from the start. it was zero threat. look, they went in. they shouldn t have done it. some of them went in, and they re hugging and kissing the police and the guards. you know, they had great relationships. reporter: a lie the republican party seems quite content to embrace for now with senate republicans even refusing to form a bipartisan commission to investigate what happened on january 6th. instead, they are pledging loyalty to donald trump as the former president is preparing his own return to the political stage this weekend, kicking off a series of campaign-style rallies on saturday. and while pence did put some distance between him and trump over the insurrection in that speech, it was still a very, very pro-trump speech. he at many times praised the former president and talked about what he believes he accomplished while in office. sunlen serfaty, cnn, washington. uncomfortable conversations
believed to be a 2024 presidential hopeful. and the issue has also taken hold in oklahoma, which just days ago marked 100 years since one of the deadliest race massacres in american history occurred in tulsa, oklahoma. as governor, i will not stand for publicly funded k through 12 schools training impressionable minds to define themselves by their sex or their race. reporter: the state s republican governor, kevin stitt, was removed from the massacre s centennial commission after he signed a bill banning schools from teaching certain concepts about race. at a time when republicans are raging against cancel culture on social media, there has been no such outrage against bans on teaching history that they believe is un-american. this is cancel culture in reverse. if a teacher is acknowledging that, oh, america does in some ways have a racist past, conservatives are so threatened by this that they are the ones
reporter: that was florida governor ron desantis, widely believed to be a 2024 presidential hopeful. and the issue has, also, taken hold in oklahoma. which just days ago, marked 10 years since one of the deadliest race massacres occurred in tulsa, oklahoma. as governor, i will not stand for publicly-funded k through 12 schools training impressionable minds to define themselves by their sex or their race. reporter: the state s republican governor was removed from the massacre s centennial commission after he signed a bill banning schools from teaching certain concepts about race. at a time, when republicans are raging against cancel culture on social media. there has been no-such outrage against bans on teaching history that, they believe, is unamerican. this is cancel culture in reverse. if a teacher is acknowledging that oh, america does, in some ways, have a racist past. conservatives are so threatened
that deadly day. instead that measure failed earlier today after only six out of 50 republican senators voted yes. nine republicans and two democrats didn t even cast a vote. in moments, we ll have more of our conversation with sicknick s mother and partner. but first let s go to cnn s manu raju live on capitol hill for us. manu, what kind of reaction are you hearing from both parties after the vote to form this commission failed? reporter: democrats are is that rightly criticizing republicans, saying they re trying to suppress the truth about what happened here, given that this commission, if it were to be created, would have been ten commissioners selected evenly between the two parties with equal subpoena power, having to report by the end of this year, looking at what happened at the capitol and the outside influencing factors that led to the attack, what democrats are saying is that republicans simply did not want to shine a negative spotlight on their own party, on donald trump
said some of the meetings with those republicans on capitol hill yesterday were tense because, quote, we knew they weren t sincere, unquote. here is the second part of our interview. the people that said they were going to vote against the commission, did they give a reason for it? a lot of them would default to the, well, you know, it s very partisan. that s baloney. senator collins put an amendment in there to make it very bipartisan. so, you know, i don t know what they were thinking. you think they were just looking for an excuse? i do, yes. i do. and i think, you know, they just don t want to do the right thing. again, i think they re very i think what you re seeing is elitism at its finest. they re very protected. they think that, oh, nothing is ever going to happen to me, i ve got law enforcement here. they live in their gated