as trump s lawyers are arguing? or is that claim not just constitutionally wrong, but also say license for future presidents to commit crimes while in office, as the justice department argues? and on the eve of a hearing on the question of whether trump can be prosecuted for his actions while in office, we are learning incredible new details about what donald trump said on january 6 and what h did and did not do. thanks t testimony, to the special l closest aides, the deputy chief of staff dan scavino. from that reporting, quote, sources say scavino told smith s investigators as the violence began to escalate that day, trump was just not interested in doing more to stop it sources also say that the former trump aidk luna told federal investigators that when trump wa informed that then-vice president mike pence had to be ush rushed to a secure location, trump responded so what. luna saw an unexpected willingness by trump to let potential harm come to a long time loyalist. and
why not give it a try? good to be with you. i m katy tur. president biden once again today said donald trump is a threat to democracy. calling him a, quote, loser who tried to violate the constitution to stay in power. biden speaking at mother emanuel in charleston, south carolina, said a lot of the same things liz cheney said over the weekend in new hampshire. that donald trump is a want to be authoritarian, don t take that chance. he won t leave office, cheney warned. quote, i think there s a lot of living in a fantasy world that s going on with republicans telling themselves, look, we ll vote for him. it won t be so bad. it may well be the last real vote you ll ever get to cast. it will be that bad, and cheney says, the message is urgent. iowa is just one week away. and if you don t believe the urgency, abc news citing unnamed sources is reporting jack smith has yet another trump aide saying the former president didn t want to leave office. this time, it s dan scavino, t
today. in saying that i think the supreme court will look for an off-ramp. i don t think the supreme court is ready to deny donald trump a place on the ballot. having said that, i also agree with her that he s got a much bigger problem with his immunity claims. looking at his briefs, looking at what he s claiming on immunity, you know, as we say in the ozarks, that dog don t hunt. and it is going to be, i think, very difficult for him to maintain the legal position that somehow because he was the sitting president of the united states, he could somehow prevent votes from being counted in this country and democracy having its way. lisa, i had a conversation with one of the conservative jurists who claire is sort of referring to about the 14th amendment case. here s what he told me on the weekend. this will be one of the most consequential supreme court decisions for both american democracy and for american politics, since the founding of the nation.
only the people involved, but the number of ways in which trump was asked to rein this back. i want to quote more from this abc news reporthi says after unsuccessfully trying for up to 20 minutes to per trump trump to release some sort of calming statement, scavino and others walked out of the dining room leaving trump alone, sources said. that s when according to sources trump posted a message on his twitter account saying that pence, quote, didt have the courage to do what shod have been done, end quote. trump s aides told investigators they were shocked by t post. aside from p, scavino was the o other person with access to trump s twitter account and he was often the one posting messages to . so when theessage about pence popped up, cipollone and other white house attorney racedo findscavino, demanding to know why he would post that in the midst of a precarious situation. some of trump s aides returned to the dinele room to explain to
transferred to deputyecretary kathleen hicks vacations in puerto ricoing, it was not in two days later that she and the white house were informed of the austin s decision. the defense declared the statement, i am very glad to be on the mend and look forward to returning to the pentagon soon. i also understand the media concerns about transparency and recognize i could have done better job. i commit to doing better and about the disclosure, end quote. there are concerns for accountability on both sides of the aisle as a matter of national security but as we enter a new year, some republicans are jumping to level criticism at the white house with the conference chair, wait for it, elise stefanik calling on austin to resign. we re back with miles and claire mccaskill. miles, i always like to talk to you, but it s important to have you here because of your role in national security when you were in government. there is something different