we need a new generational leader. we can t keep dealing with this drama and the negativity. clearly, using the word drama, we have heard from it her many times as she s campaigning in iowa, new hampshire, the early voting state of south carolina as well. the question is how do republican voters react to this. we do know there s a deep split inside the party whether they want to move on from donald trump or stick with him. but also some very strong words from former governor asa hutchinson. he said the former president trying to portray himself as the victim today. he said the true victims of january 6th were the capitol police officers and the country s democracy. he once again called on him to drop out of this race. jeff zeleny, thank you. my panel is back with me. it s interesting. it s weird seeing jack smith go for a subway sandwich. i guess everybody has to eat. the rivals running, we heard hey hey and ron desantis.
you have been reporting on this for a long time. first question is did the special counsel s office confirm that they sent this letter as the former president is saying? they are being very true to form and they are offering us no comment right now from the spokesperson from the special counsel s office. my colleague over at court today is watching and there is a grand jury meeting today as they have been on tuesdays for many months. and we know that there s an active grand jury because the grand jury has given donald trump an opportunity to come speak to him. what they said in the target letter is that he was the target of the january 6th grand jury investigation, he was given a
move forward. you mentioned the fact that there s a lot of testimony. just look at the names that we re talking about. just to remind people, this grand jury has heard from mike pence, his former vice president, who obviously was very intimately involved with what happened. mark meadows, his chief of staff, and it goes on and on. a quick point about that. this focus on january 6th because of the horrendous conduct of that day. if you talk to some of the people that have green ghosn in, this goes back to the election. it started before the election about what happens. pz against the advice of his legal team, the election was stolen. so i i would say as we focus on this and following what donald trump says it s about, just to be very cautious about that, realize that we know from the witnesses that they were asked about things happening in the last weeks of the campaign, up to election day, all the way up to january 6th and even after that.
that s why we know how long this is taken. if this was about january 6th, it s a much more focused, violence related investigation about the actual activity inside the capital. but it seems to be more and more from the investigation and testimony that january 6th was likely the culmination of a series of events guided towards that particular day. that s why you have this length. so the question is, jeff zeleny, as somebody who spends a lot of time on the campaign trail talking to republican voters who are going to determine whether or not donald trump is the nominee the next time around, how do they see this? he clearly is trying to control this message. he s trying to orchestrate all this for fundraising. it has been successful for him in the past. he s stayed strong in polling. but we don t know if the past is necessarily the same as this. this is a much more serious case
whether they had the goods on him. what does this tell you? we re in a deja vu. you can almost copy and paste his prior statements about being arrested and indicted on charges like this. taking a a step back, we have to delineate. this is not the classified documents. this is leading up to january 6th. even more so than what happened on january 6th. the leading up to it, what was a possible conspiracy to try to conspire to use the resources available to the executive branch of government to try to undermine a congressional lawful proceeding. what about the electors? was there obstruction of the investigation? the realm of possibilities is very wide. i will be eager to see what aspect he focuses on with respect to donald trump. because this is a person who very rarely gives a direct order. as a direct threat that says i