weekend" this sunday morning. we will see you back here next saturday, yummy, yummy, at 8:00 a.m. eastern. be sure to follow us on social media @theweekendmsnbc. velshi delivers our coverage for the day. >> any props? >> i've got nothing for you today. i was enjoying your conversation, though, about the eastman documentary. i was wondering when you aired that clip, i was wondering editorially sometimes should we do that that or should we not. i'm glad that you did because it

looked to polished and professionally done if i didn't know what that was and i was watching it i might come to a completely different conclusion as to what went on after the election of 2020 -- >> that's it. >> -- and who was doing what that was contrary to the wishes of the people of this country. i really appreciate the time and effort that you put into presenting that very well this morning. >> i appreciate that. because it does make a difference. >> it does make a difference. have yourself a great rest of your day and week and i will see you next week and "velshi" starts now. good morning. it is saturday, january the 5th. for most americans january 6th was an unremarkable day, that changed four years ago when the peaceful transfer of power was thwarted for the first time in american history. in the weeks after the 2020 election donald trump and many of his allies, including those in congress, spread unfounded allegations about the legitimacy of joe biden's presidential victory. they filed more than 60 lawsuits

in multiple states and in various jurisdictions from local county courts all the way up to the supreme court. but as nbc reported, of those dozens of lawsuits, quote, trump obtained a favorable ruling in only one case, the remainder were eventually either dismissed, settled or voluntarily withdrawn. but the lies about the election persisted and trump and his allies zeroed in on the electoral college certification in congress as their last best chance to keep trump in power. it culminated in the events of january 6, 2021 when a mob of trump supporters, you will remember this, forced their way into the capitol in an attempt to prevent congress from doing its duty of certifying the victory of joe biden. there were violent confrontations between law enforcement and the people who broke in, some of whom used flag poles, hockey sticks and pepper spray against capitol officers. some chanted "hang mike pence" a reference to the vice president who had refused to cave to

trump's unconstitutional demands to block the certification of the election. in the immediate aftermath of the attack it appeared that the shocking events of that day had shaken many americans to their core, including many republicans who quickly denounced the rioters and laid the blame on trump. when congress reconvened to finish counting the electoral college votes that night, then senate majority leader mitch mcconnell gave a speech on the senate floor and called the attack, quote, a failed insurrection, end quote. south carolina senator lindsey graham gave a speech that night distancing himself from trump. he remarked, quote, trump and i, we had a hell of a journey. and he added, quote, but today all i can say is count me out. enough is enough. end quote. and the day after the attack south carolina congresswoman nancy mace who had just been sworn in as a new member of congress just a few days prior and supported trump on the campaign trail that year said that trump's entire legacy was

wiped out by the events of january 6. but there has been a lot of revisionism in the past four years. throughout his third presidential campaign trump often played a rendition of the national anthem sung by the j 6 prison choir, a group of people who had been jailed for crimes connected to january 6th. he also calls them patriots and political prisoners and refers to january 6th as, quote, a day of love. he vows to issue pardons for many of those convicted for participating in the insurrection and just last night at mar-a-lago trump hosted a screening of the john eastman dilemma, a movie about the attorney who has been described as the architect of the attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 election. in a video posted online apparently taken from the audience last night trump sang eastman's praises insisting eastman was, quote, right the whole time. per nbc's reporting in addition to eastman several other figures who played pivotal roles in

trying to overturn the election were in attendance last night including rudy giuliani, jeffrey clark, michael flynn and peter navarro. while trump offers absolution for his supporters he also promises retribution on their behalf against those who tried to hold him and his supporters to account. in a post on truth social just two days ago trump once again attacked former republican congresswoman and january 6th committee member liz cheney as, quote, a war monger of low intelligence, end quote. he also referred to her and the other members of the january 6th committee as, quote, dishonest thugs, end quote. tomorrow january 6 will be remarkable for how ordinary it will be. congress will meet to certify the results of a presidential election for the first time since that dark day four years ago and it will, we hope, be business as usual because there hasn't been any effort to delegitimize the results of the

election like there was four years ago. there will we hope be a peaceful transfer of power despite the fact that the person coming back to power tried to block that tradition flowers years ago. i'm joined now by congressman jamie raskin of maryland, he served as the manager during the second impeachment of donald trump. he is the author of "unthinkable: trauma, truth and the trials of american democracy." an important read in in moment. congressman, good to see you. thank you for being with us. we must remember what happened last january 6 and we must remember the danger, the lives that were lost, the attack on democracy, but to some degree we are not finished, as my colleagues on "the weekend" show donald trump held a screening of a film last night which continues to distort the truth about what happened and who caused it on january 6th. >> we're still in the fight of our lives. it's not over by a long shot. the struggle between authoritarian lies and democracy

and the struggle for the common good continues, and, you know, we have to do honor to those 140 police officers who were wounded and the hundreds more who participated in the fight to defend the capitol on january 6th and to defend the vice president and congress. so we're very much in the middle of this and, you know, on june 1st, 2020, donald trump and william barr who had not yet broken with trump, assembled a paramilitary force within the government to attack the black lives matter protesters in order, you know, to get over to the st. john's episcopal church to wield an upside down bible over his head and do whatever he could to violate the separation of church and state, but they were willing to use government violence against nonviolent

democracy protesters. on january 6 he incited a violent insurrection to back up his political coup and showed he was willing to use mob violence against democratic government. so we've just got to hang tough through this period to do justice and honor to those people who risked their lives for us, like officer ganell who was forced to leave his dream job in law enforcement and is wounded and suffering still from the attack like officer harry dunn, like officer michael fanone and dozens of other police officers who stood up for democracy on that day, as well as people across the country who came forward to testify about this outrageous assault on the american constitutional order. >> let's talk about what is more serious. you say we are in the fight of our lives, it doesn't stop, the fight for democracy doesn't stop. this isn't a commemoration of a

day in history, it's a current matter. what's the more important part of this current matter, the fact that donald trump says that when he comes into office he will pardon some or all of those people who were convicted of committing a crime in the course of january 6th events, or the fact that he wants to go after others, people like you, he talked about liz cheney an awful lot and he wants to prosecute people who were investigating january 6. are these equally serious? is one more serious than the other? >> well, it's all part of the same attack on constitutional democracy. look, the pardon power is used to pardon people who were actually innocent or victims of a procedural miscarriage of justice or who have been reformed and rehabilitated. they have not shown any of these people were innocent who attacked the capitol and smashed our officers over the head with confederate battle flags.

they have not shown they were miscarriages of justice, on the contrary they have even conceivable due process protection afforded to them including the right of counsel and so on. and they were convicted unanimously by a jury of their peers or they pled guilty to these offenses. but they certainly have also not shown that these people are rehabilitated and reformed and no longer constitute a threat to public safety. and so a lot of the officers have been expressing their concern that these people are being unleashed back into society without any statement that they've been reformed and rehabilitated and a lot of them, hundreds of them, engaged in violent assaults, dozens of them engaged in seditious conspiracy, which means conspiracy to overthrow the government, others possessed dangerous weapons in a government building. so that's part of it, but then, as you suggest, the incoming

president wants to continue by using governmental process to go after people like liz cheney or perhaps michael cohen or lev lev parnass. these are all people who need to be protected against the retaliation that donald trump and his entourage have promised to exact against people who dared to stand up for the truth and dared to stand up for the officers and for the rule of law. >> so we have a collective responsibility now, if we are going to be foot soldiers for democracy. some of us will be targeted, some of us will not be targeted. what do the rest of us, what do people watching this who are not likely to be targeted by the trump administration for prosecution or harassed by this administration, what do they do to support those who will be? how do we sort of say that we are all equally in in fight for democracy together, whether you are a specific target or you are not? >> well, it begins precisely

with what you just said, ali, it's the acknowledgment that we are all in this fight together. solidarity will be the watch word. if you look at people who have struggled against authoritarian tyrants, people like vladimir putin or franco or mussolini, it's always been solidarity that people put themselves in other people's shoes and say what can we do to help, whether it's raising money for legal defense, whether it is speaking out forcefully as sergeant ganell did in this morning's "new york times" in a beautiful piece about what it's like to live through this period as a police officer who defended members of congress against this violence and now sees donald trump coming back into power based on a whitewash and this lying historical revisionism about what took place. but we've got to tell the truth, however we can, and then we've

got to stand up for justice and the rule of law. >> right before the show started i was talking to my colleagues on "the weekend" they were talking about the fact that donald trump hosted a screening of a movie about john eastman, the so-called architect of the fake electors scheme at mar-a-lago. people like rudy giuliani, michael flynn, jeffrey clark and peter navarro were in attendance as well. you know, on one hand, who cares what donald trump shows at mar-a-lago, except that in a few weeks he's going to be in the white house and this -- this wanders into the territory of things that the president is actually doing as president as opposed to the president-elect is doing with his friends. >> well, you know, criminals always return to the scene of the crime and they can't get over january 6 because they understand that that was the moment where their big lie exploded into full public consciousness and everybody could see where their lies were leading.

they acted in the face of more than 60 federal and state court decisions repudiating every assertion of election fraud and election corruption that they were advancing about the 2020 campaign. and yet they can't leave it alone because they understand that this whole history that we are living through to this day has been warped and distorted by those lies and their attack on us. you know, at the swearing in on january 3rd of the members of congress, hakeem jeffries our minority leader remarked in passing that the electoral college had produced and the people had voted for donald trump in 2024 and then there was explosive applause from the republican side of the aisle and hakeem jeffries whitleyy applied, well, yes, there are no

election deniers on this side of the aisle. in other words, we are not going to plunge the country into a four-year crisis about whether or not the person who won the election actually won the election, but we will be standing strong for kpugs nl freedom, constitutional democracy and for pursuit of the common good, however we can do that, including with our republican colleagues. it does seem to me, ali, that their coalition is starting to fly apart with all of the internal contradictions between, for example, the racist, nate i havist, anti-immigration wing and then the billionaire oligarchs who like cheap foreign labor and want to expand the h-1b program. that is just one example of a series of contradictions that run through their coalition. so we're going to be looking for opportunities to connect with any republicans who actually want to make progress for the country. >> and we will be talking later in the show about the visa situation and i will be speaking

with one of your colleagues, don bacon of nebraska about that particular issue, about how republicans who wish to get some governing done are going to be able to do that and whether that's in concert with some of you on the democratic side of the aisle. congressman, we are going to rely on your constitutional expertise and of course your congressional expertise over the next two years while we continue to fight to uphold democracy. the democratic representative jamie raskin of maryland. coming up, the historian joanne freeman who watched alongside us as the january 6th insurrection unfolded four years ago, she will join us to talk about the first election certification since that dark day. plus don bacon reacts to mike johnson's narrow speaker election. also i will talk to gary peters of michigan the ranking member of the homeland security security. g member of the homeland security security with cascade platinum plus, i have upped my dish game auntie, in that dishwasher? watch me

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tomorrow congress will convene to certify donald trump's victory in the 2024 presidential election. it will also mark four years since a mob of his supporters attacked the capitol in an attempt to subvert democracy and keep him in power. joining me now is joanne freeman an award winning historian and professor of history and american studies at yale university. she is the author of "field of blood." joanne, on the saturday after january 6th last year you were together with us on the show and we were still literally the early hours, we were still trying to make sense of the attack on the capitol, we had no sense of how this was going to unfold, and you said to me at that time that this will have had an enormous impact on the american public. talk to me about that impact. i just spoke to jamie raskin who said our fight for democracy is not over despite the fact that hakeem jeffries said in congress we accept the results of congress and there are no election die national hurricane

center on his side of the conference, the fight for democracy is still there. >> very much so. here is the thing, you can't unring that bell. so what we saw was an attack on our government, on the government that represents all americans that we agree to abide by under the pact that unites us, the constitution. that was an attack on the government, an attack on the election and as you suggest, ali, we were still in shock the next morning. you can't unring that bell, meaning people saw that happen, and then it becomes in a sense part of a repertoire of dissent. it shouldn't be, and one way that it wouldn't be is if people were being held accountable for that crime. because that's what it was. it wasn't peaceful dissent, it was an attempt to overturn an election. so what we see now when we see donald trump and his supporters

celebrating that moment, denying that it was an attempt to overthrow the government, all of the claims being made right now to literally -- and i say this as a historian -- to rewrite history, that's an attempt to erase the fact that what happened was an attack on the government and that we know that and that will not go away. the narrative may try to be rewritten by some, but the fact of the matter is the video, the evidence and people like you and me, we watched it happen. >> yeah. and, you know, it's not just that you can't unring the bell, and i suppose for historians it's important that people can't unring certain bells, but this bell is amplified in large part because of social media. one of the things we didn't have four years ago was elon musk and his influence on the way he had on this election, not just in terms of money but his reach on social media. social media is, you know --

roggy namee feels that social media works against an informed public making opinions, former proper opinions and using critical thought. >> oh, absolutely. i mean, in a sense it was an attack on our government and now it's an attack on our government times ten. you would hope that it would be diminishing but there has been no accountability really for what's going on when you see people now coming into office and celebrating it, and social media, we already live in an age where facts, reality, evidence is in not low supply, but can be hard to parse out from what we see and now there is an ever growing stream of misinformation and disinformation and people with a lot of power, social media and other forms of media, are seemingly deliberately engaging in an attempt to mask some of what happened and to put out a new kind of narrative or

to hide the narrative of what actually happened. >> joanne, thank you for being with us that day and all the days in between and this morning. we will continue to rely on you as we move forward in this continued fight for democracy. joanne freeman is an award winning historian and professor of history and american studies at yale university. she is the author of multiple books including "field of blood: violence in congress and the road to civil war." coming up, what mike johnson's reelection as house speaker means for congress and the trump agenda. i will talk about it with congressman don bacon of nebraska. it with congressman don bacon of nebraska

oh... stuffed up again? so congested! you need sinex saline from vicks. just sinex, breathe, ahhhh! what is — wow! sinex. breathe. ahhhhhh! i want to welcome back friend of the show republican congressman don bacon of nebraska, he represents the state's second congressional district in the last congress representative bacon served on the house armed services and

agriculture committees. he is a veteran of the united states air force. good to see you. thank you for being with us again. >> good to see you. happy new year's to you. >> and to you, sir. last time we talked you expressed frustration with the way the speaker thing and reconciliation thing and the funding all went down. you called speaker johnson a good man who is trying to do his best. given some of the internal divisions, do you think what happened last week with the speaker election finally getting done on one ballot, does that help? does it hurt? did it show you more division or does it show you some help? >> i think in general it helped. we exceeded expectations by getting this done in one vote which is pretty low expectations i have to throw out there, but with a three-seat majority and we will go to a one seat majority for about three months it's just the facts of life. it is disheartening when people see that we have a three-seat majority that there's four, five, maybe up to ten folks who do not know the meaning of being

a team player, they play solitaire in the middle of a basketball game if i could paint a picture for you on these ten individuals and they hurt us. that said, you know, i think we got a better conference than we did last conference, the three most incendiary, most -- you know, the most toxic people that we had in our conference are gone so i think we've got a little bit better personality dynamics in this conference, but that said with the three-seat majority it's still going to be hard and i think by definition when you have a senate with this difference you have to to have 60 seats to pass things in the senate we're still going to require bipartisan works. that's just the fact of life. >> we saw mike johnson narrowly win that speakership after which some in the freedom caucus put rules for him to say in the seat. what do you think about the new rules? a bunch of republicans basically

said we will vote for you, but we still want a lot of power. >> they seek to undermine the speaker and the vast majority of the republicans. like i say, these folks do not know how to play on a team, this he know how to play solitaire real well and that doesn't work. i don't demand 100% on everything because i'm one of 220 republicans and one of 435 overall where you have to try to optimize solutions. but this small group, there is about ten of them right now, it's sort of my way or the highway and it hurts the team. so i encourage them get behind the speaker. when you get behind the speaker he has a better leverage negotiating with hakeem jeffries. he's still going to have to have some compromise but when we weaken him then it actually strengthens hakeem jeffries. the dynamic is ten folks, three or four ring leaders, they weaken the speaker which forces them to have to work more with

hakeem jeffries and they get more mad about it. they don't see that, you know, they're their own worst enemy at trying to get conservative policies passed. but, again, i would say we exceeded expectations. a lot of folks thought we would do multiple rounds last week and we got it done in one. it took president trump calling these individuals and basically telling them get in line or else because you're undermining our agenda and our team. >> so you talk about playing solitaire at a basketball team. i was talking to joe welsh and he was saying in his tea party days that was sort of what happened. he said it's more so now. there are a lot -- some of the most incendiary members of the caucus have this view that it doesn't matter whether donald trump calls me or elon musk calls me or tweets about me or somebody primariees me, the concept of team is gone from some people. you have conservative principles, a conservative agenda but you fully understand you are not getting your way on everything and that's going to require some compromise. it does seem you have some colleagues who don't sign on to

that way of thinking about government or congress. >> on those ten individuals i think there's seven or eight that are very concerned about president trump calling for a primary, you can see the impact on friday. he basically told two or three of them you are in trouble if you don't get on board in so many words and they are in a district that once goes republican by 15 points which means the primary is their primary concern. there are two or three, you're right, that does not scare them, but for most of them they do listen to president trump. i come from a district that went for harris by five, i am one of three harris districts that went republican in congress and as so i have a different dynamic that i'm working on. >> right. >> but to get to your point, these folks really don't care what dysfunction they cause other than the threats of a primary from president trump, but beyond that they like the

dysfunction because it gives them limelight, social media clicks and there is a certain group in our country that like that kind of behavior. i would also say these folks they are a my yort but they don't mind government shutdowns. they think it's a good thing and yet it's not good for our military or border patrol who are defending our country. not good for air traffic controllers who have to control the air space. the vast majority of americans don't like government shutdowns but these small group of folks they sort of relish in that world and relish that threat. >> there are some things that do have to get done that are going to involve hakeem jeffries and mike johnson and you and lots of others. we have to get a reconciliation bill, we have to get a budget, we have to have appropriations, we have to deal with the debt ceiling. talk to me -- some republicans are talking about pushing for two bills, donald trump is suggesting one reconciliation bill. talk to me about what you think the right strategy is or is the right strategy for you whatever gets it done?

>> i'm not dogmatic on two bills or one. president trump said he thinks one is a better way to go, he wants to get it done quickly. i know this is the agenda we should have, i heard it from our constituents, we need an economy growing faster than inflation, the americans are 4% poorer than four years ago and they feel it at the grocery store and paying utilities. secondly they do want the border secure. i don't understand why president biden didn't see the danger to our country and to his legacy with this border. third, people want energy independence, more than energy independence they want energy dominance. we have the ability to have the world's leader in this area but we need a president that fights for that. four, crime is a concern in many parts of country. nebraska we're doing pretty well but crime and supporting our law enforcement is a big concern and i'd say a fifth area, americans want their country to be respected again.

there is a sense that people are walking all over us and we have to restore deterrents with iran, russia and china. i think that's the agenda that we have. we can -- reconciliation bill, the first one, if we do two has to be focused on the border and then in general we have to find a which to extend most of the tax cuts that are going to expire this year. >> these are all good topics that i would love to have individual discussions with you on and i know you would be willing to do that, but on the border y'all had a bill, right? you guys had a bill, it was donald trump who torpedoed that and a few people. you came up with a bill on the border that some republicans didn't like and some democrats didn't like but people like you got together and said there is a bill we're going to move forward on this. i'm not sure it's entirely fair to put that one on biden right now. >> that was primarily on the senate side. there was a bipartisan bill that came forward, but, you know, there were some problems with it and i would -- i would have voted for it if it was able to pass the senate, i think it would have -- to pass the senate there had to be i'm procht to

it. just to put it into context under president trump we were averaging 2,500 folks crossing the border illegally a day in his administration, 2017 to 2021. but then under president biden it went up to 10,000 a day at the peak. this compromise bill was calling for 5,000 a day. there were a lot of republicans and maybe it's the democrats, too, that didn't think it was good enough to have a 5,000 a day benchmark for illegal people coming over our border. so i think it was a start, i think we could do better than that. so -- but i think that's the foundation for something we can work on, the work done by senator langford and senator sinema and senator murphy. i'm working with some democrats right now on the house side to take that bill and make it better. >> i think that would be useful. we are going to talk a lot about immigration on this show. good to see you as always. republican congressman don bacon

. coming up gary peters joins me to discuss what it means for national security when the president seems to be not concerned about a terror attack. concerned about a terror attack.

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helpnokidhungry.org and help feed hungry kids today. this morning ukraine launched a surprise new offensive in the russian region of kursk. it appears to be a renewed attempt to seize additional russian territory following

ukraine's incursion into kursk last summer. while ukraine still controls much that have area russia has been able to claw back parts of it. notably with the help of and at the expense of north korean troops. the renewed ukrainian offensive comes following months of setbacks for ukraine because russia has been making slow but steady gains along the front lines in eastern ukraine. russia is continuing to conduct deadly and destructive aerial attacks on cities far from the front, including into the capitol of kyiv. we will be right back. the capitol kofyiv. we will be right back. no matth you gotta brush, oral-b electric cleans better with one simple touch. oral-b's dentist inspired round brush head hugs em, cleans em, and gets in between em, for 100% cleaner teeth. your perfect clean starts with oral-b.

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remember the main, to hell with spain, that was the american battle cry following an explosion which destroyed the u.s.s.maine, a battleship docked off the coast of havana, cuba, in february of 1988

killing u.s. seaman. u.s. tensions with spain were high mainly due to an independence movement in cuba under spanish colonial rule sins christopher columbus claimed cuba for spain in 1492. the maine was one of several vessels in the region protecting u.s. interests and there was a major movement in the united states led by noted media barron's at the time william randolph hurst and joseph pulitzer to sbeer screen on behalf of the could you been independence movement and go to war with spain. despite it being unclear who or what caused the explosion that destroyed the u.s.s. maine the press ran with the story that spain was behind t it is commonly believed by the way that the explosion was most likely caused by an internal malfunction, but the narrative was out. politicians and the public caught on and soon america was at war with spain. just over a century later another false narrative led the u.s. into another war, this one

aided by bad intelligence at best and a politically expedient lie at worse that saddam hussein had large stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in iraq. those are two examples from american history where lies or false narrative and getting it wrong had serious consequences. wars were started, lives were lost. this week president-elect trump as he often does to make announcements and events took to his own social media platform truth social to react to the new year's bourbon street attack in new orleans which killed 15 people, including the air ttack. trump who has called immigration from the southern border an invasion suggested that, quote, biden's open border policy was to blame for the new orleans attack. while it turns out that the only borders the attacker crossed were state lines, he was a u.s. citizen and an army veteran from texas, trump has not issued any

corrections or changes to his posts and his false claims have been echoed by several republican members of congress, notably by the house speaker mike johnson. so trump in this case was responsible for spreading misinformation online about a terror attack on u.s. soil, but in a couple of weeks once he's back in office trump will be shaping more than public opinion, he will be commanding the focus of america's defense, intelligence and law enforcement apparatus. it won't just be his truth social followers who are fed a false narrative and his congressional allies under pressure to repeat it, it will be the full force of the american government. after the break i will talk to the ranking member of the homeland security committee, the democratic senator gary peters of michigan about the dangers that this poses to america's national security and what can be done about it. national security and what can be done about it

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his political purposes, but actually wasn't accurate about a terrorist attack. >> it is. it's irresponsible. there is no question about that. as you mentioned, it's one thing about being irresponsible if you are just on social media and we should all take everything we see on social media with a grain of salt, but he is going to become president of the united states very shortly and will be responsible for keeping us safe and you need to have accurate information to be able to address that problem, false narratives don't solve real problems. when it comes to domestic terrorism, it is a real problem that we have to deal with. in fact, i have worked, when i was chair of homeland security, to force our intelligence agencies, the fbi, the department of homeland security and others to provide data as to what are the terrorist threats that we face in this country and clearly we have to keep our eye on foreign terrorism, that's something that is always present, but it was also clear that most of the terrorism attacks that we see in our

country are actually domestic terrorism. they are u.s. citizens that have either been radicalized from outside sources or they are part of extremist groups, whether those are white supremacist or anti-semitic groups and engage in terrorist activities. with data we are able to a appropriate reit resources appropriately and make sure we have law enforcement folks focused on the real problem. when you have a president off on false narratives we won't be able to deal with what is a very serious problem in this country. >> the good thing is there are a lot of people in the law enforcement and intelligence and the homeland security and the anti-terrorism infrastructure who are voted to this. there were people who worked as bulwarks or whistleblowers when they felt it was necessary. donald trump has a few potential

appointees to law enforcement arenas that are a little worrisome. >> they are. >> are you worried about the fact he will have people to do his bidding? >> i am very worried about that. you are looking at folks in key positions and national security and homeland security that simply don't have the expertise or the background to really manage these agencies and if they are just there to do whatever the president wants, that's not their job. they need to approach that position with responsibility, work with experts that are in those agencies to make sure that they are actually protecting american citizens and we will find out. we're going to go through the confirmation process in the next few days, we are going to be asking a lot of tough questions and we are going to expect thoughtful answers from these nominees. from what i've heard so far i don't think we should expect those thoughtful answers coming back. i hope they are, but if they are not, we have to make sure that we're pushing back. hope that we can get people in

these key positions who are professionals, understand the challenges that we face and act accordingly. >> so -- >> i'm concerned that that's not what we have right now. >> there was some attempt by the president to bypass that process. assuming that you get to interview these particular candidates in the senate, what do you hope -- what does success look like for those who are not qualified? in other words, what does success look like you to? is it that those hearings in some cases get televised or that the american public sees their answers to specific questions about homeland security, intelligence, defense and law enforcement questions so that the public can make a determination as to whether these people are qualified or not. >> absolutely. these need to be open. first we have to get information, there was some question as to whether or not there would be fbi background checks, that seems to be happening right now. we have been interviewing these nominees, but ultimately we've got to get them on camera, in front of the american public for americans to see who these

individuals are, what makes them tick, how they're going to approach the problem set that they have been given in this administration and make a determination whether or not they're qualified to actually do the job. and then obviously my hope would be that some of my republican colleagues would also come to that same conclusion because it will be fairly clear i think in some cases but they will need to have the political will and courage to vote what they believe is right for the country and not necessarily what donald trump wants. >> senator peters, good to see you. thank you for joining us this morning, the democratic senator gary peters of michigan. coming up, congresswoman stacey brass ket was an impeachment manager for donald trump's second impeachment over his role in inciting an attack on capitol hill four years ago tomorrow. she joins me next to talk about the threat posed is by the revisionist history that's grown up over the events of that day and donald trump's promise to pardon those who participated. another hour of "velshi" begins right now. who participated. another hour of "velshi" begins

right now. good morning. sunday, january 5th. four years ago tomorrows peaceful transfer of power was thwarted in american history. donald trump and many allies spread unfounded allegations about the legitimacy of joe biden's presidential victory. trump and allies zeroed in on the electoral college certification in congress as the last best chance to keep trump in power w which culminated in january 6th when a mob forced their way on to the capitol to prevent congress from certifying the victory. the people who broke in, some chanted, hang mike pence, a reference