intent. matthews said that his tweet was like pouring gasoline on the fire. lastly, mika, these two witnesses are really powerful because they had high-level positions within the administration. trump is not going to be able to say he didn t know them or they were the coffee boys and girls. right. as we have been reporting, tonight s eighth hearing from the house january 6th committee investigaing this attack on the capitol will focus on those 187 minutes of donald trump s inaction during the riot. joe, i remember us staring at the tv going, where is the national guard? i mean, that was the obvious question. and, you know, we were we obviously weren t alone. i think all good americans were horrified. asking that question. i remember interviewing colin powell, and colin powell saying, where the hell were they? he said, i was in my home going, where the hell is the national guard? where are the police? the people in there, how
your administration, your cabinet, who could come in and help quell this and monitor the situation carefully? i wonder if president trump has any emotion about it at this point, or if he is you know what i mean? it is so raw and visceral for people who were there. reporter: mika, certain will i, that rawness is still here on the capitol. when i talk to members of congress who were in the house chamber, in the gallery, they re expecting to see potentially themselves as pieces of evidence on the screen as the committee details what was happening at the capitol. then it ties into what was playing on the networks we know the former president used to watch ad nauseam, things like fox news. then the way trump spent the hours watching the insurrection, he did so gleefully. they ll be able to draw the explicit and direct line between
does anything lead to beyond the hearings? tonight, this three hour of inaction is going to be very important to the case. because, unlike most of us who have no duty to get involved when there is a crime occurring, citizens don t, the president does, as the commander in chief of our armed forces, who has the duty to take care the laws will faithfully executed, his inaction can amount to a crime. if people died because he was failing to exercise due care while he was aware that violence was occurring at the capitol, that could cause legal liability for him, mika, even beyond what is going on at the committee, at the department of justice. i imagine they re looking at things like conspiracy to defraud the united states and obstruction of an official proceeding, but this could land evidence to even charges of manslaughter. under federal law, a death, even an unintended death that occurs on federal property, can be charged as a manslaughter.
vo: music can help you express how you re feeling. when you can t find the language, find the lyrics. it s the top of the hour. welcome back to morning joe. 7:00 a.m. on the east coast. we are 13 hours from tonight s primetime hearing on the attack on the capitol. in a few moments, we ll hear from one of the lawmakers who will take the lead in presenting evidence on trump s dereliction of duty. plus, a legal loss for rudy giuliani has judges ordering him to appear before a grand jury. today, the white house
pottinger and sarah matthews, who are long-time trumpers. these were not individuals from the so-called deep state who were loyal to trump until january 6th when they resigned in disgust. they are going to talk about the 187 minutes of silence. that s where you get to dereliction of duty. it is trump s alleged inaction. their testimony will be very credible for many reasons, but also because after they resigned, they didn t just stay silent and wait to make money off a tell-all book, like others like bill barr, for example. pottinger was in the west wing on january 6th. he can testify about his discussions about sending in the national guardapparently, he an cipollone ran into the oval office at 3:00 p.m., shocked the guard had not yet been deployed. matthews, according to reports, previously testified that trump knew about the violence at the capitol before he sent the incendiary tweet about mike pence. that also goes to criminal