Updated
Summary
The January 6 Committee holds its first public hearing to lay out its findings on the insurrection. Congresswoman Liz Cheney describes Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy as shaken on January 6, scared, and calling members of the Trump family for help. Devastating new reporting emerges about the police response to the Uvalde shooting. The January 6 Committee reveals that Scott Perry and multiple other Republican congressmen sought pardons from Trump for their roles in the plot to overturn the election.
Transcript
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: So, you can join me there 9:00 p.m. Eastern/6:00 p.m. Pacific. And I hope you have a great weekend.
THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID is up next.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight on THE REIDOUT:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): On the morning of January 6, President Donald Trump`s intention was to remain president of the United States, despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Donald Trump intended to remain president, and he was determined to do whatever it would take to stop the transfer of power.
That`s it. That`s the case that the January 6 Committee presented last night. Everything Trump did was part of his effort to use every means necessary to stay in power. A member of the committee will join me in a moment.
Also tonight, Liz Cheney described Kevin McCarthy as shaken on January 6, scared, and calling members of the Trump family for help. Now he`s calling the investigation of the attack illegitimate. What happened to the Republican leader who privately said he would hold people accountable for the insurrection?
Plus, devastating new reporting about the police response to the Uvalde shooting. According to “The New York Times,” officers knew there were kids in need of medical help, but waited to enter the classroom anyway.
But we begin with the legal case against Trump, and why it matters.
As President Biden declared today, the violent siege against democracy is far from over.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It`s important that the American people understand what truly happened, and to understand that the same forces that led January 6 remain at work today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Trump lost the election. We know that. You know that.
The committee has now proved that Trump and his advisers knew it too.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAM BARR, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I made it clear I did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which I told the president was bullshit.
IVANKA TRUMP, DAUGHTER OF DONALD TRUMP: I respect Attorney General Barr. So, I accepted what he was saying.
JASON MILLER, FORMER TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: At some point in the conversation, Matt Oczkowski, who was the lead data person, was brought on. And I remember he delivered to the president in pretty blunt terms that he was going to lose.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: That big lie wasn`t just big. It was pernicious, catastrophic, a call to arms.
And when his very own vice president walked away from that lie, Trump unleashed his mob, a group that committee Chair Bennie Thompson called domestic enemies of the Constitution.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mike Pence is going to have to come through for us. And if he doesn`t, that will be a sad day for our country, because you`ll never ever take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength and you have to be strong.
MAN: Hold the line! Hold the line! Hold the line! Hold the line! Hold the line!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: This was the result, the actual attack on the Capitol, an attack that was planned, that wasn`t impromptu violence that popped off because folks got excited.
This wasn`t a case of innocent bystanders who got swept up in some spontaneous attempt to overthrow the government. The committee made that clear, that this was a coordinated, multistep effort, saying members of the violent extremist group the Proud Boys marched toward the Capitol before Trump`s speech had even begun.
They showed video evidence of a secret militia meeting between Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders in a D.C. parking lot the night before January 6. According to the Department of Justice, the Oath Keepers` leader said to his followers that: “We are not going to get through this without a civil war.”
It`s that very word, war, that came up again during testimony by Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards when describing the chaos and carnage of the front line.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CAROLINE EDWARDS, U.S. CAPITOL POLICE OFFICER: And that day, it was just hours of hand-to-hand combat, hours of dealing with things that were way beyond any law enforcement officer has ever trained for.
And I just remember — I just remember that moment, of stepping behind the line, and just seeing the absolute war zone that the West Front had become.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now is Congressman Pete Aguilar of California. He`s a member of the Select Committee to Investigate January 6.
And, Congressman Aguilar, thank you so much for being here.
I thought last night`s presentation was compelling. I thought it was very thorough. And I thought Caroline Edwards, police Officer Caroline Edwards made, I think, the key point, is that this was not a riot. It was war being made on the United States. Do you agree with that characterization?
[19:05:15]
REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): Yes, I think that`s right.
And I think that where we started yesterday`s hearing — thank you for having me, Joy — was a continuation of the police officers, the D.C. Metro Police officers and Capitol Police officers, that we heard from last year, a continuation of that, just so people understand the gravity of the violence that happened that day.
And I thought she did an amazing job and was such a powerful presenter. But I think that she accurately conveyed that this was very difficult for all of them, and this felt like war.
And the image of her getting back up and then slipping on blood, I mean, those are just images that stick with you.
REID: And police officers who`ve been through this, they will tell you that same thing. There`s the gaslighting of saying it didn`t happen at all, but also sort of characterizing it as a tourist visit and that kind of thing.
The other piece of it here is that the violence that we saw that day was not spontaneous. I think that`s very clear. Maybe the people who got caught up in it and thought Trump sent them there and said whatever they said, and they`re getting prosecuted for it, felt, in their minds, like, we`re just doing this at this last moment.
But there were people who were planning to have what they clearly must have known could become a violent confrontation.
Let`s just go back. Let`s go back. Liz Cheney, she talks about the fact that members of Donald Trump`s — people who care about Donald Trump, were friends with Donald Trump, people like Sean Hannity, were saying that this is the new thing. You got to have no more crazy people, no more stolen election talk.
Kayleigh McEnany saying: “Love that. That`s the playbook.”
And this is the most important part of it, I think. They knew that President Donald Trump was too dangerous to be left alone, at least until he left on January 20.
And this brings me to what I still think is the kind of most important piece of evidence against Donald Trump, as the perpetrator here of the war.
Donald Trump tweeted on January — that January 6 would be wild. That was one of the tweets that I think was him doing a rare tell what I`m going to do, write it down: “Come to January 6. It will be wild.”
But before that, he had met with a group inside of the White House, including Sidney Powell, Michael Flynn, and Rudy Giuliani. They met alone. They discussed — quote — “a number of dramatic steps during this December 18 meeting, including having the military seize voting machines, potentially rerun elections,” et cetera.
Do you suspect that that meeting in the White House included a plan that included having the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers? Is that what this committee is developing, that they made a plan to send those paramilitary groups to the Capitol?
AGUILAR: Well, I`m not going to get ahead of the and preview the evidence until some of those hearings.
But what I can tell you is that it`s been very clear that, within the Trump presidency and those four dark years, there was a lot of connection between him and the Oath Keepers and Proud Boys from his “Stand back and stand by.” We know that that became a calling card for them. We know that they use that as a recruiting tool as well.
But we also know, as you highlighted, that the president would get spun up at some events. So, December 18, he gets spun up by his attorneys. And then he goes out and he tweets at 1:00 a.m. And it wasn`t the only 1:00 a.m. tweet that he had over that — over that time period.
So, people would get in his ear, and they would give him these conspiracy theories. And they would tell him that everybody`s behind him. And then he would go out and he would use social media and his platform to get out and to get his message and, in this case, summon a mob to Washington, D.C., before directing them to the Capitol.
REID: We know that when Donald Trump in a — during a debate that Chris Wallace moderated, when he wouldn`t condemn the Proud Boys, he said, “Stand back and stand by,” and that the response from the Proud Boys on Gab or whatever social media they were using, not Twitter — they were kicked off by then — was: “Standing by sir.”
So I will ask it another way. Are we going to see connections directly between Donald Trump or some of his aides, people like Roger Stone, who were using these — some of these groups for security, et cetera, are we going to see a direct connection at some point in these hearings between Donald Trump, the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers?
AGUILAR: I think it`s clear. I don`t want to get ahead of the evidence again, and I know Chairman Thompson has talked a little bit about this as well.
I think it`s clear the connection to people around the former president to groups like this, just like you said. The Proud Boys using recruiting tools like “Stand back and stand by” is code names, and to help boost membership.
It`s pretty clear that the president liked a lot of the comments, liked a lot of the things that those individuals and those groups stood for. And he was all too willing to use them to his advantage, to convey his message and to deliver a threat, which is exactly what he did on January 6, and leading up to January 6, threatening individuals and ensuring that everybody knew exactly where he stood.
[19:10:19]
REID: January 6 Committee member Congressman Pete Aguilar, thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here on a Friday. Thank you.
And with me now is Glenn Kirschner, former federal prosecutor and an MSNBC legal analyst.
I`m going to go in the same direction with you, my friend, because here`s the thing. Nothing about that day can be characterized as spontaneous, period. Donald Trump was not somehow still fooled into thinking he won the election. We now know for sure he had been told many times, including by his sycophant attorney general, that he lost. So we know that.
We know that he said, after meeting with people like Michael Flynn, who was saying, seize the voting machines, he met with people like Roger Stone. He`s meeting with the Sidney Powells of the world. They meet alone, to the point where even people like Sean Hannity are saying, don`t let this guy be alone with these people anymore.
He meets along with them, and then, within hours, tweets: “Come to the Capitol. It`s going to be wild.” Then he tweets that over and over and over again. January 6 was not a thing most people knew about. Most Americans don`t know this — don`t know all that civics, that January 6 is significant. He made it significant.
He draws the crowd there. And then he says, you see down the street? Those people are taking your rights. Let`s march over there. I will walk with you.
But the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers were already there. Does that not suggest to you that Donald Trump must have known that the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers would be his enforcers in staying in power?
GLENN KIRSCHNER, MSNBC LEGAL ANALYST: Joy, this was a plot. This was a plan. This was a scheme. This was not a riot or a crowd that got overenthusiastic and sort of spun out of control.
And I can`t wait to see more information in the coming public hearings about the meeting in the Oval Office between Trump, Flynn, Giuliani, and Powell. I`m quite sure the J6 Committee has some information about that they`re going to present, because, last night, we sort of got the impression that there were no adults in the room at the time, right, no lovers of democracy in there to try to keep that conspiracy contained.
And we heard that some people did rush in when they heard these folks were meeting in the Oval Office.
REID: Right.
KIRSCHNER: But about an hour after that meeting, we got the tweet. The plan had been hatched. And Donald Trump was implementing it: “Come to D.C. on January 6. Will be wild.”
And, Joy, the other word that you have already picked up on and others have picked up on that we heard yesterday was war. Why does that become important? Well, where is that word prominently featured in the big ugly blue book of federal laws of the United States Code? The crime of treason.
And every time I heard war, my mind went back to treason, which is a very short and simple statute. Whoever owing allegiance to the United States, like the president, levies war against the United States is guilty of treason.
What we now know is, Donald Trump not only set the date for the Capitol attack, as we have just discussed, but he also refused to call off his angry mob…
REID: Correct.
KIRSCHNER: … once he deployed them for more than three hours.
But I think what we learned a little bit more about last night was, not only did he refuse to call off the attack. He refused to authorize the deployment of any forces to go to the Capitol to fend off the attack, to protect the people in the U.S. Capitol that he set his angry mob on.
And it took an order from Mike Pence…
REID: Right.
KIRSCHNER: … who, frankly, probably didn`t have the authority at that moment.
REID: Yes.
KIRSCHNER: But General Milley said, he was insistent we have to get forces to the Capitol to — and Mike Pence is no hero. He was protecting his own skin, because he was in the Capitol.
REID: Yes.
KIRSCHNER: But you know what? This begins to feel not just like treason, but like treason squared.
REID: Yes. It`s overthrowing — it`s an attempt to overthrow the election.
Other lovers of democracy, people who — again, politically, I disagree with these people vehemently, but you`re going to have more people who stood up to Donald Trump testify. This is what`s coming up.
Former FOX News political editor Chris Stirewalt is going to testify on Monday. Trump knew that he had lost the election, spread false information anyway. That`s what his topic is. You`re going to have Jeffrey Rosen, who was in the DOJ refusing to be replaced by a sycophant who would then do what they wanted Ukraine to do, announce a fake investigation, so that it would make it look real that there was some sort of fraud in the election.
Pence adviser Greg Jacob, who, to your point, Pence was targeted by Donald Trump. He said maybe he should be hanged. And, of course, Brad Raffensperger and Gabriel Sterling, who Trump tried to pressure to flip the Georgia election.
What might we get out of that testimony?
KIRSCHNER: You know, I think we`re going to get more voices bringing to light Donald Trump`s crime and evidence that bears on Donald Trump`s intent. And, importantly I think a lot of them are going to be Republican voices.
[19:15:05]
I was surprised that the first witness we saw last night via a video clip of his testimony was Bill Barr. I would not have bet a buck he was going to be the first witness we would have heard from during the first public hearings from the J6 Committee. And it was a smart tactical move.
Why? Because, one, it`s a Republican condemning a Republican former president. And, two, the extent anybody still entertains the notion that it might be a challenge to prove Donald Trump`s corrupt intent, which it won`t be, Bill Barr laid that to rest from jump…
REID: Yes.
KIRSCHNER: … saying: I told the president his claim of election fraud was bull-S, period.
The corrupt intent question was answered at the very beginning of the hearings. And then we heard more Republican voices, like Marc Short and Jason Miller. And we heard Ivanka saying: I — essentially, I credit Bill Barr`s take on there being no election fraud, not my father`s.
REID: Yes.
KIRSCHNER: The more Republican voices we hear from during these hearings, I think the more it will blunt the criticism that this is just a partisan witch-hunt…
REID: Yes, to say nothing of the fact that the leader of the prosecution is named Liz Cheney, like Dick Cheney`s daughter Liz Cheney.
Glenn Kirschner, always a pleasure. Thank you very much.
Coming up next on THE REIDOUT: profiles in cowardice. Kevin McCarthy begged Trump to put a stop to the violence, but he now has a much different take on the events of January 6.
And perhaps the bombshell of last night`s hearing, Liz Cheney`s revelation that Scott Perry and multiple other Republican congressmen sought pardons from Trump for their roles in the plot to overturn the election.
More on that when THE REIDOUT continues.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:21:23]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: House members, they`re all walking over now through the tunnel.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: That was newly released video of dozens of Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy staff members fleeing their office as the Trump mob laid siege to the Capitol.
Those frantic staffers are now forced to relive that experience, in light of McCarthy`s newly exposed comments just days after the attack, vs. his rip preview of the explosive initial hearing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. KEVIN MCCARTHY (R-CA): We cannot just sweep this under the rug. We need to know why it happened, who did it and people need to be held accountable for it. And I`m committed to make sure that happens.
Speaker Pelosi`s select committee on January 6 is unlike any other committee in American history. In fact, it is the most political and least legitimate committee in American history.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So, which is it, then, Kevin?
Of course, McCarthy`s revisionist history is even more glaring now, given the damning new information about the involvement of members of McCarthy`s own Republican Conference, including Pennsylvania Congressman Scott Perry, under scrutiny for working to replace the acting attorney general with Trump loyalist Jeffrey Clark, and willing to do the president`s bidding to try to overturn the election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after January 6 to seek a presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles and attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: But, in addition to the allegations against sitting Republican members of Congress, Vice Chair Liz Cheney wasted no time calling out the Republican leader and offered a stark warning to others who continue to support the former president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: You will hear that leaders on Capitol Hill begged the president for help, including Republican Leader McCarthy, who was — quote — “scared” and called multiple members of President Trump`s family after he could not persuade the president himself.
Tonight, I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible. There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Joining me now, Elie Mystal, justice correspondent for “The Nation,” and Shermichael Singleton, political analyst and host of “ScreenShare” on Peacock.
Thank you both for being here.
Elie, we know of, at least reportedly, at least two members of Congress, Republican members, who sought presidential pardons, per the committee. This is Scott Perry, Representative Scott Perry, and Representative Andy Biggs. Those are the two that we hear, per the committee, sought pardons.
But the committee has also subpoenaed five members altogether, Kevin McCarthy himself, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs, Jim Jordan, who Kevin wanted on the committee in the first place, and Mo Brooks, who showed up to the Trump speech in a bulletproof vest.
Seeking pardons, it doesn`t mean you committed a crime, necessarily, but doesn`t it mean you think you did?
ELIE MYSTAL, “THE NATION”: It means that you expect consequences. It means that you looked at your own actions, you just saw what happened, went, hmm, somebody might have a problem with what I just tried to do, because what I just tried to do was overthrow the United States government and I only got — I almost got people killed. So maybe I need some legal protection now.
Look, one of the things we saw last night, Joy, is that Liz Cheney fitting to dog-walk Kevin McCarthy. Like, it`s going to be a bad five days for Kevin McCarthy, because Kevin McCarthy was scared. And we know he was. A bunch of them were.
[19:25:00]
They were frantically calling and trying to get the very one person that they all knew could stop it. Lindsey Graham caught the vapors, he was so scared, right? But now that the immediate physical danger to their persons has passed, now they have this new — now they`re back to being more scared for their jobs than they are for their people.
But one of the things we`re going to see with these pardons is that, in the interregnum, between the physical fear, before the fear for their job, they were — feared — they were afeared legally. And they understood that there would be legal consequences for their actions.
And they haven`t happened yet. But they also didn`t get those pardons. So they could still happen in the future.
REID: They sure didn`t.
And, Shermichael, you have been a staffer. You have worked on Capitol Hill. And you understand how much work it is, how young everybody is. That`s why you`re so young, how young everyone is who`s there, and the danger — can we — if we can — can we just put that video back up of Kevin McCarthy`s staff?
These people were terrified. Kevin McCarthy was terrified, to Elie`s point. They were all terrified. I`m quite sure even Mitch McConnell was terrified, to the extent that he has feelings. They were terrified.
How can these staff go to work every day for a man who says that the investigation into what terrified them and the threat to their very lives, because there was — somebody would have been killed had those insurrectionists caught a staffer or a member. Let`s just be clear, even if it was a Republican. If it had been Mike Pence, definitely.
How can they go back and work for somebody who says that this was nothing, who dismisses it?
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: I mean, look, not only could someone have been killed. I mean, we know that there were also explosives found, Joy…
REID: Yes.
SINGLETON: … that, thankfully, those individuals weren`t able to set off. I mean, it could have killed hundreds of people.
REID: Yes.
SINGLETON: That`s an interesting question, as I think about the idea of proximity to power.
And it sounds like such a cliche to say this, Joy, and I`m sure some of the viewers are probably thinking, Shermichael, I hear that, but that shouldn`t be enough. People should say, I don`t want to work for such an individual.
But it`s a real thing. I have worked in politics a long time. And when you`re in that bubble, and when you have people calling you, and when you can call the shots, wanting to remove yourself from that, even when your conscience or perhaps your subconscious is telling you probably morally and ethically should, can become a very, very difficult thing, particularly when there aren`t people around you encouraging you to change positions, to perhaps reassess your situation and say, you know what, this is not the type of individual that I want to work for.
So I don`t have the expectation that some individuals will leave. And that`s not to say that they haven`t considered it. That`s not to say that they haven`t thought about it. But it is to say that this real thing of when you`re working for someone who is as powerful as a minority leader, who may indeed become the speaker of the House in the next couple of months, giving that up is a very difficult thing for people in politics.
REID: That`s a sad state of affairs.
We`re going to hear, Elie, from — you know, the Justice Department, people who were in the Justice Department, Jeffrey Rosen, et al, were prepared to write a massive letter and resign en masse if Donald Trump attempted to replace Rosen with Jeffrey Clark and put in a — basically a stooge.
So, there is still — there is still some conscience up there in that part of D.C. But I wonder is similar question. How can people go to work with somebody like Barry Loudermilk, who is accused of giving tours perhaps to people who wound up then smashing into the Capitol?
Or this lady, Debbie Lesko of Arizona — let`s play Debbie Lesko real quick.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
REP. DEBBIE LESKO (R-AZ): I`m actually very concerned about this, because we have who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people coming here. We have Antifa.
We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that doesn`t happen, most likely will not happen, they`re going to go nuts.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
REID: I wonder how members go to work with other members who knew what could happen and did nothing or who walked people through the Capitol who might have then come back to hurt them?
MYSTAL: All right, so I want to get through three things really quickly, right?
One, to your first point that you also asked Shermichael, I think it`s the henchman syndrome, right? Why does Oddjob never say no to Goldfinger? Why does Harley Quinn stay with the Joker, right? It`s that, like, henchmen have a thing where they want to be near — near the sun, near the power, and they are willing to eat — to do many things to stay there. So I think that`s number one.
Number two, when you — when you talk about, like, what people like Lesko were about, people need to remember — and this is going to, I think, be surprising to a lot of people watching, but, like, you got to remember, Republicans want this to succeed. They want us to hold these people accountable.
Mitch McConnell said while they were trying to impeach Trump, hopefully, the Democrats will get it done.
REID: Will get them.
MYSTAL: Mitch McConnell wanted Trump impeached. They want Democrats to win on this. They just don`t want to — they don`t want to lose their jobs.
(CROSSTALK)
MYSTAL: So, again, back to the henchman syndrome.
[19:30:00]
So, the thing that I — so, I don`t care about these people. These people – – these people are weak. These people are cowards, and I`m not going to waste my precious mental energy worrying about them.
But the people I do worry about are the congressmen that have to work with them.
REID: Yes.
MYSTAL: I once had an interview with Cori Bush. And I was like, do you feel safe going to work, Congresswoman Bush?
And before I could get the sentence on my mouth, she was like, nah, nah.
REID: Yes. Yes.
MYSTAL: AOC doesn`t feel safe in that building. Ayanna Pressley doesn`t feel safe in that building.
REID: That`s right.
MYSTAL: We know what these people are about.
REID: That`s right.
MYSTAL: And we have our elected officials in danger as long as these people are there.
And so I always come back to the need for criminal prosecutions for wrongdoing to make our government safe.
REID: Yes.
Bennie Thompson, Chairman Bennie Thompson, made the point yesterday that, in 1862, the Congress added that you take an oath to defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic because of the Civil War. You shouldn`t have to work with people who you fear might be down with the enemies domestic. You shouldn`t have to go to work with them every day.
That should be a nice little principle that we should have in American government.
Elie Mystal, Shermichael Singleton, my friend, thank you very much.
Still ahead: Why did police in Uvalde, Texas, wait more than an hour to confront the school gunman, even though they knew there were people inside who desperately needed medical treatment?
New reporting when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:35:53]
REID: Today, in Uvalde, Texas, family and friends said their final goodbyes to Eva Mireles, one of the courageous teachers murdered trying to protect her students at Robb Elementary School.
Mireles was still alive after police finally engaged and killed the shooter, but died in an ambulance on the way to the hospital. And she was not alone. Three of the students found alive in the classroom ultimately died at the hospital.
This comes as new reporting from “The New York Times” indicates that, as officers waited in the hallway longer than an hour for equipment to protect themselves in those critical moments, they knew that there were still people alive inside that classroom. Every minute mattered.
“The Times”` reporting is based on an analysis of law enforcement documents and video, including transcripts of body camera footage. NBC News has not seen or verified that video.
According to one of the transcripts of an officer`s body camera footage, who investigators believed to be a school district police chief, Chief Pete Arredondo, he could be heard saying: “People are going to ask why we`re taking so long. We`re trying to preserve the rest of the life.”
Texas safety officials have claimed that Arredondo, as the incident commander on the scene, was the one who made the call to stand down, causing officers to move from an active shooter protocol to a barricaded gunman protocol, as the shooter continued to fire.
Speaking to “The Texas Tribune” in his first interview since the deadly shooting, Arredondo denied ever making that call, and indicated that he did not consider himself to be the incident commander, even though he was the first officer on the scene, which, according to his training, would put him in that role.
He did defend his delayed response in confronting the shooter by saying that, with no way to get through that locked classroom door, his strategy was to save as many children as possible by evacuating the students from the other classrooms first.
Joining me now is Donell Harvin, senior policy researcher for the RAND Corporation and a first responder to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the 9/11 attacks.
It`s always good to see you, Donell.
Let`s go through this.
“The New York Times” story was harrowing. The interview was interesting. But the — one of the pieces that came out in the interview, in both of those two pieces, is that Arredondo gets there first, and he leaves his radio behind, because he says it was too clunky to carry it into the school. And, therefore, he didn`t have access to what was being said on 9/11.
He also said that he didn`t have a master key to the school, which you would think that, since their only jurisdiction is that school district, that they would have keys to all the schools in that district. But he says he didn`t have one.
What do you make of that, of all of that?
DONELL HARVIN, FORMER D.C. CHIEF OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE: Joy, like I said last week, this is a buffet, a hot buffet of missed opportunities and mistakes.
The first thing is that you are no use to anybody in a command-and-control situation if you don`t have a radio. That`s rule number one. The second thing is, you mentioned earlier in your lead-in that the incident command structure is something that we have that all first responders abide by. It`s called the ICS system, or NIMS, National Incident Management System.
And that dictates that the first arriving first responder is the incident commander, the person who`s in charge. And as more senior people arrive, that those individuals become — assume the charge.
Well, he is the chief. And so if you don`t have a radio and you`re not in control, then who is?
REID: Do you — can you — can you understand in any way — what he says a lot in these interviews is that he`s trying to preserve as many lives as possible, and that that was his priority, that evacuating the kids from the other rooms was important, which is important, getting those kids out.
We even learned that the cousin of the shooter was across the hall in another classroom, that they`re trying to evacuate other people. But he seemed to be very clear that he didn`t want to put other officers` lives at risk by going through that door, even if they`d been able to open the door.
Is that the way it`s supposed to work?
HARVIN: Well, not only is that a breach of protocol, but it`s also a breach of training.
And I have reached out to a lot of active shooter trainers over the last couple of weeks that I know, and I look back to training that I got. The training is very, very clear. It`s an active shooter. It doesn`t transition into barricade. They try to make it sound like this is some unique situation.
[19:40:10]
Once the shots are fired and people are down, you continuously go and try to breach into that room and take down that armed assailant. And so the fact of the matter is — and even in the Texas training — and we looked this up — the Texas training specifically said, if you`re fearing for your own life, and you`re worried about getting shot, then you need another job.
And, quite frankly, it`s acknowledged that, when you put that badge and you put that uniform on and you respond to an active shooter, you may give up your life so that someone else may be saved.
And so that decision, I think, is going to be well-analyzed for many years. But it certainly, I don`t think, in my opinion, was the right decision.
REID: We know that, in Sandy Hook, there was also a lot of death. A lot of children died. And we know that the shooter actually killed themselves.
But the response times seemed very different. It seemed that people — the police did get there quicker to Sandy Hook. And, again, also obviously, the shooter killed himself.
Is there — can you — what are the differences, in your view, between the way that those two incidents played out?
HARVIN: Well, most active shooter incidents play out over less than two to three minutes. And so, by the time law enforcement gets there, the shooting is over. Either they give up or they take their own life.
REID: Right.
HARVIN: This is unique, because this armed assailant was active, an active assailant for over an hour.
REID: Right. Yes.
HARVIN: You don`t know if he`s reloading, if his gun is jammed. You don`t know anything.
So long as — so long as he`s an active assailant, you don`t negotiate with someone like that. You try to take them down. So, these are two different scenarios.
REID: Yes.
HARVIN: Once again, most active shooter scenarios unfold over a very short period of time.
REID: Yes.
HARVIN: This unfolded way, way too long.
REID: Yes, it obviously and clearly did.
Donell Harvin, thank you. Always appreciate you.
And don`t go anywhere, everyone, because “Who Won the Week?” is still coming? It is still Friday. We`re still going to do that.
But, first, what to make of the PGA Tour suspending golf stars who signed up for a rival Saudi-backed tour that Trump himself is cashing in on.
That in a second.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:46:51]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHENEY: Are you aware of instances where Pat Cipollone threatened to resign?
JARED KUSHNER, FORMER SENIOR PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: I kind of — like I said, my interest at that time was on trying to get as many pardons done.
And I know that, you know, he was always — him and the team were always saying: “Oh, we`re going to resign. We`re not going to be here if this happens, if that happens.”
So, I kind of took it up to just be whining, to be honest with you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Well, that was Jared Kushner`s weaselly testimony to the January 6 Committee.
Kushner is a man who tends to look the other way as long as he gets what he wants in the end. His four years of genuflecting to the Saudi royal prince paid off big time when the public investment fund led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman decided to drop two billion — with a B — dollars on Jared`s brand-new private equity firm.
That is sort of a trend with the Saudis in the wake of the brutal murder of American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA is pretty sure was ordered by the crown prince. You see, they are tossing loads of money at things, in the hope that it may rehabilitate their reputation.
That same Saudi fund invested roughly $400 million into a golf league created — into a golf league created to rival the PGA Tour. The rogue golf league, called LIV Golf, debuted on Thursday. Former golf champion Greg Norman is the CEO and commissioner. And they have tossed bucketloads of cash at some major names to poach them away from the PGA Tour.
Dustin Johnson, who has won two majors, was reportedly offered a $125 million contract to play on the LIV tour. And Phil Mickelson, who`s won 45 events on the PGA Tour, including six majors, is reportedly getting a whopping $200 million.
The eighth-event schedule for this year will award an enormous $255 million in prize money total. And the PGA Tour, well, they ain`t happy about it. All the players who defected to the renegade series now face banishment from future PGA Tour events.
Additionally, reporters have taken the athletes to task for their moral malleability when it comes to Saudi human rights abuses.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAEME MCDOWELL, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: Take the Khashoggi situation. We all agreed that that was reprehensible. No one`s going to argue that fact. But we`re golfers.
QUESTION: Just, in a generality, is there any way you wouldn`t play on a moral basis? If the money was right, is there any way you wouldn`t play?
IAN POULTER, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: I don`t need to answer that question.
QUESTION: Lee, do you want to answer it?
Would you have played in apartheid South Africa, for example?
LEE WESTWOOD, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: You`re just asking us to answer a hypothetical question now, which…
(CROSSTALK)
QUESTION: Well, they`re moral questions, aren`t there?
PHIL MICKELSON, PROFESSIONAL GOLFER: I`m certainly aware of what has happened with Jamal Khashoggi. And it`s — I think it`s terrible. I have also seen the good that the game of golf has done throughout history, and I believe that LIV Golf is going to do a lot of good for the game.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: OK, well, I should also note that Phil Mickelson, who you just saw in that clip, is a self-admitted reckless gambler, who, according to an unauthorized biography, allegedly accrued gambling losses upwards of $14 million between 2010 and 2014. So I guess he needs the money.
But let me end where I started, with the Trump family. Two LIV tournament events are scheduled to take place at — wait for it — Trump-owned golf courses.
[19:50:00]
With me now, Bomani Jones, host of “The Right Time With Bomani Jones” podcasts and “Game Theory” on HBO.
Well, Bomani, well, all bags ain`t good bags. But, apparently, this is such a big bag that they just don`t care. Your thoughts?
(LAUGHTER)
BOMANI JONES, “THE RIGHT TIME WITH BOMANI JONES”: Well, I mean, there`s a couple of levels with this.
One is that a lot of the professionals on the PGA Tour legitimately feel like the tour has too much control. Like, NFTs have become a battleground for these guys. This tour will not allow them the rights to their own images, which is the kind of thing that would understandably make somebody upset.
Now, does it make you decide to go do business with the Saudis? Well, that`s a different question. And, basically, what Greg Norman said when he was asked about the human rights things with Saudi Arabia and everything else, it was basically, every country has dirt. That`s not an exact quote, but that`s basically what he said, which is kind of like saying, well, there is no ethical capitalism really, right?
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: Like, his thing is, the people that got the checks, we are doing this. They are supplying the money.
And people like Phil Mickelson want to spite the tour so badly that they`re willing to go ahead and do this. Meanwhile, the PGA Tour, I think, is ultimately fighting for survival on this, just because of what the quantity of money is that the Saudis are willing to throw out there.
REID: Right.
JONES: So some guys have decided it wasn`t worth it for them. They`re going to stay with the tour.
But I`m not going to pretend like I don`t understand why somebody would take $200 million to go play golf with them.
REID: But here`s the thing.
I mean, I`m old enough to remember, I ain`t going to play Sun City. A lot of musical artists gave up a lot of money, where they could have made a lot of money touring. Touring is where most musical artists make their money. Let`s just be clear. And they gave up the chance to play Sun City, South Africa, because of the ethics of it.
In this case, Jamal Khashoggi was killed. The CIA says the Saudi crown prince did it. But he — but Jared Kushner is willing to take his money. Obviously, Donald Trump, because you know he has no ethics, he`s going to go ahead and take his money.
But is there no line where players say, you know what, that`s too much?
JONES: Oh, I think there are lines for some people. Like, yes, a whole lot of people said they wasn`t going to play Sun City. A few others were like, I hear there are some dates open at Sun City that you guys might need to fill in.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: Like, so if we take this to a different era, like, after Patrice Lumumba is killed in the Congo, were people being like, hey, well, we`re not going to do any business with the Belgians?
REID: Yes.
JONES: Like, folks are really — folks are admittedly selective about when it is that they choose to draw the lines on these things.
The thing is, especially for people in this country, Saudi Arabia just jumps off the page so strongly, and the Khashoggi situation is so present in our minds.
REID: Yes.
JONES: But people all the time ignore reprehensibility in the name of making money.
REID: Yes.
JONES: What`s interesting to me about this is, Phil Mickelson is the only person so far to explicitly say, yes, they do lots of terrible things over there, but I want to stick it to the PGA.
Everybody else has gotten off on this because they`re just not talking about it. And it reminds me of the national anthem situation in the NFL, where Colin Kaepernick clearly articulated why he wasn`t standing for the national anthem. Lots of other guys didn`t stand, and then never said anything for it.
REID: Yes.
JONES: And they get commercials, right?
REID: Right. Right. Right.
JONES: Mickelson was just the one person dumb enough to say the quiet part out loud.
REID: Speaking of the NFL, let`s talk about Jack Del Rio.
Jack Del Rio, who`s the defensive coordinator for the Commanders, Washington Commanders, he`s getting fined 100 grand now because he called the insurrection against our Capitol — quote, unquote — “a dust-up.”
Harry Dunn, last night, we had him on MSNBC as part of our coverage of the January 6 hearings. He went at him.
What do you make of the fact that he`s getting fined? Is that enough?
JONES: Well, I am reluctant to say that he should have been fired for that, just because I feel like I`m saying you should fire him because I didn`t like what he said. And that makes me uncomfortable, because, when it goes in the other direction, I would vehemently oppose it.
What I think is kind of interesting about this, though, is, I don`t think Del Rio realizes what a loser of a position this is, especially in D.C.
REID: In D.C.
JONES: So you can talk about this in lots of other places, and it`s just kind of a hypothetical thing. But when you talk about it in a city where people know people who were there that day…
REID: That`s right.
JONES: … they know people that were part of that police force, they don`t really have a sense of humor about what it is that he`s talking about…
REID: That`s right.
JONES: … and he decided to come out and say, right?
That`s where I think that he ultimately got it wrong is, I think a lot of the people who believe in the idea that the election was stolen, you got to look around and realize people who are running for election that platform, they`re not winning. Like, this isn`t something where you got a real army that`s behind you.
You might have an army big enough to storm the Capitol.
REID: Right.
JONES: But you don`t have an army big enough to protect you on this one.
Overall, some of the most inflammatory people we know of, when this happened in January of 2021, they stood down. They were like, hey, hey, hey, this is a little father than we can go.
REID: That`s right. It`s too much.
JONES: Jack Del Rio was the last person to get the memo.
REID: Yes, absolutely.
And when people that defended the Capitol are saying, you`re wrong, you`re in the wrong — you`re on the wrong end of that argument.
Bomani is going to stick with us, though, because we`re going to have Bomani play “Who Won the Week?”
And that`s right after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:58:42]
REID: Well, TGIF, everybody. We made it. We made it.
That can only mean one thing. It`s time to play, ah, yes, “Who Won the Week?”
Back with me, the great Bomani Jones.
I see an Emmy behind you. Maybe you won the week. But give us somebody besides yourself. Who won the week?
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: All right, let`s look at Jeff Molina, UFC fighter, who — he wore the pride shorts that — the UFC`s pride shorts, by the way. They are in on Pride Month.
And he got up, and he had a lot to say about what fans were saying to him in response to this, and just really just kind of floored and surprised by how offended people were by it. And the reason I say he won the week is, these sorts of messages land completely differently when it`s somebody that can beat you up.
Now, I know some people are probably thinking he`s just a flyweight, but that`s like saying a gun is just a .22.
(LAUGHTER)
JONES: Like, you can — you hear somebody say something like that, it`s one thing that you could try to push them off as just being like over-woke or anything else.
It`s another thing when it`s a real live tough guy. And it may not convert that many grownups, but it might give some kids something to think about. And those are the people you got the best chance of winning the intellectual fight with.
REID: Amen. I love that. I love that.
Well, my “Who Won the Week?” this week is the police officers, the Capitol Police officers and Metro Police officers who testified, told their truth, told their stories, stood up for us on January 6, and are continuing to stand up for the truth and for our democracy, Officer Harry Dunn, Officer Daniel Hodges, former officer Michael Fanone, Sergeant Aquilino Gonell, Officer Caroline Edwards, who really, really moved us all last night.
These guys are heroes. And in an era where we`re seeing police really not always stand up and do the right thing, especially in places like Uvalde, they did the right thing. They won the week.
Bomani Jones, thank you, my friend.
And that is it, tonight`s REIDOUT.
“ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES” starts now.