so the attorney general on the day was jeffrey who had been bill barr's longtime deputy and bill barr left shortly before christmas. and jeffrey rosen was mia that day. i can't really. ellie: what bill barr would've done the day but i think that bill barr, give them enough credit for being rational enough and unwilling, he crossed an awful lot of lines, blinds thati would never thought i would never seen an attorney general crossed but not everyone freedom willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and that he would've done the right thing and certainly not disappeared. i think attorney general has a job and that is to get in touch with the president and tell him like a lot of people are urging him to do, and equipment of all statement to call this thing off. but some of the blame sits on bill barr and the tendency to underwrite bill barr's danger level because unlike some of the obvious rudi's and the brooks and the donald trump tutors out there yelling to the crowds group. even others, very aggressive in your facing bill barr has a soft-spoken manner and he looks the part of the s

so the attorney general on the day was jeffrey who had been bill barr's longtime deputy and bill barr left shortly before christmas. and jeffrey rosen was mia that day. i can't really. ellie: what bill barr would've done the day but i think that bill barr, give them enough credit for being rational enough and unwilling, he crossed an awful lot of lines, blinds thati would never thought i would never seen an attorney general crossed but not everyone freedom willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and that he would've done the right thing and certainly not disappeared. i think attorney general has a job and that is to get in touch with the president and tell him like a lot of people are urging him to do, and equipment of all statement to call this thing off. but some of the blame sits on bill barr and the tendency to underwrite bill barr's danger level because unlike some of the obvious rudi's and the brooks and the donald trump tutors out there yelling to the crowds group. even others, very aggressive in your facing bill barr has a soft-spoken manner and he looks the part of the s

i'll connect really and bill barr, no pretty well i see the book of there's no evidence that bill barr actually did that naturally got involved with ukraine but is not a good look for the edgy with the president just casually thinks of you as a rudy in the federal payroll. >> of course and part of that i think into this question as well is that there are a lot of things not just in your book but beyond a lot of situations that are actually involved in and situations that he could've gotten involved in that he did not and i think that this question from tina is when you were writing this book, was bill barr given that book to comment on this book. did you reach out to him and if not, has he reach out to you directly to express his dismay. >> i'm really glad that question was asked for it yes my reached out twice in writing to bill barr and his team and i was forthcoming and i said, look at writing this book and i said it's all hatchet man and is very critical however, i be more than happy to come in and sit down with did attorney general and interview him and hear his perspective and th

he thinks bill barr -- he told me in the interview he thinks bill barr was paid off. that's why bill barr said what he said about the election. so anybody who disagrees with him is now the enemy. >> i keep having to pinch myself and not laugh at this. your tendency is to try to laugh at this, but it's profoundly unfunny and profoundly dangerous and, drew, this was a terrific important report. i really appreciate the work you've done here. >> thanks. >>> so, coming up, hospitals overrun with patients as the delta variant races across the country. how the biden administration is helping to put some financial pressure on places to boost vaccinations. >>> and he thought he was invincible, resisting the vaccine until it was too late. we will speak to a virginia man in the hospital who is urging others to get the shot. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ usaa is made for the safe pilots. like mac. who can come to a stop with barely a bobble. with usaa safepilot, when you drive safe... ...you can save up to 30% on your auto insurance. usaa. what you're made of, we're made for. get a quote today. centru

and bill barr had already shut this down and said that did not happen. doj saying there is no chance they'll get on board with this. one of them writing there was no chance he would sign this draft letter or anything remotely like this adding from where i stand, this is not even in the realm of possibility, jim. >> so we know that house investigators interviewed the former justice department official who drost -- who drafted a letter of resignation over trump's direct instructions, that is a quote, to use the department to support his false election claims. he didn't tender that resignation letter in the end. why? >> well simply because his boss acting attorney jeffrey rosen was not dismissed. so let me take you inside of the doj and the white house and in these very important days leading up to the riot. it was january 3rd, there was this apre -- apprentice style meeting within the white house because clark was trying to boot jeffrey rosen from doj saying he won't get the job done but i could. he wanted to advocate himself to the president that he could

so will we hear from bill barr? how will we hear from bill barr? what does bill barr have to say?ly saying the claims of the election being rigged were, quote, b.s.. michael schmidt thank you very much. i want to get your take, joe on this column in "the washington post," entitled why traditional conservatives should root for biden's success. gerston was a top aide to george w. bush. he writes, many of us not naturally inclined to support a democratic president have developed a rooting interest in joe biden's political success. this is not mainly due to biden's skills or vision. it's because he's fighting a rear guard action to save political rationality. he's one of those beings who calculate what is best for their families and communities. his strategy carries assumption of sanity. biden might have been employed a dynamite to solve a jigsaw puzzle, instead it is republicans who have taken that approach. donald trump did not carefully organize his troops for battle. he lit them on fire and hoped they would run into enemy lines. the chocolate damage to our society, norms, and inst

bill barr.ubling details about donald trump's efforts to manipulate doj and turn it into an arm of his coup attempt. "the washington post" is reporting on revelations by former trump acting a.g., jeffrey rosen, on the pressure campaign by the ex-president on his own justice department. quote, former president donald trump's last attorney general has told u.s. senators his boss was persistent in trying to pressure the justice department to discredit the results of the 2020 election. in closed-door testimony saturday before the senate judiciary committee, jeffrey rosen said he had to persuade the president not to pursue a different path at a high-stakes january meeting in which trump considered ousting rosen as the nation's most powerful law enforcement officer. the post adds this, the testimony is part of a trough of information that congressional investigators are assembling about trump's frantic efforts to reverse his dpeet by democrat joe biden and use the justice department to stay in office.

we learned that bill barr called the defense secretary the night before the election to say that he hadite house sources that the president, whether or -- whether he won or not was planning to declare a election night that he had won before all the ballots were counted, that that was a plan that was being cooked up, and it is unclear where bill barr heard this, but it was from inside the white house, so the conviction that president trump had that he was going to win or had won really started to solidify after he lost. his conviction that it had been stolen from him is what got calcified as time went on. the reason is he basically shut out those people, those adults who were explained to him that he had lost -- people he had trusted and had confidants alongside them for years, people like hope hicks, who counseled him that he was ruing his -- ruining his legacy, that he need to think about graciously and appropriately conceding, people like kellyanne conway who said she did not to evidence and asked the president to produce it or think about a plan b for stepping away. what is interesti

shouldn't bill barr have to answer for that somewhere? >> well, i think the first line of defense, if you will, or offense, is at the house judiciary committee. it should be able to investigate all of these allegations. there were some initial hearings in the senate, but obviously, the house judiciary committee can now put the final acts to it, if you will. which is to subpoena persons, to broaden the investigation, to determine why there's fraudulent behavior occurring, and this is singularly the house judiciary committee's jurisdiction, and it should not be limited. should not be stopped from doing its job. and there are many committees, we should not stop. we can do two things at once. we can pass the infrastructure bill, we can pass the budget reconciliation bill. we can do all of that, but we need to clean out the cancer that is attacking democracy. and that means we need to be heard. once we investigate, once the ig investigates, then it will be the appropriate direction of the criminal justice system. but i think the house of repre

bill barr couldn't do it anymore. rosen stepped in and wasn't willing to do it.ident trump said find another one. think about that. >> there are also questions about jeffrey clark, the other man you said you want to talk tto about whether or not he interacted with republican elected officials, particularly pennsylvania congressman scott pa parry. what have you learned about that? >> that part, i haven't seen any testimony from that. we're going to do our best to ask mr. clark to come in and tell the story from his point of view. >> are you worried that there were sitting members of congress who were involved in this? >> it's a legitimate question. >> do you believe that jeffrey clark is going to come in or will you have to subpoena him? >> i don't know. it will be interesting. he has nothing to fall back on now with the department of justice policy. merrick garland has opened the door. for personal reasons or other reasons he may decide not to testify but i hope he will. >> former attorney general bill barr, do you think he will come in voluntarily? >> i hope so.

bill barr used to be a principled conservative. with a pretty good reputation, even if you didn't agree with his politics. but he has issued his principles to endorse and support obvious lies. the washington post reports that in 2018, rudy giuliani told federal investigations that they were looking into issues of the 2016 campaign that it was okay to, quote, throw fake. when campaigning. that was 2018. right as giuliani was ramping up the ukraine scheme to fabricate a scandal that will take down joe biden's 2020 campaign, or at least that was the plan. and then there is the phone pillow guy. tonight we're learning that the cyber expert hired by the foam pillow man to investigate his claims says, the key data underpinning the theory that china has the 2020 election is a legitimate. now, we can laugh off the phone pillow guy as someone who was so diverse from reality that he does not deserve discussion. but he is swimming the same waters as the former attorney general, the former presidents lawyer, and the former president himself. t

you mentioned bill barr. you mentioned some of the members of congress that aided donald trump in trying to kneecap the election and kneecap our republic. that is the corruption constituency, if you will. but then there's the other part, and this is probably the majority of today's republican leaders, if not the party, that simply face the reality that this is the constituency they created, right? all of the gerrymandering, all of the rigs, everything they've done with big money to secure what would otherwise be a minority party, to security the ability to control the majority of government. that is the constituency they've created, and they can't lose it. so they will have to continue to peddle in this lane of corruption, of authoritarianism until it either further console cases or until it fractures the party once and all. but to fracture the party will mean that donald trump has been overtaken in leadership by somebody else out there, one of the governors, one of the congressional leaders, whomever it migh

pak had privately said, what jeffrey rosen had privately said, and bill barr had said publicly and privatelyon for you on this. we believe that the department of justice inspector general is looking at mr. pack's resignation and the circumstances therein as part of his investigation as to what happened with the white house pressuring the justice department around trying to overturn the election results. we've also seen some senators come out of earlier testimony in this ongoing investigation and say that they think that there may be criminal charged implicated here in terms of some of the behavior that they've heard testimony about. the further understanding that we are developing about b.j. pack, do you think that materially impacts the fulton county criminal investigation of trump or the potential inspector general investigation, the seriousness of it? any potential criminal charges? >> sure, based on the reporting that i have coming out of that meeting, it does sound like people who are listening to mr. pack's testimony indeed felt there were bigger questions that needed to be asked about

we've now read in books how bill barr explained that.hink it's also going to be coming out, you know, in the january 6th committee that his own white house counsel's office, pat cipollone and others in the counsel's office also told him that these allegations were ridiculous. at the middle of all of this is mark meadows, who was facilitating this all along, who i think needs to be somebody who is subpoenaed, all of his documents, his records, his phone records and his role in this with georgia as well as the justice department. it was highly inappropriate because the people who should have been talking to the justice department, and i was a senior official at the justice department back in the bush administration, the people who should have been talking to the justice department about anything would have been the white house counsel's office. so it's very telling that other people were involved because the white house counsel had to have understood that this was inappropriate. i think this will all come out in the hearings and it is goin

. >> right, after bill barr stepped down and said there is no evidence of any kind of fraud, at leastction. i think what is so unusual about this are these conversations between jeffrey clark and then president trump. for the head of the civil division to be end running the acting attorney general or attorney general depending on the timeline of when bill barr were there, is incredibly unusual. you are not supposed to be having conversations with the president. that is completely unnatural for somebody in that position, if you look at the organization chart at the justice department. and jeffrey clark has defended those conversations saying they were consistent with the law. they were weighing the pros and cons. when you're learning this, you have to raise the question of what pros and cons are they weighing? coming out and having the justice department help sew doubt about the election even though they had no evidence there was any doubt to be raised about it. >> does it matter? there are still republicans to this day bowing at the altar of donald trump. you would think that as you l

what if bill barr was there brainstorming ways to stay in office?one state? these are idle questions. we come back to the story and these new developments even though donald trump and steve bannon and a lot of these other people don't want this in the news and don't want it on tv, and they are counting on everybody being fatigued and moving on without accountability. and we see one party openly embracing attacks on democracy itself, so the senate probe is a big part of getting to the bottom of all of it, and they will talk to another doj official ousted when he like rosen stood up, too. the more elected democrats are saying what progressives warned a long time ago, that donald trump is literally serious and backed by a republican party literally serious about overthrowing elections like a dictator would. ? >> it was relentless, brutal, personally involved, directly aimed at the department of justice and seeking to break and weaponize it to overthrow the elections. only the department of justice refusing to break and standing up to him was the means

he was ecstatic to describe to us that bill barr failed him in the end and got worried about media criticism and failed by not doing what he needed to do to investigate and prosecute the allegations of fraud that trump said existed and called nonsense. he finally gets to tell his version of the reality. even if it doesn't stack up with the truth, he gets to say it. >> a lot of the coverage in your book that you've gotten with glowing reviews and you've made news everywhere with this which also is an estimate to how much is there, the idea that a presidency that was reported on so exhaustively for four years and especially in the past year, you were able to get jaw dropping new information and some the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, extraordinary kind of blow-by-blow account with donald trump supporters and the comparisons with nazi germany that could take a step. it's not like a random thing but as a military officer in the united states chosen for that job by donald trump. my question to you, you show his break precedes at least a bit of the infamous walk that took extraordinary he

jeff rosen was after bill barr. and one assumes that when trump appointed him to that position -- trump's only thoughts in those days were overcoming the election. he probably assumed that jeff rosen would at least be spoetive in that effort since bill barr was not. jeff clark, jeff rosen's subordinate played a key role in this. who is jeff clark? why was he involved? >> he was a justice department official. he headed the environmental natural resources division near the end of the administration. he was also promoted to be the acting head of the civil division, the division that litigates the united states's position in courts. unbeknownst to all the other officials he had been in contact with president trump. we know he was put in touch with the president by representative scott perry of pennsylvania and others. nobodies in the justice department understood what those conversations were about, didn't know they were happening until the end of december when jeff clark started to approach the acting attorney general,

bill barr looked for fraud. he wasn't skeptical. he looked and he couldn't find any. chris krebs' job was to protect the election, lifelong republican. he did that and described it as the most secure election in our country's history. we're learning through email dumps through doj and congressional investigations just how close we came to doj being pressured beyond the point they could resist by the ex-president to announce the result of the 2020 election was, quote, corrupt. that's what donald trump wanted them to do. i want to read something that's in "the bulwark" today from charlie sykes. this is, of course, weapons grade nut baggery, but maybe we need to take it seriously because something genuinely odd is happening on the right. ideas that would have been unthinkable are being normalized. this includes the explicit embrace of the idea of an american dictator. how do we break that? >> boy, i was with you until the last question. if i had a solution to it and shining light on it -- here is the important part of the election reforms. making sure the winners of elec

in article two hardliners like for example bill barr has suggested that this can be done, week's player detail in the book that wife we thank you so not a burden and allows the pardon to go through but it's a regulation of the consequences of the motivation behind it. it can provide a challenge reason to think so in the executive. nothing in the supreme court that rules out. i saw some duck argument. but more importantly missing one more thing for almost certainly never be tested in court and is the kind of thinking this is important to understand, laws like this can inform the behavior the executive branch officials even if they think it is never going to be enforced. this one's trump subordinates didn't go after meal muller, they were worried about obstruction of justice themselves in the statute looks like this, can dissuade president from committing abuses pardons and certainly what would be illegal under the statutory scheme even if it is never enforced. >> another question asked whether you discussed the department of justice brought policy prevents president from being indicted.

basic facts from bill barr. cording to abc news reporter jonathan karl, trump said, quote, the eye and mannerism of a madman in this meeting with barr. barr tells trump in this meeting december 1st, to trump, you keep on saying the department of justice is not looking at this stuff and we are looking at it in the a responsible way. but your people keep on shoveling this sh-- out. that's what barr said let's move on. december 3rd. this is what trump's cronies were actually shoveling out. >> the democrats worked into the middle of the night, moved republicans out of the room. took ballots under a table and counted them in the middle of the night. >> they have fought so hard to get rid of president trump and tried every dirty, nasty illegal trick in the book to do it. yes, it is pure evil. >> okay. so that's what was being shovelled out. then comes december 14th. an hour before trump announces barr would step down because that's how they relationship was going to go after barr is the truth. trump's personal assistan

we've learned are about the fragile guardrails that held, the people who said, no, we won't do this, bill barr officials down in georgia, various canvassing boards in michigan. what we don't have a full picture of is the people in government who said yes, the people who were in on this coordinated attempt. that is what the january 6th investigation has to be about. who were the people inside the white house telling donald trump yes, we will do this, we will help you? because we need to know each and every one of those names to drum them out of public service. >> let's talk about the current president and this moment the country is facing with covid. joe, communication is key in a time of crisis. yo you're a former white house press secretary. how can this white house get the delta surge under control? >> i don't know how muddled the message is. the science is muddled. they're learning things every single day. what distinguishes biden from many others is he's dealing with this as a public health issue. many of the republican governors are dealing with this as a political issue, as something the

bill barr said it at the national level. it happened here, too.but at the end of the day, everybody knows it was a good election, a fair election. >> you were able to veto these bills. democrats are finding it out in republican led states where they fled to delay passage of similar bills. wisconsin and 35 other states have gubernatorial elections 2022. are state governors going to be the last line of defense here? >> yes. they are. and i am in wisconsin. believe me, if i'm not in this position after 2022, all the bills i vetoed will come back in play and whatever republican governor is in place, will let them happen and will encourage the bills to happen. so yes, we are the last people standing here. and that's why it is so important for people to understand, governorship is really important work. and it goes beyond what happens on a daily basis, making sure we're fixing the roads and other things people can see. this is about a democracy, don. and i will stand for democracy at any time and i will stand for our ability to make sure that the people

here you have bill barr, who, you know, during his long tenure in the department, did so much to tearepartment to use to the president's ends. he got to a point where he said i can't manufacture claims of fraud where none exists. there were ones, including jeffrey clark, who were apparently willing to do so. he was the head of the civil division of the justice department and here he is asking the acting attorney general to urge georgia to convene a special session basically to try to appoint a slate of electors who don't represent how georgians voted and on the basis of bogus claims of fraud. it's really breath taking and it shows how very close we came through the use of this fraudulent but purportedly lawful process losing our gem si. >> the report from abc news, that's the guy, this report from abc news detailing the contents of a draft, he mentioned he was the high ranking justice department official who was apparently more on board than the acting attorney general jeff rosen. the dennis hastert urges the georgia legislature to go into special session over the results. it's comple

top doj official who replaced bill barr rejecting the inside job to do trump's deed in georgia.racing a saturday night massacre style resignation, even writing a resignation letter for himself and a colleague. all of this echoes the nixon era which is not overturning an election. it was a big deal in the middle of the watergate probe. >> the country tonight is in the midst of what may be the most serious constitutional crisis in its history. >> attorney general eliot richardson had resigned. >> the president has abolished especially watergate prosecutor. >> mr. nixon is not accustomed to have people around him who are not to do what they are told. >> we are joined by michael beschloss. how are you, sir? >> i am great, how are you? >> i am good. this new york times bomb shell and abc news has had reports on the same line really brings into focus how bad it was at the highest levels of government. you had a feeling it broke in realtime before joe biden took office, it would, quote on quote, "felt bigger." it is just as important now. i am curious of your perspective. >> i think wh

we know already that bill barr, who prior was trump's guy, said no we had not found such evidence. >> on jeffrey clark to do his bidding. thank good we they are not asserting privilege. you all can testify and produce documents. huge difference in having an attorney general who views the ag's office as not just a law firm for the president. >> one sad consequence is we have seen the limit offense the power of a congressional subpoena. they have been challenged 234 court, delayed, defied. are you concerned that clark, trump, other allies that you want to hear will try to fight or ignore subpoenas. how can you enforce them? >> i'm sure they will try to do both. we'll need to resort to the courts or i would hope that maybe we can think about legt legislation that will prevent this from happening. that's why it's important to figure out what went on. there's a lot that went on. >> senator, good luck to you. thanks for your time. >> thank you. >>> there's a lot more ahead on this busy friday as united airlines joins a growing list requiring employees fo vak cincinnatied. what about a vacci

late in december, five days after bill barr left the justice department, five days he said there waso matter to jeffrey clark who was fixated on this election fraud claims. as he move forward, we are going to watch closely the committee's work trying to talk to people who were in jeffrey clark's and donald trump's orbit at the time to find out in what way they were trying to make these overt efforts to utilize the powers of the justice department to overturn this election. >> thank you so much for that. don't go anywhere. inside politics with jon king starts right now. thanks for joining us. >> hello, everybody, and welcome to inside politics. i'm jon king in washington. thank you for sharing a busy news day with us. new pressure on andrew cuomo. an executive assistant adds her name and face to her story. plus, the covid gets worse. deaths double now what they were just two weeks ago and cases climb to their highest level since february. >>> and being aoc. a new cnn profile series

to think that bill barr left, resigned after he announced he didn't see irregularities in the election extraordinary pressure, the president of the united states, even to the point that they were talking about replacing him. that pressure was on. >> cnn's senior legal affairs correspondent, paula reed is with me now. what else do we know about what rosen and his deputy told the senate judiciary committee? >> both rosen and donoghue told the committee they were not sure whether clark was acting at president trump's behest or carrying out a plot that he orchestrated himself. both men testified that when they interacted with trump he never pressured them to do anything illegal and he did seem to understand that the justice department couldn't do anything to help him because they didn't have enough evidence of fraud. some unusual details uncovered by our colleagues about what exactly clark was trying to push inside the justice department. our colleagues have done some reporting and they have learned that clark told senior justice officials in late december 2020 that he believed that there

in the book here about early november, don, was when trump started talking about getting rid of bill barr to other people and offered it to richard donohue, rosen's number two but donohue wanted to follow the chain of command and insisted it be rosen and trump gave the acting job to rosen which shows how really close we came there. rosen is someone who sees his allegiance to the constitution not the office of the president and max mentions the chaos in georgia. i have that story in this book. by the beginning of january, lawyers were showing up in georgia saying the white house sent us, we're with the white house and that sounded very odd to the people down in georgia who had been there for several months who are actually from the white house. the first team that pat sent with the campaign, they are now mitchell and rudy giuliani 's team was coming at the end adding to the pandemonium down there. >> should the doj now be investigating the former president and what he tried to do, how he tried to co-opt his doj? we'll talk about that right after the break. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ hey google, turn up t

. >> what about the former attorney general bill barr? do you think he will come in voluntarily?stions relating to this incident and others during the tenure that he was attorney general. >> will you subpoena him if he doesn't? >> it takes a bipartisan vote to subpoena. i don't know that we're going to be able to accomplish that. people think the senate judiciary committee can send out subpoenas and off we go. it's more constrained. >> how helpful would it be to speak to former president donald trump? >> not sflooil what has are has are r r of o-- >> i guess the thought that we've come to accept it, this president and his bizarre conduct, we came to accept over four years as normal. it's outrageous. when you look back on the richard nixon episode and saturday night massacre people out of principle were threatening to resign. same thing happened here incidentally within the department of justice. there was a point where virtually everyone in authority in the department of justice was going to walk if the president had his way. these are moments in history which you never want to s

bill barr, the man who had done his bidding for four years basically said, i'm out of here.came jeffrey rosen. who is jeffrey rosen? we knew his position beforehand, but to be at the top of the heap is an important thing at that moment in history. well, rosen buzz challenged by the president and statements before our interviewers made it clear, repeatedly, and, of course, the ultimate threat, if you don't do this as i wish, you'll be gone. >> and i understand your -- this week your committee is set to interview the trump administration former u.s. attorney for the northern district of georgia who resigned in january. it happened days after a phone call was made public in which then the president was heard pressuring the georgia secretary of state to find votes to overturn the election. what do you hope to learn from that interview? >> i don't know for sure. i'm anxious to hear it. i want to say this, all those appearing before us, donahue and rosen, all of them have done this voluntarily. we have attorneys representing the republicans on the committee and attorneys represent

bill barr left. >> as he called into question whether there was any fraud in the election. >> right.ny fraud and i'm out of here. zblfr time we get new information, it's clear from what the inferred by the president's public statements that he was doing everything he possibly could to try to change the outcome of a free and fair election. >> molly, really interesting juxtaposition with biden as he honored police officers who fought to defend the capitol as we're learning about details from the former president. you wrote about michael fanone, d.c. metropolitan police officer who was brutally injured that day. this quote caught my attention, this excerpt from your piece. michael fanone said i had convinced myself, you're vo vocalizing the opinions of thousands and thousands of police officers, but i'm starting to think i'm vocalizing the beliefs of just one. while there are still some officers very supportive of me, i can count them on one hand. the vast majority of police officers, would they have been there, been on the other side of those battle lines january 6th? what do you think

what the judiciary chairman told me is unless someone like clark or even bill barr comes voluntarilys going to be difficult for the democratic leadership to compel it, so they hope it is voluntary. >> what they heard led senator blumenthal to say he was struck by how close this country came to total catastrophe, which is sc chilling. you spend time with people who affect american policy. this first interview features repr representative alexandria ocasio-cortez. is she aiming for a bigger political platform soon? >> we asked that question. you tell me at the end if you're satisfied with the answer. >> are you going to challenge senator schumer in a primary race? >> you know, here's the thing, is that -- and i know it drives everybody nuts, but the way that i really feel about this and the way that i really approach my politics and my political career is that i do not look at things and i do not set my course positionally. i know there's a lot of people who do not believe that. i can't operate the way that i operate and do the things that i do in politics while trying to be aspiring t

. >> rosen, the acting attorney general after bill barr stepped down, he did the right thing.right thing as well, certified the electoral college results despite the pressure on him from the then president. you served in congress for many years before you became governor in ohio. what do you think the priority should be for this panel investigating the january 6th attack? >> i think they just need to get to the bottom of all this, this narrative, wolf, as quickly as they possibly can, and i'm very pleased that there are two republicans that are on that committee. i know there has been a lot of controversy about who was on, who shouldn't have been. liz cheney, how about her pedigree? she comes from a terrific family. her father was the vice president. and kinzinger, he's a military veteran. he stood up. take that and combine it with this investigation. hopefully we can get to the bottom of this. i hope it happens quickly. we can then learn from it and move on. >> this investigation -- >> but kudos to those people who stood up and had the guts to put the country ahead of their c

even former attorney general bill barr said publicly that the department of justice had not found anyer fraud or voter irregularities. what we see here, wolf, is really an echo of what happened in ukraine. the what trump wanted to do was create the appearance of corruption and irregularity and use the credibility of the justice department as cover for that claim in the same way that he wanted president zelensky to announce an investigation into his opponent. this is, like, oops, he did it again. it's just the same pattern over and over again. and we are very fortunate that we had attorneys who were not willing to go along with this. >> very fortunate indeed that they weren't willing to go along with it. dana, i assume all of these officials are eventually going to be called to testify before this select committee investigating the january 6th insurrection. >> yes. and it's hard to imagine that won't happen. and the fact that the biden justice department sort of in a broad way said that they are all released to do so. the opposite tact that we saw the trump administration do when they

i'm assuming they are looking at this and still challenge it on the grounds that the doj, bill barr'sst engaged in a phishing expedition and not any over sight authority or legislation and therefore it should be stopped. i imagine they try to challenge that in court but they're going to have an uphill battle with that. >> so if it comes to congress, if the tax returns come to congress, are they now effectively public? will you and i and people here watching here be able to see them? >> i suspect we will at some point. i think congress is going to have to be judicious and i think circumspect about how they post these. there is a lot of, i think, issues around separation of powers and checks and balances that rides as much on trust as it does on the rule of law. but if they hold the hearing on over sight of the executive branch and on potential financial conflicts of interest that are raised in donald trump tax returns or possible corruption, then i think they get posted as exhibits to those hearings. and they may come out even before then. i think through leaks, but we'll see. >> so th

bill barr publicly stated and there was no basis for this letter drafted by jeffrey clark to be sentorgia or any other state. donoghue put it in black and white and said this. there is no chance i would sign this letter or anything remotely like this. so the letter was never sent but it is part of a trove of evidence that lawmakers and likely the doj inspector general are sifting through to uncover the lengths that trump and his allies went to to push their claims of election fraud. this likely won't be the last we hear or last documents we get. doj has told trump officials that they can cooperate. we might get more documents that show how far the white house and trump went to put this pressure on and overturn the election. >> every single new episode we hear about is more chilling and there's no reason to believe there won't be more. jessica, thank you very much. let's bring back laura coates. she is back with us. so, laura, just what i just said, it is chilling to hear how president trump and his lackeys were trying to subvert democracy. and if it were not for men of conscience, yo

bill barr said it at the national level. it happened here too.ur election was fair, and it was a great race. obviously i was happy joe biden won, but at the end of the day, everybody knows it was a good election and fair election. >> you were able to veto these bills, but democrats are finding out in a lot of republican-led states like texas where legislators fled the state to delay passage of similar bills. with failure on this issue at the federal level, are state governors going to be the last line of defense here? >> yes, they are. and i am right now in wisconsin, and believe me, if i'm out in this position after 2022, all the bills i vetoed will come back in play, and whatever republican governor is in place will let them happen and will encourage those bills to happen. so, yes, we are the last people standing here. that's why it's so important for people to understand, you know, governorship is really important work, and it goes beyond what just happens on a daily basis around making sure we're fixing the roads and other things that people

. >> and the final thought, we know -- whatever his intent was, it was too much for bill barr and he don't have any of his notes -- >> by the way -- >> yeah. >> jeffrey rosen would have been in meetings that bill barr had with donald trump. he was the deputy attorney general at the time. so the reason he testified for seven hours is not just this one conversation. i am certain they asked him soup to nuts everything that he knows. >> we will stay on it with your help. dan goldman, it was a tweet from you that inspired this conversation, so keep tweeting, keep coming on this show. thank you so much for spending some time with us. >>> up next, 19 republicans joined all 50 senate democrats in putting president biden one step closer to his first major big-time bipartisan win. a win he said this afternoon that is something every american wants. how this white house got it done when those who came before it could not. that story is next. that story is next balanced nutrition for strength and energy. whoo hoo! ensure, with 27 vitamins and minerals, now introducing ensure complete! with 30 gr

bill barr said so. chris kreb said so.> yes, what a surprise that donald trump, instead of building a presidential library, would launch the largest, most successful scam pac in american political history, but that's what it is. it is a scam pac. sam is absolutely right. this is why attention has to be paid because $100 million is a great deal of money. it could have a great deal of influence, and this is going to determine the shape of the party. that fact is one of the reasons why republicans continue to keep their heads down despite the fact that the embarrassment and the horror continues to mount with their association with donald trump. >> sam, is there anything -- i mean what is the fundraising looking like on the other side? what did the democrats raise in the same amount of time? >> i don't have the totals in front of me for biden, but we know he brought in a fair amount of money because he transferred a substantial amount, $15 million, to the dnc. from everything you hear, the fundraising is not necessarily going

president even considered putting jeffrey clark in to run the justice department since he could not get bill barridding to say that the election was corrupt, and he could not get rosen to do it. now, clark has not spoken out publicly, and he has not said anything about it, and the committee has not been able to get it yet, and there is a question if he is going to testify before the committee, because the committee has limited powers to compel people to testify. it takes a bipartisan vote to issue the subpoena, and the chairman said over the weekend, richard durbin, that it may not be possible. >> could the former president exert executive privilege? >> there is a widespread agreement that the current president has the ability to excerpt executive privilege, but does the privilege apply to the office or the person, and the former president issued that, and the supreme court suggested that it might be possible, but there has never been a definitive ruling if a former president can exert executive privilege to keep another official from testifying. >>> and now officials are saying climate change is

in the department of justice was frightening from a constitutional point of view, to think that bill barrd after he had announced he didn't see irregularities in the election and that the pressure he was putting on jeffrey rosen, it was real, very real, and it was very specific. this president's not subtle when he wants something, the former president, is not subtle when he wants something. and i think it's a good thing for america that we had a person like rosen in that position who withstood the pressure. >> you hear him sort of praising rosen for being able to stand to this pressure. we also know that the president was also eyeing jeffrey clark to potentially replace the acting attorney general if rosen wasn't will along to do the former president's bidding. eventually this committee will issue a report and we will likely learn more about the kind of pressure these officials face. >> i think we're only just beginning to get the real inside story. very, very disturbing. paula, stick around. i want to bring you into the conversation. the former fbi deputy director, senior law enforcement

ramsey called in the dojp unjeff sessions, bill barr abthey said this is hurting morale of police officersfor all the people out there saying voting isn't a big deal,s in the difference between a biden/democrat white house and republican white house where they want to must go and embrace cops and not hold them accountable. but you still need the george floyd act. i say senator lindsey and senator scott you have to be more aggressive to get your party over the line when it comes to votes to pass that. because if you do not have federal legislation this thing could go back and forth based upon who is in the white house. you need to have a bill that is strong to hold these police officers accountable >> i'm going to get joyce's comments on this. but i know you have a teeoff. if you disappear from the screen we understand and thank you >> i told congressman jim clyburn they can wake >> i like the work he is doing. let's talk about the patterns and practices and the power of the federal government and the department of justice, joyce. roland makes an important point. it's important. it doesn't

book here about in the early november, don, was when trump started talking about getting rid of bill barre even offered it to richard donoghue, at -- at the justice department. rosen's number two. but donoghue wanted to follow the -- the -- the chain of command here and trump eventually gave the -- gave the acting job to rosen. which shows how really, really close we -- we came there. rosen is someone who sees his allegiance to the constitution, not the office of the president. and -- and, you know, max mentions the chaos in -- in georgia. that story in this book, too. you know, by the -- by the end -- by the beginning of january, lawyers were showing up in georgia saying the white house has sent us. we're with the white house. and that sounded very odd to the people down in georgia who had been there for, you know, several months who are actually from the white house. the first team that pat cipollone had sent with the campaign. they -- now, you know, mitchell and rudy giuliani's team was coming in, at the end, you know, just adding to, you know, the pandemonium down there. >> hmm. shoul

he's also the art of "hatchet man, how bill barr broke the justice code and corrupted the justice department the potential legal ramifications for trump and others who tried to use the justice department to overturn the election. sure lowly there must be some l ramifications. >> it's clear there was a coup attempt by jeffrey clark and beyond by donald trump and others. when it comes to actual consequences, they have been yen sufficient so far. we've got congress doing an inquiry, doing a good job and uncovering a lot of facts but that's realistically all congress could do. theoretically they could impeach but they're not going to be doing that. doj's inspector general is investigating as well. the i.g. does not do criminal prugsz. they do not indict, they do not arrest, which brings us to the big question. is doj going to open a meaningful criminal investigation of election interference, of conspiracy to defraud the united states, both of which are federal crimes? there's no indication merrick garland has done that yet but i think it's absolutely imperative at a minimum that he open a crimin