January 6th Hearing Recap: What Trump was Doing While Rioters Attacked the Capitol

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. The big takeaway from the primetime hearing of the January 6th Committee last night for me was really very simple and very well documented that Donald Trump knew full well that there was a riot at the Capitol that day. That Mike Pence and others were in mortal danger, that people close to Trump from Jared and Ivanka to Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham to Kevin McCarthy asked him to call it off and that he didn't just fail to do so.

They made a big point of this, he didn't just fail to do so, he actively poured gasoline on the fire, knowing full well what was going on. There was evidence that was shared last night for that. We will replay some of the most dramatic and factually important clips from last night. We'll start with something that was both very dramatic and new to me and new to the general public. This is the actual radio traffic like walkie-talkie communication, among members of Mike Pence's Secret Service detail, who were afraid for their lives in his at a crucial moment after the Capitol was breached. Now, you won't make out every word in this, but you'll get the idea that they thought they might be trapped.

Speaker: Hold, they've entered the building. Hold.

Speaker: Harden that door up.

Speaker: If we're moving, we need to move now.

Speaker: Copy.

Speaker: If we lose any more time, we may lose the ability to leave. If we're going to leave, we need to do it now.

Speaker: They've gained access to the second floor, and I've got public about five feet from me down here below.

Speaker: Copy. They are on the second floor, moving in now. We may want to consider getting out and leaving now. Copy?

Speaker: Will we encounter the people once we make our way?

Speaker: Repeat?

Speaker: Encounter any individuals if we made our way to the-- [beep]

Speaker: There's six officers between us and the people that are 5 to 10 feet away from me.

Speaker: Standby, I am going down to evaluate.

Speaker: Go ahead.

Speaker: We have a clear shot if we move quickly. We got smoke downstairs. Standby. Unknown smoke downstairs by the protestors.

Speaker: Is that route compromised?

Speaker: We have this [beep] is secure. However, we will bypass some protesters that are being contained. There is smoke unknown, what kind of smoke it is. Copy?

Speaker: Clear we're coming out now. All right. Make a way.

Brian Lehrer: That was radio traffic from Vice President Mike Pence's security detail as the rioters were closing in on them. We will play more as we go with help from Quinta Jurecic, fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution and the senior editor at Lawfare. She previously served as Lawfare's managing editor, appears on some of their podcasts, and was an editorial writer for The Washington Post. Hi, Quinta. Thanks for coming on to help lead us through another January 6th committee hearing. Welcome back to WNYC.

Quinta Jurecic: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Is the main importance of that radio traffic clip that for anyone who still thinks this was ragtag protesters who got aimlessly into the Capitol on a lark, that no Pence and the members of Congress were in real danger from people who were specifically coming after them?

Quinta Jurecic: I think that's right. Listening to that audio is really chilling, it was last night and it was again, when you played it just now, you can really hear these are professionals, but I think you can hear the fear and alarm in their voices. One thing that was said at the hearing last night, this is a quote from an anonymous White House staffer or former White House staffer who testified about what they were hearing at the time that they heard audio of members of Pence's security detail using that radio line to call their families to say goodbye because they thought they very well might die at the hands of the rioters.

I think that's something that really makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck and brings home as you say. These was not a few protesters. These were not people who came in to give the police hugs and kisses as Trump himself said, this was a situation where trained security professionals thought that they might be killed and that's a very serious thing.

Brian Lehrer: Do the exact time of that radio communication? They showed footage of Pence being evacuated at 2:26, and I'll explain why that time is important in a minute. With that anxious radio exchange had been little before that?

Quinta Jurecic: I believe that's correct. I'm looking at my notes right now, and it seems I think that that audio was around 2:24 PM. We know that because it's linked to a message, we saw from chat logs between White House National Security Council staffers saying that Pence's security detail, and I quote, "does not sound good right now."

Brian Lehrer: That was going on at 2:24, which is the exact moment when Trump sent a tweet that was described last night as pouring gasoline on the fire. The Trump tweet said, I'm going to read it. "Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones, which they were asked to previously certified. USA demands the truth."

The key part of that of course, Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do, what should have been done. That tweet was a defining moment, for one of the two in-person witnesses last night. It was Sarah Matthews, who on that day was Trump's Deputy Press Secretary, and who decided to resign because of that tweet. Here she is saying it herself.

Sarah Matthews: It was obvious that the situation at the Capitol was violent and escalating quickly. I thought that the tweet about the Vice President was the last thing that was needed in that moment. I remember thinking that this was going to be bad for him to tweet this because it was essentially him giving the green light to these people. Telling them that what they were doing at the steps of the Capitol and entering the Capitol was okay, that they were justified in their anger.

He shouldn't have been doing that, he should have been telling these people to go home and to leave and to condemn the violence that we're seeing. I'm someone who has worked with him. I worked on the campaign, traveled all around the country, going to countless rallies with him. I've seen the impact that his words have on his supporters. They truly latch on to every word and every tweet that he says. I think that in that moment, for him to tweet out the message about Mike Pence. It was him pouring gasoline on the fire and making it much worse.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah Matthews, who was Trump's Deputy Press Secretary, on January 6th. Quinta, the end of that was really interesting to me, and I think important and hasn't getting enough replay this morning, and the shorter versions of that clip that people are using. She described there from her experience, why she thought something as simple as that one tweet from Trump at 2:24 might lead to more actual violence. Because in her experience with Trump at campaign rallies, people hang on and react to his words and his tweets.

Quinta Jurecic: I think that's absolutely right. It's a point that the committee I think really did an excellent job driving home. They played near the end of the hearing testimony from a witness at a previous hearing. A person who was a Trump supporter came to the Capitol that day, and who testified that when Trump tweeted that everyone should go home much later in the day around I think 4:00 PM, people really responded to that and left.

He testified if Trump had said that sooner, they likely would have left, that they were really listening to what the President was saying. I think another example of that. Another really chilling example of that in this hearing was audio that the committee played from, I believe, walkie-talkie communications between members of the oath keepers. The extremist group, a number of members of whom have been indicted for seditious conspiracy in connection with the insurrection.

They played audio after Trump said another tweet at some point in the afternoon saying, "Please support our Capitol Police," and there's audio of an oath keeper saying, he didn't say not to do anything to the congressman, and then laughing. I found that incredibly striking because it's really an example of how this is a person who is capable of reading between the lines of what Trump does and doesn't say and saying, "You know what? I'm going to keep going here."

Brian Lehrer: His supporters know what he means and whatever code is embedded in there, certainly his most extreme supporters as those clips of members of the Oath Keepers exemplify. Let me read those tweets because that's worth drilling down on even a little further. I read the 2:24 PM tweet saying, "Mike Pence didn't have the courage. People around Trump are urging him to say something to quell the violence. These two other tweets come between around 2:30 and 3:15, that do not ask them to leave the Capitol but do ask them to remain peaceful. The first one says, "Please support our Capitol Police and law enforcement. They are truly on the side of our country. Stay peaceful."

What you were just saying Quinta, based on the clip of the Oath Keepers that they played. I don't have the audio of that one this morning. That was interpreted as leave the Capitol Police alone because some of those people were getting injured. You don't have to leave the members of Congress or Mike Pence alone.

Quinta Jurecic: That certainly seems to be how it was interpreted. Of course, we can't know how Trump meant it. The committee, I thought did a really striking job in presenting how through this time period before from about 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM. Trump is being begged essentially by everybody in the Oval Office and the administration, please, please, please, call these people off. He sends these tweets that variously egged them on and saying, "Mike Pence didn't do enough or hedge a little bit."

That it certainly seems from that audio that at least some members of the crowd were not fooled [laughs] or not willing to read that extra little bit into his tweets to say, "Okay, maybe we should back down that he was successful in communicating with a wink and a nod, that he did not want the violence to end."

Brian Lehrer: The second tweet in that set of two, little after 3:00 PM said, "I am asking for everyone at the US Capitol to remain peaceful, no violence." This one is a little more unequivocal. "Remember, we are the party of law and order, respect the law and our great men and women in blue. Thank you." Again, he didn't say specifically don't hurt the Congress people, don't hurt Mike Pence, he only named the "Great men and women in blue." He did say, "Remain peaceful, no violence." Yet, people testified who are close to Trump, that they told Trump that those tweets weren't enough. Why was that?

Quinta Jurecic: I think the reasoning is that there needed to be a strong condemnation. I was very struck by a video the committee played from deposition testimony by White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, which was recorded only the other week when Cipollone finally came before the committee to testify. Where Cipollone said essentially, as soon as he saw that there was violence at the Capitol, I think he said around 2:00 PM, he was immediately saying, "We need to come out, we need to make a public statement, we need to say that this has to end and that people need to go home."

I believe in Cipollone's testimony, there were a number of other people who were making the same arguments, practically everybody. Yet instead what you get is these hedging tweets that ultimately do very little. I think it's also worth noting that during this period, according to the committee, Trump is sitting in the White House dining room watching Fox News, he's calling members of Congress to try to further delay the vote certification. They reminded us, this is something we'd already known that he called for example, Senator Tommy Tuberville, encouraging him to delay the vote certification.

This is well the Capitol is under attack and Tuberville said on television that he had to end the call because he had to evacuate. It's a very, very vivid demonstration of how during this period when everyone in the White House is essentially begging Trump to make a public statement and call this off. He is either pouring gasoline on the fire as Sarah Matthew said, sending these hedging tweets where you can read between the lines to say he's not telling them to go home. Calling members of Congress to try to further prevent the certification of the vote, which is exactly what the rioters are doing.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, any thoughts or questions on last night's hearing or the whole set of them so far, what might come next, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692 or tweet @BrianLehrer, with Quinta Jurecic from Lawfare and the Brookings Institution. Before we play a clip of Jared Kushner, which exemplifies what you were just saying about almost everybody close to Trump urging him to call it off and him not doing it.

I'd like to address the mode of here for a minute, you touched on it. Trump's goal in egging on the violent mob, you tell me if you think I'm close to understanding it. He didn't have the firepower to literally overthrow the US government by force like a full-fledged military coup. It looks like he was trying to use the mob to delay the congressional proceeding to accept the state's electors to make it impossible to complete that process at that time. Not just protested outside, but use the mob to force a delay.

That would buy him time to convince Pence and more senators to vote to reject the electors and convince more state legislatures and governors to then declare the Trump won their states not Biden. It was all just to block Congress from finishing the task that day to buy him more time for the parliamentary part of the coup. Is that anything like your understanding of why he wanted enough violence at the Capitol to run Pence and everyone out of there?

Quinta Jurecic: I think that's right. I might even go a little further and say that he was excited about the violence, was enthusiastic about it. He thought it would be effective in intimidating members of Congress to vote against the certification of the vote. It wasn't just a question of delaying matters as long as possible. I think it's important to remember this, once the electoral vote is certified, it's done essentially, there are no further avenues.

Now, there weren't really avenues at that point either, that was his very last Hail Mary hope. He's essentially pushing that off as long as possible. I think it's also true that he's using that time to call around, try to get folks to vote against certification. He is also using the mob as a tool to intimidate Mike Pence, to intimidate members of Congress. The committee played audio of one member of Congress relaying a conversation that happened between Trump and House Minority Leader, Kevin McCarthy where McCarthy was hiding at this point, telling Trump you need to call this off, my staff is running and hiding.

According to this Republican member of Congress, what Trump said was, "Kevin, I guess they're just more upset about the election than you are." I think you can certainly read that as a form of a threat, do not certify.

Brian Lehrer: Certainly taking the side of the rioters over the side of House Republican Leader, Kevin McCarthy and his concerned about his own safety and his staff's safety. When you say intimidate, intimidate McCarthy, intimidate Pence, intimidate other members of Congress, do you mean because he was trying to get them to fear for their physical safety? That's a real fascist thing. We have to use the word fascist here sometimes, even though it's an extreme word because it applies to things like using street mobs like in fascist Italy once upon a time to try to enforce the will of the authoritarian leader.

Do you mean intimidate physically to try to get Kevin McCarthy or anyone else afraid for their physical safety so they change how they would vote on certification?

Quinta Jurecic: I want to be careful here because of course, we don't know exactly what was going through Trump's mind. I would say, I think it is the committee has made the case that part of the effect certainly of Trump's actions was to create an environment in which members of Congress were intimidated. That therefore that they would not vote to certify the election and that Pence would be intimidated.

These are people who are calling for him to be hanged, Trump is egging them on that they would be intimidated. I think that the question of whether that constitutes fascism is a complicated one. It's a definition that many in academic has argued over for a very long time. I do think that you're getting to something real when you point out that this is an example of a charismatic leader, ginning up a mob and using extra-legal violence in service of personal aims. That's a very frightening thing.

Brian Lehrer: All these people in Trump's inner circle are urging him to call off the rioters, but instead he egged them on with a 2:24 tweet. There were many examples last night of people urging Trump to call it off. Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham from Fox, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone, Don Jr. Jared and Ivanka. Here's just one example of that. It's a clip they played last night of son-in-law Jared Kushner after house minority leader Kevin McCarthy had called Jared from the Capitol and said he was scared.

Jared Kushner: I heard my phone ringing, turned the shower off, saw it was leader McCarthy who I had a good relationship with. He told me he was getting really ugly over at the Capitol and said please anything you can do to help, I would appreciate it. I don't recall specific ass just anything you could do. Again, I got the sense that they were scared.

Speaker: They, meaning leader McCarthy and people on the Hill because of the violence?

Jared Kushner: He was scared, yes.

Brian Lehrer: The leader McCarthy was scared, Jared Kushner there. Quinta one of the things that was described last night was that McCarthy tried to get Trump himself to call it off and Trump seemed unresponsive. I guess they had that exchange that you were just describing where Trump said maybe they're more concerned about the election than you are but after that McCarthy then resorted to appealing to Trump's kids and called Jared the son-in-law.

Put that in context for us and in addition to all those other names I mentioned who were trying to get him to call it off and he wouldn't of how alone Trump was in deciding not to call it off. It seems like everyone who was everyone to him except maybe Rudy Giuliani, who he called two times during the riot was urging him to call it off but he made the singular decision not to do so.

Quinta Jurecic: That's exactly right. I think this goes to a point that the committee has really been driving home from moment one. This was not a situation from the beginning, from the beginning of the point where it became clear that Trump had lost. This was not a situation where he was being egged on by people around him in trying to overturn the election in the various forms that that took.

This was a situation in which he was told repeatedly by everyone around him, "You have lost, you need to stand down, this is not appropriate, we do not want to take this step." He just continued forward on his own against the advice of everyone around him as you say with the exception of a few folks like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, those kinds of people but that those were really in the minority. As you say Jared Kushner was pushing against this.

We had some testimony about the role of Ivanka Trump, who was called in and was essentially trying to plead with her father to call this off. She was, according to the committee, one of the people who was able to finally convince him to say that people should leave. This is really a man who is alone in this effort. I think that that's important because it makes clear that as Representative Liz Cheney, the Vice Chair of the Committee has said, "This is not a child, this is an adult man. He is making these decisions, and he is, in this case, swimming against the current of what everyone else wanted. He is the person who we should hold responsible here."

Brian Lehrer: We'll continue in a minute with Quinta Jurecic from Lawfare and the Brookings Institution. We'll play more clips including an outtake that they revealed from that 4:17 PM video that Trump finally did release asking people to go home, but the outtake is so revealing, also a clip of Steve Bannon going all the way back close to election day predicting this whole thing, and we'll take some of your calls, stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we continue with excerpts from and reactions to the January 6th committee primetime hearing last night and the whole big picture of that hearing in context with Quinta Jurecic from Lawfare and the Brookings Institution. Quinta, it's interesting to me as I look at our caller board, one of the threads that's developing is people having more sympathy or less sympathy for the witnesses who are testifying and revealing some of these facts last night. Let's take one of the callers who is not so sympathetic to these witnesses. Anne in Brooklyn you're on WNYC. Hi, Anne.

Anne: Hello and thank you for taking my call. During the testimony last night, I just kept asking myself how can these people finally they finally resign after all of what he has said and done over the course of his presidency from day one. They see that he's a bigoted, racist, horrible, violent man who wins at all costs, and if he doesn't win, he lies. Especially his press secretary saying, she's traveling all over the country with him going to his beaches.

How can you stand there and listen to what is coming out of his mouth about the press, about women, about-- we all know. She stood there, and she thought, "Oh gee whiz, I think this is great." Then this happens. We wouldn't be having this conversation if people had woken up in the very beginning and not voted for that man. Now we have his Supreme Court for a generation plus, and it's really heartbreaking. I just hope the DOJ goes after him. That's all I can say, and I don't have any sympathy for these witnesses I really don't. Wake up, folks.

Brian Lehrer: Anne, thank you very much. It does raise the question, Quinta, of why was this the breaking point? Why was this the bottom line? When Trump did all these other things that could be considered so egregious some of which Anne from Brooklyn was just ticking off, why was this the breaking point for somebody like Sarah Matthews last night or for Attorney General William Barr who enabled Trump on so many other egregious levels as many people see it, why just this?

Quinta Jurecic: Honestly, it's a great question. While the questioner was talking, I was thinking of another incredible quote from the hearing last night, from Eugene Scalia who's the Secretary of Labor and under Trump and the son of the former Supreme Court Justice who sent a memo after the insurrection to Trump asking to convene a cabinet meeting. One of the things that secretary Scalia wrote was and I'm quoting here, "I believe it is important to know that while president you will no longer publicly question the election results after Wednesday," that's January 6th, "no one can deny this is harmful."

I think we might ask ourselves really was it only after Wednesday that it was clear that was harmful? I do think that look that is a very real question. I have myself been puzzled by why people drew the line where they drew it. This is something that had been happening from early in 2020 that Trump was questioning election results, trying to undermine the peaceful transfer of power.

That said, however frustrating that might be to folks who are unsympathetic to these witnesses. I also think it's important to keep in mind that there is a certain power to the committee being able to say, we're having witnesses here who were sympathetic to Trump, they are republicans, they are fans of his policies in various ways, these are not bleeding heart liberals. Even they thought that this went way too far, and I do wonder whether that might be more convincing to some folks.

Brian Lehrer: That's really the whole point of the hearings I think, and Liz Cheney said it out loud last night. Reminding everybody that the whole list of witnesses over the various hearings this summer have not been democrats or opponents of Trump but people who were in Trump's inner circle as allies of Trump and some who were just neutral Capitol law enforcement and things like that but so many people have been very close to Trump and that gives them so much credibility as it would in a court of law.

You mentioned one thing since 2016 he was talking about that elections would be considered stolen if he didn't win them. Here's a clip that they played last night of Steve Bannon going way back. I think this was just before election day. I'll have to double-check that or you can fact-check me on this but seeming to predict the whole thing.

Steve Bannon: What Trump is going to do is just declare victory. He's going to declare victory, but that doesn't mean he's a winner. He's just going to say he's the winner. More of our people vote early that count. There's more than and so they're going to have a natural disadvantage and Trump's going to take advantage of that's our strategy, he is going to declare himself winner.

When you wake up Wednesday morning it's going to be a firestorm. Also, if Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o'clock at night, it's going to be even crazier because he's going to sit right there and said they stole.

Brian Lehrer: That was I've got it now October 31st, 2020. A few days before the election, and if some of that audio was a little garbled, Bannon was saying, "When you wake up Wednesday morning, the day after the election, it's going to be a firestorm. Also, if Trump is losing by 10 or 11 o'clock at night, it's going to be even crazier. He's going to sit right there and say they stole it." What Bannon pulls the curtain back on there is that they were planning this all along.

Quinta Jurecic: I think that's absolutely right. It really makes clear that this was not something that was spur of the moment [laughs] in any way. This was a plan, it took various manifestations as Trump tried various different avenues from declaring himself the victor, to attempting to interfere with the counting of the ballots, to ultimately at the end of the day attempting to throw off the certification of the electoral vote through violence. This was not the winds of somebody who wasn't really committed. This was, as you say, in some form or another, the plan from moment one.

Brian Lehrer: Diego in Sunset Park with a little more sympathy for the witnesses, I think. Diego, you're on WNYC. Hi.

Diego: Really, I think the previous caller took my sentiments because after four or five years of outrageous tweets, the ones that implicated Mike Pence were the ones that took them over the line. Really, I respect your journalistic integrity, but they displayed exactly when he called off the dogs. It was after Fox News said that the military was coming and that the advantage was now with law enforcement that he made the tweet to go home. It wasn't until that point. He was relentless and nothing was going to stop them until the law enforcement took the upper hand against the rioters.

Brian Lehrer: That's another point that they made last night. Quinta, that's worth highlighting and spotlighting, right? At least the timing and I guess it's an inference to be drawn, but Trump was resisting all these pleas from everybody to call off the rioters. The time when he actually did it with that video in the four o'clock hour, was after it was revealed to him that the National Guard had been called out and as many as 1,800 troops were on the way. Coincidence?

Quinta Jurecic: I certainly don't think so. I mean, the caller is absolutely right that it is very notable that Trump did not call things off when it seemed like he might potentially seize the day. Honestly, I think this goes to another question which is why it took so long for the National Guard to be deployed in the first place. There's been a great deal of work by various congressional committees and inspectors general done into why that might have been the case.

It's a complicated story. Certainly, one part of it is that as the committee said, Trump did not take any action to make that happen. In fact, to the extent that anyone did, it was Vice President Mike Pence who wasn't even in the chain of command. Not only is it not until Fox News announces that the guard is being deployed, that Trump finally calls things off, but it took so long precisely because of Trump's own failure to act.

Brian Lehrer: Then he gets to at least look like he's the one who called it off, rather than the National Guard has to come in effect for him via his people. Finally, at 4:17 PM, Trump releases a video asking the rioters to go home. He did repeat the big lie in that video. Another dramatic revelation last night, as we come to another clip, was the release of an outtake from his recording session of that video in which he starts to say the election is over, but then edits that part out. Here's that.

President Trump: This election is now over. Congress has certified the results. I don't want to say the election's over, I just want to say Congress has certified the results without saying the elections are over.

Brian Lehrer: Quinta, what's the significance do you have of that distinction saying Congress certified the results, but not saying the election is over?

Quinta Jurecic: It's incredibly striking because I believe this was a video that was reported the next day on January 7th. Even then, Trump is--

Brian Lehrer: I don't want to mistake. That was not for the 4:17 PM video, that was for a video of the next day?

Quinta Jurecic: I believe that's correct. There were outtakes from both. Even then, he's essentially refusing to concede, he's refusing to allow the peaceful transfer of power. He's, as we've talked about with folks, reading between the lines, allowing that possibility for folks to think that he might still potentially be the rightful president, even after everything that's happened.

Brian Lehrer: By the way, credit where credit is due. This Steve Bannon clip from October 31st, 2020 that we played was obtained by Mother Jones and the committee credited Mother Jones for that last night and we should too, there it is. Trump issued one more tweet on January 6th against something that maybe hasn't gotten enough attention but that his Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Matthews, the witness last night, one of the witnesses, reacted strongly to.

It was at 6:01 PM when it was all finally beginning to wind down. Trump tweeted this justification for and celebration, really, of the riot. Here's the tweet, he wrote. "These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from the great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love, and in peace. Remember this day forever." 6:01 PM.

Here's Sarah Matthews from last night on how she reacted on January 6th to seeing that tweet, even though she was Trump's, Deputy Press Secretary.

Sarah Matthews: At that point, I had already made the decision to resign. This tweet just further cemented my decision. I thought that January 6th, 2021, was one of the darkest days in our nation's history. President Trump was treating it as a celebratory occasion with that tweet. It just further cemented my decision to resign.

Brian Lehrer: Sarah Matthews, who again was Trump's Deputy Press Secretary on January 6th but decided to resign as that day became more outrageous to her. Quinta, that 6:01 PM tweet really sets up everything Trump has done since, right? He has stood by the riot all this time, and only signals that his authoritarian, fascist street mob kind of rule might return if he's elected again, would you agree?

Quinta Jurecic: I think that's a very real risk. There's certainly at the end of the day when Trump sends that tweet, there is absolutely no sense of remorse. There is no sense that this is perhaps something that was wrong to do. He's clinging on to an ability to hold out himself as still the rightful president, to hold on to the loyalty of the people who committed that insurrection for him.

As you say, it's a very frightening thing, precisely because we've seen reports that he is planning to announce another run for president. I think the committee has done a very good job in driving that point home. This is not a bullet that was dodged and that we've survived, we've made it through and now we're okay, this is an ongoing danger to American democracy.

Brian Lehrer: Some tweets coming in on why this might have been the breaking point for people like Sarah Matthews. One person tweets, "They realized that their own personal safety was on the line." Another one tweets, "This was the breaking point because, in the words of Martin Niemöller, they came for me." From that famous quote, "They came for these people and I didn't do anything. They came for those people and they didn't do anything. They weren't coming from me, then finally, they came from me."

That's one theory. Here's a question on Twitter. Let me get back up to this. "I haven't heard anyone discuss what would have happened if the rioters had harmed or even killed the vice president or a member of Congress. Was martial law the ultimate goal?" It's a hypothetical, Quinta, but one that I have a feeling maybe you've thought about?

Quinta Jurecic: I think it's important to clarify what we mean by martial law. I think people often say that there's this idea that the President can just declare that the military is now going to be in charge under the Presidential rule. That's not actually what martial law means. What martial law means is that the military comes to the aid of the civil authority. It's backwards in a way.

I think that what we would have had in that situation would have been a constitutional crisis. To an extent even more dire and immediate than we already had in a way on January 6th. I believe Michael Fanon, one of the officers in the DC Police Department, who was attacked that day and has spoken a lot about his experience, said that he was afraid that what we might have been set up for is an hours-long siege situation of violence against members of Congress against Vice President Pence while law enforcement tried to clear the Capitol.

To be clear, I don't think there was any world in which at the end of the day, Trump would have been, lawfully the president of the United States. Under the constitution, on January 20th the outgoing president is no longer the president. There certainly could have been an enormous degree of chaos and violence, and that transition could have been even less peaceful than it already was. I do think it's important to understand that for all of the violence in horror on January 6th and of the many people or the handful of people who died both among law enforcement and of some of the folks who were rioting as well, it is truly astonishing that there was not more violence. I think in many ways we were let off, extremely lightly. To some extent that's helped Trump and his allies in their effort to downplay what happened.

Brian Lehrer: I guess, if we want to engage that hypothetical, maybe Trump would've, if Mike Pence was killed, installed somebody like Rudy Giuliani as vice president, and he would've tried to do what Pence refused to do use what they were claiming was the power of the vice president to refuse the electors and send it back to the states. Then there really would've been a constitutional crisis. Janet, in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Hi, Janet.

Janet: Good morning. I've wondered is Trump seen now because he doesn't realize that, he lost the election or probably the more likely scenario is that he is just a great liar. As I've traveled a little bit around the country, I've run into Trump's supporters who are tired of Trump. I think many people are tired of Trump. I wonder about people maybe like the, who have said, "Oh, this is how you can do it. This is how we can manipulate people." That's what I'm really worried about 2024, a skillful Trump imitator. Thank You.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you, Janet. She raises this question that comes up. Is he just that evil or is he crazy? I don't know if they're necessarily mutually exclusive Quinta? He could be diluted that crazy, where he really didn't realize that he didn't win the election. He also could be a psychopath that crazy, where he knows full well what's going on, but he doesn't have the emotional capacity to care about anything but himself.

Quinta Jurecic: I think this question of can we ever know what is happening inside Trump's head is certainly something that the committee has addressed throughout the hearings because it gets to this question of criminal culpability. How do we understand Trump's Men's rea his state of mind under the criminal law.

It's a difficult question for precisely the answer that the listener points out. Can we really know if he knew that he lost to the election and didn't care and lied and forged forward anyway? Or could it be that he convinced himself that he won? I think that as the committee has put forward more evidence, it strikes me as harder and harder for Trump to argue that he had 100% deluded himself.

This is one of the questions that you get to when you're talking about someone who is self-centered. Let's say unique in his psychology, perhaps, focused on his own advantage to the exclusion of everyone else as was the former president. There are a lot of different conclusions you can draw from that. One thing that I think we can say quite clearly, is that anyone for whom there is a question about did he know that he lost the election and he proceeded to inside a violent mob anyway? Or was he simply delusional? That's not a person who should be the president of the United States.

Brian Lehrer: One more clip on the question. What happens as a result of all this evidence here is January 6th, committee chairman, Benny Thompson from last night,

Benny Thompson: Our democracy was stood the attack on January 6th. If there has no accountability for January 6th, for every part of this scheme, I feel that we will not overcome the ongoing threat to our democracy. That must be stiff consequences for those responsible.

Brian Lehrer: There must be stiff consequences for those responsible, there must be accountability to save our democracy from this ongoing threat. What does Benny Thompson have in mind as far as, you can tell and didn't say, or what in your experience at LawFare and The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution, would you say that the committee is trying to set up here, even if they're not saying it in words?

Quinta Jurecic: I think that we can think about accountability in a number of different ways. One thing that there's been a lot of focus on is the question of criminal accountability in the form of prosecutions by the justice department and the committee is certainly interested in that as well. They've made very clear that they're building a criminal case against

Trump, and that they're frustrated that the justice department hasn't taken action.

That's one form of accountability. I think it will be, very interesting to see what actions the justice department takes in the coming months. Another way to understand accountability is moral and political accountability telling the story of the insurrection to the American people, making them understand how damaging it was, and making sure that the people who were responsible for this. Not just Donald Trump, but also, for example, Senator Josh Holly, who fist pumped the riots ahead of time, and then whom the committee showed a video of him running away from insurrection--

Brian Lehrer: They pumped the rioters from safely behind police lines.

Quinta Jurecic: Yes, yes, exactly. That's accountability too. It's not criminal accountability, but it's the committee saying, "You will not be able to run away from this. We will make you have to face this in your political career." That is also accountability. Now, ideally, I think we would see political accountability where the American people see this evidence and reject, supporters of the insurrection in the upcoming midterms in the 2024 presidential election.

I don't know if we will. I certainly hope that that is the case. If that doesn't happen, I don't think it will have been a failure on the committee's part, but it is something to keep in mind. I think it is also something to keep in mind that the justice department is not the ultimate arbiter here, that those other forms of accountability holding people to an account are of equal value as the criminal law.

Brian Lehrer: Another listener, tweets, I think January 6th was a breaking point for some staffers because they were afraid of the legal jeopardy they might have been in by staying. Another listener's opinion on that Quinta to 30 seconds, they surprised some people last night by announcing that there will be more hearings in September. They've spent the summer drawing out this timeline from just before the election until January 6th itself. What more do they have to do?

Quinta Jurecic: They have said repeatedly that they're continuing to receive new information, new testimony. I think what we'll see is what else they have found, in the interim between these hearings in, within August. They've certainly been extremely impressive in their investigative work thus far. I'll definitely be watching to see what new they uncover about what happened between the 2020 election and January 6th.

Brian Lehrer: Quinta Jurecic, fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution and a senior editor at LawFare. She previously served as LawFare's managing editor appears on some of their podcasts, and was an editorial writer for The Washington Post. Thank you so much for your clarity and elegance about all this.

Quinta Jurecic: Thank you for having me.

 

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