that. joining me now is peter baker from the new york times. his book on james baker is the man who ran washington now out in paper back. also with us donna edwards and former adviser to house speakers john boehner and paul ryan. let s talk about the first call to the chinese counterpart, it was on october 30th because the china thought according to intelligence was preparing to attack and he wanted to reassure him. we had deployed nimitz to the south china seas and the rhetoric from president trump at the u.n. general assembly meeting from the white house had been that we have to hold china accountable and it was, you know, a constant bashing against china because of the coronavirus and the way the president was using that. so that is the context.
conflict without meaning to. so he is saying yes, things look a little crazy right here at home in the united states right now, but don t take that to mean that we re going to be in some way dangerous to you or hostile to you. this has happened before right after 9/11, one of the first calls that was made was to moscow to reassure vladimir putin in that era that he was going to see military buildups and actions on the part of americans in the days to come, but that shouldn t see that as a threat to russia. this is what we want our generals do, that we don t get into a conflict by accident. in theory this was carrying out the president s policy because the president didn t have a policy of going to war with china. and milley is also being criticized for his conversation with nancy pelosi on that same day january 8 after january 6. of course the insurrection. and for saying things according to what the authors say is a transcript and i ve talked to people and the authenticity of
and being so direct with us and enduring this experience, i just want to assure you that i ve listened and heard what you re demanding. the burden shouldn t be on you to see that there is not impunity in this case. personnel at the fbi, jay abbott and his subordinates, steve penny, usa gymnastics, the u.s. olympic and paralympic committees, the burden is ours in the u.s. senate to see that there is a full investigation, that there is personal accountability and institutional accountability for abuse, enablement of abuse, neglectful and improper law enforcement conduct and i think compelling evidence of potential
with those in the administration who could represent the kind of stability that we needed to see at the time given the president s, you know, sort of clear almost derangement when it came to his articulation about the election and then attacks on the institutions of government. i think that it was entirely appropriate for the speaker to express that concern at the highest levels in the administration. brandon, this book also gives us a very different take on mike pence, that he wasn t standing up to donald trump initially, that he went so far as to call dan quayle, the only living former vice president who had lost an election and had to declare the vote count, the electoral count on january 6, in his case 1993, looking to a fellow indianan for some support
practicing at michigan state. and the question then becomes if athletes of their stature can come forward, at what point the fbi was courting a job offer from steve penny the head of usa gymnastics. they represent i think an extreme of trying to have someone understand what their complaints are and seek justice. i think that s going to be key to hear what we hear today, why has there not been a consequence within the fbi, only this week was one person fired. i think the fbi and the inspector general s comments are going to be even more revealing about what was going on inside this agency, what did we not see what did we not know about why this was sat on for so long when the ladies were trying so hard for so many years? we talked about why the judiciary committee is holding this hearing, they have jurisdiction for oversight in this particular instance given the fbi s involvement here. what kind of relief do you think this committee can offer to