upholds his faith, his duty and upholds the constitution and mike pence is not a traitor to this country. he's a patriot. and he and his family who was with him that day didn't deserve this, didn't deserve a president unleashing a mob on them especially because he was just doing his job. as this was unfolding and the crowd grew more violent, the president, of course, was not alone at the white house, and the people closest to him, his family and advisers who saw this unfolding in real time begged him, implored him to stop the attack. an aide to mark meadows, the president's chief of staff, urged his boss to go see the president say, quote, they are going to kill people. they're going to kill people. that's what those around president trump feared, and still nothing. it wasn't until 2:38 p.m., nearly two hours after the start of the siege that donald trump even acknowledged the attack. and when he finally did acknowledge the attack here's what he said. on the right you will see what had been happening prior to that tweet and as he sent the tweet, and on the left you'll see exactly what he tweeted. ? >> i'm going to stop you there for just one moment. we want to bring in congressional correspondent chad program, i understand the capitol is now lockdown? >> get out! >> let's go! >> they're definitely fired up. the chant, by the way, i heard the most was "fight for trump" and that's clearly what many of them feel they're doing. >> hold the line! ♪ the land of the free ♪ >> that's what our president saw unfolding in real time broadcast all over television and this is what he tweeted at 2:38 p.m., quote, please support our capitol police and law enforcement. they are truly on the side of our country. stay peaceful. much has been made of the fact that in this tweet he says stay peaceful. senators, stay peaceful? think about that for a second. these folks were not peaceful. they were breaking windows, pushing through law enforcement officers, waving the flag as they invaded this capitol building. this was a violent, armed attack. stay peaceful? how about stop the attack? stop the violence! stay peaceful? how about you say immediately leave. stop. and he said please support our law enforcement. how about he actually support our law enforcement by telling these insurgents to leave the capitol immediately which he never did. he didn't because the truth is he didn't want it to stop. he wanted them to stay and to stop the certification. his failure had grave and deadly consequences. by 2:45 p.m., the warnings were tragically proven correct. ashley babbitt was shot by an officer as she tried to break through a glass door to reach speaker's lobby. at this point the pleas to donald trump publicly and privately grew even more desperate. at 2:54 p.m. alisa farrah, a former strategic communications director begged the president, quote, condemn this now. you're the only one they will listen to, for our country. mick mulvaney, the president's former chief of staff, his right-hand man at one point tweeted at 3:01, the president's tweet is not enough. he can stop this now and needs to do exactly that. tell these folks to go home! he can stop this now. tell these folks to go home. at 3:06 p.m. ret mccarthy appeared on fox news. here's what he said. >> i could not be sad are or more disappointed with the way our country looks at this very moment. people are getting hurt. anyone involved in this is hearing me, hear me very loud and clear. this is not the american way. >> he is saying on fox news which the president watches, this is not the american way. stop the attack. representative gallagher at 11 -- 3:11 p.m. while secured in his own office posted a video to twitter. >> mr. president, you have got to stop this. you are the only person who can call this off. call it off. >> and then when the president didn't answer his pleas on twitter, representative gallagher went on live television. >> this is insane. i mean -- i -- i've not seen anything like this since i deployed to iraq in 2007 and 2008. this is america and this is what's happening right now. we need -- the president needs to call it off. like, call it off. call it off. >> representative gallagher you see there said he had not seen anything like this since he was deployed in iraq. the message around the president was clear from everyone, you need to call this off. stop it, but does he? no. his next tweet was not until about 3:13 p.m. once again, it's important to consider what was happening between donald trump's 2:38 p.m. tweet and his next tweet at 3:13 p.m. you'll see footage from the attack during this time on the right and donald trump's tweet on the left. >> we've been informed that protesters have penetrated the capitol. >> it's my [ expletive ] building. >> hey, we have a [ expletive ] attitude problem. >> the sentiment in the streets is spinning out of control. this is getting violent and this is dangerous. >> this is america! >> get the [ expletive ] out of here! >> move! go! >> go! no! >> go! [ screaming ] >> this isn't ten minutes into the insurrection. this isn't just after his speech earlier that day. that's what our commander in chief saw happening and that was his response. you'll notice one of the things he says to his mob, to these insurrectionists, rather than to stop or to leave was to say thank you. thank you. thank you for what? thank you for shattering the windows and destroying property? thank you for injuring more than 140 police officers? thank you for putting in danger all of our lives and the lives of our families? how about instead of thank you, donald trump on that day acted like our commander in chief and stopped this as only he could and told those people to leave? and here's what former governor chris christie, his very good friend said after that tweet. >> pretty simple. the president caused this protest to occur. he's the only one that can make it stop. what the president says is not good enough. the president has to come out and tell his supporters to leave the capitol grounds and to allow the congress to do their business peacefully and anything short of that is an abrogation of his responsibility. >> he's right. chris christie is right. we know how donald trump acts on twitter and otherwise when he has a message to convey. in fact, i ask you to remember those tweets earlier this morning when he yelled on twitter, stop the count! when he wanted to incite his supporters to show up on january 6th, president trump tweeted 16 times between midnight on january 5th and his noon rally speech the next day. 16 times to get them to do something he wanted, and his message in those 16 times was clear. fight. stay strong, be strong, but when the violence started, he never once said the one thing everyone around him was begging him to say. stop the attack. he refused to stop it. and as governor christie and representative kinzinger and others made clear, only donald trump could have stopped that attack. >> you know, a guy that knows how to treat aggressively on twitter puts out one of the weakest statements in american history because his ego won't let him admit defeat. >> he was not just our commander in chief. he had incited the attack. the insurgents were following his commands and we saw when they read aloud this tweet attacking the vice president, and they confirmed this during the attack, too. >> there is a [ expletive ] million of us out there. >> senators, ask yourself this, how easy would it have been for the president to give a simple command, a simple instruction just telling them "stop." leave. this was a dereliction of duty, plain and simple, and it would have been for any president who had done that. and that brings me to my next point. you heard from my colleagues that when planning this attack the insurgents predicted that donald trump would command the national guard to help them and there's a lot that we don't know yet about what happened that day, but here's what i do know. donald trump did not send help to these officers who were badly outnumbered, overwhelmed and being beaten down. two hours into the insurrection, by 3:00 p.m., president trump had not deployed the national guard or any other law enforcement to help despite multiple pleas to do so. president donald trump was, at the time, our commander in chief of the united states of america. he took a solemn oath to preserve, protect and defend this country and he failed to uphold that oath. in fact, there's no indication that president trump had ever called to deploy the guard or had anything to do with the guard when it ultimately was. the guard had been activated and listed the people he spoke with prior to this activation including vice president mike pence, speaker pelosi, leader mcconnell, senator schumer and representative hoyer, but that list did not include the president. this omission of his name was reportedly not accidental. according to reports, quote, trump initially rebuffed requests to mobilize the national guard and required interference by other officials including his own white house counsel, and later, quote, as a mob of trump supporters breached police barricades and seized the capitol, trump reportedly was, quote, disengaged in discussions with pentagon leaders about deploying the national guard to aid the overwhelmed u.s. capitol police. president trump was reportedly, and i quote, completely and totally out of it. he made no attempt to reach the national guard, and it was vice president pence, still under the threat for his life, who reportedly spoke to the guard. president trump's conduct confirms this, too. at no point on january 6th did donald trump even reference the national guard. the only thing that we heard connecting the president to the guard was from his press secretary who tweeted about the guard being deployed at the president's direction over half an hour later at 3:36 p.m., and we have seen what donald trump does when he tries to take credit for something, and yet, even when the national guard was finally deployed he didn't even acknowledge it. in fact, he didn't say a word about the national guard the entire day. think about that. the bloodiest attack we've seen on our capitol since 1812, and our president couldn't be bothered to even mention that help was on its way. these insurgents had been attacking our government for over four hours at that point and we may have been the target, but it was the brave men and women who protect our capitol who were out there combatting thousands of armed insurgents in a fight for their lives and that's who donald trump left entirely unprotected. >> hold the line! hold the line! >> push! >> hold the line! let's go! [ expletive ] traitors! >> this is hard to watch, but i think it's important we understand what the capitol police were facing, how severely they were outnumbered while our commander in chief whose job it was to protect and defend them was just watching dog nothing for hour, refusing to send help. if he wanted to protect these officers, if he cared about their safety as he tweeted about, he would have told his supporters to leave. he would have sent help right away, and one brave officer was killed. others took their lives after the attack. more than 140 police officers were injured including cracked ribs, smashed spinal discs. one officer will lose an eye. another was stabbed with a metal fence stake. they were completely and violently overwhelmed by a mob and needed help and our commander in chief, president trump, refused to send it. senators, you've seen all the evidence so far and this is clear. on january 6th, president trump left everyone in this capitol for dead. for the next hour after president trump's 3:00 p.m. tweet he still did nothing. not until 4:17 p.m. over three and a half hours after the violence started did our president send a message finally asking the insurgents to go home. on the right you'll see what happened that day in the hours leading up to his pre-recorded video. on the left, you'll see his message. let's watch. >> i know your pain. i know you're hurt. we had an election that was stolen from us. it was a landslide election, and everyone knows it especially the other side, but you have to go home now. we have to have peace. we have to have law and order. we have to respect our great people in law and order. we don't want anybody hurt. it's a very tough period of time. there's never been a time like this where such a thing happened where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. this was a fraudulent election, but we can't play into the hands of these people. we have to have peace. so go home. we love you. you're very special. you've seen what happens. you see the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. i know how you feel, but go home and go home in peace. >> this is the first time our commander in chief spoke publicly at all since the attack began over the three and a half hours after it started, and these are the entirety of the words the president spoke out loud to the american people or to the attackers that entire day. nowhere in that video, not once did he say i condemn this insurrection. i condemn what you did today. nowhere did he say i'm sending help immediately. stop this. here's what he said instead. i know your pain. i know you're hurt. we had an election that was stolen. even after all of the things we witnessed, even after all of that carnage, he goes out and tells the same big lie. the same big lie that enraged and incited the attack. he repeated this while the attack was ongoing and while we were still under threat, and here's what else he said. go home in peace. we love you. you're very special. senator, you were here. you saw this with your own eyes. you faced that danger. and when president trump had an opportunity to confront them as the leader of us all, as our commander in chief, what did he tell them? we love you. you're very special. this was not a condemnation. this was a message of consolation, of support, of praise. if there is any doubt that his supporters, these insurgents took this as a message of support and praise, watch for yourselves. >> donald trump asked everybody to go home. he just put out a tweet. it's a minute long. he asked everybody to go home. >> why do you think so? because, dude, we won the [ expletive ] day. we [ expletive ] won. >> how did we win? >> we won by sending a message to the senators and the congressmen and sending a message to pence that if they don't do their oath to do, if they don't uphold the constitution then we will remove them from office one way or another. >> i suspect you recognize that man. you'll hear him say that we won the day. who won the day? we know that at least five people lost their lives that day. the house and the senate were in life-threatening danger and so was the vice president and think of everyone else here as well. who won on january 6th? that's not a win for america, but it is a win for donald trump unless we hold him accountable. now a little over an hour after that video the brave members of law enforcement secured the capitol and we as a congress got ready to continue certifying the results of our free and fair election. a half hour after that president trump issued another tweet, in case there was any doubt as to whether he was happy with the people who did this, as to whether he had incited this, he commemorated what happened on january 6th. at 6:01 p.m. on january 6th he tweeted, quote, these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long ending with remember this day forever. my colleague manager cicilline started with this tweet because this tweet shows exactly how donald trump felt about what happened on january 6th. these are the things that happen. he's saying this was foreseeable. he's saying i told you this was going to happen if you certified the election for anyone else, and you got what you deserved for trying to take my power away. great patriots, go home with love and in peace. remember this day forever. he's saying to them, you did good! he's not regretful. he's not grieving. he's not sad. he's not angry about the attack. he's celebrating it. he's commemorating it. this is the entirety of what president trump said to the public once the attack began. five tweets and a pre-recorded video on the day of the most bloody insurrection we faced in generations. our commander in chief who is known for sending 108 tweets in a normal day sent five tweets and a pre-recorded video. that is the entirety of president trump's public statements from when the attack began until he went to bed on january 6th. that's all he did despite all the people we know who begged him to preserve, protect and defend. that was our commander in chief's response. he began the day with, quote, our country has had enough. we will not take it anymore. and that's what this is all about, and he ended the attack letting us know that we got when he forewarned that morning. we will, of course, each of us remember that day forever, but not in the way that president trump intended. not because of the action of these vealent, unpatriotic insurrectionists. i'll remember that day forever because despite president trump's vicious attempts throughout the day to encourage the siege and block the certification, he failed. at 8:06 p.m. the senate gavelled in a session and the counting of the electoral votes continued. about an hour later the house followed suit and close to 4:00 a.m., after spending a significant part of the day evacuated or on the floor or hiding, this great body fulfilled the will of the people and certified the electoral college vote, and i am proud to be proud of congress. i am proud that we ensured that the will of the american people finally prevailed on that day, and i am proud that i and everyone in this room abided by our oath of office even if the president didn't abide by his. president trump, too, took an oath as president. he swore on a bible to preserve, protect and defend and who among us could honestly say they believe that he upheld that oath? and who among us will let his utter dereliction of duty stand? utter dereliction of duty stand? >> mr. president, the managers are prepared to recess for the evening and to finish our opening statement tomorrow. >> mr. president? mr. president? mr. president -- >> majority leader -- >> impeachment rule 16, i make a motion. statements were attributed to me moments ago by the house impeachment managers, statements related to the content of conversations between a phone call involving president trump and senator tuberville were not made by me. they're not accurate and they're contrary to fact, and i move pursuant to rule 16 that they are stricken from the record. >> pursuant to the senate resolution 47, section 4, parties presentations are not limited to the record for section 1 of that resolution. >> mr. president -- >> i couldn't hear what he said. >> i appeal to the chair, mr. president. >> mr. president -- >> mr. president? mr. president? right here. we might as well hear clearly what the ruling of the chair was so if you would repeat that. >> of course, i will. and pursuant to senate resolution 47, section 4, the party's presentations are not limited -- >> there you go. it's on now. >> pursuant to senate resolution 47 section 4, the party's presentations are not limited to the section 1 of that resolution. the senator from -- utah has appealed. that ruling, is that correct? >> yes, i have. >> and the yeas and nays have been requested? >> and what is the question, is it shall the ruling of the chair be sustained? is that the question? >> yes. the ruling of the chair with respect to -- >> what, may i ask, is the ruling of the chair? my point was not whether it's appropriate for them to make characterizations. my point was to strike them because they were false. >> whether the ruling of the chair that senate resolution 47 applies to this situation is correct? >> the question is whether the senate resolution 47, section 4 is correct, the party's presentations are not limited to the record and that resolution. >> mr. president, that is not my motion. you've ruled on a motion and you've ruled on something that was not what i moved. what i asked was, statements were attributed to me repeatedly as to which i have personal knowledge because i am the source. they are not true. i never made those statements. i ask that they be stricken. this has nothing to do with whether or not they're based on depositions, which they're not. it's simply based on the fact that i'm the witness. i'm the only witness. those statements are not true, and i ask that you strike them. >> here, here! >> here, here! >> mr. president? >> mr. president -- >> the yeas and nays were asked for on an appeal. >> mr. president -- the ruling of the chair that this -- >> there's trouble with the mike. i'm sorry. the yeas and nays have been asked. >> the yeas and nays have been asked for. >> let him explain! please let him explain, mr. president. was it false? what was not false? what was false about it? >> i ask unanimous consent -- >> under section 4, the parties' presentation not limited to the record provided for in section 1 of that resolution and that has been appealed. the yeas and nays have been requested, the clerk will call the roll. >> ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso -- >> what are you doing? >> point of clarification. what is the question? >> we're not allowed to here, yes? >> i suggest the absence of a quorum while we work this out. >> objection. the clerk will call the roll. >> ms. baldwin. mr. barrasso. ? let's just explain who happening here. a senator who voted in a manner that suggests he does not believe this trial is legitimate has now stopped everything with a concern about an aspect of a trial that he voted yesterday along with 43 of his republican senate colleagues to de-legitimize. claire mccaskill, you want to help flush out what this is about? >> well, first of all, i think it's important for people to understand that patrick leahy is not making the decision here. this decision is being made by the senators in response to what the parliamentarian decided. the woman who is talking to pat leahy on the chair who is telling him what to say is the parliamentarian of the senate. she is boldly bipartisan. she calls balls and strikes, and what she essentially was saying is that mike lee's motion was out of order because he may be upset that something was said that he doesn't think is true, but the rules don't give him the right to strike it. so he appealed the ruling of the chair so this vote will be on whether to sustain or overturn the ruling of the chair. joe manchin tried to get in there. chuck was trying to call an absence of a quorum. the absence of a quorum is what's done that allows everything to pause for a minute for everyone to talk and figure out what's going on, but really what this was is this is pent-up frustration by those people who are trump loyalists over the powerful presentations that were made today, and they are trying to figure out some way to gloss over the really, this dagger to the heart of their lame excuses for donald trump and the terrorist mob that caused death and destruction in the capitol. it was on lee's part to disrupt everything and this is where it will get tricky if it's 50/50. we'll see what happens here. >> that was the distraction. let's get to the meat and potatoes of the day. they ended the day by quoting republicans, like chris christie and mike gallagher. men who pleaded with donald trump on january 6th to do what only he had the power to do, call it off. stop the insurrection and stop the violence, a truly astonishing day of argument from the prosecution laying out what might have been the most conclusive evidence against him yet showing the time line of his tweets and his movements that as the mob stormed the capitol, killing a police officer and maiming many others, hunting his vice president and the speaker of the house and stalling for hours the certification of the electoral college vote. donald trump never calls it off. never. he loves them. democrats also showed a video for the first time of a trump supporter reading out loud one of trump's tweets, making it perfectly clear how they went the other direction. they added and stoked the rage that the insurrectionists fell as they stormed the capitol. it was a gutting realization coming on the heels of a day of brand-new video evidence that house managers showed all day long revealing to the public for the first time just how perilously close to mortal danger mike pence, nancy pelosi, mitt romney and dozens was other lawmakers and police and the staff came on january 6th. let's bring in to our conversation the woman who is normally your steward for this hour on this network, joy reid. >> how are you? you know, nicole, i have been like everyone else just riveted to this -- to this coverage today. i had a class, my howard university class today so i sort of was an hour behind when i got out of class and came right in to stacy plaskett's presentation followed by eric swalwell's, and i have to tell you because i had it on dvr because i knew i had to teach a class today i rewound it and watched it twice. >> yeah. >> a friend of mine had texted me during it and this was not a political person and this is a regular civilian tweeted me, this is riveting. anyone who watched this coverage today and watched this presentation, this was not -- >> joy, i'm so sorry, congressman raskin -- >> it was cinematic. >> congressman raskin, i don't know if you can see on the screen is back at the microphone. >> we will withdraw this evening and without prejudice to re-submit it if possible, and we can debate it, but this is much ado about nothing because it is not critical in any way to our case. >> you're not the one as the witness, sir, all right? >> so the manager's issue stands. mr. lee has withdrawn his request and we may re-litigate it tomorrow if we have to. i now ask unanimous consent the trial adjourn until 12:00 noon tomorrow thursday, february 11th and this also constitute the adjournment of the senate. >> the objection? without objection. so ordered. the senate stands adjourned. >> and that's our wrap. joy reid, i'm sorry. >> no, that's okay. that's okay. i'm glad to see the end because it does feel that what you two were getting to is that it feels like having watched all of that, cinematic heart-stopping new video that showed just how close speaker pelosi, mitt romney being whisked away just minutes by officer goodman, minutes before he would have been in danger, the senate majority leader, chuck schumer running up a ramp and having to run back down the ramp because the insurrectionists were basically right behind him. the hunting of mike pence which might have been the most jarring part of the presentation as he's literally hiding with his family in a room where he is accessible, where the speaker is accessible and for mike lee to come out and try to distract with all of that with some sort of minor, you know, distraction at the end, i think shows that they understand how powerful this was. for anyone who watched it, it's hard to walk away with the idea that the thing that trump was calling for, stop the steal. that is the case. what do you do to stop what he thinks is the theft of an election he claims he won? they wanted to stop the vote count. they wanted to stop the certification. they wanted to use brute force and maybe even murder. take over the capitol and violently stop the certification of an election donald trump lost because he told this big lie, and the last thing i will say to throw it back to you, nicole, there were a lot of people sitting in that room who told it with him, you know, and if i were the families of josh hawley who unfortunately replaced claire mccaskill in the united states senate and ted cruz i'd be ashamed because they were a part of it. josh hawley was giving the high fist to those murderer, those cop killers. ted cruz, they're in the gallery saying oh, ted cruz is with us. they're accessories to the murders, to the mayhem, to the hunting of the vice president of the united states and by the way, where is the vice president of the united states? you've been asking that, nicole. he was literally hunted like an animal. this was -- i don't know if i've ever seen anything like this in terms of senate testimony ever. >> i have more for you. i think what is so remarkable is for something that happened that you and i covered in realtime on live tv together, something that felt like it happened in full view, they harness so much new evidence and i, like you, am horrified by the video evidence of just how close nancy pelosi and her staff and mitt romney and mike pence and how much danger and abuse, physical and just the terrorism of the attack, the capitol police were subjected to and i don't wonder anything about republicans anymore, but i find it remarkable that they will be on the record as being indifferent to cop killers. they will be indifferent to an assassination attempt against the speaker of the house and vice president mike pence. >> no, you're absolutely right. there was the part when representative plaskett reads this post that a lawyer that one of the insurrectionists reads and they were going after nancy pelosi and they would have ripped her to pieces and this was a lynch mob and i don't know how any of them can sleep at night and face their families and their children and explain after what has basically been a truth, not the reconciliation part, but a truth commission. you know, i doubt that donald trump will be convicted. they'll find a way to tuck their shame away and pretend that this is okay, but we now know. we know, we have seen it viscerally. we have heard the police calling on the radio calling for help. my god brother is a police officer. i can only imagine how terrified these officers were, and donald trump had the power to send the most powerful help, the national guard. the people who helped civil rights leaders in the 1960s. he could have sent that force that we saw in the capitol just festooned around the capitol. he could have sent that. that would have gathered them together if they'd seen that force, but they didn't. they had the capitol police officers and metro police who finally come and you hear the officers say get here now. we are overrun. to see this happen with the schematic of the capitol which you know better than i, claire, and yourself, nicole, most people don't know what the capitol really looks like and having been in it rcently to interview the speaker and i felt it in my gut and you can see the little red dots with the invaders and the blue dots were the people in peril. my heart was pounding watching it. >> it was so harrowing. the other thing that i don't know that we've ever seen play out before us in a video exhibit was the impact of trump's tweets in further inciting violence toward mike pence. that video of the trump supporter saying we got it. we got word from our leader, here's what he says ask he rails on pence and he puts pence in more danger after the insurrection was well under way. >> the time line of the fact that it's happening. the insurgency, our capitol has been breached and he knows this is happening. he's gleeful inside the white house watching it and then he incites more violence against his own vice president. a man, by the way, who took the gig to try to get trump right with the evangelical base. how do any evangelicals look themselves in the mirror knowing that that's the guy who donald trump essentially said if you won't break the law and violate your oath and help me stay in office, stop the steal, meaning just betray your oath and only serve me. that's idolatry, serve me, like i am your god. if you won't do that, he sent his paramilitary after his own v.p. i'm wondering if after this we need prosecution not impeachment. >> that's what trump's own lawyer mr. castor suggested yesterday in a plot twist -- no one saw it coming. stay with me. let me bring into the conversation daniel goldman and claire mccaskill. i cut you off as we were going back in, in this, republican listening to chris christie saying trump needs to call this off. only trump can call this off. has the chain of command over the militia groups. it's clear that chris christie and congressman gallagher know that he may not be acting as the commander in chief of the united states military by advocating his responsibility to call the national guard, but he sure as hell was acting as the commander in chief of the proud boys and the 3 percenters and the people, and mike gallagher that's what he thought. >> the donald trump video was insufficient and he needed to come out more forcefully. there were a lot of people in the moment who were shocked at the lack of reaction and the lack of intervention by the commander in chief donald trump, and that's why it's such powerful evidence because if he truly wanted this to be a peaceful protest, wouldn't he have intervened as a commander in chief once it turned violent? instead, he watched it. he sat there and didn't send the national guard in. there was evidence that he was delighted at what he was watching and at that 6:01 p.m. tweet when he said i told you what's going to happen if you don't listen to me. remember this day forever. it's chilling. it's a mindset that i've only seen in sort of the darkest criminals that i used to prosecute that you would have someone when after what we saw that day that he would have the gall to tweet out i told you this was going to happen. see? don't cross me because you'll end up on the other side of a violent insurrection, but the answer to your question, joy, i think about what, you know, how do they sleep at night? how do the republicans sleep at night is going to be because they are going to try to separate donald trump from the vivid images that we saw at the capitol. they are going to blame the insurrectionists. they will say oh, they went bananas. they went overboard. trump didn't expect it. trump didn't want it, and that's yet bookends to that compelling video from today are so important because the first three hours were basically linking donald trump the first of us who got upstairs kicked in nancy pelosi's door and pushed down the halls towards her inner sanctum, the mob howling with rage. little nancy probably would have been torn into pieces, but she was nowhere to be seen. crazy little nancy. that's trump's nickname for the speaker of the house. >> so these lawyers are not at your level, let's just be honest, they were ranting and raving at their first shot of this, so if they could clean things up and do their homework, how could they possibly make that separation when the rioters, when the insurrectionists are using nicknames for the speaker, and when one of the members are saying that they were essentially crazed with rage and acting like a lynch mob. i don't see how they make that argument. can you even get it in your head how they would construct such an argument? >> i'm a lawyer, and we always can take both sides of things, but they're going to say donald trump said peacefully. he never said, go storm the capitol. they're going to rely very heavily, i think, on hearsay, on the fact that there is no testimony under oath, and they're going to say that donald trump didn't -- he didn't use the explicit words that they should go storm the capitol, and there is no evidence that he knew that they were going to go and turn violent at the capitol. and he ultimately, they'll point to his video later where the next day, i believe, where he did condemn the violence in a much more forceful way. they will pick and choose little pieces of what they want to put forward. they will ignore enormous swaths of the evidence that we saw today. most of this will never be addressed, and they will just try to cherry-pick a couple different things that the republican senators can try to hang their hat on in order to say, this mob was terrible, they should be prosecuted, but donald trump was not there doing it, and he did not tell them to go do it, and they'll just kind of repeat that phrase. but it's a losing argument, as you point out, because of the excellent job that the managers did of weaving this all together. they were clearly acting at the direction of donald trump, and if you have any doubt about that, just ask them. because they will say that, and they did say that, and that's also very powerful evidence that i'm sure they will ignore. >> let me bring back into this part of the conversation specifically our friend neal katia and michael steele, both msnbc contributors. neal, can you just pick up on the totality of the case made today and the evidence presented? and i think liz cheney said it in her vote when she voted to impeach trump, that without donald trump there was no january 6 insurrection. >> exactly. so i think the first half -- the first half was about that, nicolle, and but for trump, this never would have happened. none of the other 44 presidents would have stoked anything like that. and then the defense to that is, well, you couldn't predict what the rioters were going to do and so on. that's where the second half of today, i think, were so important, because what the house managers were saying was it's not just what trump did do, it's what he didn't do. any other president would have said stop, to use castor's words tonight. trump didn't. trump wasn't shy about using his channels, he did, but he did it hour after hour after hour. in the end, i think some viewers were baffled by this, but i think it's rather telling, because as a lawyer, what you don't fight about is as important as what you do. i have two points that i have to make in any argument. what we saw in the end is senator lee raise a procedural objection and say, look, i never said something they're saying i said, so i want it stricken. then senator leahy was very hard to follow, and it looked like senator lee was going to set up a partisan almost 50-50 vote on whether or not his rights were being violated. then you had jamie raskin jump in, the lead house manager, say, we don't need this. we'll withdraw that testimony. we don't need it at all. such a smart, strategic move to keep everyone's eye on the ball, that what happened was a side show. raskin gets it. >> raskin was so impressive. he had a move along those lines yesterday when he literally yielded back 30 minute of rebuttal. he said, i'm good. and michael steele, you noticed the same things i did. i wonder if you could just sort of close out these over eight hours of coverage of what we watched with the truth about what is on the line. there's no suspense. we should not ask what the republicans are going to do. it does not matter. because what is on the line is the truth, and what is on the line is a choice for them to make, maybe with their families, as joy suggests, about whether they're for or against he who incited a cop-killing insurrection that went to assassinate the vice president and speaker, whether they want to hold that person accountable or not. that's it. >> i think that's exactly right, nicolle, and i'm struck by so many things, and two words that pop out to me as you kind of look at the totality of this day, damning and devastating. when anybody looks at you and says, that's damning and devastating, that tells you you have a hole to climb out of if you're on the bottom of that. i think republicans realize that, which is why you saw mike lee just kind of lose it at the end there because he didn't want the stigma. his calculation is, he called me by accident and those words were never said. and to, you know, neal's point, jamie was like, okay, whatever. we're not going to get caught in that crazy loop, we're just not. we're not going to play the game the way the republicans want us to play it. and that is to have a fist fight over something that doesn't matter. because everything before that moment was damning and devastating. and we'll just let that sit on your chest, senator lee. we'll let that sit on your lap, you know, josh hawley, because you're up in the balcony with your legs up. they focused on what's essential here. this was less about, to your point, nicolle, moving the republicans so much as it was letting the country know and exposing the republicans. because we all know what's going to come next. i think dan laid it out perfectly. it was like, okay, they can argue all this and all that, and we know that's where they're going to go, but when it's all said and done, this is the result, because the result is still damning and devastating. and tomorrow it doesn't get any better. >> i was thinking that -- all afternoon that there is no video evidence that shows anyone other than trump supporters. there is no video evidence of anyone standing there reading a tweet from anyone other than trump. there is no video evidence of senators not running for their lives. there is no evidence that proves the opposite, so whatever we see moving forward will be, in the words of kellyanne conway, an alternate reality. or alternative. i forget what her words were. >> alternative facts. >> alternative facts. thank you all for getting us through a herculean day of coverage. our coverage continues with chris hayes. >> nicolle, thank you. good evening to you from new york. i am chris hayes. today in the second impeachment trial of former president donald trump, the impeachment managers laid out a damning and devastating