good evening. i m erin burnett. outfront tonight, a trump white house insider testifies. tonight, cnn has learned that former vice president mike pence s chief of staff, marc short, testified before a federal grand jury investigating january 6th. he is believed to be the highest ranking official in trump s white house to cooperate with the federal investigation. now, in just a moment i m going to speak with marc short live. he is a valuable witness. the day before the january 6th rally, he grew concerned about president trump s attack on pence and warned the secret service. here s a portion of his testimony to the january 6th select committee. concern was for the vice president s security, and so i wanted to make sure the head of the vice president s secret service was aware that likely as these disagreements became more public that the president would lash out in some way. and on january 6th, short was with the vice president who had to be rushed to safety when an an
witness. our congressional correspondent ryan nobles is joining us from capitol hill. ryan, as far as we know, former pence chief of staff mark short is the highest profile witness to tv in the criminal investigation. what can you tell us? that s exactly right, wolf. mark short is among the people that has the most insight into what was happening on january 6th and in the time leading up to january 6th and specifically the pressure campaign on his former boss vice president mike pence and what this all shows is that that criminal investigation won by the department of justice is expanding at the same time the january 6th select committee s work is far from done. the january 6th select committee is far from done. the committee will be in order. reporter: planning hearings for september and promising their august will be spent expanding an already sprawling investigation. we anticipate talking to additional members of the president s cabinet. we anticipate talking to ad
president biden. but certainly a strong condemnation from president biden for what president trump did on that day. absolutely. amazing to see all the adjectives, medieval hell, dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage. kaitlan collins, thank you so much. our chief white house correspondent. i want to go to leon panetta. he was the secretary of defense and director of the cia under president obama. secretary panetta, i just went through some of those lines again. i mean, a lot of time was put into the word choice here. and it is sort of unforgettable, medieval hell, dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage. were you surprised by president biden s choice of tone and timing that he is doing this now? no, not really. i think president biden is basically reflecting the attitude of a lot of people who saw what happened, saw what was
years. chinese state media threatening and taking these threats further. the former editor of the state run global times tweeting in part that china s response to a visit from pelosi would entail, quote, shocking military response, and that china will restrain her and punish her. these are incredible words to use. do you think they re bluffing or is it possible that china responds with military action, secretary? well, i happen to believe it is a very important principle for democracies to be able to have their people and their representatives visit whoever they want to visit. and that no dictatorship ought to determine what democracies can do. having said that, obviously, china has decided to make this a sensitive situation that shouldn t intimidate the united states or speaker pelosi.
presented by the january 6th committee, and basically identified what i think is something that joe biden and democrats have to do, which is to undermine any kind of attack on him with regards to law and order. when you see that president trump did absolutely nothing for four hours while a criminal act was being conducted against the capitol and people were dying and property was being destroyed but did nothing, i don t think they have any grounds to talk about law and order with that kind of record. secretary, i want to ask you about another important story tonight. and that is china. tonight, threatening, quote, resolute and forceful measures, that s a direct quote, if speaker pelosi goes through with her proposed trip to taiwan. if she does it, secretary, as you know, this would make her the highest ranking american lawmaker to go to taiwan in 25