during the january 6th insurrection provides brand-new context to the comments you just heard there. in an excerpt obtained exclusively by nbc news from a book out called frankly, we did win this election, the inside story of how donald trump lost michael bender writes of a dramatic break between the former president and his second in command on the day of the insurrection. bender writes this, quote. a swarm of rioters just outside the room had smashed windows and busted through doors and now prowled across the waxed sandstone block floors beneath the iconic cast-iron dome. pence s life and the safety of just about everyone else in the capitol that day rested in the hands of the national guard. quote, i want them down here and i want them down here now, pence instructed in a private phone call with the nation s top military and defense officials gathered at the pentagon. initially, trump seemed to be enjoying the may lay, heartened to see his supporters fighting
into mainstream of american politics it seems to me, because the end of the article is very fascinating because you remember trump is yelling at him at the top of his lungs, demeaning him, diminishing him. he says he is going to resign and he doesn t resign, but when he finally submits his letter it is apparently it is so good trump says, this is good. i mean these people have no spine. they are in some ways deferring to a troglodyte who happens to be the president of the united states. the article in the end doesn t seem to suggest he is remorseful about his positions that he took while being a.g. he is trying in some ways to reposition himself vis-a-vis the constituency he cares most about. it is not remorse in my mind it seems to me. yeah. phil, that s a great point. i wonder as a journalist covering the human carnage donald trump left in his wake, how do you sift through these
party who did step up after january 6th, liz cheney, mitt romney, some other you know, members of the senate that voted to convict, they need to be the leading lights of the republican party and their voices need to be lifted up. we need to hope that they give courage to the others in the republican party who know better but are still keeping quiet. phil rucker, we cannot wait to read your next book. matt miller, eddie glaude. thank you for being with us this hour. olivia is sticking around. with the house set to vote on a january 6th commission this week, there are new questions about what the president s disgraced top officials knew in the days and hours leading to the insurrection. that reporting is next. plus, the incredible story of a conservative spy operation that managed to infiltrate high-profile democratic events including a democratic presidential debate and targeting anyone viewed as a threat to the ex-president s
lie go for weeks and weeks until the insurrection. my question for you, eddie, is if bill barr wants us to read this interview with jonathan karl, and if he did the interview i guess he wants he us to read it, why didn t he go to president biden s inauguration? if he didn t think there was any fraud, why not call and congratulate him, why not tell him while the subpoenas were renewed against donald trump s public enemies? if you are somewhat remorseful, which is the only reason i can imagine he is doing an interview with jonathan karl, none of the actions suggest there s remorse about turning the justice department inside out and obliterating people s confidence that the rule of law wasn t a tool of donald trump s political arsenal. well, nicole, i want to make a distinction between political calculation and remorse. there s a sense in which bill barr is trying to recoup his reputation among certain constituencies, but it is not to kind of introduce himself back
these feel significant. let me start with this. trump aides knew january 6th rally could get chaotic. propublica obtained new details about the trump white house s knowledge of the gathering storm. after interviewing more than 50 people involved in the events of january 6th and reviewing months of private correspondence, taken together these accounts suggest that senior trump aides had been warned the january 6th events could turn chaotic with tens of thousands of people potentially overwhelming ill-prepared law enforcement officials. rather than trying to halt the march, trump and his allies accommodated its leaders, according to text messages and interviews with republican operatives and officials. you know, clint, the more information we get, the clearer it is why kevin mccarthy and republicans don t want us to know. that s right, nicole. it is bad. every report that comes out at this point you see there s more tentacles between the