0 watching, we really a pretty shot you. joining thank you very much. cher, that's tonight's last word. let that happen again, please. 11th hour, starts now. 11th hour, starts now. good evening once again, i am ali velshi, day 350 of the biden administration. tonight, the house committee investigating the capitol insurrection is now seeking information from fox news primetime host. the panel sent kennedy a letter asking for his voluntary cooperation and saying that it has information that he had, quote, advanced knowledge regarding president trump and his legal team is planning for january six. and the hannity had relevant communications while the right was underway and in the days there after. the committee described hannity as a fact witness. and adds that he is in possession of dozens of text messages that he sent to and received from the former white house chief of staff, mark meadows and others. last month, committee vice chair, liz cheney, read out loud one of the text messages from hannity to mark meadows sent during the capitol riot. >> according to the records, multiple fox hosts knew the president needed to act immediately. they texted mr. meadows. and he has turned over those text. can he make a statement? ask people to leave the capital? sean hannity urged. >> the committee's letter to hannity cites another takes to medals from december 31st 2020, in which kennedy appears to be referring to trump. quote, we can't lose the entire white house counsel's office. i do not see january six happening the way he is being told. after the six, he should announce that he will lead the nation wide effort to reform voting integrity. go to florida and watch joe mess of daily. stained gauged. when he speaks people listen. then, on the night before the insurrection. the committee says hannity set a stream of texas including one that read, quote, i am very worried about the next 48 hours. the committee says he texted mark meadows, quote, pence pressure. white house counsel will lead. the committee also said it appears hannity had a conversation with donald trump on january 10th, ten days before joe biden's inauguration. the panel says hannity also wrote mark meadows and republican congressman, jim jordan, saying quote, guys we have a clear path to land the plane in nine days. he can't mention the election again. ever. i did not have a good call with him today. and worse, i'm not sure what is left to do or say and i don't like not knowing if it truly understood. ideas? >> will the committee's letter to hannity also makes clear that it is not interested in asking him about his functional or his political views. we are also learning that the members of the january six panel also want to speak with former vice president mike pence. who did certify the results of the 2020 election despite the reported intense pressure campaign from trump and his allies to stop the process. >> there are people who had [inaudible] directed on the lawn of the capital. ostensibly to hang the vice president. this night was in danger. i would hope that he would do the right thing and come forward. and voluntarily talk to the committee. we would like to know what his security detail told him was going on. and what went on all night. i think it's important that the public needs to know. this was the number two person in government. >> now, the select committee tells nbc news that he has not formally asked mike pence for an interview. but if he offered, it would be gladly accepted. keep in mind that longtime pence aide and former chief of staff, mark, has already begun engaging with the panel. president had already been planning a press conference for thursday which was the first anniversary of the insurrection. he has now canceled that event. and says he will hold a rally later this month. tomorrow, the attorney general, merrick garland, was set to give a speech about the january six criminal investigation. more than 700 people have been arrested in connection to the events surrounding the insurrection. more than 150 had pleaded guilty, done since had been sentenced multi-for misdemeanor crimes. but, arizona democratic congresswoman, reuben diego said the doj in garland had not done enough. >> i think merrick garland had been extremely weak and i think there should be a lot more of the organizers of january six that should be arrested by now. we have a very obstruction republican party that should be part of helping us decide how to save democracy instead of trying to cover up for their crimes. and you have again, an attorney general who is feckless and has not been helpful in preserving our democracy. also tonight, the united states had reached alarming mice don't. over 1 million new covid cases were reported on monday. the record single day total could run like delay reporting from the delayed holidays. testing is still in short supply. the white house says that it is still working on setting up its plan to distribute 500 million free at home tests. >> i'm testing. i know this remains frustrating. believe me, it's frustrating to me. but we are making improvements. and in the last two weeks, we still have federal testing sites all over the country. we are adding more each and every day. google covid test near me. go there. go on covid test near me, and find the site where you can get a test. >> we've got a doctor standing by to take all our questions on the latest regarding the pandemic later in the hour. but with, that let's bring in our lead off guests on this tuesday night, ashley parker pulitzer prize-winning bureau chief with the washington post. eugene daniels, white house correspondent for politico. and former united states attorney, joyce alene vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. she hosts the podcasts sisters in law. along with kimberly atkins, jill wine-banks, and barbara queen. good evening to you. all let start with the text which some of the january six committee has. some of which that they are asking for between sean hannity, donald trump, mark meadows and others in trump world. i would say, from reading sean hannity side of the texas it looks like he might have been the adult in the room trying to call this thing off and indicating to everybody around that this is what he thought was going to happen on january six and did not look like the right pam. >> these text messages and emails certainly illustrate the proposition that as a prosecutor, as an investigator, if you don't go looking for evidence you are certainly not going to find it. and sometimes when you go looking the five things that do surprise you. because the tenor of these communications really makes very concrete, something that we all know that there are plans circulating to try and prevent certification of the election. the shows just how serious they were and the people who are on the former president appreciated the danger, appreciated that they might not come off. and that there is perhaps this heightened level of awareness that the big lie was in fact just that. finding proof to illustrate that point as critical. not just through congress's work and telling the american people the story of what happened but also for any potential prosecution. that sort of proof looms large. >> ashley parker, on air, a generous extent, the committee member, adam schiff, described on hannity as more than a fox host when describing his relationship between hannity and trump. what are these texas telling you about that relationship? it seems there was direct conversation and if he refers to them in his text as phone conversations. we know that donald trump was not a big text or or email or. we know that from list cheney, ivanka trump was trying to get donald trump to intervene in what was happening on january six. but what more have we learned as a result of the release of these texts? >> well, from these texts with hannity and even previous text from other fox news hosts like ingram, what we learned is that these were certainly not objective. they were unofficial advisers in former president trump's orbit. this is something that was common with him. this would four straight people and many chief of staff in the white house at the time. that former president trump was as likely to take legal advice, policy advice, political advice from someone like sean hannity. from someone like laura ingraham. his policy counsel from his national security team and his political advisers and swell as the chief of staff, this is how the white house operated for those who covered it. and these text just sort of tell us in detail the specifics of some of these conversations. it also tell us how close former president trump was to some of these fox news personalities. >> eugene daniels, what is going on in the white house about this? the white house has kept fairly deliberately away from the proceedings of the january six commission and what the department of justice is doing in terms of this investigation and prosecution about people who have been charged in connection with january six. but at this point, these revelations make this thing hotter? what does the white house do about it? >> i mean, at this point they continue to do what they are doing. trying to stay out of it. they want to make sure that they don't seem able to be putting their finger on the scale. they are completely knowledgeable of the fact that if they do almost anything republicans are going to lynch on to that. it is important that when these investigations come out and finish we need to say that president biden did something here. i think they are reticent to lean into any of the stuff. but they are talking about a lot and thinking about it all the time. one, this was an election which they won. it is an extension threat to that. but also more importantly to the white house they talk about it as something that is next essential to democracy, right? they don't want to be -- they want to talk about how they don't want to be the last democratic president. so they think about it in part of the larger context. and so they are going to stay out of it, let that play out. and also, i think that we're going to see president biden at the white house started tight threads together from january six to other things. like voting rights, for example. you have president biden on january six making statements and doing a speech as possible. but i've been told that is something that they're looking to do. they are making it very clear that the push to federal voting rights in this country is something that we need to do because of january six. the use of january six is the perfect example of why you need to pick some of the other issues that we have in this country. that is kind of where they think they're going to stay at this point. >> joyce, let's talk about how hannity didn't talk about this. any reason for him to not cooperate? the committee has made clear that they don't really care about the show. they don't care about his political opinions. they want to know who knew what and when they knew. it is hard to draw the line. i will just play media lawyer for a moment and say that there are legitimate first amendment concerns when a member of the press is subpoenaed for testimony. in this situation, i think that the discussion that congress is drawing is less the hannity is a fact witness and more that he was going to huts with this day job and his night job. he was on television. whether that was as a newscaster or as a talk show host, he himself had waited in the past that he wasn't really a reporter as much as he was a talk show guy. but there is a second had that congress is focusing on here. and that is his role as an adviser to the president of the united states. it is hard to characterize it as anything else. it was an informal role. it was from outside of the white house. he is certainly not entitled to any form of executive privilege but it becomes clear in the course of these communications that hannity is giving advice to the president of the united states and congress wants to know more about that relationship and those communications. >> ashley, i do want to ask you about this. joyce does bring out the fears and concerns about trampling on the first amendment stuff, hannity has got friends and enemies. how do you think about this in terms of going to a media personality and determining what role they may have had in a political activity? >> i believe that is what hannity's lawyer is arguing. basically, this would be a violation in the first amendment rights issue. which is certainly the argument that lawyer is able to make. i think the challenge with someone like former president trump is -- he so did blur these lines. i'm certainly not an expert in rendering my opinion on that, but again, the way this has work that someone was sent to me something that is very frustrating. they said, former president trump is as likely to have his sons wife bringing her sorority sisters to the oval office an inquiry them on what they should do on afghanistan and take their advice as he has to take the advice of a general. this was maddening for the people who were actually hired to a certain expertise to perform those roles. and i think, here again, you see the blurring of the signs. and this could be a legal complication. >> eugene, bloomberg is reporting that the january six committee is considering holding public hearings. we know that they're holding public hearings in the new year. but they are planning on thinking about doing it in prime time there is an effort here by this committee that we heard by chuck schumer yesterday to make america understand that we think this happened a year ago is ongoing. that there is still forces particularly in the republican party that are trying to undermine the election. there is still a very large portion of americans who doubt the legitimacy of joe biden as president. do you think that's a good study for the committee? i don't know if that's a good or bad strategy, but i know this committee wants to make sure that people don't forget about what happened on january 6th. when you talk to everyday americans about that day, they don't -- many of them have kind of moved on. we're in the middle of a pandemic, they're thinking about their kitchen table issues, so this is been an attempt by this committee, from the very first hearing that they did have, starting with officers who were hurt that day, emotional testimony to remind people about how bad this was. i think the idea of putting it in primetime is exactly that, making sure that people are home to see these things. hearing, straight from the horse's mouth, wherever the horses may be, what happened that day, and most importantly why it's important for this committee to do its work. making sure that this doesn't happen. again that is at the core of with the committee is working, on not just investigating before invests january 6th, but most importantly, making sure that the people who were a part of it are publicly shamed so, that people know what happened. so, if anybody else has ideas of this, there are possible consequences. whether those consequences are legal, which is different from what the committee is doing, or political. at this, point in the republican party, there's almost no political ramifications for participating in the january 6th. so, this is an attempt that culminated to some of. that >> actually, there was a lot of americans who are relieved to hear that donald trump wasn't going to be holding an event on january 6th. guess what happened to cancel this news conference that he was going to hold, at mar-a-lago, to commemorate, or mark, or something to do with january 6th? >> well, it's worth noting that some of those relieved americans include republican lawmakers, and trump's own advisers. this was a news conference that he's -- he didn't have a particularly clear message, that he wanted to drive, other than he wanted to re-frame, as he has been doing all year, and basically whitewash the events on january 6th, highlighting his falsely flames of election fraud. even his aides, he was trying to turn it into the spectacle and circus, for which would be beyond inappropriate, on such a somber day. so, ultimately, -- he said he's going to bring out all of his grievances again, at an upcoming rally in arizona. but, -- one other thing that i will say, some of his advisers were taken aback by how many members of the media who said they would go, it was a sense that there was going out of control, in a way that it would benefit the former president. >> thank you to the three of you, ashley parker, eugene dad you'll's, and joyce vance. we appreciate you joining us on the 11th. our this year -- only a handful of people knew was coming on january, six why one senator is calling out senators by name, for dancing on the edge of overturning democracy. later, one of the nations leading pediatricians here to talk about skyrocketing covid cases, and the strength of the latest surge is putting on hospitals in schools around the country. the 11th hour, just getting underway, on a tuesday night. on a tuesday night