you have the former president joining republicans like paul gosar in demanding the unmasking of the officer who shot ashli babbitt. one conspiracy theory with the russian police. the former president has been open and vocal. he still supports the insurrection and insurrectionists. instead of dialing the hysteria down, they are dialing it up. well, that s right. and your question points to a larger question, a darker question, that i m not sure this committee will necessarily get at. this committee will get at what happened on january 6th, what led up to it, what the implications are. it s not going to answer a fundamental question for every american, which is how did we get to a place in this country where, pick your number, but somewhere between 25% and 35% of americans would rather have a sort of authoritarian, maybe even fascist leader, because they would run over constitutional procedure so long as it s their guy, so long as it s donald trump. they are more interested in having d
democracy that has defined this country for two and a half centuries. that s not something this committee will be able to address, but it is something that political leaders need to address and more importantly something people need to address to each other. to those folks who would like to see donald trump president for life, they have to ask themselves, it s not always going to be your guy so why don t we revert to a system where we agree there will be winners and losers and an alteration of power. that s the big, ugly question that sadly i don t think this committee will have the opportunity to get at. congressman jim himes, thank you for starting us off. betsy woodruff swan and hayes brown are both staying with us. when we come back, breaking news this afternoon. trump friend arrested on federal charges using his insider status as a foreign influence campaign to lobby the u.s. president. the details and what it means coming up. plus, washington post reporters carol leonnig
american flag but a flag of a single individual over a nation. congressman, how will democrats use the evidence publicly available to prosecute the case? and what powers might they have to use to unearth additional evidence? there s been hundreds of arrests made and indictments issued. having been there, i can tell you that there were some very, very dangerous people there. you remember the photographs of people carrying zip ties around. you remember the noose that apparently was destined for mike pence. some very, very dangerous people. there were also people who were along for the ride. i saw them too. that doesn t in any way, shape or form make what happened on january 6th any less of a threat to our democracy. and so what i think to get to the answer to your question that it s going to be more challenging. one of the most useful things that this committee can do is, is the question of what was the involvement of the white house or people associated with the white house in the pla
or you won t have a country anymore. that s a pretty serious instigation. but what else happened? we ll have to deploy subpoenas and other tools at our disposal to get to the answer to that question. and was there a relationship, any kind of relationship between republican members and people who may have shown up the next day? that, i think, will be the work of the committee. to do that, we need to be very, very fact oriented and unpartisan as we can be. this is a case where the facts speak for themselves. betsy, i wonder how that squares with the fact that as much as there is this understandable impulse to prosecute this as a legal case, you look at something like the morning consul poll and 29% of gop voters say it s likely trump will be reinstated as president this year. is the real challenge for lawmakers about moving public opinion? it s a good question, and i think one perspective on this that s important to bear in mind is that many of these republican voters who believe tru