jake tapper: --had white house lawyers such as pat cipollone very worried. cassidy hutchinson: mr. cipollone said something to the effect of, please make sure we don't go up to the capitol, cassidy. keep in touch with me. crowd: bullshit! bullshit! bullshit! cassidy hutchinson: we're going to get charged with every crime imaginable if we make that movement happen. crowd: fight for trump! fight for trump! fight for trump! jake tapper: but nobody could change trump's mind, and as he, family anand aides s arrived at t the rall, his chief of staff mark meadows was keeping the president's hopes alive. subject: prior to mr. trump taking the stage that morning, he was under the impression by mr. meadows that it was still possible. jake tapper: at the rally, the president had a more immediate familiar concern-- crowd size. cassidy hutchinson: we were in the offstage announce area tent behind the stage. he was very concerned about the shot. sasara murray: o or the pipictures that t were share, he wanted to make sure that the rally space was full. and so he's being told it's not that people e

. >> people like pat cipollone, people who came in front of the committee and testified truthfully, wed. we know the role he played with trump, so, he has significant information. >> i was thinking of cassidy's testimony to you, that meadows gives voice to trump's enthusiasm for the death threats to, quote, hang mike pence. and that seems central to jack smith's case. >> yeah, and, look, i think that the testimony of cassidy hutchinson was so important for a number of reasons. one, because it gave us such insight into what people like mark meadows were doing. two, because before her testimony, pat cipollone had not agreed to come to testify in front of the committee, of course, afterwards, we issued him a subpoena, he did appear and he did testify truthfully and obviously was very concerned about protecting privilege, but you know, he, in his testimony, made clear that there was one person, essentially, in the white house, who did not want the mob to leave. >> the only one was trump. >> right. >> i have a million more questions and one more chunk of time. will stay? >> i will, thank yo

he asked pat cipollone if he had the authority to name me special counsel. and he said, "yes.sked him if he had the authority to give me whatever security clearance i needed and pat cipollone said, "yes." and then the president said, "okay. you know, i'm naming her that and i'm giving her security clearance. >> seth: can you imagine this lunatic with security clearance? i wouldn't clear her for a costco card. [ laughter ] oh, that's where she gets the diet dr. pepper. [ laughter and applause "i buy it by the pallet. anyway, last week we found out that powell had pleaded guilty in the criminal case over trump's attempt to overturn the election results in georgia. and then on sunday, trump claimed he actually has nothing to do with sidney powell >> trump is responding to two of his allies who flipped on him, taking plea deals in the georgia election interference case trump tried to distance himself from campaign lawyer sidney powell, writing on truth social, "ms. powell was not my attorney and never was." >> seth: "and another thing, i don't know who the hell this melania lady i

does somebody like pat cipollone, who doesn't want to go anywhere near that point? yes. there were there were people there was another guy named chris liddell that i'd written about in my previous book, betrayal, who had been like secretly, you know, secretly in terms not briefing the president about it, but running what i call the clandestine operation from the second floor of the west wing, where he was working with the incoming biden administration, because a presidential transition is complicated and, you know, it doesn't it's not like one day you hand the keys over and there you are. so so you had people that were doing things to kind of stop or mitigate what the damage that trump was prepared to do. those people are gone in a second trump term. so mcentee, isn't there with it, by the way, doesn't literally need to be mcentee, but it's somebody to play that role. he's already preparing to play that role. he's working on this thing called project 2025, which is to set the terms for the personnel and the agenda of the next republic in presidential administration. but

will testify against him, and we just saw, again, this morning, news reports that dan scavino, pat cipollonetly given in front of the grand jury, that once again confirms what we were able to discover in the select committee, confirms that donald trump did not want to tell people to go home, did not want to tell the mob to leave the capitol, that he watched the attack on television, and trump knows that the witnesses in his trial are not his political opponents. he knows that they're going to be the people who are closest to him, the people he appointed, and he doesn't want the american people to see that evidence before they vote. they have a right to see that evidence before they vote, and so i think it's very important he not be able to delay his trial. >> very quickly, what do you think of the fact that secretary austin has been hospitalized since january 1st and didn't tell the white house until days later? >> i think they've got serious explaining to do. i think there's a real difference between public transparency and, you know, alerting the commander in chief to the fact that the sec

pat cipollone, and pat philbin, two of those top aides who were with the president extensively on january 6th trying to provide advice to him to get him to do the right thing. important to point out we did hear from cipollone and philbin in the congressional hearing, but not as it relates to their conversations directly with the president, directly with president trump on that day. we're hearing new details about that, and the two of them could potentially testify at trial as well. >> george: this comes as donald trump is trying to make the 2020 election central to his 2024 campaign. >> jonathan: yeah, and george, this is a very important point. according to our sources, scavino was asked directly whether or not he saw any evidence that there was voter fraud enough to overturn the elections in any state. he said no. variations of that exact question have been asked by virtually everybody who served donald trump at the white house, and under oath they have said over and over again that none of them saw any evidence that the election was stolen. they may have said different things publicly,

. >> pat, pat being pat cipollone.you put meat on these bones, what seems to be happening, donald trump's ability to say i was not aware of what was going on or what people's intentions are is melting away? >> right, ali. i feel like claire and harry hit the nail on the head. it's of a piece we are not surprised. in a book that phil rucker and my coauthor wrote in the beginning of 2021, we summarized this final year and this moment. every single person that was with donald trump that day, of course, we didn't know about scavino, was shocked, that the president seemed to basically put himself in his tv dining room, and watch, like he was popping popcorn in his mouth. interested and perhaps irritated that he had lost the election. but certainly, encouraged, by the outpouring of people who were violently trying to take matters into their own hands and block the peaceful transfer of power which is what donald trump had been trying to do for two months since finding out he had lost an election. i also think it's really impo

. >> president trump's close advisors, white house counsel pat cipollone, eric herschmann, advisor toup, "what evidence do you even have that there was fraud in the election?" >> narrator: the white house lawyers were insistent that the psident shouldn't declare martial law to overturn the election or empower sidney powell. >> at times there were pple shouting at each other, hurling insults at each other. (chuckles) >> the president is taking all of this in, mostly a passive observer in this meeting, but he is watching this play out. his close advisors telling his lawyers, "you have no evidence that there was fraud in the election. "and you've lost every case. every case you brought in to court, you've lost." and sidney powell says, "the judges were corrupt. that's why we lost." and eric herschmann, supporter, close advisor to the president, says, "what are you talking about? "every case? "the judges? we appointed many of those judges. "you're saying they're all corrupt? like you people have nothing, you're crazy." >> i think that it got to the point where the screaming was completely

these witnesses testify against him, when you have republican witnesses like white house council pat cipollone testifying against him, what is that going to do? that's a huge moment that's going to have a real impact on this campaign. >> chuck, as dan talks about sort of outlining the total eclipse of the sum this could be in a presidential campaign, as you sit here now and i'm not asking you to make predictions, but what's a thoughtful assessment about if not march, given how the appellate court has been moving, what the supreme court, the "x" factor here might do, do you think it's likely that summer is a time for trials. >> let me ask you a question. >> as many as you want, 200. >> i may need it. if the circuit court decides as we expect for the government, that he doesn't have immunity, if the entire d.c. circuit doesn't take the case en banc, if they don't agree to hear it now, i think you could hear -- >> that's a lot of things going in the special counsel's direction. >> a lot of things have to break his way. but remember, alex, this is in many ways the simplest case. i don't suggest it

whatever you may think of pat cipollone, the former white house counsel, john kelly, the former chieftaff, the fact of the matter is we know through their testimony and other sworn statements time and again they stopped donald trump from his worst illegal impulses. make no mistake about it, those adult voices in the room are not going to be present. bill barr, i'm the last person to say anything positive about the former attorney general, the reality is, he stopped donald trump from some of the excesses of the post 2020 election. but the other thing is, and you know i appreciate some of those former lower ranking officials speaking out, but i would really like to hear rather than having them as a translator saying what former cabinet official said, let's hear from the former cabinet officials directly. where are their voices? where are their voices in the public debate? again, i appreciate that they're there talking and being interviewed by jonathan carl, but i want to hear from the principles, the ones who dealt with donald trump on a day in and day out basis, if they have these conc

but also path cipollone, and pat philbin, the white house counsel and deputy counsel at the end of donald trump's administration, they were forced to also go and testify before a federal grand jury related to the federal election interference investigation. so often these lawyers for donald trump, they become more than just defense lawyers, but also they become the middle of these investigations and in the case of rudy giuliani, sidney powell, and kenneth chesebro, they become indicted targets themselves. >> andrew, let me go back to yesterday for a moment. there was a moment i want to point to when e. jean carroll's lawyer objected in court, and the judge asks what's the objection, and carroll's lawyer says i don't know what she's talking about, to which the judge responds, neither do i. so help me understand how that might play with a jury? these folks almost certainly have never sat through a trial before. they don't have a basis for comparison. is it possible to predict the impact of this kind of back and forth, admonishment, questioning whether someone knows what they're doing might