar one to the department of homeland security it's about interviews with secret service agents, the january 6th investigators say

that out of concern for the safety, security and reputations of our witnesses, they're going to hand over sensitive interview transcripts with confidential witnesses to the white house and to the homeland security department for review at those agencies. review at the white house and review at homeland security. it appears that they're doing that essentially so that sensitive material will no longer be in congress' hands as the congress falls into republican control. the material instead will be returned to the biden white house and the biden administration controlled homeland security department so those entities can try to restrict whether that sensitive information will ever be released. this is dramatic stuff. this is the january 6th investigators saying we've got information that we think won't be kept safe that might have national security and personal security implications if republicans get their hands on it and release so we'll try to

prevent that. in the waning hours of the january 6th investigation, they're trying to get it to a safe place before the republicans take over either tomorrow at noon when they're supposed to or whenever they can get their act together to elect a new speaker of the house sometime thereafter. these late moves, these sort of dramatic maneuverings come even as investigators release a lot of new information. last night they posted a huge database of documents and material handed over to them by witnesses, among the revelations from those memos and texts are lots of evidence of just how much all the people involve -- all the people involved in helping trump push the big lie, how much they all knew it was all a crock that they were pushing. when rudy giuliani's team tried to create a memo laying out proof of all the dead people they said had voted, the members of his team ended up admitting in brighting that all their so-called evidence of dead

people voting was actually evidence of people who died after legally casting their ballots. they put it in writing. i don't think this makes a particularly strong case. when trump started trying to stay in office by getting fake electors there was this text chain among communication staff and lawyers about how this strategy was impossible to defend. quote, it's a crazy play so i'm not sure who wants to put their name on it. another white house official described this as, quote, certifying illegal votes, another official said, they can't anonymously stand behind this garbage. another one said i can't stand by it from the looks of it, neither can any of you. it's one thing to know that trump's advisers were, you know, skeptical of all the ways he was trying to stay in power illegally, it's another thing to see how they talked to each other about it in realtime. talking about how utterly indefensible it was and how they

all wanted nothing to do with it. we're going to talk about all that with congresswoman zoe lofgren now in its final hours. she'll be with us next. stay with us.

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this is from the executive summary of the january 6th report. as it became clear that donald trump desired to travel to the capitol on january 6th the white house security official in the white house complex became very concerned about his intentions.

quote, to be completely honest we were all in a state of shock, it just -- one, i think the actual physical feasibility of doing it and then also we all knew what that implicated and meant, that this was no longer a rally. i don't know if you want to use the word insurrection, coup, whatever, we knew it would move from a normal democratic public event into something else. so that's in the body of the report and then there's a footnote that explains why this person is described as a white house security official in the white house complex rather than just giving us the name of who it was. quote, the select committee has agreed to keep confidential the identity of this witness due to their sensitive national security responsibilities. throughout the report they note six times the select committee is not revealing the identity of this witness to guard against the risk of retaliation.

so on national security grounds they were careful about this stuff. they're revealing thousands of transcripts and documents including a whole bunch posted late last night. but a handful of identities and pieces of specific information were held back by them because of threats, because of the risk of retaliation or because of national security concerns. well, those risks increase tomorrow at noon when the committee that conducted the january 6th investigation dissolves with the current congress. the concern is that the republicans who are taking control of the congress, they might choose to reveal the identity of witnesses like that despite the perceived threat to such witnesses. that's a real concern that the committee is trying to head off right down to the wire as they head toward the hard constitutional deadline of tomorrow at noon. joining us now is california congresswoman zoe lofgren, a member of the january 6th investigation. congresswoman loveagain, i lofg

it's a busy time. >> happy to do it. >> we noticed the letters effectively conveying a bunch of material to the white house and homeland security for them to review sort of taking it out of the hands of congress, it would appear to be it's an effort to keep that sensitive material kept confidential. is that correct? >> well, the committee discussed this sometime ago and it's just the volume of work that needed to get done, getting everything out the door so this wasn't a last-minute decision at all. there were just a very few witnesses, not decision-makers, who were assured of confidentiality for national security and potential retaliation grounds, and so we have sent that to the white house for review under the

national records act, the executive branch makes determinations about level of risk, national security matters and the like before sending them to the archives so that's that process. the homeland security letters are a slightly different issue. we ended up getting an enormous volume of information from the selective service -- secret service and they sent it to us because we were pushing and we needed it right away, without doing the redactions themselves for security purposes or personal identifying information, and we promised not to reveal that, so we've sent that back, some of it if revealed would compromise protection of the president and vice president in the future. so they've got to go through and make those determinations,

classification is not something the congress does, that's something only the executive branch does, and after they finish with that, then they would send that over to the archives as well, and then we'll see where it is. i mean, if somebody wants to get information that has been designated secure there's a whole process in the act about how you sort through that. that's not something i expect to be involved in if republicans in the house decide they want to get some of this information, but i think it would be very irresponsible to give individual names out. we know what happens on the internet. people who are marginal, mentally and emotionally, go after innocent people and we don't want that to happen. >> do you -- are you worried about that in a theoretical sense because they could potentially try to do that, or have there been threats from the incoming republican majority

that they do want to do that? >> well, there's been a discussion about investigating the investigation. i think if they do that, they will be sad because everything that we found is the same narrative. there's no counter narrative in the evidence we found. i mean it's -- there it is. and i think it would not profit them if they're trying to defend the ex-president's lies about this. but there have been some extravagant claims made by individual members. i don't want to say that's going to be what the official position will be of the incoming republican majority, but we did for i think it was four individuals who had sensitive positions, they were witnesses, not decision-makers, and we did promise our best efforts for confidentiality for those individuals. >> i was struck because i've been going through the released transcripts and in particular the documents that -- the

production materials that a lot of which was posted online last night by the committee. the thing that struck me which i don't think i got from the hearings and i don't think i got from the report as a whole was that beyond the fact that president trump's advisers were telling him that he lost the election, that his challenges to the election were not going anywhere that the things he was trying to do were potentially illegal, i think you stressed that and i learned that from your public faces work from the investigation. the thing i didn't get previously was how much individual trump advisors, campaign people and white house people were talking amongst themselves about what they were working on overall was illegal and wrong and something they didn't want to be associated with. talking about -- >> right. >> -- the fake elector scheme that was illegal and that would be mostly called out as illegal, talking about the plan to go to the capitol is something that

was nuts, n-u-t-z, crazy and shouldn't be attempted. the internal discussions among trump advisers would make you think they would be very fortcoming with you about how wrong the scheme was that they were asked to participate in. >> well, one would think. you know, there was -- i'm sure you have taken a look at cassidy hutchinson's testimony from september that when i read that, my jaw dropped and the kind of intimidation and tampering with her testimony that she talked about. now, obviously it's her testimony. we weren't present but made me start thinking about some of the other witness testimony that we received and what role trump world played with that. don't know. but certainly if it was along those lines it's cause for concern. something i think the department of justice will have to look at.

>> do you think that the department of justice -- obviously there weren't criminal referrals for things like witness intimidation or witness tampering -- >> well, actually there was, obstruction. >> sorry, go ahead. >> we did refer the obstruction issue for further investigation specifically the footnote on the hutchinson testimony from september, but we also said the fact that we didn't mention people by name did not -- didn't mean we meant to exclude them and certainly there's a lot more work that would need to be done and the department of justice has investigatory tools that mere legislative committees do not have. >> congresswoman zoe lofgren, a member of the outgoing january 6th committee which wraps tomorrow with the rest of this congress, thank you for your service on the committee. you and your colleagues and thank you for your time tonight. >> thank you, i was proud to serve. >> indeed. all right, we'll be right back. stay with us.

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we're following some late breaking and upsetting news out of cincinnati tonight. this is actually something that's just happened at the monday night football game between the bengals and bills. it happened right before the top of the hour. it was in the first quarter, a safety for the buffalo bills damar hamlin, number 3 jersey made a tackle against another player and then he fell to the ground.

we'll show you that again. he tackles a gentleman, number 85 in the dark colored jersey. he stands up and then he collapses backwards. mr. hamlin is 24 years old, again his name is damar hamlin, in the league two years. after he fell over backwards he was unresponsive thereafter which immediately became clear it was an emergency. first responders came onto the field including in an ambulance, players surrounded him and knelt on the field. medics administered cpr for what espn described as, quote, many, many minutes out on the field. he was given oxygen, there was one report in "the new york times" he appears to have been given an i.v. although that is unconfirmed by any other source and eventually took him off the field which left the stadium at 9:25 p.m. so mr. hamlin's status at this moment, again, is unclear. he is 24 years old. this game is suspended. espn reports that the nfl

commissioner roger goodell is in contact with officials about how to proceed whether they'll restart the game. hard to imagine this they will. but this was just an incredibly scary moment tonight. we will keep you posted as we know more. but joining us now is william rhoden. thanks for joining us so quickly as we're covering it as a developing story. let me start by asking it we know any more than what i've just summarized there. >> no, i'm just -- i'm looking at twitter and really i'm just kind of shocked. you know, i was down here -- i'm in baltimore and i was at the ravens/steelers game and, you know, rachel, this is, you know, right now currently i work on espn's andscape and i was with them. this has been a nightmare, the nfl's nightmare and i was just

thinking about this the other day. what happens if something like this happens, it's like the nfl's worst nightmare. it's a violent game. we know it's a violent game. we've just been through the whole thing with tua tagovailoa, you know, the nfl players association investigating that, what the medical staff knew and i just think we become so anesthetized to this violence of this game that when something like this happens, it's just total stunner, it can literally happen on any play. this kind of stuff can literally happen at any time and, you know, i'm almost -- i know that's not our job to be at a loss at what to say but i'm really at a loss. i feel for this young man's family like you said. he's 24. he played at pitt. just trying to make a name for himself. you know, and all these players

out there, every single one of them this is part of the deal. you basically lease your body out to the team, you know, you lease your body out to the team and exchange for whatever they give you, these are the risks, in fact, the column i was writing was about lamar jackson and his current status, you know, with the ravens in the contract negotiations and how he just decided to play through it and he got injured, and, you know, you realize that whatever they're paying you, it's not enough. it's not enough and this is really the time to -- i'm really stunned and shocked and saddened and there's almost a part of me that feels a little guilty because, you know, we watch this stuff. a number of years ago which was at "the times" i watched a player from the jets in a game at detroit. paralyzed -- i can't recall his

name. i was about to call him up but, you know, this could happen at almost any minute and this is just awful. i mean it's awful. i can't imagine that they're going to resume this game. >> no. no, i can't -- seeing the players on the field weeping as mr. hamlin is taken off the field, you can't imagine they'll start this game. i think the players will probably riot if they tried to. you mentioned the quarterback from the dolphins there and the concussion scares, the second concussion scare that he's had including questions about the potential mismanagement of the first one, i mean i think part of what's going on tonight with this, you know, the nfl is a multibillion dollar business and as much as america's pastime is the question whether or not all the safety protocols and assurances and supposed regulations in place to try to address these concerns are moot in the face of a game that is inherently just inherently

dangerous, inherently damaging to the people who are paid to play it. >> yeah, i mean, what do you do? i was just talking with the editor about what to write. you know, ban the game? you know, you know. because you're right. you can -- there's only so much you can do, again, we don't know this young man's condition. i was just trying to dial through my -- you know, i was during the final -- during march madness a number of years ago i went through the whole hank gatters thing, collapsing, collapsing on court and dying and it turns out that he had an undiagnosed heart issue, you know, reggie louis with the boston celtics, same thing,. i'm diagnosed mild matthew that was diagnosed --