Morning Joe - Morning Joe 6/29/22

Episode Date: June 29, 2022

Trump raged at aides as he tried to force his way to the Capitol, Hutchinson testifies

I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here. The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. The valet had articulated that the president was extremely angry at the attorney general's AP interview and had thrown his lunch against the wall. They're literally calling for the vice president to be effing hung. And Mark had responded something to the effect of,

you heard him, Pat. He thinks Mike deserves it. Pat said something to the effect of, and very clearly, Mark, something needs to be done or people are going to die. The blood's going to be on your effing hands. Former West Wing aide delivered bombshell testimony at yesterday's last minute January 6th hearing. Cassidy Hutchinson testified that Donald Trump and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows ignored warnings about potential violence before the attack and did nothing to stop it once the attack was underway. According to Hutchinson, Trump knew there were weapons in the crowd, but during his speech at the Ellipse still ordered his supporters to march to the Capitol and new details about efforts from those close to Trump to intimidate witnesses who have cooperated in the congressional investigation. Hey, good morning and welcome morning, Joe. It's Wednesday, June 29th. It seems that history bends every day this week. Mika, we, of course, had the Supreme Court decision last

Friday and yesterday. It had to be some of the most compelling testimony on Capitol Hill since Watergate. What was your takeaway? Well, from my perspective, it was revealed, exposed, really, that the men around Trump are weak, feckless cowards who had this pathetic need to be close to a failed president. And they almost destroyed our democracy and they almost got away with it. And it took the strength, and I was really taken by this, of a young woman's character to show America and the world the truth and in the process, show us the true meaning of courage and patriotism. She's 25 years old. This is this is a young woman who not just knows her value, but knows the value of our country, of our democracy. And these weak, honestly, these men around Trump are an embarrassment, honestly, a global embarrassment.

And she revealed that yesterday. They're weak and feckless. They're unpatriotic. Willie, my God, we we learned yesterday that you had Trump's general who took the fifth when asked if he believed in peaceful transitions of power. We had a chief of staff who was told that there were guns, knives, spears, weapons in the crowd. His staff members rushed in to tell Mark Meadows. Mark Meadows just kept looking down at his phone, could not care less. And so much more. What was your takeaway, Willie? I thought Mika nailed it. As I listened to that, I thought, my God, the abject cowardice of Mark Meadows sitting on his phone and basically saying, what do you want me to do about it? Yes, he thinks Mike Pence should be hanged. What am I supposed to do about that? And as Mika said, a 24 year old at the time, a White House aide, the conscience of the nation. She's a couple

of years out of college and she was the adult in the room surrounded by those ostensible adults and ostensible leaders of our country who stood by and let it happen. And we've talked a lot about how these hearings will land. I'll just show you the front page of the papers that I've got here. This is The New York Times talking about Donald Trump encouraging violence and sought to join the mob. We've got, of course, the front page of the Wall Street Journal. Trump knew the mob was armed and sent it to the Capitol. And even Rupert Murdoch, Joe's New York Post, the top tyrant Trump on the New York Post. That was another one of my takeaways, Joe, is that we didn't you know, there's been all this talk. Oh, it was a tourist visit. They didn't even have weapons. Well, now we know from police communication and from eyewitness testimony and from people in the White House that there were people with AR-15s.

The president was told about that. What was his response? Lose the mags, the magnetometers that detect weapons. He didn't want his crowd to look small. He wanted all those people in knowing that they were headed to the Capitol and knowing what their intent was. So it was again. Now we know, I guess, why the committee rushed back from recess to put this witness and these efforts to discredit her. We're going to get into it. She was in the room. She was Mark Meadows right hand. She saw and heard everything. She saw and heard everything. And there was so much to take away from it yesterday. But Willie, just underlining something that you said, Donald Trump knew there were weapons in the crowd. When he knew that, he started yelling and screaming. He was enraged and he was ordering

that the mags got taken away. And he said, they can come in with the weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Then they can go up to the Capitol. So Donald Trump wanted these people with weapons to get past security so they could go up to the Capitol after listening to him and launch an insurrection. He also, we learned yesterday, wanted to be up there, wanted. There was talk of him going into the House chamber with this armed mob is very clear, very clear. He had nothing short of a coup on his mind. Let's also bring in U.S. special correspondent for BBC News, Caddy Kaye,

host executive producer of The Circus on Showtime, MSNBC national affairs analyst John Heilman, and former U.S. attorney and senior FBI official Chuck Rosenberg. We're going to get to them in a minute. But Mika, first, let's go through yesterday's testimony. So yesterday's hearing featured radio transmissions from police officers who spotted weapons in the crowd on January 6th. Hutchinson said both Mark Meadows and former President Trump were aware of the situation. You also described a brief meeting between Mr. Ornato and Mr. Meadows on the potential for violence. The meeting was on January 4th. They were talking about the potential for violence on January 6th. Let's listen to a clip of that testimony. I remember Mr. Ornato had talked to him about intelligence reports.

I remember Mr. Ornato coming in and saying that we had intel reports saying that there could potentially be violence on the 6th. Of course, the world now knows that the people who attacked the Capitol on January 6th had many different types of weapons. When a president speaks, the Secret Service typically requires those attending to pass through metal detectors, known as magnetometers, or mags for short. The Select Committee has learned that people who willingly entered the enclosed area for President Trump's speech were screened so they could attend the rally at the Ellipse. They had weapons and other items that were confiscated. Pepper spray, knives, brass knuckles, tasers, body armor, gas masks, batons, blunt weapons.

And those were just from the people who chose to go through the security for the president's event on the Ellipse. The Select Committee has learned about reports from outside the magnetometers and has obtained police radio transmissions identifying individuals with firearms, including AR-15s, near the Ellipse on the morning of January 6th. Let's listen. This individual is in a tree, maybe a white male, about six feet tall, 10-bill, brown cowboy boots. He's got blue jeans and a blue jean jacket and underneath the blue jean jacket, he's

going to be with a group of individuals, about five to eight other individuals. Two of the individuals in that group at the base of the tree near the porta potties were wearing green fatigues, green outdressed out fatigues, about 5'8", 5'9", skinny white males, brown cowboy boots. They had Glock-style pistols in their waistbands. 8736 with the message

that subject left it on his right hip. After that, he's in the tree. Motor 1, make sure BPD knows they have an elevated threat in the tree south side of Constitution Avenue. Look for the don't tread on me flag, American flag face mask, cowboy boots, weapon on the right side hip. We've got three men walking down the street in fatigue carrying AR-15, copy of 4C for independence. Ms. Hutchinson, in prior testimony, you described for us a meeting in the White House around 10 a.m. in the morning of January 6th, involving Chief of Staff Meadows and Tony Ornato.

Were you in that meeting? I was. Let's listen to your testimony about that meeting, and then we'll have some questions. I think the last time we talked, you mentioned that some of the weapons that people had at the rally included flagpoles, oversized

sticks or flagpoles, bear spray. Is there anything else that you recall hearing about the people who would gather on your left hand? I recall Tony and I having a conversation with Mark probably around 10 a.m., 10, 15 a.m., where I remember Tony mentioning knives, guns in the form of pistols and rifles, bear spray, body armor, spears, and flagpoles.

Spears were one item, flagpoles were one item, and then Tony had related to me something to the effect of, and these effing people are fastening spears onto the ends of flagpoles. Is it your understanding that Mr. Ornato told the president about weapons at the rally on the morning of January 6th? That's what Mr. Ornato relayed to me. And here's how you characterize Mr. Meadows' general response when people raised concerns about what could happen on January 6th. So at the time, in the days leading up to the 6th, there were lots of public reports about how things might go bad on the six, even the potential for violence.

If I'm hearing you correctly, what stands out to you is that Mr. Meadows did not share those concerns or at least did not act on those concerns. Did not act on those concerns would be accurate. Yeah, that would be accurate. Yeah, that would be accurate. John Heilman, they told the chief of staff of the president of the United States that there were people with AR-15s, with weapons, marching toward the Capitol. Meadows kept looking at his phone, could not care less. It was an extraordinary moment. He really he really played the role of a Pontius Pilate. While American democracy was actually on the line and he refused to do anything about it because it might damage his standing

with a failed president. I mean, Joe, I don't even know where to begin. You know, we talked yesterday in real time about this because we both were so sort of stunned by what we saw. And I definitely will say that Mark Meadows, who was already at the very center of this investigation before yesterday, is now, I don't know if you could be more at the center of it, but the committee obviously has its eyes on him and the pressure is going to mount on him. In terms of his potential criminal culpability, certainly his moral and political culpability, but I don't want to obscure, I don't even want that to obscure the larger picture here, which is what you guys were talking about before. The most extraordinary, or certainly in the running for the most extraordinary congressional testimony in the history of the country, potentially the most consequential for the reasons you and Willie and Mika were talking about before. You know, what we now know about Trump's intent, what he knew, what he did, what he thought, and as this committee is not yet done building that case, makes it almost

impossible, I would think, to not. I mean, the basis for criminal charges is now so abundantly clear and the pressure on the Justice Department, rightly so, to bring, I mean, the basis for criminal charges is now so abundantly clear and the pressure on the Justice Department, rightly so, to bring those charges, given what we've now learned about Donald Trump's mindset, what he was willing to do, the things he said, the things he thought, the things he was willing to let go, is just kind of overwhelming. And then the last thing I will say, it may not be the most extraordinary congressional testimony ever. You might want to put John Dean in that category in terms of political consequence.

But the scene that we heard recounted yesterday about Donald Trump's behavior in the presidential limousine, I would say, is maybe literally the craziest thing ever described by a president of the United States ever. I mean, we could talk about it all day long, but the notion of the president of States trying to grab the wheel of the of the limousine and getting into a physical altercation with his protective detail and lunging apparently for the throat of one of them is so off the charts bonkers that I still am having a hard time processing it now, whatever, 18 hours later. I mean, it truly speaks to a degree of madness and unhingedness, at least on that day, that even the sternest critics of Donald Trump have not yet, have previously not been willing to contemplate. It's really something. We're going to dig into that part of the story in just a little while. The Secret Service disputes that and says it will present witnesses to testify to that. We'll get to that in just a moment.

But despite knowing those supporters were armed, the ones we just talked about around the ellipse, President Trump allegedly became angry when he found out those screening devices, the magnetometers, would stop his supporters from entering the rally area. According to Hutchinson, the former president was not concerned about being the target of violence. Those were his people, he said. They're not coming for me. Or that his armed supporters were planning on marching to the Capitol. But he was concerned turning those people away would make the rally crowd smaller.

He was furious because he wanted the arena that we had on the Ellipse to be maxed out at capacity for all attendees. I overheard the president say something to the effect of, you know, I don't effing care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me. Take the effing mags away. Let my people in. They can march the Capitol from here. Let the people in. Take the effing mags away. The president apparently wanted all attendees inside the official rally space

and repeatedly said, quote, they're not here to hurt me. And just to be clear, so he was told again in that conversation or was he told again in that conversation that people couldn't come through the mags because they had weapons. Correct. And that people, and his response was to say they can march to the Capitol from the Ellipse. Something to the effect of take the effing mags away. They're not here to hurt me. Let them in. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol after the rally's over. They can march from the Ellipse.

Take the effing mags away. Then they can march to the Capitol after the rally's over. They can march from the Ellipse, take the effing mags away. Then they can march to the Capitol. It comes full circle, Katty Kay. Concerns about the crowd size at the inauguration and now at the insurrection, though this time it was an armed mob that was prepared to go to the Capitol and do God knows what, perhaps hang Mike Pence, go after Nancy Pelosi and others. Yeah, it says a lot about that presidency, right, that it began and ended with Donald Trump's concern about the size of his crowds to the extent that he was prepared to say, I don't care if they have to go through screening, let them bring their arms, let them bring their weapons, which he knew about, into the rally and into the march, because I want to make sure that the crowd outside the Ellipse, where I am standing,

that the shots on television show that that crowd is big. It wasn't enough for him that they were on the other side of the street and up on the mall, because that was too far away. It wouldn't show it. I switched while I was watching the hearings yesterday to watch them on Fox News, and it was really interesting. The commentary on Fox watch them on Fox News, and it was really interesting. The commentary on Fox, even on Fox News, which, remember, initially didn't even show these committee hearings, the very first one, was saying that it was devastating. They had a former prosecutor on really raising questions, saying, look, this is pointing towards the Justice Department having to take up a criminal case against Donald Trump. And that word devastating was used. And there was really no pushback from the Fox News hosts. They were all clearly just as shocked as the country was, just as shocked as we all were by Cassidy Hutchinson's

testimony yesterday. The January 6th committee also presented recorded testimony from Trump's former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, who pleaded the Fifth at some crucial and fairly basic questions. General Flynn, do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified? Yes. Yes. All right, we're back. Could you repeat the question, please? Yes. General Flynn, do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified?

Can I get a clarification? Is that a moral question or are you asking a legal question? I'm asking both. I said I said Do you believe the violence on January 6th was justified morally? Take the You believe the violence on January 6th was justified legally? Yes. General Flynn, do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America? Yes, sir.

Just unbelievable. Here we have a guy who, along with Donald Trump, said that anybody taking the fifth was guilty in so many words. Donald Trump famously said the mob takes the fifth. You had Flynn also going after some I.T. guy for Hillary Clinton who took the fifth, talking about how it proved that he was guilty here. Flynn has asked whether whether he thought the violence was wrong on January the 6th, whether the mob attacks were wrong. He sat there, first of all, looking. Yeah.

Looking, oh, just confused. And then they went off camera to talk about it. I don't know if he's well. Oh, my God. He said, I plead the fifth. And then do you believe in the peaceful transition of power in the United States of America? And you plead the fifth to that? These people, you know, corrupted.

It's not as bad as we thought it was. It's so much worse. It really is. And yesterday, you think at some point you'll reach the bottom. There's no bottom for people like Michael Flynn. There's no bottom for people like Mark Meadows. There's obviously no bottom for people like Donald Trump. They hate the concept of Western democracy. They hate the concept of liberal democracy. They hate the concept of Madisonian democracy, a separation of powers, being frustrated by the fact that you can't be a tyrant. And because of that, it appears they all may have committed grievous crimes. And Chuck, let's turn to you. I really I listen. I we've been doing this show long enough that at the end of the Bush administration, I was telling Democrats, you don't want to you don't want to go after as a former president on criminal charges.

It sets a bad example. And it'll happen at the end of every administration. At the end of the Obama administration, there were people that were going back, citing what Obama people had done and said, well, he used drones to kill Americans, gave them absolutely no due process. And I said, no, you don't want to do that. We can't go there as a nation. Chuck, at this point, you literally have a Benedict Arnold trying to subvert the American experiment. I just don't know how Merrick Garland turns a blind eye to this.

What did you see yesterday that you found most compelling legally? I only get to pick one thing, Joe. Well, no, you this is it's potpourri, baby. Yeah. Legal potpourri. You you go where you want to go. There were a bunch of things first, and you've talked about it a bit. The notion that the president of the United States understood that people were heavily armed and at his rally and others were outside of the rally, but they weren't there to hurt him, which begs the question, Joe, who were they there to hurt? any president, any functional adult would have said, this is crazy. This is out of hand. Shut this thing down now. What do I need to do to make sure that people are safe and well? We didn't hear a word of that. And to me, that evinces intent. It certainly evinces knowledge. It is at the very least, or perhaps at the very best, a moral failing. Also, the allusions to witness tampering. So I was a prosecutor for a long time.

Witness tampering can be blatant. I've seen people's homes get firebombed or beaten with a baseball bat. And witness tampering can be subtle. Hey, Joe, you're a good guy. You're a loyal guy. You're going to protect who you need to protect. You understand what needs to be done, don't you, Joe? I mean, those are both types of witness tampering. Now, I don't know who tampered with whom. Cassidy Hutchinson didn't tell us that. Congresswoman Cheney didn't tell us that. But the committee knows. And I presume the Department of Justice will figure this out. And that's a big deal to me because our entire system of justice is predicated, predicated on people telling the truth. And so when somebody intervenes,

interferes, obstructs justice, tries to get someone to, you know, Joe, you're a loyal guy, you'll protect who you need to protect. When someone tries to do that, that strikes at the very core of our justice system. That's absolutely remarkable to me. It's often the cover up. And I imagine there's going to be a lot of interest in that in the Department of Justice. Oh, for sure. And you know, Joe, Trump always talks about being a manly man and all of the guys around him are supposedly manly men, big, strong, tough.

They always talk about being strong. Well, on his little website, he started going after Cassidy Hutchinson for actually having the guts to go under oath and testify before the American people. And I will tell you, there's the question here. Do these men do sniveling, pathetic, frightened little men like Mark Meadows and others? And, you know, Donald Trump's already there. Do they really, really want to allow people to go after her from the far right? Trump himself going after her because somebody needs to come forward. And that's what the committee chair at the end of the hearing said. If you have found some courage, if you have found your memory, come forward and help corroborate this testimony because we will get it one way or another.

And in the face of attacks that this woman is going to take from the right, she probably has heavy security at this point. I will tell you, they leave her hanging. My God, they don't even have a speck of honor. Well, they're not men. Well, they don't have they don't have a speck of honor, nothing honorable about them. But somebody did come forward and her name is Cassidy Hutchison. And they have so much information. Others, others have come forward. Willie, we know so much of what happened on January the 6th now inside the White House because of Cassidy. There are other people that that will come forward. I know you brought up before the Secret Service testimony. There were people that were there. There were people that recounted

it in front of a Secret Service agent. That Secret Service agent didn't say it wasn't true. I think what you have in a case like that is Secret Service doesn't want to testify against any president that they're doing detail on. And I certainly understand that. But put that aside, that and plates being thrown against the wall. That's color commentary. OK, that's that's Howard Cosell. That's Dandy Don, Dandy Don on Monday Night Football. The play by play is Frank Gifford. And this is the play by play. The play by play is Donald Trump knew that there were heavily armed rioters that were moving towards his speech. He wanted Secret Service to take down the mags, let them in, and then Donald Trump volunteers. And then they can go straight to the Capitol, wanting them to go to the Capitol and not have their weapons taken away.

He wanted to go there with them. They talked about going to the House of Representatives with this mob and Donald Trump strutting in like a Benito Mussolini declaring himself the next president of the United States. It's laid out. And Mark Meadows, hey, Mark, I've known you for a long time, buddy. You're in deep shit. You're in the middle of this conspiracy. You may want to get yourself a really, really good criminal defense attorney to quote one of Donald Trump's attorneys. You may want to get one of those or. Oh, wait, here's an idea, Mark. Here's an idea. You can do something that you've refused to do for years now. You can show courage and you can tell the truth. Hey, Mark, Donald Trump won't protect you.

He will throw you under the bus. He will stab you in the back. He will let you rot in jail. Defend the country. Or, well, get ready to pay a criminal defense attorney a lot of money. What do we have next? At the very least. All right. Still ahead on Morning Joe, much more on yesterday's bombshell hearing, including more on Vice Chair Liz Cheney's warning to Trump allies about attempts to influence or intimidate witnesses.

Plus, we'll be joined by House Select Committee member Jamie Raskin on the heels of Cassidy Hutchinson's revealing testimony. Also this morning, in a huge blow to Russia, NATO leaders have reached a deal with Turkey to allow Sweden and Finland to join the alliance. We'll talk to Admiral James Stavridis about the significance of that. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll talk to Admiral James Stavridis about the significance of that. You're watching Morning Joe. We'll be right back. As a staffer that works to always represent the administration to the best of my ability and to showcase the good things that he had done for the country.

I remember feeling frustrated, disappointed, and really, it felt personal. It was really sad. As an American, I was disgusted. It was unpatriotic. It was un-American. We were watching the Capitol building get defaced over a lie. And it was something that was really hard in that moment to digest, knowing what I'd been hearing down the hall in the conversations that were happening seeing that tweet come up and knowing what was happening on the hill and it's something that I it's still I still struggled to work through the emotions of that hey welcome back to morning joe it is 6 34 a.m in the morning sun rising Wow. A lot went on inside that building on January the 6th. We heard a lot of it yesterday. And of course, you know, Willie, we had we've been saying for some time.

And I saw this as a lawyer, not a good one, but I saw this as a lawyer surrounded by good lawyers, how the collection of evidence, how you build up a case, how you get the phone records, you get you get texts, you get emails, you get all of the receipts. And then you have the deposition and then you move toward trial and you corner people and they can't lie themselves out of that corner. And that's something that, of course, Donald Trump is desperately trying to do because he knows just how devastating yesterday's testimony is. But chances are very good he and the few weasels that are left around him are not going to be able to weasel out of Ms. Hutchinson's testimony yesterday. Yeah, and I think that's important to say when people say, why aren't more people coming forward? A ton of people in the Trump White House have come forward. Just look at all the testimony

we've seen. It's almost entirely from former White House aides, a loyalist to President Trump, his attorney general, Ivanka, Jared. They've got almost everybody. And as we say, Mark Meadows cowardly doesn't show up to testify. That's true. But also he turned over more than 2000 text messages from in and around January 6th. So that committee has a really good sense of his role and what was going on during that time. So they do have some documents. And to another point you made, Joe, about maybe Cassidy Hutchinson inspiring other people to come forward. It was interesting to start to see yesterday on social media. Some people you might not expect, like Mick Mulvaney, who the former Trump chief of staff, of course, he tweeted this. Just to clarify, given her position, there was probably no one closer to Meadows than Cassidy Hutchinson.

As an SAP, the principal age, she would be familiar with just about everything Meadows did, said and heard. My guess is that before this is over, we'll be hearing testimony from Ornato, another aide in the White House, Engel, the Secret Service agent in that limo. And Meadows, this is explosive stuff. If Cassidy is making this up, they will need to say that. If she isn't, they'll have to corroborate. I know her. I don't think she's lying. So, again, that's the chief of staff who is very loyal, of course, to Donald Trump and wrote the infamous Wall Street Journal op ed that said Donald Trump, if he loses, will go away gracefully. Of course, that lives lives in infamy. Back to the substance, though, I want to get to

Chuck Rosenberg. He started to talk about some of this witness tampering that we heard about at the end of the hearing yesterday. Congresswoman Liz Cheney praised witnesses for having the courage to testify before the panel and showed statements from witnesses who allegedly had been pressured by Trump associates before giving their depositions to the committee. Our committee commonly asks witnesses connected to Mr. Trump's administration or campaign whether they've been contacted by any of their former colleagues or anyone else who attempted to influence or impact their testimony. Here's how one witness described phone calls from people interested in that witness's testimony. Quote, what they said to me is as long as I continue to be a team player, they know I'm on the right team. I'm doing the right thing. I'm protecting who I need to protect. You know I'll continue to stay in good graces in Trump world. And they have reminded me a couple of times that

Trump does read transcripts, and just keep that in mind as I proceed through my interviews with the committee. Here's another sample in a different context. This is a call received by one of our witnesses. Quote, a person let me know you have your deposition tomorrow. He wants me to let you know he's thinking about you. He knows you're loyal and you're going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition. Chuck Rosenberg, that's Gambino crime family stuff, contacting a witness before they go in for a deposition. What could be, you started talking about this a minute ago, but what could be the implications? Again, we don't know who said that yet, but that was sort of a tease of

coming attractions when the committee gets back together in a couple of weeks. What would be the implications for whoever sent those messages? They could be dire, Willie. As I had started to say earlier, our entire system of justice is predicated on people coming forth and telling the truth. I mean, that's how it works. You take an oath to tell the truth. Jurors take an oath to judge impartially. It's all based on truth telling and adhering to an oath. And so when people try to undermine that, and these are all buzzwords, by the way, you know, protect who you need to protect. We know you're loyal. You're a team player, Willie. These are all buzzwords. They try. They are trying to undermine that truth telling function.

And so I think consequences could be dire. We have to know who said it, to whom they said it, when they said it, why they said it, at whose request they were saying it. But conceivably, that's all obstruction of justice. And it's often the cover up. We know that from lots and lots of cases. You know, I've put hundreds, if not thousands, of witnesses on the stand as a federal prosecutor. I don't tell them to protect anyone. I don't tell them to be loyal to a particular position. I don't urge them to be a team player. I say, look, you're going to be under oath, and you need to tell the truth. And if you don't tell the truth under oath, I don't care who it is you're trying to help. You're in a hell of a lot of trouble. Your obligation is to the truth. So these things that you're hearing from Liz Cheney at the end of the hearing yesterday, to me, are alarming. Again,

we need to know who it was who said it and to whom they said it. But this goes right to the core of our truth finding function. And that's deeply dangerous to our system. Well, and John Heilman, it's like we're getting a tease, obviously, of things to come. And by the way, the one thing I remember yesterday morning when I was talking about this hearing, I said, you know, the January 6th committee, they played everything right. They've done an exceptionally good job of rolling out all of this evidence, presenting it in a way that the American people follow easily. But I think they're overplaying their hand here. An emergency, an emergency witness, an emergency hearing. They're over. Of course, they didn't overplay

their hand at all. And then at the end, we find out about this witness tampering. And there's that statement from Chairman Benny Thompson saying, you still have time. Got a chance. You still have. You know what? Still a chance. I just want you to know. I just want you to know before you start getting ready to get your criminal defense attorneys and going to jail. I just want you to know our door is still open.

If you lied, if you need, as they say in the business, some time to refresh your recollection and maybe go back and clean up previous testimony, the door's open. The water's warm. Come on in. But like Noah's Ark, that door is going to close soon. Yeah. And Joe, I think, you know, the point you're making is so important. We when these when these hearings started, a lot of us talked about the challenge that they face, the committee members, to break through in this polarized political

environment, this fragmented media environment. You know, the two impeachments of Donald Trump did not break through to the American people. And so the question was, did they learn the lessons of those two impeachments as a matter of political communication and persuasion and bringing and telling stories, right? And I think that they have not only met that challenge, but they put on a master class here. I mean, in every respect, the choice to turn this into not just to get rid of the normal congressional theatrics, to get rid of opening statements, to get rid of preening, camera hogging Congress people and focus every session like a laser beam in a prosecutorial fashion has been brilliant.

But I'll say the thing you just said is the most important thing, which is what they have done is something I've never seen a congressional committee ever do before, which is to grasp the most important element of storytelling narrative, which is to keep people interested. You have to keep them asking the question, what happens next? If you can get a reader or a viewer to be asking that question at every interval, what happens next? I can't wait to see what happens next. What's going to happen next? They are hooked. And I think this was a huge challenge for this committee. Again, I've never seen it before, but the thing they've done has been masterful in terms of isolating on specific stories, specific elements of the larger story they're trying to tell and those high points. It's been it's been quite stunning how much how how much they've exceeded

the expectations that anybody had for them. Chuck Rosenberg, just closing out with the three points you started with. Trump knew they were armed. Trump knew they were not there to hurt him. Allusions potentially to witness tampering. Getting a sense here of what the committee's role is versus the Justice Department. You mentioned consequences could be dire by who for who. Well, that was with respect to witness tampering. But more broadly, Mika, to your question, witnesses can be dire to anyone who broke the law. But here's just something to keep in mind. A little bit of math. I know it's early, but a little bit of math. If the committee has spoken to 1,000 people for four hours each, that's 4,000 hours of deposition testimony. We've now heard about 10 or 12. So as a prosecutor, I want to hear the other

99.5%. Before I make a prosecutorial decision, I want to know where my case is strong, and I want to know where it's weak. I want to know where it can be challenged, and I want to know where the inconsistencies are. So I agree with the panel today. I agree with John in particular that this has been a devastating presentation of facts. But prosecutors need to look at the other 99.5%. We don't have it. The committee does. I assure you that the Department of Justice either has it or will get it, and we'll have more than the committee. But in order to make prosecutorial decisions about witness tampering or sedition or anything else, you need to look at all the evidence. So it's often tempting to think that we know what needs

to be done with the stuff we have. The committee has done an outstanding job of telling a compelling and linear and cogent story. Completely agree with that. But before I make a prosecutorial decision, before I know that my case can stand up in court under cross-examination, I want to see everything, Mika. Yeah, understood. Chuck Rosenberg and John Hellman, thank you both very much for being with us early this morning. You know, we have even more from the hearing just ahead, including a remarkable scene in the West Wing that Cassidy Hutchinson described of White House counsel Pat Cipollone during the January 6th riot, pleading with Mark Meadows for President Trump to do something to stop the rioters who were yelling to hang Mike Pence and Meadows responding Trump won't do anything, quote, he thinks Mike deserves it. Also ahead, Keir Simmons joins us live from Spain where NATO

leaders are meeting and developing a new strategic response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the alliance is adding two more members. Historic former NATO Supreme Allied Commander James Tavridis joins us with more insight on why this is a major blow to Vladimir Putin. We'll be right back. On this day two of the NATO summit in Madrid, the focus remains on building strength and unity among members. As Russia's war in Ukraine continues, President Biden pledged to boost American military operations in Europe by creating a permanent headquarters for the Army Corps in Poland, as well as strengthening air and naval support in the UK, Germany, Italy and Spain. The president saying, quote, in a moment when Putin has shattered peace in Europe,

NATO is more needed now than it ever has been. And it's important as it ever has been. And now looking to add two more members in Sweden and Finland. Joining us from Madrid, NBC News senior international correspondent, Kir Simons. Kir, good to see you.

So what have other NATO leaders said about Russia's aggression? And the adding now is Turkey steps aside of Sweden and Finland to the coalition. Well, you know, really, I suspect the White House would be happy to see attention continue to be focused on those January 6th hearings. But here in Madrid, President Biden is honestly leading a transformation in NATO's posture. You mentioned that deal to allow Sweden and Finland to join NATO, persuading Turkey to get out the way on that. And then you mentioned just this morning, President Biden making that announcement of a major new force deployment. Just to add to some of what you already outlined, maintaining an extra rotational brigade of 3,000 troops in Romania, enhanced rotational deployments to the Baltic states, two more F-35 fighter jet squadrons

to the United Kingdom. The list goes on. You know, really questions over whether defense would look like offense in Russia have really been swept aside. And what we're seeing here among NATO leaders, a generational change. Responding to Russia's invasion of Ukraine involving more than 100,000 Russian troops, NATO is set to put a force of 300,000 on high alert, an unprecedented escalation seven times the current number. As a Roman general once said, if you want peace, prepare for war. Does 300,000 NATO troops on high alert increase the risk of a direct conflict with Russia or make Europe safer? Make Europe safer of course. Russia now is an aggressor in Ukraine. Russia attacked Ukraine and Russia is a threat for Europe, but not only for Europe, for whole NATO. This is very clear situation now.

We have to be ready. And you can only reduce the risk of confrontation by being strong. This is what we learned in the 1980s. And this is what we are learning again. And the fact that we will invest in the eastern flank in this endeavor, in this way, is really very important. But the West's response to Ukraine has Russia reacting, a kind of geopolitical tit-for-tat. NATO member Lithuania, now openly threatened by the Kremlin for enforcing sanctions on supplies to a Russian enclave, Kaliningrad. Is your view that the best form of defence is offence? We are not an offensive country.

We don't want to attack anybody. But of course, we understand very much those threats which are coming. And probably nobody could understand the threats from Russia better than me. Is this a fight for democracy? It is a fight for democracy. And this is not a fight what is happening now in Ukraine. This is not the fight of one country against our country. We have to stop Vladimir Putin and Russia in Ukraine. Otherwise, there will be continuation of this aggression. The U.S. has a lot invested in this 10th standoff. 100,000 American troops are stationed in Europe, preparing for a shift in posture.

This week, leaders, including President Biden, meeting in the Spanish capital, will update NATO's strategy. Called the strategic concept, the last one described Russia as a potential partner. This time it will say explicitly, Russia is a threat, an unmistakable message from here in Madrid to Moscow. Moscow claims it's not surprised. This month, NATO will meet in Madrid and it will publish its new strategic concept. Yes. The first in a decade. Naming Russia a direct threat.

This was the Kremlin spokesman speaking to me last week, repeating Russia's accusation that NATO has always been an offensive, not defensive, organization. It was tailored as a gun. It's a message the Kremlin is telling the Russian people every day. This government-funded Moscow exhibition is called NATO Catalogue of Cruelty. NATO from the day of its formation to present day constantly shows a kind of duplicity, like kind of duplicity, kind of major difference between its peaceful rhetoric and actual policy. Every NATO controversy is on display. President Putin's early interest in Russia joining NATO is brushed over.

The exhibition ends on Ukraine. Here we have anti-tank missile containers made in the UK. For years now, NATO has been providing Ukrainian military with weapons, equipment, means of communication, basically nurturing and pumping the Ukrainian military machine. This exhibition looks like a justification for Russia's actions in Ukraine in the past few months. Maybe it looks like it, but what we are trying to do here, what we are trying to, I don't want to say to make people do, but what we are trying to guide people into is that people think with their own heads. NATO and Russia sizing each other up in ways not seen for a generation. Both sides saying it has no other option.

And of course, Joe, those criticisms of NATO from Russia would just be utterly dismissed by the leaders here in Madrid. They've heard them so many times. Just to underscore that, a senior U.S. official briefing reporters this morning that the U.S. has not communicated with Russia about changes in U.S. forces, and there is no requirement to do so, Joe. All right. NBC's Keir Simmons, as always, thank you so much. Live for us from Madrid. Of course, fascinating that there you actually had drawings of supposed NATO atrocities. We show you Russian war crimes every day, the targeting of teenagers in malls, the targeting of mothers and babies in maternity wards, the targeting of cancer patients in cancer hospitals, the targeting of farmers, the targeting of civilians. And yes, the targeting of buildings that are marked children with children inside the targeting of children.

It's monstrous. It's monstrous. I will say, though, you you you listen to the actual reporting there on what Joe Biden, what the administration, what the United States is doing. And listen, what Democrats and Republicans together are doing, it's transformative. It's remarkable. You look at Harry Truman from 1947 to 1949. He created the world that we lived in with NATO, with a Marshall plan that was really the Truman plan. He just slapped Marshall's name on it because he thought it would help it pass more. The Berlin airlift in 49, all of the things Harry Truman did, even when he was having some problems with his approval ratings, he transformed the world. Here we are now, what, 75, 80 years later, I guess about 75 years later from 49.

Here we have another transformation. And we're moving the center from formerly West Berlin and Germany. We're moving it east where the real security threat is, where you have Russia that's invaded Georgia in 2008, Ukraine in 2014, shooting down commercial airplanes, going into Crimea, invading Ukraine again. That's where the new security is.