the most visible part of donald trump's attempt to hold on to power. tonight we talk to those who witnessed the whole plot unfurl and tried to stop it. the lies. >> this election was stolen from you, from me, and from the country. >> if you ask how many republican congressmen believe donald trump was re-elected, i'd say maybe a couple. 60% of our base does. >> reporter: conspiracy theories. >> that could have been mickey mouse. >> i'm watching going this is the craziest thing i've ever seen. and then people just bought it whole cloth. >> reporter: lawsuits. >> they tried to not have your votes counted. they did not want your vote to count. >> reporter: potentially illegal pressure campaigns. >> i just want to find 11,780 votes. >> what he was asking for wasn't supported by the facts, wasn't supported by the constitution. >> reporter: extraordinary scheming. >> let's talk about the eastman memo. >> just breathtaking that you would have laid out such a clear game plan that so clearly violated the constitution. >> reporter: and all too many in the republican party -- >> do you believe this was a free and fair election? >> reporter: -- and maga media who followed along. >> verifiable dumps of votes. >> we will never give up, we will never concede. >> stop the steal! stop the steal! >> reporter: and it all might have worked if not for a few people in key places. notably among them brave republicans. >> in the moments of truth you need the right people to pass the most difficult tests. we had just enough people on january 6th pass the test. >> pursuant to the constitution of the laws and the united states. >> do you think donald trump attempted to stage a coup? >> i don't know what you could call it other than a coup. >> i have real concerns about the future of this democracy. >> i'm deeply afraid for our country. >> reporter: tonight, a cnn special report. "trumping democracy: an american coup." you'll never take back our country with weakness. you have to show strength. o'. >> january 6th was the line that can't be crossed. january 6th was an unconstitutional attempt led by the president of the united states to overturn an american election and reinstall himself in power illegitimately. >> treason! >> that's fallen nation territory. that's third world country territory. my family left cuba to avoid that fate. i will not let it happen here. >> reporter: that's republican congressman anthony gonzalez of ohio. >> i rise today in support of the cuban people and against -- >> reporter: grandson of an immigrant. he has a quintessentially american success story. a talented wide receiver who played three years for ohio state. five more in the nfl. and when injury sidelined him he got a business degree from stanford. all this before age 34, when gonzalez felt called to republican for congress. >> i got into this because look, my family came here from cuba. my father's family came here from cuba. we come from a country that has falln. we come from a failed nation. and we've seen what happens when the rule of law is dismantled, when a strong man is allowed to take hold, and democratic norms cease to exist. >> stop the steal! >> reporter: and now the conservative republican has a warning for all of us about what trump and his minions tried to do p when they tried to steal the election. >> this country's been through a lot. we fought through it. and we've persevered. as much as i despied almost every policy of the biden administration, the country can survive a round of bad policy. the country can't survive torching the constitution. that's the one thing the country can't survive. >> there's going to be fraud all over the place. >> a rigged election. >> there's going to be fraud. >> reporter: donald trump's plan to undermine american democracy began months before the voting started. >> what's he going to do with these ballots? where are they going? >> reporter: with a return to lies he had been telling for years. in 2012 he tweeted, "more reports of voting machines switching romney votes to obama. pay close attention to the machines. don't let your vote be stolen." not true. in 2016, "ted cruz didn't win iowa. he stole it." not true. and this after he won the electoral college, hence the presidency in 2016. "i won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally." also not true. >> president trump started a commission to look for that in 2017. they could find nothing. they disbanded before'll they could even file a report. >> reporter: in 2020 mail-in ballots, which were going to be more prevalent because of the pandemic, became a perfect new foil for trump's old claim. >> voting by mail is wrought with fraud and abuse. >> when you do all mail-in voting ballots, you're asking for fraud. >> reporter: alissa farah griffin was the white house communications director for then president trump from april through december 2020. >> we actually had to pull together a meeting in the oval to remind him that many of or voters, particularly senior citizens, were going to vote by mail and that we were deterring people from turning out and from voting in the way that they would. >> reporter: all this caught the attention of congresswoman liz cheney. a rock-ribbed conservative and daughter of former vice president dick cheney. at the time she was number 3 in house republican leadership. the conference chair. >> it concerned me because we wanted to r.people to be able t votes republicans. i was kerntd about it from a constitutional perspective at all. those concerns clearly came later on. >> there are going to be millions of missing ballots rbi. >> reporter: cheney's constitutional concerns came about five weeks before election day. >> then president trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power. >> win, lose or draw in this election, will you commit here today for a peaceful traveler of power after the election? >> we're going to have to see what happens. you know that. i've been complaining very strongly about the ballots. and the ballots are a disaster. >> you tweeted a response to that. you wrote, "the peaceful transfer of power is enshrined in our constitution and fundamental to the survival of our republic. america's leaders swear an oath to the constitution. we will uphold that oath." that suggests to me that you were worried. >> i was. it is such a basic fundamental thing. every president really is responsible for safeguarding the peaceful transfer of power. >> we're going to have to see what happens. >> and so for president trump not to be willing to make that commitment was stunning. >> reporter: that was september of 2020 when donald trump also stunned republican al schmidt. >> we either need to get them on board or move the polling place. >> reporter: at the time schmidt was one of three city commissioners in philadelphia. his job was to oversee the city's elections. >> it was a big problem. in philadelphia they went in to watch. they were called poll watchers. they were thrown out. they weren't allowed to watch. you know why? because bad things happen in philadelphia. bad things. >> so you're watching the debate and president trump says bad things happen in philadelphia. what goes through your mind? >> i think i said out loud, "i see what you're doing." we had the sitting president trying to discredit the results coming from the city of philadelphia before a single vote was cast in the city. >> watch those ballots. i don't like it. >> thousands of ballots all over the country are being reported. some thrown in garbage cans with my name on them. >> oh, did you see today? there was a big mishap with the ballots. another one. >> reporter: not only was trump spreading distrust of the electoral process. >> did you see they found 50,000 ballots in like a river. >> he was doing it in states such as pennsylvania and michigan where the margins were expected to be tight and the wait for results was expected to be unusually long. >> in most of america, there is a big traditional skew between early votes and election day votes. the republicans usually win election day and the democrats usually win early voting and absentee voting. we've got all this vote flowing in in pennsylvania. >> reporter: chris stirewalt was part of fox news's 2020 decision desk. >> the question is do republicans do well enough on election day to offset it? >> in 2020, the divide was expected to be more pronounced than usual because trump had been telling republicans not to trust mail-in ballots. this set the stage for what experts predicted would prompt misleading early vote counts. >> there may be what some folks call a red mirage, so that trump's numbers may be highest on election night, and then there's a long tail called the blue wave as more votes, absentees come in that in the last couple of decades have come in overwhelmingly democrat. the big caveat is we've never had early voting like this. >> we all knew that some states were going to show him up and then it was going to get closer. did he not know that? >> no, he had been told that repeatedly and he didn't care. he had decided before the summer, frankly, when it was clear that the pandemic was going to change the way by mail voting worked in a number of states and expanded. he started laying the groundwork for this can't be trusted. >> this is not right. what they're doing is not right. >> everyone who followed the elections closely knew about this. but then -- >> breaking news. we've got to talk about. >> right before the actual election day a convenient alternative explanation. >> this project, this system called hammer -- >> reporter: a false conspiracy theory popped up in right wing media. >> it's going to look good for president trump, but they're going to change it. >> reporter: there would be many, many more conspiracy theories in the days ahead. >> voters are in the final hours of making a monumental decision for this country. >> we're keeping an eye on voting under way across the country, especially in those key battleground states. >> -- projects president trump will win the state of florida. >> former president trump was in his residence. he had people coming up and down. but there were staffers, aides, hangers-on, all sorts of people in the east room munching on mini burgers and celebrating what they believed once the state of florida was called for trump was going to be a repeat of 2016. >> a big win for president trump in florida. >> trump was in a decent mood until fox called arizona for biden. >> the fox news decision desk is calling arizona for joe biden. that is a big get for the biden campaign. >> he believed what he was being told by some advisers after he won florida, which is this is looking good for us, this is looking just like 2016, these states that were supposed to go for biden are going for you. and then we got to the arizona call and it all fell apart. >> it's a significant victory for joe biden. as i say, the first flip of the night. in the presidential race. >> the fox news decision desk made that call hours before the associated press, and days before the major news networks. >> people were sending me what people were saying on social media. and it was this sort of, you know, psychotic murderous rage about us. and we don't do anything. we're just the weathermen. i'm just telling you where the storm is going. i don't make the weather. >> he started calling talent at fox and urging them to retract it. >> right. as though it was the call that made that true, not the votes that were cast. >> he had made up his mind weeks before that he was going to go to the podium if election night showed he was losing and he was going to say he won. and that's exactly what he did. >> this is a fraud on the american public. this is an embarrassment to our country. we were getting ready to win this election. frankly, we did win this election. >> and then he said this. >> we want all voting to stop. we don't want them to find any ballots at 4:00 in the morning and add them to the list. okay? >> but nobody was voting. they were just counting. the focus at this point was mostly on mail-in ballots. in 2020, more democrats voted this way than republicans. >> we were winning everything. and all of a sudden, it was just called off. >> what an ideal time to stop the counting if you're a republican president who wants to hold on to office no matter what the voters actually want. >> i've been saying this from the day i heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots. i said the exact -- raise the jar to flavors from the world's finest ingredients. and now, from jars to bars. new talenti gelato and sorbetto mini bars. ♪ the chase ink business premier card is made for people like sam, who make- everyday products, designed smarter. like a smart coffee grinder, that orders fresh beans for you. oh, genius! for more breakthroughs like that- i need a breakthrough card. like ours! with 2.5% cash back on purchases of $5,000 or more. plus unlimited 2% cash back on all other purchases. and with greater spending potential, sam can keep making smart ideas- a brilliant reality! the ink business premier card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. businesses need 5g solutions today. that's why they choose t-mobile for business. mlb partners with t-mobile to not only enhance the fan experience, but to advance how the game is played. aaa relies on t-mobile's network to stay connected nationwide, so they can help get their members back on the road. and we're helping pano ai innovate, to stop the spread of wildfires. now's the time to see what america's largest 5g network can do for your business. i was stuck. unresolved depression symptoms were in my way. i needed more from my antidepressant. vraylar helped give it a lift. adding vraylar to an antidepressant... ...is clinically proven to help relieve overall depression symptoms... ...better than an antidepressant alone. and in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. report unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. report fever, stiff muscles, or confusion, as these may be life-threatening, or uncontrolled muscle movements, which may be permanent. high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death, weight gain, and high cholesterol may occur. movement dysfunction and restlessness are common side effects. stomach and sleep issues, dizziness, increased appetite, and fatigue are also common. side effects may not appear for several weeks. i didn't have to change my treatment. i just gave it a lift. ask about vraylar and learn how abbvie could help you save. you can save money by spending less of it. makes sense! oh, i see what you did there! - what? - what? i don't get it. hehe. a man, his tractor and his family. these are the upshaws. though, he goes by shaw. which stands for skilled hands at work. from cutting hair, and mowing grass, to roasting marshmallows, he's got a grasp on what matters most. there's a story in every piece of land, run with us on a john deere tractor and start telling yours. get $1,000 off a 1025r tractor and 0% apr fixed rate for 60 months. i love this country. i love this democracy. and it makes me very sad to see what many in my party are doing. >> bill gates is a conservative republican who worked on voter integrity issues for the arizona republican party for years. >> i'm one of these kind of alex >> i'm one of these kind of alex p. keaton kids from the '80s. i've been a republican my whole life. >> he's part of the governing board for the county which is arizona most populous. among the board's responsibilities, running elections. >> this election was run well. there was no fraud involved in this. no corruption. why do i feel confident about that? because this has been the most scrutinized election we've ever run. >> my job was to make sure there wasn't anything improper or fraudulent that was going on. >> you weren't discounting anything. >> no. my job is to investigate what was being brought to me. and so i followed up on those with our elections officials. >> and? >> and there was nothing to it. >> hey, ken. >> good morning, sir. >> reporter: for gates and his colleagues the madness began in the hours after the polls closed. >> as far as i'm concerned, we already have won. >> before the tally was finished, supporters who believed then president trump when he said he won arizona began flocking to the counting site. >> usa! usa! >> it was a circus. it was really lalapalooza for the alt right. and they were outside of the election center, which is i mean really off the beaten path. >> across the u.s., local election officials were scrambling to get a record number of mail-in ballots counted. among them, in philadelphia, was al schmidt. at the time he was one of three city commissioners, the only republican. he ran for office, promising to protect election integrity. >> one of the things that i was involved in as part of the republican party in the city and the republican party in the state, was election integrity. since coming into office in 2012, i've referred more than two dozen cases for investigation to city, state, and federal law enforcement. our election operations were centered in the pennsylvania convention center in center city, philadelphia, and there was one tv on that i happened to be walking past. ♪ and the president saying, why are they still counting? we already got the results. >> we're winning pennsylvania by a tremendous amount of votes. >> i want to be very clear about what then president trump was calling for. he wanted millions of americans to be disenfranchised. >> which is completely at odds with democracy. it was pretty upsetting to see that. >> let's get a key race alert in some of the battleground states. >> when half your voters, in our case 325,000 voters, vote by mail, it takes days to count all those ballots because you can't even begin processing the envelopes they came in until 7:00 on election morning. >> because that's the law that the republicans made. >> that is the law the republicans made and refused to change. >> and this is a key point, especially in pennsylvania. >> this is the most significant modernization of our elections code in decades. >> expanded vote by mail legislation had been passed before the pandemic in 2019 by the republican legislature. these were republican rules. >> the refusal to count those mail votes early and be prepared really hurt the country. and if you can't get the ballots counted accurately, efficiently, expeditiously, you create this space for trump and his squad and these goons to go out there and plant lies to try to steal this election. >> we're going to prove to the american people that arizona is trump country. >> it was happening most notably in swing states. in arizona there was sharpiegate. the trump campaign falsely alleged sharpie markers on the ballots made them unreadable by the counting machines. >> that was sort of at the beginning of this. let's start -- >> four more years! >> -- and throw, you know, chum out in the water for folks that want to try and overturn this election. >> in georgia, a big lie that spread on the internet was that this legal case of ballots was actually a secret suitcase of false biden votes being added to the count. >> i saw four suitcases come out from underneath the table. >> something the republican lieutenant governor geoff duncan and his colleagues looked into and found completely without merit. >> it was cut and spliced. to take the time to watch it from beginning to end, there is a very sequenced pattern that can be explained all the way through there. and those weren't suitcases. those were actually preapproved cases already used all over the state. >> in philadelphia trump did better than he had in 2016. better than romney in 2012, or mccain in 2008. he was losing pennsylvania because he did so much worse in the philadelphia suburbs. >> count every vote! >> reporter: nonetheless, because trump decided discrediting big cities was going to be one of his false political attacks, in philadelphia trump's lawyers falsely claimed republican observers had been barred from the counting rooms. >> one of the attorneys for trump asks a judge, judge diamond, for an emergency order to stop the counting. and they're claiming that they had no people in the room. that's what they had been claiming outside the courtroom. but inside the courtroom this trump lawyer concedes that there were a, quote, nonzero number of their own observers in the room. and essentially, the case was laughed out of court. >> short of that lawyer lying to the judge and committing perjury, clearly went as far as he could. we had republican observers there every minute of every day that we were operating and counting votes right in front of us. >> this is rampant corruption -- >> despite this barrage from trump and his allies -- >> we will await more vote to come into pennsylvania. >> -- that counting ended quite momentously the saturday after the election. >> ultimately the final decision of this very long election week came down to philly. and after philly was decided and announced -- >> cnn projects joseph r. biden jr. is elected the 46th president of the united states. >> joe biden declared victory. what was that like? >> to have our voters' votes result in the election being called was an incredible thing to watch. while all that is happening, we're also aware that rudy giuliani is coming to philadelphia. >> wow, what a beautiful day. thank you. >> going to the four seasons landscaping place to say that our voters' votes shouldn't be counted. >> i was about to bring up four season total landscaping because -- >> in philadelphia -- >> -- it was -- >> they keep the votes of dead people secret. >> -- the most -- >> very suspect method of voting -- >> degrading. >> there was no security. zero. >> pathetic -- >> people in this country have no assurance at all -- >> preposterous -- >> that those ballots were actually cast -- >> farcical moment in my view of this post-election day challenge of this all. >> and appropriate. >> it would have to have been almost unanimously cast for joe biden in order to catch up. >> they obviously did not mean to have this at four seasons total landscaping in an industrial area right across the street from a crematorium and next to a sex shop. >> and it was the day trump got the news he did not want to hear. >> he was told by two of his top political advisers that basically it was over. and he listened and he decided that he wanted to keep fighting. >> so? >> trump decided he wanted to put giuliani in charge. and that's exactly what he did. giuliani was willing to do what he wanted. >> and that is what led to this now infamous press conference mid-november 2020, featuring rudy giuliani and another lawyer named sidney powell. >> the dominion voting systems were created in venezuela at the direction of hugo chavez to make sure he never lost an election. >> the only thing left is the vote. that could have been the same person 30 times. >> one of its most characteristic features is its ability to flip votes. >> thank you. >> ben ginsburg, the preeminent republican party election attorney who has battled with democrats on many recounts and recalls, was watching. >> when i first heard that press conference, i said oh my god, can that really be true? because if there was nothing there, they wouldn't just be making it up. and then they went through the entire press conference and i sort of remember looking out the window and saying, they just made all that up. >> they did. this campaign memo from six days before the press conference first reported by "the new york times" says, "dominion has no company ties to venezuela." dominion and one of its former employees would later sue giuliani and powell for more than a billion dollars. a court document filed by powell's lawyers said, "no reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact." someone should tell that to the republican national committee, because they still have powell's lies in its social media feed. in a deposition for another related case, giuliani said he got his information about a former dominion employee having antifa ties from social media. >> those social media posts get all one to me. i don't know if we're talking about facebook, instagram, twitter. >> social media postings. >> or something else. i think it was facebook. >> he also admitted that he didn't, quote, have the time to investigate the claims himself. alissa farah griffin was the white house communications director when all these lies were being fed to then president trump. >> you're saying that in november there seemed to be a tacit acknowledgment by the president that he lost but then something changed. >> yeah, something did change. and i think this was when the more conspiracy theorist individuals started getting access to the president. the sidney powells, the mike lindells, the michael flynns and even steve bannon was in his ear. and it did take a turn. i think he believes it. >> this election was a fraud. >> the former president believes that he won the election. and that's scary. and the other thing, though, that your viewers need to know is the people around the president, the sane ones, know that he did not win, and they are lying to you and they are lying to him when they suggest that the election was stolen. >> there were more than 60 lawsuits filed by the trump campaign or its supporters. they only prevailed in one case. from pennsylvania. but the number of ballots affected was too small to change the results from the state. >> none of the claims he made were found meritorious by any court in any way that would have reversed the results of the election. >> georgia faced more than a dozen of these suits. >> many of these lawsuits, they just wanted to throw out the results and then have the general assembly pick their own set of electors. >> brad raffensperger, georgia's republican secretary of state, a conservative republican who supported trump and has fought with democrats on election issues, ordered a statewide hand count. that hand count confirmed there was no widespread fraud involved with the machine count. >> no, we never saw enough fraud that would ever have turned the results of the election. >> still, then president trump hate-tweeted about him. and both raffensperger and his wife were threatened. >> people started threatening her, sending her sexualized texts. those kinds of intimidations. >> bill gates got threats, too. so did al schmidt, who testified about them in congress. >> tell the truth or your three kids will be fatally shot. it included our address, it included my children's names, included a picture of our home. "cops can't help you. heads on spikes, treasonous schmidts." >> we've not had any sort of credible incidents raised to our level yet. >> there was an interesting timeline that started to happen. or pattern is probably a better way to put it. i would go on tv, i would speak the truth -- >> if there's an issue out there we want to make sure we understand it, investigate it -- >> and within minutes he would send a tweet out that would say something derogatory or inflammatory. >> his latest target is the lieutenant governor, geoff duncan. quote, georgia lieutenant governor geoff duncan georgia is a rino, never trumper. too dumb or corrupt to recognize massive evidence of fraud in georgia and should be replaced." >> and within minutes after that either me or my wife would start to get threats would show up on our phone. i mean, like blood-curdling threats from just the most awful-sounding individuals and deep meaning that would know things about you and your family. they intentionally were trying to scare us and intimidate us. it was all to try to get us to sit down and be quiet. >> reporter: then president trump wanted some republicans to sit down. others he invited to washington. >> he starts bringing in state legislators from pennsylvania. >> yes. >> party leaders from michigan. >> he starts having them come to the white house, yes, to visit with him. and again, this is part of the sales job that he thinks he's doing. he's telling him that really they won and they ought to consider that and they ought to consider how they submit electors and how they go ahead and certify the election in their states. but none of them went along with it at the end of the day. >> joe biden ahead now by 61,000 votes. >> in michigan, despite losing to joe biden by more than 154,000 votes, trump waged a fierce fight to keep the results from being certified. >> stop the count! >> it might have worked if one of the two republicans on the state canvassing board had not resisted intense pressure and voted with the democrats to certify. >> we must not attempt to exercise power we simply don't have. >> after that act of courage state republicans replaced him on the board. it was all part of a presidential push for legislators to disenfranchise their own constituents based on lies. there was no credible evidence of widespread fraud. perhaps the president's most shocking push was in georgia. >> so then president trump asked governor kemp to call a special session of the legislature so the legislators could appoint their own electors instead of the ones for biden that the voters had picked. >> you play that out and you disenfranchise 2.5 million people's votes in the state. i don't care if they're ds or rs. we would have had rioting in every street in every community. it would have been an absolute attack on democracy. >> a version of that, of course, came later. >> fight for trump! fight for trump! fight for trump! ...all on nationwide 5g. plus, no hidden fees. no contracts. no compromises. that's the straight talk talki'' from straight talk. available at walmart and walmart.com. 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credence to his fraudulent claims. >> where is the doj and the fbi in all of this, mr. president? is the doj investigating? >> missing in action. i can't tell you where they are. >> barr was investigating. >> bill barr issued a memo that told prosecutors around the country that they could take overt steps to look into allegations of fraud. this is something the department traditionally didn't do until the votes were certified. it was absolutely seen as putting pressure on prosecutors around the country to at least say publicly, or have signs that they were investigating voter fraud. bill barr was looking for it. and the truth was that it just wasn't there. and he eventually came to realize that. >> in an interview with the associated press barr publicly contradicted trump's baseless assertions saying, quote, to date we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have affected a different outcome in the election. >> the president is furious. he calls barr over to meet with him. and the two of them get into a shouting match. >> barr told trump they had looked into these things that trump was asking about and there was nothing there and trump got very agitated. and barr just kept saying, this is not real, sir. and at one point barr described giuliani and his ilk as clowns. and trump sort of listened and said maybe. but he wouldn't get off of it. >> it was not just characters like rudy giuliani peddling the false claims. there were others stepping in to aid with the dirty work of trying to subvert the election. >> ken paxton, the texas attorney general, big supporter of donald trump, brings a lawsuit arguing that the ballots from four states, pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin and georgia, should be thrown out because those states had not followed their own laws in allowing mail-in balloting and in the way that they had carried out their elections. he was arguing that millions of ballots should be thrown out. >> the legal filing was so constitutionally unhinged and substantively bereft, the texas solicitor general refused to allow his name on the suit. the suit cited a litany of convoluted and speculative allegations and some downright lies. >> it said that philadelphia's vote shouldn't be counted because it used dominion voting machines. philadelphia doesn't use dominion voting machines. like basic facts like that. it was completely absurd to read. >> another absurdity, the lawsuit cited a statistical analysis that claimed the probability of biden winning those four states, quote, given president trump's early lead in those states as of 3:00 a.m. on november 4th, 2020, is less than 1 in a quadrillion. >> for the vote to swing by as much as it did, the probability of that in one state is 1 in 1 quadr quadrillion. that's 1 comma 15 zeros. to all in aur four it's one comma 15 zeros to the fourth power. >> it was nonsense. a lie. the analysis completely ignored what everyone, including the trump campaign knew. because of vote by mail and when states counted early ballots, some states were going to show an early lead for trump that would not hold. despite the mendacity of the lawsuit 17 other republican state attorneys general signed a legal brief backing it. an overwhelming number of house republicans were drawn into that effort as well. at trump's request, congressman mike johnson of louisiana circulated an e-mail to his republican colleagues asking them to sign on to the brief supporting paxton's lawsuit. >> as the amicus brief was being prepared, i was urging my colleague who was preparing the brief not to do it. >> i didn't sign it because i thought it was just wrong, frankly. and that's when i started getting something phone calls from people going, wait a minute. aren't you going to fight this thing? this election was stolen. >> in the end, 126 house republicans signed their names to it. adam kinzinger, a republican congressman from illinois, did not. >> how many people that signed on to it do you think actually believed the nonsense in it? >> if i had to guess, i would say five to ten. >> i think there was a sense among those who did sign it, at least some of them, well, we're just going to do this to placate president trump. and i thought that was not doing our duty. kevin mccarthy told me directly that he wasn't going to sign it. i said good. this is not a brief that we ought to be associated with. and then a few hours later he signed it. >> the brief went out without kevin mccarthy's name. and then the next day claiming that he was inadvertently left off, and he signed on to it. that was bad. he initially didn't want to sign it and then realized what the pressure was. what you see there are people that sign on to something they don't believe to avoid political pressure. it's leaders that are afraid of their base and not leading their base. >> the supreme court declined to even hear the suit. >> a majority of house republicans, like 2/3 of them, literally saying i don't want any of the votes from pennsylvania, i don't want any of them to count, based on this lie. i mean, i'll just say, for me personally, as a pennsylvanian, they were trying to disenfranchise my mom and dad based on lies. >> i don't know how everyone doesn't take that personally. they tried to not have your votes counted. they did not want your vote to count. based on nothing whatsoever. that is so mind-bending and so difficult to comprehend. >> so what's going to happen the next presidential election? how many people are going to sign some brief that says overthrow this to the supreme court? that becomes the bottom line standard. that happens every time in d.c. and a lot of those standards were broken in this season. and i'm worried we'll never get them back. up next, donald trump's phone call to the top election official in georgia. >> i just want to find 11,780 votes. >> was he telling him to break the law? >> it certainly felt like it. choosing a treatment for your chronic migraine - 15 or more headache days 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now you're not running for re-election. so what happened? >> yeah, it's funny. you talk about rising star. i don't know if i would agree with that. but one of the biggest knocks against me when i was running for lieutenant governor was i was too conservative to actually be a statewide candidate. >> hey, georgia, it's geoff duncan again, conservative candidate for lieutenant governor -- >> in 2018, in the increasingly purple state of georgia, geoff duncan ran as a long shot on his conservative values. >> please raise your right hand -- >> and he won. >> so no one actually can question your conservative bona fides. there's no question about your foreign policy or other issues. there's no way in which you're squishy or a liberal. >> i'm a conservative because i believe in the principles. not because it gets me elected in georgia. i'm wired to be a conservative. i was raised that way. i think our family's conservative. the businesses that i run are conservative. it's just who i am. >> but in 2020, after duncan pushed back against a wave of false claims? >> it's certainly disheartening to watch folks willing to kind of put their character and their morals out there just so that they can spread a half truth or a lie in the efforts to maybe flip an election. >> we want trump! >> duncan found himself on the receiving end of republican fury. just like georgia's secretary of state brad raffensperger whose office was flooded with calls from voters urging him to change the results of the election. >> i want to talk to brad raffensperger. i want to talk to this piece of [ bleep ] for not doing the right thing. this election was [ bleep ] stolen. >> we could feel the angst and the hate building in the air over nothing. over a mirage. over a shiny object to deflect from the fact that donald trump had lost the election fair and squarely. >> you could have very easily kept your mouth shut. not said anything. gone along. was all of this word it? putting it all on the line for the truth? >> the answer is absolutely it was worth it. >> the lieutenant governor found himself amongst the few willing to speak the truth, but he was not alone. disgusted by threats his election workers were getting from misled trump supporters, fellow georgia republican gabe sterling also became a vocal critic of the public lies. >> i remember we had our warehouse manager at our center for elections was taking the trash out. this is a young guy and whether these people swarm around them with cameras going you're going to prison, you're going to prison. he's a warehouse guy. nobody should have to go through that. >> on december 1, 2020, sterling gave a blistering warning directed at the most powerful man in the world. >> two minutes before he was going to go up, one of my friends came and said gabe is about ready to have a press conference and you might want to watch. >> mr. president, you have not condemned these actions or this language. this is elections. this is the backbone of democracy and and all of you who have not said a damn word are complicit in this. someone's going to get hurt, someone's going to get shot, someone's going to get killed. >> it felt like me saying those words. he said everything i wanted to say. it was heartfelt. >> this is the backbone of elections. this stuff getting done, you know, that level i'm doing something that's vitally important. i just want all americans to understand their vote is counted. >> despite sterling's pleas to tone down the rhetoric, president trump continued his pressure campaign. >> your governor could stop it very easily if he knew what the hell he was doing. he could stop it. >> just days later he publicly excoriated georgia republicans such as governor brian kemp for not helping him overturn the election, something kemp could not legally do and had no grounds to do. >> so far we haven't been able to find the people with the courage to do the right thing. >> and here he was calling us into question only because we wouldn't lie in front of a national audience for donald trump. >> and trump leaned on the state's chief elections investigator. >> the people of georgia are so angry at what happened to me. they know i won, i won by hundreds of thousands of votes. it wasn't close. whatever you could do, frances, it's a great thing, it's an important thing for the country. >> the surprising part to me is how granular of a level donald trump was actually personally engaged in trying to overturn the election in georgia. certainly we started, you know, hearing about phone calls he was making and of course we all heard the unfortunate 60-plus minute call with brad raffensperger. >> they are spreading ballots, in my opinion you had out-of-state voters. they voted in georgia, but they were from out-of-state. >> that was just a complete disaster and embarrassment to anybody that cares about d democracy. >> after repeating a litany of false allegations trump said he was, quote, notifying georgia's secretary of state raffensperger that in his view the secretary was breaking the law by ignoring his false conspiracy theories. >> you're not reporting it. that's a criminal -- that's a criminal offense. and, you know, you can't let that happen. that's just a big risk to you. >> did you feel like he was threatening you? >> i think you could take that as a form of pressure. >> of everything he said to you on that call, what sticks with you the most? >> well, he continued to circle back on all i need is -- >> i just want to find 11,780 votes. >> he wanted us to go out and somehow find additional votes. we had all the ballots. there were no ballots that we could ad, and all those had been tabulated time and time again. >> was he telling you to break the law? >> it certainly felt like it. it's absolutely embarrassing as an american to hear a u.s. president having that type of conversation. there's just no setting where that call is appropriate. >> what he was asking for wasn't something that was supported by state law, wasn't supported by the facts, wasn't supported by the constitution. >> that phone call is now key evidence in an ongoing investigation by prosecutors in georgia who are looking into whether donald trump broke the law in his efforts to overturn the election. >> hey, good morning. >> but raffensperger's steadfastedness to the law notwithstanding, trump wasn't even close to done with his efforts to overturn the election. ahead, a memo that could have destroyed democracy. >> it is a blueprint for how to ignore the vote of the people. ♪ chevy silverado has what it takes to do it all. with up to 13 camera views. and the z71 off-road package. ♪ you ok? yeah. any truck can help you make a living. this one helps you build a life. chevy silverado. the chase ink business premier card is made for people like sam, who make- everyday products, designed smarter. like a smart coffee grinder, that orders fresh beans for you. oh, genius! for more breakthroughs like 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be analyzed by ai in real time. ♪ so researchers can identify which areas are at risk. and help life underwater flourish. ♪ subway's now slicing their meats fresh. that's why subway's proffered by this champ. and this future champ. and if we proffer it, we know you'll proffer it too. he's cocky for a nineteen year old. in the weeks following the election, the word from those closest to donald trump was that he would eventually accept reality. >> there were people around trump, jared kushner, mark meadows, in particular who were telling, you know, senior republicans in congress trump will concede. he was going to get there, he was going to accept it. and it's not clear how much of that was just with casting. >> most republicans in congress spent those first few weeks telling reporters that trump had every right to pursue legal remedies, but the cases then failed. over and over the trump team had no credible evidence of significant fraud, but most republicans would not acknowledge reality, not wanting to poke the bear. that's partly because in 2021 there were georgia senate runoff elections coming up that they needed trump to help them win. >> kelly fights for me. david fights for me, that i can tell you. >> and partly because they had giant spending bills they needed him to sign. then -- >> breaking news. biden has now received a majority of electoral votes needed to win the presidency. >> on december 14, 2020, the electoral college voted in all 50 states, formalizing trump's loss. >> on january 20th. >> on the 15th senate majority leader mitch mcconnell finally publicly embraced the truth. >> so today i want to congratulate president-elect joe biden. >> republicans who had spent the previous weeks trying to placate donald trump now found that the vacuum their silence had left had been filled by trump's lies. trump lashed out at the few republicans who acknowledged his defeat. tweeting, quote, too soon to give up, republican party must finally learn to fight. privately the president was entertaining increasingly concerning paths forward. >> i got a tip from someone that there had been a really intense, bizarre oval office meeting. sydney powell had been having a conversation about having made a special counsel in the white house to investigate election fraud. i also found out mike flynn, the former lieutenant general and national security advisor was fired early on in the trump administration was talking about seizing the voting machines and rerunning the election. it was incredibly jarring that there was a conversation in the oval office with a former military leader talking about a seizure of voting machines. >> and flynn publicly spoke about this. >> he said a version of it on newsmax the night before this meeting. >> how many people out there talking about marshal law. it's been instituted 64 times. >> he was told by officials this is illegal, we do not have the authority to do this. >> trump was eventually convinced by advisers to pass on that idea, but he became fixated on a new one, derailing the certification of electoral votes. >> once trump realizes that the fraud claims are going nowhere, he now has a new plan, which is for there to be enough doubt that he could maybe persuade some of these states, conservative states to send a separate set of electors. >> on december 19, trump sent his first tweet encouraging his supporters to come to washington, d.c. on january 6th to protest the election results at a rally organized by a group called "women for america first." with ties to controversial characters such as roger stone and steve bannon, that organization had become the de facto force for the false fraud claims after the election. even taking a bus tour across the country trying to sway members of congress to object to the election results. while women for america first pushed conspiracy theories around the country, the president continued his assault on democracy in the nation's capitol. >> the attorney general of the united states bill barr is leaving the administration. >> reporter: thus began a new near daily pressure campaign on the department of justice. according to a sweeping report from the democrats on the senate judiciary committee, based on interviews with trump's top officials at the justice department, jeffrey rosen and richard donoghue, trump directly asked the doj to undermine the outcome of the election. he did so nine times. and his chief of staff mark meadows broke with long-standing policy and pressured the doj to look into election fraud claims. >> the wildest theory was this thing called italy-gate. mark meadows sent an e-mail to the acting attorney general at the time asking him to look into this theory that there was some italian contractor who was using satellites to change vote tallies on machines -- voting machines in the united states. >> on a december 27th call with the new acting attorney general, jeffrey rosen, trump pushed him to, quote, just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressmen. >> it raises questions about corruption or fraud, just saying they're investigating it or looking into it. that allows republican congressmen to go out there and do the rest of the work and put the pressure on the states to start their own audits, and again, gives him room to operate between then and january 6th. >> the whole notion behind it was trump and his supporters saying don't worry about it, we're going to make it up. don't pay attention to the facts, don't pay attention to the law. we're just going to make it up and forge ahead. >> trump continued to press rosen on the call saying, quote, this was an illegal corrupt election. and according to acting deputy attorney general richard donoghue's notes from the conversation, trump told rosen the doj was failing to respond to reports of crime. >> rosen stood firm on this call saying that there's not much the justice department could do. >> trump also plotted with another justice department official, jeffrey clark, to oust the acting attorney general after rosen's repeated refusals to go along with trump's fraudulent allegations. but that scheme imploded at the dramatic white house showdown on january 3, 2021. >> this is a scene straight out of "apprentice." trump has rosen and clark vie for the job of attorney general of the united states. and the president is told that if he replaces rosen with clark, there are going to be huge consequences. a number of top officials at the justice department were going to resign. there were probably going to be hundreds of other resignations of political appointees across the country as a result of this. it was a murder-suicide pact was the way this was described during this meeting. >> trump decided that the effort would not be earth the embarrassment of mass resignations and abandoned the p plot. he then pinned his hopes to overturn the election on mike pence based on a legal memo written by conservative attorney john eastman. let's talk about the he sayman memo. what was your reaction when you first heard about it? >> just breathtaking that -- that you would have laid out such a clear game plan that so clearly violated the constitution. >> the eastman memo detailed a six-step plan for pence to throw the election to trump during the january 6th certification. it also called for pence to throw out all electors from seven states and gavel president trump as re-elected. eastman has since tried to publicly down-play his memo and his role in attempting a coup, but he told a very different story in undercover video from a progressive activist. >> we met with 300 legislators on january 2nd during a june conference call, and they all wouldn't do anything. >> and in appearances in past right-wing media. >> are we to assume this is going to be a climactic battle that's going to take place this week? >> i think a lot of that depends on the courage and spawning of the individuals involved. >> would that be a nice way to say of a guy named vice president mike pence? >> yes. >> this level of corruption can't be allowed to stand, and i think that makes the exercise of the vice president's power here very compelling. >> it's quite dangerous. it is a blueprint for how to ignore the vote of the people. that would have cast aside all the legal foundations upon which the country and the democracy is based. >> we now know eastman's memo was not the only multi-step plan to detail how vice president pence could use his role on january 6th to overturn the results of a fair and legal election. another one was written by a trump campaign lawyer named jenna ellis. according to betrayal, the final act of the trump show, a book by abc's jonathan carl, the former president's own chief of staff, mark meadows, forwarded the ellis memo to pence's top aide. >> there's been so much talk about the memo john eastman wrote, and john eastman didn't work at the white house. he was some outside lawyer, but meadows is forwarding a document that basically outlines the effort to essentially have a coup, a document written by a lawyer on the trump campaign payroll. >> publicly pence raised the hopes of trump supporters, telling one georgia rally -- >> we'll have our day in congress. we'll hear the objections. we'll hear the evidence. >> pence reached out to others to see if there was some way he could carry out this unconstitutional move including, according to "the washington post" journalists bob woodward and robert costa, former vice president and fellow hoosier dan quail who convinced pence he had no constitutional power to throw out the election. also reported by woodward and costa was steve bannon's role in pushing the plan. on a phone call with the president bannon said, quote, you've got to call pence and get him back here today. we're going to bury biden on january 6th, f-ing bury him. >> pence says he's talked to all the lawyers he can talk to, and he's decided he can't -- he doesn't have the power that the president says he has. and trump turns on him, yells at him, says that essentially he has betrayed him, and the meeting doesn't end very well between the two men. >> but that did not stop the president from publicly pressuring the vice president on twitter ahead of the certification. up next -- >> we're on a conference call, and i told kevin mccarthy when people are convinced an election was stolen and there is a route out, there's going to be violence. >> his response was simply operator, next caller. uuuhhhh... here, i'll take that! woohoo! ensure max protein, 30 grams of protein, 1 gram of sugar. enter the $10,000 powered by protein max challenge. ♪ ♪ (♪) rsv can be a dangerous virus... 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( ♪ ) get a free storage upgrade when you pre-order at at&t. amazon has great deals on everything kids need. instead of spending more, he spent less. seemed obvious. why would a person spend more money? he's eight and he gets it. i'm 10. well, that's less impressive. each day is a unique blend of going, doing, and living. glucerna protein smart with 30 grams of protein to help keep you moving. uniquely designed with carbsteady to help manage blood sugar response. glucerna, bring on the day. i see irritated gums and weak enamel. sensodyne sensitivity gum & enamel relieves sensitivity, helps restore gum health, and rehardens enamel. i'm a big advocate of recommending things that i know work. the chase ink business premier card is made for people like sam, who make- everyday products, designed smarter. like a smart coffee grinder, that orders fresh beans for you. oh, genius! for more breakthroughs like that- i need a breakthrough card. like ours! with 2.5% cash back on purchases of $5,000 or more. plus unlimited 2% cash back on all other purchases. and with greater spending potential, sam can keep making smart ideas- a brilliant reality! the ink business premier card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. stop the steal. stop the steal. >> fight for trump. >> january 6, 2021. where were you? do you remember that day? >> i remember that day crystal clear. >> there's some days that stick out. 9/11, war, stuff like that. this is among those. >> on the day congress was scheduled to certify the election for president-elect joe biden thousands of people descended on our nation's capitol. >> biden did not win this election. >> what do you think happened? >> fraud. >> it's not made up. >> angry at what they falsely believed had been a stolen election. >> unquestionable that our votes were stolen. >> the supreme court's not helping us. no one's helping us. >> we're taking this country back. >> i wake up at 4:30, buses were everywhere. i mean you couldn't get a clear path into the office from where i was. >> this line wraps around the washington monument. >> i there's all kinds of traffic at 4:30 in the morning, 5:30 in the morning and strobe lights already on the national mall and couple thousand people milling around already at that hour. it just felt like something was off. >> when did you start becoming worried about january 6th as a day? >> a couple days before january 6th we were on a conference call, all the house republicans. kevin mccarthy, who at this point we did not know how he was going to go on certification. he says he's going to object. and i say, kevin, you have to understand there will be violence. when people are convinced an election was stolen and there is is a route out, there's going to be violence. his response was simply, operator, next call. so on january 6th it was obvious what was going to happen. >> fight for trump! fight for trump! >> they thought they would steal this election. >> the crowd had been told lies about the election not just by trump but his supporters on capitol hill and in maga media. they were encouraged to take action. >> i don't know how all this is going to end, but if they want a fight. they better believe they've got one. >> and told how to think about those republicans who acknowledged joe biden won, those who were grounded in reality. >> this is about as mindless as i've ever seen these republican rino establishment hacks behave. >> we're coming for you. >> many of the famous faces pedaling the big lie were there. >> we are going to take our country back! >> but not just to rev up the crowd at the rally. according to the book "peril" by bob woodward and robert costa, on the days surrounding january 6th steve bannon, john eastman, rudy giuliani, and others gathered at a hotel just two blocks from the white house discussing plans to delay the certification. >> i'll tell you this. it's not going to happen like you think it's going to happen. >> just the day before on january 5th, bannon ominously teased what was to come on his podcast "war room." >> it's going to be quite extraordinarily different. you've made this happen, and tomorrow it's game day, so strap in. let's get ready. >> everything points to bannon was very closely associated with anything the campaign was doing. >> i think an overwhelming majority of that crowd was there to try to overturn democracy at that point or the democratic process. >> i knew that i was kind of the face of so-called the deep state and the republican party, so i didn't want to be out in public too much. so i never bring my gun into the capitol complex. i brought it that day. >> i was sort of nervous for the morning. i was curious to see what the rally was. i was hoping not to hear some of the speeches that i ultimately heard, some of the more inflammatory ones. >> speakers at the rally included john eastman, the author of that memo detailing how pence could violate the constitution and keep trump in office. as well as many other republican officials who saw opportunity in joining in on the big lie. >> are you willing to do what it takes to fight for america? start taking down names and kicking ass. >> let's have trial by combat. >> but as he preferred it -- >> fight for trump! >> -- the marquee speaker was the president himself. >> president donald j. trump! >> meanwhile, inside the chambers of congress, the certification of the votes paused. >> i would object to further reading. >> with objections from republican senators and some republican house members. >> i rise today to object. >> i rise to support the objection. >> i rise to support the objection. >> earlier that day vice president pence had put out a statement saying he was not going to follow trump's instructions. which upset the president, as he conveyed to the massive crowd. >> mike pence, i hope you're going to stand up for the good of our constitution and for the good of our country. and if you're not, i'm going to be very disappointed in you. >> trump continued to rile up the crowd, demanding they take action. >> you'll never take back our country with weakness. you have to show strength and you have to be strong. >> many at the rally took his words literally. and we all watched as the effort to overturn the election came to a violent, bloody crescendo. >> it was so unimaginable that you would have a mob having broken into the capitol and attacked police officers. >> seize him! seize him! seize him! >> attempting to break into the floor on the chamber of the house of representatives. you just couldn't compute that was happening because it's so fundamentally un-american. >> un-american -- >> objections to counting electoral votes -- >> -- yet very close to happening in america. this video shows utah republican senator mitt romney, someone the angry mob considered an enemy, unknowingly walking towards the rioters. capitol police officer eugene goodman tells romney to get out of harms way and then runs to confront the insurrectionists, leading them from the senate chamber. vice president pence, the man many rioters called to be hanged that day, was inside the chamber and had to be rushed to safety with his family from the senate floor. minutes after rioters breached the capitol. according to reporting from "the washington post" one of the vice president's aides, greg jacob, who was with pence during the insurrection, sent an e-mail to john eastman after they were escorted off the senate floor. >> he said in the e-mail thanks to your bullshit we're now under siege. >> eastman fired back, blaming the riots on the vice president and his staff. >> they broke through. it's on. >> john eastman responded by saying that it was actually the vice president's fault and mr. jacobs fault for the quote-unquote siege. he said if you had done what needed to be done, if you would have been transparent, if you'd had a debate, if you would have gone forward as we asked you to go, it wouldn't be happening to you right now. >> he's got a gun! >> the conversation you had with your wife, you've been off to war before having conversations with loved ones. was it like that? >> this was different, you know. i never really had a sense that i might not survive this. there was a real sense that if they're in the capitol complex and they've already overrun two or three lines of police barricades, there is nothing to stop them from the rest of the complex. yeah, it was an emotional conversation. it was nothing i've ever had before. i hope i never have to have that conversation again. >> stop the steal! stop the steal! >> we have two young kids and i didn't want to alarm my wife. at the time it felt like anything was possible because you're seeing the bomb threats, you're tracking it on twitter. i'm seeing messages on telegram and some of these other platforms come through about organized militia groups that are going to storm the capitol and some folks saying they're going to kill whoever they find and those sorts of things. so at the time you don't know how it's going to end. >> on the other end of pennsylvania avenue at the white house trump remained isolated, watching the events unfold on television. >> when he found out about what was going on, the violence, his supporters attacking policemen, beating policemen -- >> everybody stay down. >> members of congress hiding, running for their lives. what was his response? >> kevin mccarthy had a conversation with him telling him just how bad it was, people breaking into my office, they're doing this. and trump's response was, well, kevin i guess they're more upset about the election than you are. >> it's chaos. >> there was roughly an hour that day when some on the biden team were genuinely worried that there would be no transition, sources tell cnn. that trump and his mob had successfully disrupted the counting of electors and might find a way to cling to power. >> thank god that there weren't more people killed. at the time you don't know that. at the time you know there's an angry, violent mob who believes the election was stolen in the united states of america. you're seeing even members of congress saying this is our 1776 moment, which as a reminder that's a bloody, violent revolution. well, of course, you're going to have violence. and of course you're going to have a riot at the capitol. >> and that's what all this was about. it wasn't just an attack on our civils of democracy, it was an actual attack on the peaceful transfer of power from one president to another. >> after the insurrection was over, hundreds had been injured, five dead, and the capitol had been breached for the first time in more than 200 years. >> it's a mother [ bleep ] revolution. let's take this shit. this is ours. >> coming up, will trump try to steal the election again? you think that he will try to impose some form of autocracy? >> i think that he absolutely would. with the new straight talk multiline plan... ...more lines mean more savings. get unlimited data, talk and text for just $25 dollars a line ...all on nationwide 5g. plus, no hidden fees. no contracts. no compromises. that's the straight talk talki'' from straight talk. available at walmart and walmart.com. at pnc bank, you can find us in big cities and small towns across the us, where our focus is to always support the people who live and work there. because you call these communities home, and we do too. pnc bank. after advil. feeling better? on top of the worlddddd!!! before advil. advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. when pain comes for you, come back fast with advil liqui-gels. 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(upbeat music continues) eva's about to learn her fear of missing out leads to overeating. i totally eat stuff to not miss out. and that's just a bit of psychology eva learned from noom weight. sign up now at noom.com yes, i need a trim. i just want to be able to cut the damage. we tried dove instead. so, still need that trim? oh my gosh! i am actually shocked i don't need a haircut. don't trim daily damage. stop it with dove. subway's now slicing their meats fresh. that's why subway's proffered by this champ. and this future champ. and if we proffer it, we know you'll proffer it too. he's cocky for a nineteen year old. - [announcer] do you have an invention idea but don't know what to do next? call invent help today. they can help you get started with your idea. call now 800-710-0020. hours after the last rioters had been pushed out of the capitol on january 6, 2021, while there was still glass on the floors and blood on the stairs, congress tried to get back to the business of democracy. >> let's get back to work. >> they had a presidential election to certify. >> when we reconvened that night there was an opportunity for leadership from kevin mccarthy, an opportunity for him to stand up and say it's time for us to recognize that the election is over. it's over, and we need to come together and heal. >> i rise to address what happened in this chamber today. >> as i sat on the floor and listened to his remarks, they began like that, but then it became clear he was urging continued objection to the electoral votes, which i can't understand. >> hearing valid concerns about election integrity. >> by the end of the night two-thirds of republicans in the house of representatives including the current republican leadership voted not to certify the state of arizona and not to certify the commonwealth of pennsylvania. >> do you think kevin mccarthy and steve scalise and elise stefanik, all whom voted to not count electors after blood had been shed after this attack, do you think they actually believe this cause that they've taken up? >> not a world of it. i don't think they believe any of it, but i think you can convince yourself if you're determined to that i'll just play the game a little longer so that i'll be here to lead to a new direction. or i'll play the game because i don't have the power and influence to change the ship. >> you know, when you think about the heroics on flight 93 on 9/11, you know, all those passengers standing up rushing the cockpit and saving the capitol, had tod beamer or any of those others alone charged the cockpit, we would have probably a rebuilt capitol today and a lot of casualties. but they all decided to do it together. and when you only have a few people speaking out, it's no doubt that's not going to turn the ship. everyone has to particularly the leaders of the party. >> hatred for donald trump. >> the lie continued on maga media where justifying the rioter's anger became a common refrain. >> these are not just conspiracy theorists motivated by lies. that's a bunch of nonsense they want to tell us. >> one week later the house voted to impeach president trump for willful incitement of the january 6th insurrection. >> my vote to impeach our sitting president is not a fear based decision. >> there's no excuse for president trump's actions. >> while some republicans spoke in favor once again a majority of house republicans sided with trump, refusing to vote for impeachment. >> the ayes are 232, the nays are 197. >> but ten republicans did vote to impeach him. three of them you've heard from tonight. >> i voted to impeach him because i think it's clear as it was in public that he provoked the violence that day. >> i felt like i had no choice in the matter. as conservative republicans we are constitutionallests. we believe in the rule of law. >> were you surprised only ten republicans voted to impeach in. >> it was a couple days before the vote on impeachment where i thought we'd hit 25 because i talked to 25 people. i looked at those people that were going to vote for impeachment, and i recognized every one of them that ended up not voting that way. they always mentioned a concern what it meant for the re-election. >> congresswoman liz cheney was the third ranking republican in the house when she voted for impeachment because she was so concerned about where trump's big lie was leading the nation. >> you had local officials who were getting death threats. you had members of congress who said to me that they believe the president should be impeached after the 6th but that they were afraid to cast a vote that way because of their security, the security of their families. you know, that -- that is a place that we haven't been certainly since the civil war. and never when it -- when that threat of violence comes from a sitting president. >> and we're going to have to fight much harder. >> this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic. >> cheney has become a leading critic of those who engaged in the big lie and attempted to subvert democracy including house republican leader kevin mccarthy who said this just two days after the election. >> if president trump won the this election so everyone who's listening, do not be quiet. >> in may 2021 republican new york kbrszwoman elise stefanik challenged cheney for her leadership post. cheney is more conservative than elise stefanik. cheney had voted to support policies more often than stefanik, but stefanik supports trump's election lies. and stefanik defeated cheney for the leadership position. >> it just became increasingly clear that to stay in-house republican leadership i would have to be willing to perpetuate the big lie, and i just simply wasn't comfortable with that. >> how many of your republican colleagues that perpetuate the big lie either with their comments or their votes, how many of them do you think actually believe it? >> very few. very few. too many people are putting their own political future and their political fortunes ahead of doing their duty. and so i think that, you know, in some instances there is fear, physical fear about what trump would do or the threats that might come, but in other cases i think it's -- it's a political calculation, which is pretty craven if you think about it. >> what is the danger do you think of elected officials who might know better acquiescing to these demands, to these requests or winking and nodding about the big lie? >> the danger is that once you do it on this issue, what's to -- why wouldn't you do it on any other issue? this is not about right and left at all. it's about right and wrong. >> the institutions don't hold themselves. in the moments of truth you need the right people to pass the most difficult tests. we had just enough people on january 6th pass the test. we have to make sure we have an equal number of people continue to pass the test going forward. >> when your colleagues said to us the guardrails held but barely and only because there were specific individuals at great risk to themselves professionally and personally who stood by those guardrails, people like the maricopa county board of supervisors, people like secretary of state r raffensperger georgia, people like commissioner al schmidt in georgia. do you think that ultimately a dozen of these people replaced by other people, trump people and the guardrails don't held and democracy falls under? >> i certainly think that's a real threat. anytime you're driving on a highway and you're seeing a guardrail hit, it's mangled. it held, it wouldn't withstand a second impact. >> coming up next, that second impact led by former president trump may be coming. >> he either wins legitimately which he may do, or if he loses again, just try to steal it. that can be analyzed by ai in real time. ♪ so researchers can identify which areas are at risk. and help life underwater flourish. ♪ new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. you get roped in with phone offers, that bind you to a 3-year device contract. break free with t-mobile! introducing go5g plus, the first plan that always gives new and existing customers the same great device deals, and you're upgrade ready in two years versus three. right now, bring t-mobile your phone and get the amazing iphone 14 on us. trapped. free. get the amazing iphone 14 on us. trapped. free. 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(vo) subaru is the national park foundation's largest corporate donor, helping expand access for all. let innovation refunds help with your erc tax refund so you can improve your business however you see fit. rosie used part of her refund to build an outdoor patio. clink! dr. marshall used part of his refund to give his practice a facelift. emily used part of her refund to buy... i run a wax museum. let innovation refunds help you get started on your erc tax refund. stop waiting. go to innovationrefunds.com you really got the brows. sleepovers just aren't what they used to be. a house full of screens? basically no hiccups? you guys have no idea how good you've got it. how old are you? like, 80? back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights. we don't get scared. oh, really? mom can see your search history. that's what i thought. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity. subway's now slicing their meats fresh. that's why subway's proffered by this champ. and this future champ. and if we proffer it, we know you'll proffer it too. he's cocky for a nineteen year old. we are just months away from the mid-term elections, which typically tests the strength of the incumbent president. >> liz cheney, how about that? >> there was now growing evidence the mid-terms will also test the strength of former president trump. >> her poll numbers have dropped faster than any human being i've ever seen. >> who has been working to turn elected officials into loyalists or get them voted from office. >> get rid of them all. >> trump attorney john eastman made that clear while talking about state legislators in an undercover investigation done by activists. >> now if we take a bunch of them out in the primaries in 2022, then the preconditions for getting elected is we're going to fight this stuff, then maybe we've got an opportunity, but right now i just don't see it. >> donald trump's behavior has congressman anthony gonzalez worried. >> it looks to me that he has evaluated what went wrong on january 6th. why is it that he wasn't able to steal the election? who stood in his way? and he's going methodically state by state. state senate races all the way down to county commissioner races trying to get the people who -- the republicans, the rinos in his words who stopped him from stealing the election, he's trying to get them removed. >> what scares me is that the secretary of state rolls because those are extremely powerful in terms of dealing with elections. >> the focus for our office -- >> in georgia brad raffensperger, the secretary of state who refused to find the votes trump needed to win georgia, faced a challenge from republican congressman jody hice. that was not enough for hice to win the may primary. raffensperger will be the candidate for secretary of state in november. in arizona mark finchem wants the job which is being vacated by a democrat. >> arizona state representative mark finchem is with us tonight and what a job he's done. >> he's already received the endorsement of donald trump. he has said over and over again this was a fraudulent election. he's called for decertification. he's got a decent chance to win this primary. if we had people like that in these key positions moving forward, i think we are in danger. >> in pennsylvania the governor apoints the secretary of state, and this is the republican nominee for governor, doug mastriano who was protesting outside the capitol on january 6th. >> as governor i get to decertify any or all machines in the state, and obviously i have my eye on several counties who had machines i believe are compromised. >> six of the ten house republicans who voted to impeach donald trump are facing primary challenges this year from republicans endorsed by donald trump or energized by him. one has already lost. another appears to have eked out a victory. these four still face races this summer including liz cheney. >> donald trump is very vocally supporting your defeat. are you worried? >> no. i intend to win. >> you could lose. i mean, you're saying you won't, but anything's possible. if you lose your career because of this position you're taking, will it have been worth it? >> well, i will no matter what happens never stop fighting for the constitution, never stop fighting for the rule of law. to me there's not even really a choice or a calculation. it's just what is the right thing here, and what has to be done? >> four other republican congressmen who voted to impeach trump have decided to not run for re-election including adam kinzinger who says he wants to fight against the politics of division instead of running for re-election in a newly drawn district in which he'd have to run against an incombntd republican and anthony gonzalez who decided to retire after two terms. >> the constant fund-raising wasn't working prior to impeachment and now it's pretty clear now was the time to get out of this. >> the exits are happening at the state level, too. jeff duncan, the lieutenant governor in georgia, is not running for re-election. >> i don't want to have to do and say the things i have to do and say right now to win a primary with donald trump trying to play the games he's playing. >> duncan has begun speaking about the republican party after trump and has written a book about it called "gop 2.0." it's not just elected officials being pushed out or stepping out of public view. remember chris -- who called the state for biden, he was fired in 2021. fox blamed restructuring. de stirewalt's boss retired. >> a source told "the washington post" that i was fired because my ratings weren't as good as dan bonjino's and oddsiances were not responding to me as they were to dan bonjino and made me laugh because that's not my job. my job is not to tell you what you want to hear. >> bonjino is a conservative pundit, not a reporter. on top of all this a number of states are issuing sweeping so-called election integrity laws that tight access to the ballot to prevent widespread voter fraud, you know, the kind that did not happen. at least 19 states have new laws. >> trying to solve a problem that doesn't actually exist. some people say that a fraud never occurs. it does occur. it occurs infrequently. >> beyond efforts making it more difficult to vote are efforts making it easier to undo the results of an election. for instance, in georgia some of the power that used to belong to the secretary of state brad raffensperger, someone committed to upholding the rule of law, now lies with the republican controlled state legislature. >> a number of states have tried to take running of elections away from professionals and giving it to politicians. so in state legislatures like georgia give pow door the state legislature to potentially overturn results, that's very worrisome. >> in 2021 there was no better example of a politicized counting process than the so-called audit of ballots in maricopa county, arizona, by a group calling themselves the cyber ninjas. >> they have no experience at all in election audits. they're headed by this doug logan who has been in that trump orbit ever since the election. >> people saw images of these cyber ninjas looking at ballots through ultraviolet lights. what were they looking for with the ultraviolet light in the ballots? >> they were actually looking for bamboo on the ballots because there was one of these conspiracy theories that thousands of ballots had been sent in nefariously from somewhere in asia, and if there was bamboo that would indicate that these were, in fact, those >> if you buy into conspiracy theories or believe the election was stolen from donald trump, the audit made you suspicious of the ballot-counting process. in the end the ninjas determined biden did win maricopa point. all of this happened in the aftermath of the 2020 election. a planned attempt to undo the will of the american people. with dozens of eventevents, maneuvering, pressure campaigns, threads of violence, actual violence, carried out over months, and continuing to this day. >> do you think that what president trump and his minions were attempting was a coup? >> well -- when you're trying to not count voters' votes, when you're trying to overturn the will of the people, i wouldn't know how else to describe that. you know, it's hard for me to even attach the words "coup" and "america" right? that sounds like such a third world notion. i don't know what you could call it other than a coup. >> i think there are a number of different things you could call it, but no president in history has ever done it before. and we have to make sure no president ever does it again. >> reporter: republican liz cheney is now vice chair of the committee which spent a year interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses and is publicly laying out much of what we've detailed this evening. >> president trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. >> reporter: the january 6th committee hearings are also explaining the pressure campaign waged by the former president, which failed the first time around. but if donald trump manages to replace enough opponents with loyalists and enough laws are changed, he could try the tactic again. and this time, it might work. >> if we rerun the scenario with people holding the most powerful positions in key institutions being more beholden to him than their oath, i think it's all pushing towards one of two outcomes. he either wins legitimately, which he may do. or if he loses again, he'll just try to steal it. should he be the nominee or should he run again, i'll do everything i can to stop him. i believe as a citizen of this country, who loves this country and respects the constitution, that's my responsibility. >> the nightmare scenario is this, and it's not too far out of the realm of possibility. which is, donald trump's running for president again. he'll likely be the nominee of the republican party, assuming nobody attempts to challenge him credibly. joe biden's going to be 82 years old by 2024. many around him don't think he's going to run again. there's very much a scenario where donald trump could be president again. and this is a man who's challenged our institutions near to the breaking point. >> and for those who have worked with trump, the fear is not just his undermining american democracy. but once back in the white house, also undoing the american experiment. you think that he will try to impose some form of autocracy? >> i think that he absolutely would. there were things he wanted to do when he was in power the first time that were well beyond the scope of what the u.s. president should be able to do, but oftentimes it was simply like the motivation of hoping to win re-election that kept him from doing things. it's very different in the second term. and i think that's what scares me the most. >> can you give me an example? >> you know, whether it's weaponizing the justice department against political opponents, whether it's going after the free press. he would certainly be open to using the military for political reasons as well. >> it's terrifying. >> it is a warning we are bringing you from conservative republicans. you might have noticed that other than a few journalists, the voices you've heard tonight have been exclusively gop. because there's nothing partisan, nothing liberal about supporting democracy. >> the american experiment is an experiment. it's not guaranteed. i mean, when ben franklin said a republic, if you can keep it, he wasn't being cheeky. he meant that this democracy has to be fought for. how worried are you? >> i have real concerns about the future of this democracy. and i never thought that i would. i didn't think we had this sort of pull towards authoritarianism in our democracy. >> i'm deeply afraid for our country. yeah, i'm afraid that the kind of political violence, the kind of abandonment of the rule of law, the kind of abandonment of the constitution that we watched does threaten the foundations of democracy. the foundations of our system. and the fact that so many in my party are willing to be silent, are complicit, are enabling it, adds very much to the peril. because it's a very dangerous place for the country to be. >> i was discussing with an older friend the subject of our documentary tonight, the erosion of american democracy. the continued undermining of basic rule of law and respect for facts. "stay sane," he said to me, then alluding to that famous quote that shamed joe mccarthy in 1954, my friend said, "somebody has to sit up and say, at long last, have you no decency? on the other hand," my friend said, "somebody has to be listening when he says it." the thing is, a bunch of spokes have been saying this. journalists, politicians, conservative republicans that you heard from tonight. terrified about the end of the american experiment. they have been shouting, have you no decency at trump. and the problem is, trump has answered. and the answer is no. he does not. and his supporters do not seem to care. and if the vast majority of republican elected officials do care, as they should, well -- they're not acting that way. that orders fresh beans for you. oh, genius! for more breakthroughs like that- i need a breakthrough card. like ours! with 2.5% cash back on purchases of $5,000 or more. plus unlimited 2% cash back on all other purchases. and with greater spending potential, sam can keep making smart ideas- a brilliant reality! the ink business premier card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. with the new straight talk multiline plan... ...more lines mean more savings. get unlimited data, talk and text for just $25 dollars a line ...all on nationwide 5g. plus, no hidden fees. no contracts. no compromises. that's the straight talk talki'' from straight talk. available at walmart and walmart.com. yes, i need a trim. i just want to be able to cut the damage. we tried dove instead. so, still need that trim? oh my gosh! i am actually shocked i don't need a haircut. don't trim daily damage. stop it with dove. ♪ hit it ♪ ♪ it takes two to make a thing go right ♪ ♪ it takes two to make it outta sight ♪ ♪ one, two, get loose now ♪ ♪ it takes two to make a... ♪ stay two nights and get a $ 50 best western gift card. book now at bestwestern.com. julian's about to learn that free food is a personal eating trigger. no, it isn't. (sigh) yes, it is. and that's just a bit of psychology julian learned from noom weight. sign up now at noom.com. ♪ i'm currently out of the office... focusing on a little blue-sky thinking. i'll be taking meetings... with family and friends. and checking voicemail... as my activities permit. i'll connect with you... after reconnecting with me. ♪ get 1.9% apr for 36 months plus $1,500 purchase allowance on a 2024 xt5 and xt6 when you finance through cadillac financial. ♪ welcome to "the whole story." i'm anderson cooper. former president donald trump