Summary:
MSNBC continues its coverage of Donald Trump`s second impeachment
trial.
Transcript:
CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: That is ALL IN on this very, very eventful
Wednesday.
"THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW" starts right now.
Good evening, Rachel.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, Chris. Thanks, my friend. Thanks
for having me with you earlier in this hour in the show. You actually
helped me get my thoughts together a little bit about what this day was
like. I really appreciate it, my friend.
HAYES: You bet.
MADDOW: All right. And thanks to you at home for joining us this hour.
Thanks for being here.
Just to get oriented as to where we were in this process right now, this
impeachment trial of the former president and sort of what -- what we
learned today as a country because of that process. What started today is
up to 16 hours of the prosecutors, the House impeachment managers making
their factual case. And I say up to 16 hours because it appears they`re not
going to take all the 16 hours that are allotted to them.
They have been coming in sort of under time in terms of what we expected.
Not just yesterday on day one when they were arguing the constitutionality
of the trial itself and finished the day by giving back more than half an
hour of their time they chose not to use, but also today when they started
factually laying out their case. They ended today after having used less
than six hours of their allotted eight hours for the day.
Now, they can`t make -- take more than eight hours in any one day, so even
if they take all eight of their hours tomorrow, they will not be using all
the hours allotted to them, they will not be using all 16 hours to make
their case, just as they didn`t use the portion of the four hours allotted
to them yesterday to make their constitutional case.
And, again, what this means is just that the prosecuting side seems to be
not just on track but potentially ahead of schedule, getting done what they
want to get done with time to spare.
Overall the way, the schedule works is that the House impeachment managers
get to lay out their case today and obviously into tonight. They will also
have tomorrow and into tomorrow night, as I mentioned, eight total hours
available to them tomorrow and they could use as much or as little of that
as they want tomorrow.
But no matter how early they finish tomorrow, President Trump`s defense
team will not take over until Friday. And then once the defense team starts
on Friday, they also will have two eight-hour days available to them. They
will have 16 hours total to mount in their defense no more than eight hours
in each of the two days.
And I raise this now just, A, so you can think about how the next few days
will go but also I think it helps me figure out something else out that has
otherwise been a mystery. That plan, that expectation right now about which
side is going to go on which days, that may shed a little bit of light on
this strange and otherwise sort of inexplicable thing we saw from President
Trump`s defense counsel when it came to scheduling the trial.
We have talked about this a couple times in the last few days largely
because I didn`t get why this happened. It was unexpected news a few days
ago when former President Trump`s defense team asked for the trial schedule
to be changed. They asked for the trial to be stopped on Saturday because
one of former President Trump`s lawyers, David Schoen, is religiously
observant in such a way that he doesn`t work on the Jewish Sabbath. He
doesn`t work after sundown on Friday, or all day on Saturday. So they asked
if the trial schedule could be changed so that the trial would not convene
on Saturday, the Senate acceded to that request, they said, sure, we
understand, we will meet on Sunday instead of Saturday. Sure, go for it.
What was strange is that once that request was acceded to, once they got
the schedule changed, in response to that request they then said, okay,
never mind. We actually don`t want the trial to stop on Saturday after all.
It was a weird reversal.
Now, of course, I don`t know for sure but one consequence of that change in
course, that weird 180, never mind, relates potentially to the way the
defense is going to lay out. I mean, if they weren`t going to hold the
trial on Saturday, that would mean President Trump`s defense team would be
offering interrupted defense. They would be able to offer their first eight
hours up to eight hours of defense on Friday and then they`d be taking a
whole day off on Saturday and then they`d have the second day on Sunday.
That`s what would have happened had they got the trial schedule that they
requested. I think it`s possible that once they realized that`s what they`d
done to themselves, they put a day off in the middle of their defense case,
they may have realized that was not ideal. Now because they have rescinded
the request they will get two days, one after the other, we`ll have two
days from the prosecution today and tomorrow and then we`ll have two
straight days from the defense Friday and Saturday.
So the reversal on them wanting the change in the schedule might make more
sense along those lines. Speaking of not ideal, though, multiple news
organizations have now reported that President Trump was deeply displeased
with his defense team when he saw them in action yesterday, particularly --
forgive me -- but the sort of Bart Simpson meets foghorn leghorn routine
that we got from the lawyer for President Trump who went first yesterday,
Mr. Bruce Castor of Philadelphia.
The president`s other main lawyer David Schoen is the one who`s religiously
observant of the Sabbath on Saturday. Even though Mr. Schoen has, on behalf
of the defense team, withdrawn that request for the trial schedule to
change to take Saturdays off to accommodate his religious observance, Mr.
Schoen is religiously observant and can`t work after sundown on Friday or
all day Saturday. That means that David Schoen will be out of pocket Friday
after 5:00 and all day Saturday so it may be that Castor, the guy who was
such a disaster yesterday, that the president is reportedly so disgusted
with, it may be he has to run the whole second day of President Trump`s
defense -- Friday night and all day Saturday. That does not seem promising
for the president`s defense given Mr. Castor`s performance on day one,
particularly how apparently angry President Trump was and disappointed -- I
don`t know if he gets disappointed. How angry the president was seeing Mr.
Castor`s performance on day one.
So, they tried to change the schedule. They then changed it back and will
get two days in a row but the second day can`t be done by David Schoen. It
will have to be done by Castor. Trump reportedly hated Castor`s initial
performance. Their only other option is going for another people they have
at the very last minute added to their legal team.
The other main lawyer on their legal team is apparently this Michael van
der Veen, also a Philadelphia lawyer. Mr. Van der Veen today had to
publicly deny that he recently told one of this other client that President
Trump was a, quote, f-ing crook.
Mr. Van der Veen did defend a guy prosecuted for trying to hack into the
IRS to get Trump`s tax returns. That guy, the defendant in that case, says
the lawyer Mr. Van der Veen told him that Trump was an F-ing crook. That
was reported by "The Philadelphia Inquirer" today and Mr. Van der Veen
today denied he ever said such a thing in a written statement. But that`s
awkward.
Mr. Van der Been is also not denying the fact that he did sue President
Trump in the lead up to the 2020 election which is not that long ago.
Presumably, Mr. Trump is not happy with either of those things, but who
knows? Van der Veen may basically be his other option besides the foghorn
leghorn guy for running the whole second day of his defense.
We shall see. The president`s defense again will not start until the day
after tomorrow. We`ll see the prosecution. They have their first day today.
They`ll have their second day tomorrow.
President Trump`s defense will start on Friday. We will see how it goes.
It`s going to be fascinating either way.
We have now seen two rounds of argument from the prosecution side from the
impeachment managers. Now, on day one, yesterday the substance of what they
were arguing was what Maryland congressman the lead impeachment manager
Jamie Raskin laid out his constitutional contention at the very beginning
and the very pithy phrase that he chose for it. He made this argument that
there`s no January exception from impeachment that allows presidents free
reign to commit crimes right before they leave office.
Mr. Trump`s lawyers and apparently Republican senators contend that a
president can`t be tried on impeachment charges after he left office. If
that was the case, then a president could simply do whatever lawless things
he wanted to do in January in his final days in office, safe in the
knowledge that the Senate wouldn`t have time to put him on trial for those
crimes before he left office, so we could get away with any crimes he
wanted.
The impeachment managers argued yesterday that there`s no way the founders
intended for there to be this giant loophole this January exception within
impeachment. Otherwise, all presidents who lost elections would essentially
be invited to commit whatever high crimes and misdemeanors they wanted to
commit in order to try to overthrow the results of the election or depose
the incoming president who had defeated them because oh, it`s the end of
their term, there`s no time to impeach them.
Now, the vast majority of constitutional scholars agree with the
prosecutors. They agree with the House impeachment managers on that point.
And indeed, their argument carried the day yesterday, in a 56-44 vote at
the end of the day, by which the president -- by which the Senate decided
that a president can be tried by the Senate for the impeachment charge laid
against him by the House, in this case in January, even though he`s no
longer president today.
But in terms of understanding where we are in this overall process, that
really was the substantive theme of their presentation on day one. No
January exception, you`re not immune from prosecution for what you did just
because you`re gone from the presidency now. That was day one. Their
argument carried the day, that is now for the purposes of this trial a
settled matter.
The substantive theme of their presentation for today, day two, which of
course is the start of them laying out the factual basis for their
incitement charge against the president, the basic theme for most of the
day today is that what happened on January 6th didn`t come out of nowhere,
that this was a long plot, and therefore, the president`s culpability for
inciting insurrection, for inciting the violence that happened at the U.S.
capitol on January 6th was undeniably foreseeable. It was foreseeable for
any reasonable person to expect that violence would result when the
president did what he did on January 6th and in the days leading up to it.
And they made that case by going back a number of months to when the
president first started really priming his supporters to only see the 2020
election results as legitimate if Trump was declared the winner of that
election, if the loser of that election, he told them explicitly hundreds
of times for months on end that they should not consider those election
results to be legitimate. Those election results should not count.
He thus sort of set the predicate for what would happen. If he lost the
election, he would try to nullify or void the election results. He would
proclaim himself the winner. He would try to delegitimize the real results
and his supporters should expect that if the election couldn`t be counted
on to give an answer about who should be the president, then he would try
to hold on to power by some other way, by some other means than just
competing fairly in the election.
That`s what he would do, that`s what he would expect them to help him do.
He laid it out over a period of months, and promised to them that that`s
how it would go.
And part of the reason a reasonable person should have known that violence
was a likely outcome of the presidential action on January 6 is because as
the president made this case over a period of months, violence and armed
confrontation by the president`s supporters had already happened, had
already been the consequence of his statements about the election even
before January 6th. And President Trump knew that. He knew that this line
of argument to his supporters had led to violence already.
Rationally, it could therefore be counted on to lead to violence again. It
would lead to more violence if he upped the stakes in making this argument
to his followers, particularly if he directed them all to react to his
comments and physically be in the same place at the U.S. Capitol while he
continued to incite them in this way.
I mean, that`s the case that they made today, that the violence on January
6th was foreseeable and therefore that incitement charge should stick
because he knew the violence that would ensue.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JOAQUIN CASTRO (D-TX): On November 5th, he tweeted in all capital
letters as if shouting commands, quote, stop the count! Stop the fraud! The
same day as those tweets, around 100 Trump supporters showed up in front of
a Maricopa County election center in Phoenix, some carrying rifles,
literally trying to intimidate officials to stop the count just as
President Trump had commanded.
This was dangerous. It was scary. And it was a blatant act of political
intimidation.
In Philadelphia, that same day, police investigated an alleged plot to
attack the city`s Pennsylvania convention center where votes were being
counted. Police took at least one man into custody who was carrying a
weapon. And this happened all over. In Atlanta, in Detroit, and in
Milwaukee, his supporters used armed force to try to disrupt lawful
counting of votes because they bought into Trump`s big lie that the
election was stolen from them.
President Trump`s months of enflaming and inciting his supporters had
worked. They believed it was their duty to quite literally fight to stop
the count, so they showed up across the country to do just that.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: This is a fraud on the American public.
This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this
election. Frankly, we did win this election.
CROWD: Stop the count! Stop the count! Stop the count! Stop the count!
Stop the count! Stop the count! Stop the count! Stop the count!
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They ain`t taking it from us!
CROWD: Count the votes! Count the votes! Count the votes! Count the votes!
TRUMP: We were winning in all the kilo cases by a lot, actually, and then
our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away in secret.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They will be hiding. They will pay. They will be
destroyed because America is rioting!
(INAUDIBLE)
CASTRO: And there it is. They had bought into his big lie and you may say,
well, he didn`t know that they`d take up arms. But when he did know, when
it was all over the news, President Trump didn`t stop.
DEL. STACEY PLASKETT (D-USVI): For anyone who says Donald Trump didn`t
know the violence he was inciting, I ask you to consider his supporters
tried to drive a bus off the highway in the middle of the day to intimidate
his opponent`s campaign workers and his response was to tweet the video of
the incident that had fight music, joke about it and call those individuals
in that incident patriots.
And once again, Donald Trump`s praise worked to incite them further.
Emboldened by that praise, they remained ready to fight, ready to stand
back and stand by.
This link is not hypothetical. Just like we saw with the Proud Boys showing
up in full force on January 6th, Donald Trump`s encouragement of this
attack made sure his supporters were ready for the next one. The caravan
bus attack had been organized by Trump supporter Keith Lee, leading up to
the attack on our capitol of January 6th, Mr. Lee teamed up with other
supporters to fund raise to help to bring people to Washington, D.C. for
that day.
The morning of the attack, he filmed footage of the capitol, pointed out
the flimsiness of fencing and then addressed the supporters before the
attack saying, quote, as soon as you all get done hearing the president,
y`all get to the capitol. We need to surround this place. During the
attack, he used the bullhorn to call out to the mob to rush in.
He later went to the rotunda himself and then back outside to urge the
crowd to come inside. These are the people that president Trump cultivated
who were standing by.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: This was about foreseeability. The foreseeability of the violence
on January 6th. The House impeachment managers today went back before the
election to show that the president knew, everybody knew, because it
happened in public. We knew and he knew that violence on January 6th in
D.C. was foreseeable using the previous incidence of violence of the
president`s supporters to give weight to the contention he knew what he was
getting into. That his previous experience with supporters reacting
violent, armed confrontation in response to the president`s words, that
shows that any reasonable person and indeed President Donald j. Trump on
January 6 could have foreseen his words and actions that day would lead to
violence on that day.
And then in what was a big reveal of the day, the managers introduced some
new evidence about the permit for the Trump rally on January 6th in D.C.,
evidence that goes beyond the idea that the violence that day was just
foreseeable and shows how the president actually intervened to change the
plans of that day, change the plans for that day to make violence more
likely than it otherwise would have been.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PLASKETT: On December 19, President Trump tweeted his Save the Date for
January 6th. He told his supporters to come to D.C. where a big protest the
day billing it as wild. Just days later, Women for America First amended
their permit to hold the rally on January 6th pursuant to the president`s
Save the Date, instead of after the inauguration.
This was deliberate. Reports confirm that the president himself, President
Trump became directly involved with the planning of the event. Women for
America First had initially planned for the rally goers to remain at the
ellipse until the counting of the state electoral slates was completed,
just like they had remained at Freedom Plaza after the second million MAGA
march.
In fact, the permit stated in no uncertain terms that the march from the
ellipse was not permitted. It was not until after President Trump and his
team became involved in the planning that the march from the ellipse to the
capitol came about, in direct contravention of the original permit.
This was not a coincidence. None of this was. Donald Trump over many months
cultivated violence, praised it and then when he saw the violence his
supporters were capable of, he channeled it to his big, wild, historic
event. He organized January 6th with same people that had just rally,
resulting in substantial violence and made absolutely sure this time these
violent rally-goers wouldn`t just remain in place. He made sure that those
violent people would literally march right here to our steps, from the
ellipse to the capitol, to stop the steal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Delegate Stacey Plaskett of U.S. Virgin Islands doing a phenomenal
job with her portion of the presentation today from the House impeachment
managers.
This new evidence from the managers bolsters reporting from "The New York
Times" a couple weeks ago that there hadn`t been a plan for the rally goers
to march on the actual capitol until the Trump White House got involved in
planning that rally and essentially made it their event. That is when they
changed the plans for the rally-goers to march from the rally grounds to
the capitol building because Trump wanted that.
"The New York Times" had reported that in the last couple of weeks. Stacey
Plaskett today in the Senate impeachment trial with the receipts showing
that the permit, in fact, never had accommodation for that. That was
something that the Trump White House wanted to do.
President knew the supporters were primed for violence, the words had
spurred them to violence multiple times. He arranged this January 6th rally
to be a march on the Capitol. The impeachment managers today essentially
dared senators to look at the evidence and try to believe, try to maintain
that Donald Trump didn`t know what he was inciting that day.
I think the most powerful part of the day though came from the House
manager Stacey Plaskett who you just saw and Congressman Swalwell of
California. They`re both experienced lawyers, they`re both excellent
speakers, and the lead impeachment manager Jamie Raskin left it to Plaskett
and Swalwell today to do in painstaking work of recreating minute by minute
really what the attack was, once it happened, what the character of it was,
in ways we have never seen before.
And I will be honest with you. There is no way to sum this up and describe
it the way to do it justice. While this is happening live, I sent notes to
all the producers who work on this show, you guys, how on earth do we
summarize this? I sent notes to other hosts on network, I sent notes to
executives on this network and trust me I never ask executives about
anything, but I felt I needed help and advice. How do we summarize
something like this?
I don`t think we can sort of, you know, give it a thumbnail summary in a
way that fully captures what they did. I`m very happy to tell you that
MSNBC is going to play the bulk of it midnight eastern tonight, if you
weren`t able to see it live today. You will definitely want to see that
tonight at midnight.
But what they presented in that part of the president`s impeachment trial
today was essentially a visual autopsy of how it happened, how the pro-
Trump mob broke into the capitol, what they did once they were inside, the
violence committed toward law enforcement, much of which we had never seen
before, honestly. We`ve seen accounts of police officers` injuries in FBI
indictments and some of the rioters. We`ve heard from police officer unions
how many officers were injured and hospitalized. But we didn`t really see
the combat that police officers were in with the president`s mob for hours,
in a way that we saw it today.
We also had not truly seen before today how close we came to a mass
casualty event at the U.S. capitol. We have heard members of Congress and
the Senate express their belief they were close to being killed that day.
Today, we saw in detail what they meant by that, and that they were right.
House managers spent a better part of two hours to lay out the visual
evidence of the mob that the president incited at the capitol. And some of
that footage was familiar to us. The man who was holstering that 950,000
volt stun gun mounted on a hiking staff sitting at Nancy Pelosi`s desk.
Rioters who were chanting "hang Mike Pence" at the Capitol as they
literally hunted for and tried to find Vice President Pence.
Police officer getting crushed by protesters, in a doorway screaming for
help and screaming in pain.
But the impeachment managers in addition to some of that footage that we
had seen, they also presented new footage, new audio that was brand new to
the public. The House managers, for example, played never before heard
audio communications between law enforcement officials who were trying to
defend the capitol that day. Now, I`m going to play a little bit of that
and just for context here, when you hear the officers here calling the
acronym DSO, we think that means they`re calling domestic security
operations. I didn`t know what that meant in this context before today.
"The Washington Post" is explaining that when you hear the officers
reference DSO, domestic security operations, what it probably means they`re
calling for help from the part of the police department that handles
chemical munitions like tear gas and CS gas, because that`s the kind of
help they were asking for to deal with the on-rushing mob when they were
overrun and being injured by the dozens. They`re calling DSO, DSO, meaning,
get us those kind of officers with that kind of equipment here immediately.
You will also hear an officer say 10-33. I repeat 10-33, west front of the
Capitol. What that means is 10-33 means emergency. That`s the officer
saying there`s an emergency at the west front of the capitol, officers in
need of immediate assistance.
Listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
DISPATCH: Intel 1, be advised, you`ve got a group of about 50 charging up
the Hill on the left front. I just know that it`s at the stairs. They`re
approaching the wall now.
OFFICER: They`re starting to dismantle their reviewing stand. They`re
throwing metal poles at us.
OFFICER: Cruiser 50, give me DSO up here now! DSO! Multiple law
enforcement injuries. DSO, get up here.
OFFICER: We need some reinforcements up here now. They`re starting to pull
the gates down. They`re throwing metal poles at us.
OFFICER: We just had an explosion go on up here. I don`t know if they`re
fireworks or what, but they`re starting to throw explosions, fireworks
material.
OFFICER: Let`s go, we need units outside on the terrace ASAP. We need
units. We`re surrounded.
OFIFCER: Cruiser 50, they`ve breached the scaffold. Let Capitol know they
have breached the scaffolds. They are behind our lines.
OFFICER: Cruiser 50, I copy. We`re still taking rocks, bottles and pieces
of the flag and metal pole! Cruiser 50, the crowd is using munitions
against us. They have bear spray in the crowd. Bear spray in the crowd.
OFFICER: Cruiser 50, we lost the line! We`ve lost the line. All MPD, pull
back. All MPD, pull back up to the upper deck! All MPD, pull back to the
upper deck ASAP. All MPD, come back to the upper deck! Upper deck.
Cruiser 50. We`re flanked, 10-33. I repeat, 10-33 west front of the
capitol. We have been flanked and we`ve lost the line.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MADDOW: We`ve lost the line. That`s what they say there. We`ve lost the
line.
Never before heard police communications as they were attacked, overrun,
injured, one killed. House managers showed internal security footage taken
by cameras inside the capitol. None was publicly seen before. Security
cameras capturing rioters breaking down the front doors of the capitol
building, using Trump flags to bust the glass and get inside.
Another security camera showing the rioters when they located the door that
led to the house floor. The members of Congress were gathered. You can see
one rioter waving on the rest of the mob as they stream toward that door
leading to the House floor.
In this video, you can see the rioters essentially brawling engaging in
what looks like hand to hand combat with police officers outside the metal
detectors that you have to pass through to get into the capitol complex.
This is footage from a police officer`s body camera from the moment he was
being dragged down the capitol steps and pummeled and stomped by the pro-
Trump mob.
We also got more insight from this new security footage about what happened
to lawmakers and their staff members that day trying to escape the Trump
mob. This is a terrifying moment showing Republican Senator Mitt Romney,
it`s mistakenly him, who was unknowingly walking toward the mob. The
officer there runs toward him at full tilt. That`s Eugene Goodman, the man
who may have saved the senate. He warns Mitt Romney there and pulls him in
the other direction. To prevent Romney from walking directly into the path
of the mob.
House managers showed this new security footage of former Vice President
Mike Pence being evacuated. And you can see on the diagram of the capitol
on the lower left side of the screen the House managers added there to show
just how close to the mob Vice President Pence was there when he was being
evacuated.
House manager Eric Swalwell actually played this video twice. It shows
multiple U.S. senators being evacuated down a hallway while police officers
beyond them basically blocked the sight of the senators with their bodies.
Mob was on the far end of that corridor. The police officers put themselves
between the senators and the mob. And the senators ran past to safety.
There`s reporting out of the chamber today that senators were seen pointing
at that video recognizing themselves and colleagues as they were running
down the corridor steps away from where the police were holding back the
mob. They had never seen the footage either.
This footage shows how Senator Chuck Schumer almost walked directly into
the mob that day. House managers say he came within yards of the rioters
and had to turn around. Came up the ramp and they went very quickly back
down that ramp his security detail turned him around and ended up shutting
the doors with their bodies to keep him safe.
Security footage also captured a group of Speaker Nancy Pelosi`s staff
members running into a conference room and barricading themselves behind
two doors to keep safe and then that camera captured a throng of rioters
down the hallway outside that very door trying to bang down the doors at
that moment they were shelter behind.
Here`s they are watching the video. They hadn`t seen it before today. None
of us. Three holding hands as they watched.
Whatever else happens here, however they vote and however this resolves
politically no matter what we hear from the president`s defense on Friday
and Saturday, the impeachment managers have given us a history that we did
not have before. A factual basis for understanding what happened here to
stand up against the revisionism and the minimizing of this attack that`s
already happening full tilt on the right and particularly in conservative
media. That is what they did today, no matter the consequence. In terms of
the political fallout and the ultimate vote.
What they did today is indelible in terms of our history as a country. But
the trial continues.
We will be talking with senators who were in the room for it today when we
come back. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. DAVID CICILLINE (D-RI): These attackers stood right where you are.
They went on that rostrum. They rifled but through your desks and they
desecrated this place and literally the president sat delighted, doing
nothing to help us, calling one of you to pressure you to stop the
certification. It can`t be that the commander in chief can incite a
lawless, bloody insurrection and then utterly fail in his duty as
commander-in-chief to defend us from the attack, to defend our law
enforcement officers from that attack and just get away with it. Donald
Trump abdicated his duty to us all.
We have to make this right. And you can make it right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: House impeachment manager, Congressman David Cicilline of Rhode
Island, today with the direct appeal to the senators in that chamber who,
of course, are both jurors and witnesses to the crime in this impeachment
trial.
Joining us now is Delaware Senator Chris Coons.
Senator Coons, I really appreciate you making time to be here with us
tonight. I will tell you it was absolutely gut wrenching at home watching
the proceedings today, really interested to hear from you what it was like
today in the room.
SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Rachel, it was a long and a very hard day. You
have just shown some of the clips that were the most compelling. The
moments where senators, myself included, for the very first time saw a
video clip of us running down the hallway and realized that we were just 50
feet away from an angry mob.
That clip you showed of Senator Mitt Romney walking directly towards the
mob and being turned around by Officer Goodman. I think for a lot of us
today was the first time we really put it altogether and the House managers
did an amazing job of giving us the timeline, the order, the clarity, the
forcefulness of these moments. This is a day we won`t forget. We shouldn`t
forget.
MADDOW: Are there conversations happening among senators? I have to
imagine -- I thought I recognized you in that footage that we all saw for
the first time ushered down that corridor and I have to imagine when you
and your colleagues are seeing something for the first time recognizing
that you all were in a circumstance that you didn`t necessarily appreciate
before today that it may make you want to talk with them about what you are
seeing and what you are newly understanding.
Are those conversations happening amongst senators?
COONS: I`ve had some very forceful conversations with my Democratic
colleagues. There`s not been a lot of conversation across the aisle today,
particularly this afternoon and evening. Look, honestly, I have a hard
time, Rachel, understanding how anyone could watch what we have seen the
last two days and not vote to convict President Trump.
MADDOW: The objection that I saw today from Senator Cruz who has his own
story within this drama was that he didn`t feel that the president`s
actions would rise to the level of being criminally convicted of incitement
and that that was reason enough to not convict him in a court of
impeachment in the U.S. Senate. What`s your reaction to that?
COONS: Well, Senator Cruz is a clever lawyer but I don`t see the relevance
because the Constitution gave us the obligation as senators to use this one
important constitutional mechanism for accountability for a president who
utterly abdicated an oath and just denied the responsibilities that a
president has and I think as he just showed Congressman Cicilline laid it
out so clearly. President Trump did nothing to help the members of the
Congress, to help his own vice president when an angry mob was chanting
"hang Mike Pence", and the idea that maybe if he were in a criminal court
of law, there`s a higher standard and not convicted I think is a clever way
of avoiding accountability for delivering consequences.
That`s why we`re here. We are here adds a court of impeachment. President
Trump is impeached while he was president and I think it`s undeniable under
the language of the constitution. This is our job. We should do it.
MADDOW: Delaware U.S. Senator Chris Coons -- senator, thank you for making
time tonight. I know this is an emotional and busy time.
COONS: Thank you.
MADDOW: Thanks. Thank you.
All right. Let`s bring the conversation a friend and Minnesota Senator Amy
Klobuchar who was also in the room today and who I believe I recognized in
that same footage being ushered down the corridor not more than 50 or 60
feet from the mob on the other side of the capitol police officers.
Senator Klobuchar, I`m really glad you could make time to be here tonight.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Thank you, Rachel. Thank you.
MADDOW: I have to ask, was that -- did you learn things today about the
peril that you yourself and your staff were at that you didn`t know before
seeing some of that footage today?
KLOBUCHAR: Well, I had staff because I was leaving the -- Ted Cruz
actually to uphold the electoral college votes and I had just made the case
after he spoke when all this happened so I had -- in a room right where
they entered in a closet with of course two of them for two hours and heard
it from their perspective and I actually didn`t think as (INAUDIBLE) about
the senators. We were protected by the police.
It`s the police that I think people saw strikingly today, the officers
shrieking trying to defend our democracy, the story of the police officer
who went into the rotunda all done after having the rioters use the N-word
against him 15 times and turn to another black officer and said, is this
America? Those officers, they`re the ones that were on the front line
protecting us.
To think that one of them died because of his wounds -- and to think
another two of them committed suicide shortly after this happened I think
is pretty sobering to think of what they went through and the fact that
President Trump would not even send a tweet to defend our democracy while
that officer was shrieking in pain at the door trying to defend it.
MADDOW: I was struck by the argument, the close of tonight`s presentation
that President Trump never called in the National Guard, never did anything
to give any backup to the officers as they were being overrun and so many
of them were being injured and one of them was killed. That just stark
statement that there`s no evidence that even though the national guard was
eventually called in, no evidence that President Trump had anything to do
with that.
Also, the stark statement and maybe this is a simple thing, with the stark
statement earlier in the day that President Trump never once on the day of
the attack condemned the violence at the capitol. He ultimately did the
next day, but while it was under way on January 6th he didn`t condemn it
and just that, that stark presentation about what the president didn`t do
left me feeling shook today at the end of this.
KLOBUCHAR: It is not just what he did and we all know that. The tweets
leading up to it, the assault on the election officials in the month
before, it is what he didn`t do. I thought that was the compelling case,
the strongest evidence, that it took hours to send a tweet and he`s still
commending them, calling them patriots, saying he loved them.
His own family members asking him to do something. Governor Christie
pleading with him to do something. Kevin McCarthy going on Fox News and
saying this has to stop. All the people that called the National Guard,
including his own vice president, the National Guard, the head of the
national guard published who called him and it wasn`t Donald Trump.
So when you go through all of that, it just simply is, to me, it was enough
by what he said when he incited the rioters, told them to march down
Pennsylvania Avenue. But the final piece of evidence I don`t think you need
more than that is that he did nothing to really stop it, which Republicans
crying for him to do it over and over again.
MADDOW: Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar -- again, thank you for making
time tonight. I know this is a difficult and sort of at least just watching
at home, it`s a gut wrenching time, having you with us tonight is a real
blessing to have you with us tonight. Thanks.
KLOBUCHAR: Rachel, thank you.
MADDOW: All right. We have got much more to come tonight. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): One of President Trump`s key defenses focused
on what he said for a few seconds, 15 minutes into the speech.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: I know that everyone here will soon be
marching over to the capitol building, to peacefully and patriotically make
your voices heard.
DEAN: In a speech spanning almost 11,000 words, yes, we did check, that
was the one time, the only time President Trump used the word "peaceful" or
any suggestion of nonviolence.
The implication of the president`s tweets, the rally and the speeches were
clear. President Trump used the word "fight" or "fighting," 20 times,
including telling the crowd the needed to fight like hell to save our
democracy. We know how the crowd responded to Donald Trump`s words and we
know how they responded to his speech.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MADDOW: Eleven thousand words in that speech. Former President Trump said
the word "peaceful" once in those 11,000 words. If you`re counting, he told
the same crowd 20 times in that speech that they needed to fight.
Jennifer Jacobs at "Bloomberg News" reporting tonight when the former
president`s defense lawyers have had their turn at bat, or are going to
have their turn at bat, excuse me, they tend to lean heavily on his single
use of that phrase, "peacefully and patriotically" in his January 6th
speech.
His lawyers, quote, are also assembling more a dozen videos with what they
hope will be a stronger argument after the rambling presentation by
attorney Bruce Castor during the first day of his impeachment trial, a
performance that was widely panned.
In addition to that news, we also know in part from Jennifer Jacobs`
reporting, that former President Trump has been unhappy with his defense
team`s performance thus far.
Joining us now is Jennifer Jacobs, senior White House reporter at Bloomberg
News.
Ms. Jacob, it`s great to see you. Thanks very much for making time to be
here.
JENNIFER JACOBS, SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Thanks,
Rachel.
MADDOW: So, a significant swath of the country, I think it`s fair to say,
is pretty riveted by the impeachment managers` presentation their side of
the argument. What have you been able to report so far about how are things
going on the other side and how does the president feel about his defense
and how it`s shaping up?
JACOBS: Well, I can tell you, they are riveted as well. I know for a fact,
just from talking to my sources today, that his allies, the president and
his allies have been watching the live coverage. Trump is, of course,
watching from his private quarters at Mar-a-Lago. He has a very small crew
around him, including just a few advisers, including Dan Scavino and Brian
Jack, who is down there, I know.
He has been watching. I know he has grown increasingly aggravated, as
things have gone on. Of course, today was all about the house managers
building their case against Trump, and there was less of a focus, of
course, on the president`s defense. And I know that he had some
conversations today about wanting more of his allies to be appearing on
television. So, that`s one of the things that has been frustrating him.
There`s also some concerns in the inner circle, I`ve been told, about who
Democrats go after next. Is there a possibility that they would go after
some of the people who were around the president on January 6th, some of
the lower-tier aides who helped organize that rally on the ellipse?
So, there`s various concerns. The president is planning out their strategy
for Friday, for their defense, and very much planning out what that`s going
to look like.
MADDOW: It sounds like they may have some concern -- maybe I`m reading
into this, but it sounds like there`s this open question as to whether or
not witnesses will be called. It sounds like if they`re worried about
people around the president potentially being dragged into this, it sounds
like they would have a strong preference that witnesses not be called, if
the House managers indeed decide to go that route.
JACOBS: I think part of the concern is what happens after the impeachment
trial wraps up, whether Democrats start taking action or calling in some of
those other Trump aides and allies. But I`ve been told multiple times, and
I keep asking this, is there any chance at all that the former president
comes up to D.C. to be a witness, and I`ve been told repeatedly no, that is
not going to happen.
MADDOW: What about the potential vote here? We`ve seen lots of reporting
that the Republicans in general, that President Trump perhaps specifically
is confident that there will be a vote to acquit at the end because you`re
not going to get 17 Republicans. On the other hand, we got Senator
McConnell says a vote to convict Trump will be seen as a vote of
conscience, it will not be a whipped vote. They don`t expect people to vote
to not go ahead with the trial are not expected to necessarily acquit in
the end.
Are President Trump and his crew there at all concerned about the
Republican votes?
JACOBS: Well, I was told -- I`ve been asking his team and people around,
people familiar with it what they`re planning on arguing, and how they`re
going to -- they realize they had a very bad day on their opening day. So,
they`ve been trying to improve that. They`ve got a bunch of videos plan.
Part of their strategy, as you mentioned, is to keep repeating that phrase
during he did during the January 6th, says something about peacefully and
patriotically gatherings, they`re really going to lean hard on that. They
have some arguments, I`m told, arguing that a judge can`t be a juror at the
same time, like the presiding officer, Senator Patrick Leahy, is doing.
They`ve got other arguments lined up about constitutional standing. I don`t
think that they`re terribly concerned. In fact, I know that people around
the president keep reassuring him, don`t worry. There won`t be enough
Republicans to convict. They do not think that there will be, you know, a
conviction.
I was told today that they are pretty certain they didn`t hear it directly
from senator McConnell but they doubt senator McConnell would vote to
convict.
So, as Trump grows more and more frustrated, I know people around him have
been trying to reassure him, despite how everything is going, just wait for
the eventual outcome, which is going to be an acquittal.
MADDOW: Jennifer Jacobs, senior White House reporter at "Bloomberg News",
just doing phenomenal work for a long time, but particularly in recent
weeks and months. Jennifer, thanks for being with us tonight. I really
appreciate it.
JACOBS: Thank you.
MADDOW: All right. So, big night here at MSNBC. I want to let you know, we
will be live until 2:00 a.m. tonight.
We`ve still got lots to come. Stay with us. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MADDOW: The House impeachment managers made their case for just under six
hours today. They had up to eight hours available to them. They didn`t take
all of their time. They`ll have that eight-hour window available to them
again tomorrow. They will start their case mid-day, but we`ll see how
tomorrow goes.
See you again tomorrow night.
Now it`s time for "THE LAST WORD WITH LAWRENCE O`DONNELL."
Good evening, Lawrence.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY
BE UPDATED.
END
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