Updated
Summary
Newly released testimony from White House lawyer clashing with coup mastermind and Trump ally John Eastman, as the revelations from the hearings drew reactions from Trump allies Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon. Judiciary chairman on Trump demanding DOJ to overthrow the 2020 election results, on the January 6th Committee hearings, and on the framework of the bipartisan gun safety bill. Former federal prosecutor John Flannery joins THE BEAT with Ari Melber to talk about new evidence that was just revealed by January 6 committee. Sam Seder joins THE BEAT with Ari Melber to talk about some Fox News hosts who admit that they avoided the hearing to cater to the audience and were under fire for censoring the first January 6 Committee hearing.
Transcript
NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: For many Ukrainians was that the world would look away when Russia became most aggressive and most brutal, and that seems to be coming to pass. We`re really lucky that you`re still there doing your incredible reporting for us.
Ali Arouzi, live for us in Kyiv, thank you so much. Stay safe.
And our thanks to all of you for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. We`re so grateful. THE BEAT WITH ARI MELBER starts right now.
Hi, Ari.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Hi, Nicolle. Nice to see you. Welcome to THE BEAT. I am Ari Melber.
And we start with this new January 6th evidence that really is sending out shockwaves and it`s out from the committee right now. Trump White House lawyer Eric Herschmann, so he is a Trumpy, he`s MAGA, he`s someone who agrees with most everything, and you may have seen his name pop up in the hearings, but this is new tonight as they release information talking about his discussions with the lawyer at the center of the coup plotting, John Eastman, and this was January 7th, one day after the insurrection.
Eastman after that was still talking about trying to get some way to overthrow then President-elect Biden`s incoming administration, preserving information out of Georgia. This is the new testimony.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Eastman — I don`t remember why he called me, or he texted me or called me, wanted to talk with me, and he said he couldn`t reach others. And he started to ask me about something dealing with Georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal. And I said to him, are you out of your effing mind? I said, I only want to hear two words coming out of your mouth from now on. Orderly transition.
I said I don`t want to hear any other effing words coming out of your mouth no matter what other than orderly transition. Repeat those words to me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did he say?
HERSCHMANN: Eventually he said orderly transition. I said, good, John. Now I`m going to give you the best free legal advice you`re ever getting in your life. Get a great effing criminal defense lawyer. You`re going to need it. And then I hung up on him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: And then he hung up. That`s new testimony. When a lawyer tells another lawyer to get an effing criminal defense lawyer, that is never a good sign. Now we have this brand-new — it just came out here late in the day, because Liz Cheney shared that. The committee of course has revealed some of the evidentiary and testimonial fruits of their probe in these hearings but they have so much more, and so we`re seeing them in a very sort of new school way.
That was released by the committee and put out online as a video, and in this internet era people can go watch that themselves. All of this coming amidst explosive revelations about Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani. Consider just some of the testimony against him from Trump`s top allies and loyalists. In this hearing he was described under oath at inebriated, buffoonish, erratic, a threat to the republic and toxic. And now we`re seeing Giuliani speaking out. He`s denying that he was intoxicated on election night and joining forces to push back with none other than indicted aide Steve Bannon.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER TRUMP LAWYER: How about tell me the number of Antifa members in that riot? It`s the same cast of characters. I mean, Bennie Thompson and Shifty Schiff, the completely hysterical Mary Cheney who`s gone off her deep end.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s new, appearing on Bannon`s “War Room.” He`s referencing presumably Vice Chair Cheney by the name of her sister. And basically Bannon meanwhile is awaiting trial for defying this very committee. He faces up to two years in prison after last night`s bombshell deposition from Attorney General Bill Barr. All of this is coming into view, why some may not want to cooperate and others are. Bannon also saying he will go after in some manner Bill Barr.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: I told him that it was — it was crazy stuff.
STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP SENIOR AIDE: Bill Barr, we`re coming for you, bro. You`re sitting there lying about this.
BARR: Detached from reality. Completely bogus and silly. Based on complete misinformation.
BANNON: We`re not just going sit here anymore. The days of MAGA just sitting there and our betters telling us what it is.
BARR: They were idiotic claims, complete nonsense shoveling out to the public was bull (EXPLETIVE DELETED).
BANNON: We`re going to deconstruct this and we`re going to rub your nose in it and then we`re going to come after you legally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: There you have it. What we just showed you is some of what Mr. Barr said under oath and some of what Bannon joining forces with Giuliani are pushing back on today.
So I want you to understand what we`re seeing here as we have this new evidence coming down tonight which our experts will also respond to. The committee is breaking through.
[18:05:01]
The committee has Giuliani responding, the committee has Bannon making threats. And there`s a larger context for all of this. If you watch this program and the way we try to cover the news and the facts, we go to the sources, we`ve talked the people who are willing to describe what they were doing inside the Trump administration. We did that when they were in government, we`ve done it after. Some of them have arguments to make. Some of them have factual defenses.
But some of them don`t want to discuss the facts, which is the purpose of this type of — set of hearings. Some of them want to just openly warn that if they get back in power, if Republicans win elections, they will — and many of them were in power before — they will, they expect to get into power to work with a Republican White House and to abuse power. That`s one of the very things under investigation here about this ex-President Trump.
This is not normal. This is a revenge playbook that involves sometimes vows to abuse future power to turn this into a Putin, Russian-style state where people imprison their enemies. We`ve seen some of this, and that`s part of the response that Giuliani and Bannon seem to be — I`ll say seem to be warning about in their response today, that power if gained will be abused.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PETER NAVARRO, FORMER WHITE HOUSE ADVISER: We`re going to fit you for an orange jump suit, Tony. You can count on that. I`ll take Biden and every single senior staff member in there —
MELBER: And do what?
NAVARRO: And will put them —
MELBER: And do what?
NAVARRO: — with subpoenas and — we`ll start with the impeachment of Biden. If they want to play that game, we`ll play it right back. They hit us, we hit them back hard.
MELBER: OK. Here`s what —
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Now we turn to the guests as promised. Attorney Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and “New York Times” magazine legal writer Emily Bazelon.
Maya, we put together the response because it`s not just Giuliani and Bannon saying, we disagree, or something was misinterpreted. They have every right, of course, to discuss the allegations and facts offered by the committee. What does it mean, and should it be normalized that part of the response, including from Mr. Navarro, who also awaits trial, is threatening to abuse power?
MAYA WILEY, INCOMING PRESIDENT AND CEO, LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE ON CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS: You know, this should not be normalized, Ari, because, you know, one of the reasons the hearings are so important is because we`re trying to save democracy here. That was an attack on our democracy on January 6th. It was an attack by groups that were extremists, were hate groups. You know, we`ve already heard powerful evidence. But if you dial it back to what has been successful about Trumpism in terms of gaining power for those who — and I`m saying Trumpism intentionally because it`s not all of Republicans, right?
This is not just about partisanship. It`s about Trumpism. It has always used misinformation to misinform the public to drive opinion. And so one of the important aspects of this committee, which is bipartisan, is to say, hey, not Democrat, not Republican, facts. And facts that go directly to democracy.
So you are absolutely right, Ari, when you say, don`t just listen to — listen to, one, how they`re actually using arguments that are misinformation and disinformation again. Right? Antifa, this is an argument that unfortunately before the hearings about half of Republicans believed that the violence on January 6th was perpetrated by Antifa, not by white hate groups and extremists. That`s not factually accurate.
MELBER: Yes.
WILEY: But the other part is the threats, the bullying. That`s the Trump tactic. We`ve seen it from him before, from his camp. But it`s also an extremist tactic and we should call it for what it is. It`s extremism, and we should remember that Rudy Giuliani is a suspended law license because he was considered an imminent danger because of his misinformation and disinformation.
MELBER: Yes. And that comes, again, amidst Bannon, Navarro and others talking about turning these tables on their would-be investigators.
Emily, your response to that as well as that new video I played, which is brand new, we just aired it for the first time, which is in essence is a Trump — again, I emphasize, these are Trump appointees, Trump White House Counsel`s Office, saying that Eastman, the coup plotter, you`re going to need an effing criminal lawyer. A lot of swearing. I guess the swearing really increases as the coup gets closer, not to make light of it. But he says, you`re going to need an effing lawyer for the crimes that you`re involved in.
And yet, Emily, how do we stack that against the fact that Mr. Eastman has not been charged with anything right now?
EMILY BAZELON, LEGAL WRITER, NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE: I think you`re seeing a real divide between lawyers. You`re seeing Bill Barr, the White House lawyer you just showed, standing up for the rule of law. Now they didn`t do that publicly at the time.
MELBER: No.
BAZELON: And I think we can take a minute to think about what a difference it would have made if they had done that.
[18:10:02]
But now you`re hearing this scorn from them toward these other lawyers who are partisan all the way down, who don`t seem, in their view, to be respecting the rule of law at all, and who are willing to go way past trying to win an election toward trying to steal an election. So I feel like there`s that sort of tribal difference in how to be a lawyer here. And, you know, to your question about criminal liability, we`ll just have to see.
But it is getting harder and harder to deny that Trump had a lot of people around him telling him the truth that he had lost this election. And so the idea that he didn`t have the mindset — I mean, he would have had to be what prosecutors call willfully blind to not absorb this message.
MELBER: Right, and I think that has come through really clearly in the committee`s evidence thus far. All of this builds to what people are always asking if you had an actual coup or you have people indicted. If Trump`s campaign chair, now indicted for the second time is in trouble, if Trump`s White House adviser Mr. Navarro is in trouble, sooner or later the question becomes, who is the beneficiary of their plotting? And should he ever face charges if he`s not above the law?
And so I want both of our experts to stay with me, and I want to play a couple things for viewers because this is really important. We were discussing actually with Rachel just last night, our special coverage, Chairman Thompson had said something that sounded like he would not ever see his committee as having the authority to refer a criminal case to DOJ. I also asked another committee member about it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ELAINE LURIA (D-VA): That is still something that the committee is working through as we continue to collect evidence, and as we present it to the public, so there`s not a determination made on that, but I can say personally from my own perspective, that this man, he broke the law.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But the panel would recommend that the DOJ charge Trump with some sort of crime or crimes related to January 6th. Would the panel do that?
REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS): No.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You`re ruling it out right now?
THOMPSON: We don`t have the authority.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Quote, “We don`t have the authority.” Fact check, false. There is a method for Congress to both do contempt referrals and to make criminal referrals. Now that may have been something of a misstatement because actually Chairman Thompson then spoke again to NBC just today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ALI VITALI, NBC NEWS CAPITOL HILL CORRESPONDENT: It`s not off the table? A criminal referral is not off the table?
THOMPSON: What? Who said it was off the table?
VITALI: I think some people might have interpreted your comments yesterday to be that.
THOMPSON: Well, that`s some people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Now Mr. Thompson has a lot of respect in the committee, but this does sound like a somewhat politician`s response, that some people, but in all fairness and accuracy, he did say yesterday they don`t have the authority, and that would recommend or present for us the visibility of a rare public split over this issue. Consider what Liz Cheney said. Quote, “The committee has not issued a conclusion regarding potential criminal referrals.”
She made a point of sharing that in public, Emily and Maya, and it would seem that while this has been a very airtight case thus far, and they don`t clearly want to get into this question until the end, this would seem to be spilling into the open the debate over whether to indict.
And so, Maya, we`ve discussed before, there`s no automatic switch, there`s nothing the committee can do that can make DOJ charge, but there is a possible authority they can use or not, and they have the authority of this bully pulpit. They can end this thing by saying there`s a case to charge him, or they could say nothing, or they could say, we don`t think there`s a case to charge him.
What do you think of this spilling out in the open now, Maya?
WILEY: Well, I think what we`re hearing is the fact that people are still trying to game out what`s the best (INAUDIBLE) and, you know, as we know, these are people elected to office. They have constituents. Their constituents also have feelings about this. And I think that`s part of what we`re hearing is that there are folks saying, look, if it was you or me, Ari, we would be already under investigation. We would be under investigation based on the news headlines.
Quite a number of public integrity cases out of the Department of Justice, out of U.S. attorneys` offices have arisen from news headlines. We already know that there`s the ability to investigate. And frankly I think there should be an investigation just based on what we know that`s in the public eye. Whether Congress — whether members of Congress take a position to use their bully pulpit to demand an investigation is much more of a political calculus I think for some about what they think the best road is.
I will say, because I — you know how I feel, Ari. I don`t think I`ve kept this secret. But at the same time, you can imagine them being cautious about making sure they are not appearing to be acting as partisan, meaning just wanting to go get Trump.
MELBER: Yes. So let me jump in.
[18:15:12]
Maya, let me jump in, because I learned the law from you. That`s why we have you as an expert. But sometimes we can debate these points out. The banner on the screen says, do what`s right or pull a Comey, and as I think all nerds know, pulling a James Comey is prioritizing the potential perception of independence and integrity at the cost of just doing it. And so on a matter of this import, it seems to me, Maya, for your response and then Emily, we keep hearing from people in Washington about how this would be perceived.
That sounds very Comey-esque. There may be responsible and prudential arguments against recommending the indictment of the former president for many important reasons, and I think it should not relate to your politics and you could say that and explain that pursuant to your governing power. But isn`t it a problem — we call that a leading question — that some in Washington sound so Comey-esque as if they haven`t learned the lesson that if you want to be perceived for doing the right thing, or this is a big call, the only way through is to independently try to do the right thing and put the optics to the side?
WILEY: Well, look, that — I agree with you, Ari, so this isn`t about what Maya Wiley thinks. As I said, I think there`s already evidence for an investigation. There should be one ongoing now just based on the public record. All I was saying was, trying to figure out why there`s this internal — what appears to be an internal conversation and what might be driving it. But at the end of the day, if I were them, I would not make public statements one way or the other about whether or not —
MELBER: Sure.
WILEY: Until I finish the process because you do want the American public to understand this. With so much misinformation, disinformation coming from the Trump camp, coming from Steve Bannon, Rudy Giuliani, you want to make sure that the public knows you`re playing above board.
MELBER: Fair. Emily?
BAZELON: So, Ari, you used the word prudential a few minutes ago, which is a word that lawyers often use —
MELBER: Sorry.
BAZELON: No, no, I think it`s helpful. It`s the idea of like, OK, you have discretion. Is this wise? Should Congress, a co-equal branch of government refer the former president for a criminal matter to a new Justice Department for interfering with an election? That`s really tough. We haven`t seen that happen before in American history.
I`m not sure what I think the answer is, but I can really understand that this is a very hard decision to make. I mean, this is separate from, should Attorney General Merrick Garland investigate former President Trump? This is, should Congress take this step? These are, you know, difficult official matter.
MELBER: But Emily, and I`m running — I`m running over on time, but it`s super interesting. They did refer his campaign chair already, and they did refer his White House adviser, who`s appeared on this program. And they did refer, through this letter process, Roger Clemens and Martha Stewart. And so it`s always going to be tough. The moment they get into optics and politics, they`re wrong, game over.
I will say, here, Democrats wrong, if they ever let my politics into this. But the idea that it`s prejudged or can`t go forward, I`m not saying what the right call is. It`s not really my job. But I am — I do think the level of Comey-ism out there is concerning.
Emily gets the final word.
BAZELON: Yes, I hear you. I just think that with all those precedents you cited they`re totally relevant. It`s not the former president. That`s what we`re talking about here. That`s what really matter.
MELBER: But was Roger Clemens in a way the president of baseball?
BAZELON: I guess that`s true, Ari.
MELBER: I don`t know. I`m out of my lane. That was a curveball of a final question.
BAZELON: For me, too.
MELBER: Emily and Maya, not only thanks for your expertise but thanks for putting up with me.
BAZELON: Always a pleasure.
WILEY: Always great putting up with you.
MELBER: OK. Appreciate it.
Coming up, we have more new details on how the coup tried to reach the Justice Department. The one and only chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee Dick Durbin live tonight. And later, FOX News under pressure and waffling. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:23:52]
MELBER: Turning to new details about how during the transition, Trump had many efforts to steal the election. They weren`t called a coup at the time, but the emerging evidence shows Trump repeatedly demanded people join him in a coup, overthrowing a legitimate government of then President-elect Biden by abusing power.
A coup is deployed through either government power of violence. The committee hasn`t necessarily proven the violence, but there`s extensive evidence Trump tried to overthrow President-elect Biden`s tenure with government power, abusing the DOJ to claim fraud and trying to reverse the election.
One Trump-backed official was pushing to become AG and DOJ lawyer Jeffrey Clark, who wanted to be AG was meeting with Trump about a coup plan, “The Washington Post” reports, vowing they could get it done. And when was that meeting? Just three days out from January 6th itself. Prompting a scramble by the actual AG on the job, who replaced Barr, racing to the Oval Office, no time even to change.
It`s another dramatic example of how these Trump appointees were basically trying to stop authoritarian coup plotting by other Trump fans.
[18:25:03]
Now much of what we know about this initially came out of a probe by the Senate Judiciary Committee and the lawmaker who let that probe, powerful chairman Dick Durbin is our special guest in 60 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: We are back with Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Dick Durbin.
Thanks for being here, sir.
REP. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): Good to be with you, Ari.
MELBER: We mentioned your investigation there. What else can you tell us about what you found, why that`s important, and how it links with the other news people are learning about?
DURBIN: Well, let me tell you, this was a bipartisan effort in the Senate Judiciary Committee, no question about it, so that was the premise, both the Republicans and Democrats through staff had an opportunity to ask questions of Jeffrey Rosen and of Donoghue and others, and they did so over the course of several days. Members of the committee, myself included, witnessed their testimony.
I thought the staff did an exhaustive job of establishing the premise, and that was that the president of the United States at the time, Donald Trump, tried to go through the courts of the land to reach a different result in the election and failed. He alleged all sorts of election fraud. Couldn`t prove it. Then he decided to go to the state election officials where he could and he convinced them, as in the case of Georgia, to find votes for him. That didn`t work.
Then he next went to the Department of Justice and tried before January 6th to take control of that department for the issuance of letters to different state leaders to question the results of the election, and that`s where we came in the picture. We brought Jeffrey Rosen, who stepped in after Attorney General Barr, who really rose to the occasion, and I have to say it was a bit of a surprise to some of us.
When he was challenged, and it was pretty clear that the president was putting pressure on him, he did not buckle. And when he heard that Jeffrey Clark was setting off on a mission to even replace him as attorney general, then they rallied the attorneys in the Department of Justice who basically said, if you do that we`ll stage a walkout.
It was a dramatic moment unknown to the public which we uncovered in our committee. Took all the information that we put together, sent it over to the January 6th Committee, and said to them, we want to make sure you have everything that we`ve collected.
MELBER: If Trump had prevailed in this effort to get the DOJ in on trying to overthrow the lawful results of the election, in your view, might there have been crimes there?
DURBIN: Certainly, but I don`t know all the details in terms of what Clark had planned or was proposing to the president, or the president proposing to him. But he seemed to be a willing ally of the Trump big lie theory. You`ll notice that he has decided that he will not testify before the January 6th Committee, which in itself sends a message.
MELBER: Yes. Senator, you`re involved in so many things given the privacy of the committee that you run. I wanted to get your reaction to this so- called framework for some gun safety rules with Republicans involved, McConnell vaguely or broadly, I should say, signaling some sort of support. Do you view this as a breakthrough in what would it do?
DURBIN: It`s a positive signal, you know, and Senator McConnell, who historically has not been signed up for any gun safety measures ends up appointing John Cornyn of Texas as the official negotiator, the lead negotiator for the Republican side, and then says positive things about the work product, what they have proposed, the 10 Democrats and 10 Republicans, that is positive. Now whether or not that signals how McConnell himself will vote, I can`t say. Perhaps we won`t know that until the actual package makes it to the floor.
MELBER: And given your role, are you watching a lot of the hearings or you`re too busy for that?
DURBIN: I`m trying my best. We`ve got our own hearings going on here, but I tried to catch up with it to the summaries afterwards. I`ve been impressed. I watched the first night in its entirety. And I thought that was very professional. I thought they had gathered collected evidence, and we`re presenting it in a convincing fashion and not wasting a lot of words and doing it. So, I think they`ve done a very professional bipartisan job.
[18:30:00]
MELBER: Yes. Last question on that, given your expertise, which I think viewers know about, do you think at this point, people should view that, as you know, Democratic House hearing with largely Democrats on the panel, or do you think that in its in its findings, we`re getting something that`s more investigative and factual?
DURBIN: Well, I think it is a professional approach. And the fact that congressmen from my state Adam Kinzinger, as well as Liz Cheney, have been party to all this. I trust them. I think they`re risking their political careers in case of 10s degrees announced retirement, but he stuck his neck out in engaging in this committee effort. I think the fact that they are still there lends credibility to the product that the committee is producing.
MELBER: Understood, and I know your time is busy tonight. Thanks for joining us, Chairman Durbin.
DURBIN: Thank you, Ari.
MELBER: Appreciate it. I`m going to turn now to someone who has counseled these exact types of house investigations. John Flannery, a former federal prosecutor, welcome back, sir.
JOHN FLANNERY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Good to be with you, Ari.
MELBER: We could start anywhere. But given the late-breaking news out of the committee and Liz Cheney`s office, we`ll want to play for folks who may have seen it, this is new — so this didn`t air in the hearings. It`s new, going into this evening. Mr. Eastman, maybe not a household name.
But if you`re into coups, if you`re a MAGA person that wanted to overthrow the government, he was the last, last resort. He might have out-Giuliani, Giuliani. Which is a big statement. Here`s what was said about him by a White House lawyer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: I don`t want to hear any other effing words coming out of your mouth no matter what, other than orderly transition. Repeat those words to me. And I treat him that — eventually, he said orderly transition. I said, good, John, now I`m going to give you the best free legal advice you`re ever getting in your life, get a great effing criminal defense lawyer, you`re going to need it. Then I hang up on him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: A tense movie-like moment of possible hyperbole or — and I want your considered judgment, John. Did Mr. Eastman literally need a criminal defense lawyer at that moment?
Flannery: Yes, he did. You know, I have the sense that Trump`s stone wall, his obstruction is coming apart. He has so many people who are arrogant and believe they could do anything because Trump would take care of them in a selfish way never because he actually believed they should be taken care of unless they were taking care of him.
And so, he spends in a position where he seems to have written the music for how they`re going to do this quote, legally based on fraudulent claims about voters and a theory of law. That`s just untrue, according to the Constitution. And we see it mentioned in this — in the negotiations with Clark was introduced at the request of Trump, which surprised me by Congressman Perry, because I assumed it was a straight, would you do me a favor? Mr. President, I`d like to be the attorney general.
And I realized that we`re short on time. But the way I would sum this up, I think, is that not only does Eastman need a lawyer, but the lawyer Harry MacDougald, who does represent Clark, Jeffrey Clark, he should probably look at who he could point to because I think this — that`s where this is going. You have him Clark implicated in various elements of this, almost weaving back and forth between Trump`s direct overtures to the secretary of state which was taped, and trying to get this moving.
So that before January, the 6th that`s in place, and he just can`t get it. He is desperate to live this lion to make it work and he can`t do it. And like really bad criminals. He`s doing it with an audience. Donoghue, Rosen, he`s tape-recorded in Georgia. This is a guy who should go down and I`m sorry, you know, we don`t catch the geniuses in fraud cases. But these guys aren`t even close to that. To be Keystone Cops if it wasn`t the most important historical trial in American history.
MELBER: Well, and you make — you make an important point that we have shown viewers, which is some of the people who were involved were very secretive. Mr. Navarro was not. People may think of him as voluble now. But he was not talking in public much at the time, he was secretly plotting for this sweep. They wanted to in a sense, have it be a surprise, right?
And the first tweet from Jan. — from the — promoting January 6 by Donald Trump said Navarro`s got a report. Meet me on the 6th it`ll be wild. So, in Trump`s mind, it was together but they kept it quiet, as you say, other people more loud. Final item for you that I asked the chairman about, again, the Washington Post reporting about Trump saying well just help me out. Just say it was corrupt. Just use words.
Quote, just say the election was corrupt, leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman. Trump urges Rosen, just do it in a press conference. Again, this overlaps with the so-called sweep. Rosen refuses, quote, we don`t see that, we`re not going to have that press conference. The significance of that John in 45 seconds or less, sir.
[18:35:00]
FLANNERY: (INAUDIBLE) Watergate. There were two kinds of lawyers, there were the crooked ones, they went to prison, and there were the others who prosecuted them. And that`s where we are today. We have these guys who don`t care about the law, and they`re going to go down.
And what`s happening with the hearings and what`s happening in the country, seeing these people transparently for the criminals, they are the traitors to America, including the head of the snake, Trump. I think that`s where we`re going. This is very dangerous for the midterms. I personally hope it results in a prosecution before we get there.
MELBER: Clear and frank, as we`ve come to expect, John Flannery, thank you. Going to fit in a break and we come back, Fox News owning itself, in its censorship of these hearings, stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[18:40:22]
MELBER: Welcome back. Now imagine if you worked at a news organization, but got fired for reporting facts, for getting the story right, for being accurate. That is literally what happened to the elections editor who accurately called some states that Biden won while working at Fox News.
You may recognize him because he became a star hearing witness in his speaking out about how Fox is problem went beyond opinions about election results, which is fine, too formal demands to misrepresent or lie about who won, causing panic.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHRIS STIREWALT, FORMER FOX NEWS POLITICAL EDITOR: Part of the problem, of course, was that there were opinion hosts on Fox who, for months and months and months, had been repeating the baseless claim that Trump was going to win the election for sure. Fox lost the thread over time. But the old idea of Fox was a robust news division. But in 2020, for a lot of reasons, there was some panic.
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MELBER: That former Fox employee speaking at NPR after of course, he testified to these hearings. So, we know how it all went. Fox was a pipeline for election claims and some lies which directly fed the environment for the insurrection. Indeed, one count shows they push down about Biden`s win over 700 times. Now, this is not a debate over how to cover elections.
This is something much worse for Fox indeed, their 2020 election coverage was so biased and often wrong, that it now faces more than $1 billion lawsuit over its coverage of issues like voting machines. And although we will cover how those cases are ultimately resolved, Fox is pulling back. They`ve already done on-air attractions under that legal heat.
So not a normal debate, something according to the courts and the lawsuits and their own retraction something worse. Now, while it`s common for people to claim these days that nothing really matters, and all the pressure is pointless. These hearings are actually testing Fox`s tortured relationship with the facts of the election, and insurrection in interesting ways.
Fox broke with all other news divisions to censor coverage of the first hearing. Going full cancel culture rather than show its viewers the hearing, where they might have viewers make up their own mind after watching the hearing. Fox went even further. It put that censorship goal above not only news but its own profits.
Fox picked that one night of the first and only primetime hearing so far to forego its lucrative primetime ads. That was an attempt to keep all their viewers glued because, as you may know, if you watch television, sometimes viewers — well you guys sometimes check what`s on other channels during our commercials, I get it.
But the network was so committed to try to prevent people from seeing any of the hearings for any reason. Think about what that means. It`s not a premise that the hearings were boring or partisan or unconvincing to Fox viewers. It was more like a fear that the hearings if watched would resonate with Vox viewers as important and factual. Here`s how Gene Robinson put it.
This big lie business is so big for Fox, it`s worth sacrificing primetime advertising revenue. Now, this view of Fox is canceled culture censorship is an independent view of the issue. It`s not like Fox hosts would be so gosh to admit that they are censoring the news that they are being biased and just catering to their audience above all. It`s not like you`re going to find a Fox host telling on themselves unless you watch Laura Ingraham.
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LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST, FOX NEWS: They`re all upset that Fox isn`t covering it live. We actually do something called, you know, cater to our audience. Our audience knows what this is —
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MELBER: I`m joined now by Sam Seder, host of The Majority Report. As we button that up with an admission or what in court is called admission against interest. How about that, Sam?
SAM SEDER, CONTRIBUTOR, MSNBC: Yes, that`s a whoops. I don`t know that she really meant to say that. And I`m not sure I fully believe that it`s just a question of them wanting to meet the expectations of their audience. I do think there was a certain amount of fear associated with that. I think the backlash that they got when they call the election and that final state, for Biden. I think they felt that, I think it stung.
I think there was a lot of people who abandoned Fox at that moment. And obviously, not for any other sort of mainstream news organizations but for ones that were sort of deeper down the wormhole, ones that many people probably watching this have never heard of before. You know, one that is actually out of business and some that were, you know, being sued because of their claims of the big lie, they abandoned them later.
[18:45:00]
And I think it was not just a question of catering to their audience, although that is a really bizarre thing to say, if you`re a news organization, you don`t want to necessarily just give your audience only exclusively what they want to hear.
But I think it was also a concern that if they did allow, like some of that information to filter through, a significant part of their audience would feel like they had been misled or misunderstood the entire narrative that Fox has been nurturing for over a year now.
MELBER: You just said something really important to underscore it, and there`s so much demonization that goes on, there`s plenty of people who get their information wherever they get it but who can still respond to facts. So, if you actually come at this with an open mind or empathy, you got people who might have been told something was stolen.
And Sam, I don`t know about you, but stealing is wrong and bad. And so, if they believe something was stolen, then they started to think well, Biden`s bad. I mean, he stole a thing. Then they start watching some of their heroes, Bill Barr, Ivanka Trump, and they say it was not stolen. And we told Trump and the best thing for America and according to Barr, conservatism — he put it in both ways, is to face that fact and move forward.
Fox was so worried about that, as I say they spent a lot of money censoring it. And then how do you catch up to today where they wavered under pressure or whatever reason, then they ran the hearings during the day?
SEDER: Well, there`s far less of an audience during the day. I mean, I think you know that. You know, primetime is a lot more viewers. And I think that they, you know, prime their audience on some level not to take it seriously. I mean, I can tell you that, you know, being in the sort of the mockery business on some level is, which is what I do with some of those things, they could have easily run those hearings, Monday night.
And if they didn`t think any of the things that were serious, were being said, they could have had, you know, Sean Hannity or Laura Ingraham or Tucker Carlson make snide comments throughout the whole thing and debunk it as it went along. But I think they were very, very concerned about that. And I think you know, so — I think there was a fear. I don`t think the vast majority of Fox viewers are going to change their mind about this.
But I think there`s enough that at least the Fox you know, intelligentsia were afraid that this might get out and, you know, to carry it during the day is a much lower cost for them in so far as there`s not as many people watching. They get the credit for carrying it and suddenly they sort of have their cake and eat it too.
MELBER: Almost a cynical interpretation of events, Sam?
SEDER: I`m afraid so. I`m afraid so. (INAUDIBLE) that`s what we`re looking at.
MELBER: Yes, well look, that`s why we come to you and as I`ve told viewers, you`ve kept an eye on that part of the media ecosystem along with other things. So, it`s good to see you again, Sam Seder, thanks for stopping by.
SEDER: My pleasure, Ari. Always a pleasure.
MELBER: Absolutely. As we go forward in our hour we sometimes try to move from the serious to the lighter. And so, we ask a question what gets roasted more than coffee beans will lately at night, Rudy Giuliani.
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STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, CBS: Today was episode two of the hot new reality show The January 6 Committee Hearings. We`re all waiting to find out as the former president gets to go to the Fantasy Suite with Lady Justice.
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[18:53:12]
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JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, ABC: Episode two of CSI, can`t believe Donald Trump`s not in jail yet, premiered it. I had to say I watched it and it is so crazy to see so much evidence confirming that Donald Trump did all the things we saw him do on television every day for three months straight on television —
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MELBER: That`s one take here in late night. It`s also a sign that January 6 hearings are resonating and wider culture. You can`t do late night jokes about some of the stuff we cover on the news if people don`t get the punchline because they haven`t heard anything about it. But with 20 million people catching the first hearing while they`re hearing all about it.
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SETH MEYERS, HOST, NBC: It`s like Trump asked for a story that explain why he lost and his team said how much time do we have to come up with it, and he said three seconds and they said, oh boy, I did a Venezuelan dictator team with open election software company and the governments of Italy, Germany, and China to stuff fraudulent ballots into suitcases and shopping carts. Oh, that`s good.
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MELBER: Seth Meyers breaking it down. The hearings also had that contrast between the very sober issues involved about a dangerous coup and some of the sheer rank absurdity of the coup plotters.
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COLBERT: He told everyone he was going to commit a crime. And then he went out and he crimed. Reminds me of O.J.`s first book When I`ll Do It.
JAMES CORDEN, HOST, CBS: President Trump was guided by a quote, inebriated Rudy Giuliani, So, we`re just going to blame this entire thing on the alcohol, that`s what we`re going to do.
JIMMY FALLON, HOST, NBC: Trump was torn. He didn`t know whether to worry about the hearing or brag about the ratings. Biggest riot ratings in history, just biggest. People love us a lot.
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[18:55:00]
MELBER: Also funny, disturbing, but again the punch line shows the problem for those who wanted to censor or disappear the facts of these hearings. 20 million watched primetime. We`re hearing that over 10 million saw Monday morning`s hearings, and there is more to come. This is a national conversation. We`re not here to tell you what to think.
We are here to tell you evidence and facts, which as mentioned, I can`t say is the same for everyone. Now, have you watched all the hearings? You could let me know @AriMelber on social media, you can always connect with me at AriMelber.com. That`s the best way to find me. But @AriMelber, do you watch both hearings so far, do you plan to watch all of them, we will respond to some of what you say. That`s our sign-off. “THE REIDOUT” with Joy Reid is up after a short break.
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JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, on the “THE REIDOUT.”