congressman benny thompson is here to weigh in on what's next. plus, the presidents of harvard, penn and am i t facing major blow back after lawmakers press them to say rhetoric calling for the genocide of jews would not be tolerated on their campuses. or to put a more pointedly, as a violation of their student code of conduct. we're gonna dig into the fallout. symone sanders-townsend, and have something to say. ♪ ♪ ♪ imagine that you and your partner want to start a family. you are ecstatic then to find out that your pregnant. you start talking about names, you are decorating the nursery. you tell folks close to you what's the new development in your life. one day, you go to the doctor, you get a devastating news that your pregnancy is no longer viable. and that you need an abortion. devastating. your crushed. all of a sudden, you are living every woman's worst nightmare. and to make that nightmare worse, the state you live in has banned access to an abortion. so, in order to get potentially lifesaving medical care, you either have to travel dur

she told me she wanted a committee to begin work right away and had asked congressman benny thompson of mississippi to be her chairwoman. he walked to the illicit the other members that she intended to ask to join the committee, and then she asked if i would be willing to serve as well. i would be honored to do so, i told her. >> hours after that call, liz cheney was at a conference table in speaker pelosi's office for the first gathering of the january six committee. >> the speaker thank this all for agreeing to serve on the committee. she then turned the floor over to chairman thompson, who briefed us some plum run ari plans for hiring staff and beginning to schedule our work. two things struck me as i watched jamie raskin make notes. first, i had sat in the bishop meetings with kevin mccarthy for more than two years, and not once had i seen him outline the substance of a press statement, or anything else, to anyone. in our republican meetings, it was the other way around, kevin relied on notes prepared by the staff and even the smaller gatherings. he called us to explain anything

and i am super happy to welcome to the show congressman benny thompson of mississippi. representative thompson has been in congress for three decades. he is the ranking member of the homeland security committee, and he has served the chair to the committee -- select committee to select the january 6th attack on the capitol. in his leadership, the january six committee conducted more than 1000 interviews, examined hundreds of thousands of records, and presented a clear and damning case to the american public for the events leading up to the insurrection. congressman, happy new year. let me start off by wishing you that. and i really appreciate you being here. because the january six committee and its work was such a huge part of 2023, it was an incredible amount of work that you did. i wanted to get your thoughts. given where we started, and all of the work that the committee has done, how does it feel? what are your thoughts, seen donald trump indicted, and facing 91 different felony counts? >> well, first of, all thank you for having me, charles. let me just be very cle

overthrow the government by force and stay in power after he lost re-election with congressman benny thompson. she led the blockbuster congressional investigation int trump's plot against the country, showing us all who did it and how. as a conservative, as a republican, one dynamic that i think makes it particularly valuable for people like me, democrats and liberals, at least, to hear from her, to know -- to know what she knows is that her life experience is so different and her colleagues are so different, her milieu isa so different, her sight lines are different from line and i , guess maybe from yours. she doesn't hear from, you know, liberal constituents cheering her on for taking on the would be dictator in washington.r she hears from her congressional constituents in wyoming, which gave the single largest margin of victory to donald trump of gl any state in the country in 2020. even as a lot of the country is repeatedly struck by the t insanity of what's been happening in republican politics, where she lives and among the people she serves and who elected her, it's all believed and e

benny thompson led the january 6th committee pointed out that that language was adjusted after the civil to account for the fact that there had been insurrectionists in their midst. in your mind, in your view as a constitutional scholar and a congressman, did you and donald trump both become officers of the united states? >> well, of course. and the colorado supreme court was very clear that both of these oaths of office are oaths to support the constitution of the united states. and that's the only common sensical interpretation. and you know, i believe that the colorado court did a terrific job of refuting this bizarre claim that section 3 of the 14th amendment applies to every officer in america except for the most important officer in america, the president of the united states. and they demonstrate that the word office or officer is applied to the president or the presidency 25 different times in the constitution. so, i don't think that that poses any serious obstacle to the finding that donald trump's conduct was covered by section 3 of the 14th amendment and that -- that the provi

and our negotiator, benny thompson, agreed to that. even though we were majority in the house he said we'll do it 50-50. and when trump said there will no investigation of january 6th mccargy withdrew his own proposal and then tried today sabotage the house select committee, which nancy pelosi setup in the absence of a bipartisan independent outside investigation. and then later after biden was elected, although he couldn't bring himself to support the impeachment of donald trump for inciting a violent insurrection, which almost got even kevin mccarthy killed, he decided to support an impeachment investigation against joe biden for nothing, without even identifying a potential crime. so i say good riddance to him. he did nothing for his country or his constitution and at its moment of crisis. >> you mention the house impeachment investigation into joe biden, and i believe house republicans are preparing for an official vote on that next week. do you -- do you have an expectation as to what is going to come of that? and is there anythin

. >> the other one that is heroic is bennie thompson. benny is the only guy in congress that can be the chairman of the committee that was so famous. the whole nation was watching and he was okay giving the spotlight to other people. any other person in congress would want to take the spotlight for themselves in that position. he recognized that liz and i needed the spotlight to add credibility. without him, literally it is like god himself put that committee together had >> you put out tons of information it seems so obvious , but yet it is like turning a boat, i guess it is in the process is still taking a long time. how do you feel about the outcome of your work? >> the only disappointment i would have is i was hoping it would wake up more republicans. i think it woke up some, there are a small minority republicans like chris christie now. those exist and i do not think we need to minimize them. for the country, here's the one thing, my kid in five or 10 years when he is learning this in school, maybe 13 years, first off he will be pro

willis asking why she reached out to the january 6th committee and why she reached out to chair bennie thompsonnd records for her case. he, jordan is saying that's improper. couldny willis say, well, this is just part of my investigation? >> well, she can certainly say that, but it's whether the viewer at home or whether the juror at home believes it. and the fact of the matter is that what she is doing and what all of these other prosecutions are doing is they're on a political witch hunt. that's all it is. elizabeth: got it. gene hamilton, thanks for coming in. it's good to see you. >> you too. elizabeth: coming up, we've got university of pennsylvania student the eyal, he is fired up and ready to go. he already spoke out on capitol hill against anti-semitism on college campuses. we've got breaking news coming in. this news is big. now the trump -- for the university of pennsylvania reportedly will meet on sunday on whether to fire school president liz magill after her disastrous testimony downplaying campus calls for jewish genocide. if also we're dilling into -- digging into california's se

bennie thompson told me one day that the best disinfectant is truth. so we need more people to do speaking truth to power. and like i said, that's why, you know, one of the reasons i hope my book is that a lot of people, me about the congresspeople and, politicians or mayors who repeat these lies. you know, if they read my book, great. but the book isn't for them. the book is for the american people. and open some eyes and inspire to continue to speaking truth to power. speaking the book, there's some talk in terms of the structure it seemed to be part catharsis. there was a definite mental health track to this piece, part democracy primer, part history primer. was that intentional? so i'm this big hodgepodge of all that stuff that you just named. yes. it was intentional especially the mental health aspect of it. you know, you show me somebody who says they got it together all the time, then i'll show you the biggest liar, the face of this earth, because we all struggling with something. we all are. but i wanted people know where i got this forceful pr

bennie thompson told me one day that the best disinfectant is truth. so we need more people to do speaking truth to power. and like i said, that's why, you know, one of the reasons i hope my book is that a lot of people, me about the congresspeople and, politicians or mayors who repeat these lies. you know, if they read my book, great. but the book isn't for them. the book is for the american people. and open some eyes and inspire to continue to speaking truth to power. speaking the book, there's some talk in terms of the structure it seemed to be part catharsis. there was a definite mental health track to this piece, part democracy primer, part history primer. was that intentional? so i'm this big hodgepodge of all that stuff that you just named. yes. it was intentional especially the mental health aspect of it. you know, you show me somebody who says they got it together all the time, then i'll show you the biggest liar, the face of this earth, because we all struggling with something. we all are. but i wanted people know where i got this forceful pr

for voters was democracy, which told me in that moment that that committee, her leadership, bennie thompson'sat committee, mattered to the american people and not only did it move them, but more importantly it moved those institutions within government and outside of government, our judiciary, to think twice about the significant of the moment and to understand exactly the work that was put in front of them. we did not have that with the mueller investigation. we had it backsliding and excuses, and the justice department found a way not to lean into the moment to say, y'all need to bring some indictments, right? and we will. that's different now. and i think that is the work of this committee is going to go down in history as a seminal moment for the country, and i think it appropriately sets up ari -- i'd love to -- we can debate this over a beer, but i think it appropriately sets up what happens next. and it puts the onus on the american people, because they didn't hide anything. they laid it out there. they showed it to us. we leaned into it so much to the point that we recognized the impo

the other one that was great was benny thompson. this was the only guy in congress that could look at the chairman of the committee. the whole nation was watching. she was okay, giving the spotlight to other people. any other person in congress would want to take spotlight themselves in the position. they recognize that they needed the spotlight as part of that credibility. it is literally like god himself authorize that. >> the end result of that committee, you are putting out tons of information. this was so obvious. it's like turning a boat. it is still going to take me a long time. how do you feel about the outcome of all of your hard work? >> i was hoping that it would wake up more republicans. i think it woke up some. there was a small minority of republicans, similar to chris christie. i don't think we need to minimize that. for the country, this is the one thing that i know. my kid in five or 10 years, maybe 13 years or whatever, she's going to be proud of the last name. a lot of my colleagues are going to have kids that are

some are brought by members of congress, including eric swalwell and bennie thompson, others are broughtre injured that day. the import of this decision is that president trump doesn't get to just throw out these lawsuits because he was president on january 6th. even though a president can be entitled to immunity for official acts, the decision that the court is making here is that on the basis of the allegations in front of them, the speech, for example, that he gave from the ellipse on january 6th doesn't qualify as official action, rather it was a campaign speech, and they go on to talk about the difference between actions taken by an incumbent president as a candidate for office and those that he takes in capacity as president and ultimately rule that the allegations here, which are not yet proven, are not sufficient to reject the cases outright. >> you talked about the capitol police officers. we have heard testimony from the capitol police officer's interviews on our own air as well as to what happened that day and how it affected them. i want to play some of that sound again, the

i'm not a and so that great the other one that's really kind of heroic is bennie thompson because bennie is the only in congress that be the chairman of a committee was so famous at the moment that was so you know, the whole nation was watching and he was okay giving the spotlight to other people because any other person in congress would want to take the spotlight for themselves in that position. and he recognized that liz and i needed the spotlights to add that credibility. so without him, i you know, it's literally like god himself authored committee. it was pretty amazing. so the end result of that committee, you put out tons of information. things seemed so obvious. yet it's turning a boat. it's i guess it's in the process and still taking a long. how do you feel about the outcome of all your hard work? well, the only disappointment i is i was hoping it would wake up more republicans obviously, i think it woke up. there's a small minority of republicans that are supporting like chris christie now because they can't stand that. and, you know, and so those exist. and i think we need t

i'm not a and so that great the other one that's really kind of heroic is bennie thompson because bennie is the only in congress that be the chairman of a committee was so famous at the moment that was so you know, the whole nation was watching and he was okay giving the spotlight to other people because any other person in congress would want to take the spotlight for themselves in that position. and he recognized that liz and i needed the spotlights to add that credibility. so without him, i you know, it's literally like god himself authored committee. it was pretty amazing. so the end result of that committee, you put out tons of information. things seemed so obvious. yet it's turning a boat. it's i guess it's in the process and still taking a long. how do you feel about the outcome of all your hard work? well, the only disappointment i is i was hoping it would wake up more republicans obviously, i think it woke up. there's a small minority of republicans that are supporting like chris christie now because they can't stand that. and, you know, and so those exist. and i think we need t