Senator amy klobuchar, thank you for joining us. Appreciate it and sorry for what you had to go through tonight, today and tonight lawrence, this is not about us. No way. This is what our country has been going through for four years. Senator klobuchar, tahank yo for joining us. Appreciate it. Thank you. As you can see, the house is still voting. That was the screen that you had up there but it looks like the republican vote count in favor of those objections is going to be less than what it was indicated yesterday. If you add the not voting republicans to the yes column right now, that would bring it up to 131. There was over 140 said they would vote yes for the on squ n objections so the subpoepport f the house and senate seems to be
diminishing. Msnbc coverage continuing, live coverage of the situation in the capitol tonight continues now with my colleague brian williams. Well, good evening. Thank you, lawrence. Please dont go anywhere. Im coming right back to you after i say that day 1448 of the Trump Administration was disgraceful and dark and sad and humiliating and embarrassing for our country because an angry mob took over the u. S. Capitol with seeming ease as to how this dark day we all witnessed in our country has affected the business at hand, the business we started watching early this afternoon before this happened, before a mob took over the center of our government. Thats where my friend laurwren comes in. For people who have been not entirely dialled into the coverage tonight, can you tell us the state of may between the
two houses of congress and how todays mob has affected tonights vote . Well, weve already seen that it cut in half the support for what they wanted. They went up to that capitol today insisting basically that people vote in favor of these on sque objections and in pure vote terms what they accomplished was a stronger vote against what they wanted. A stronger vote against the exceptions six senators switching their positions, republican senators and voting against these objections to the electoral vote count and brian, as you know, in order for these objections to be considered, they have to be supported by a member of the house and a member of the senate and for a while, for several days, it looked like there would be members of the
house who would raise objections but there were no members of the senate willing to come forward to support an objection until senator holly came forward and said he would support an objection and that of course, activated senator cruz who thinks if hes going to be running against senator holly four years from now for a republican president ial nomination, he better have this credential going, too, and expanded it to a group of 12 or 13 republican senators who planned to support these objections. At the literally at the end of the day tonight when they got to the vote, half of those republicans abandoned their plan to vote in effect for anarchy in our election, in effect to vote against the votes cast by americans in their voting booths and in the mail this year and were seeing, well get the final vote count in the house but it looks like there has been
diminished support for these on squ objections in the house tonight this is a case and weve seen this before in the world of violent protest and invasion, this kind of thing where the people doing this managed to actually turn the effect of it against themselves and what they wanted. On top of the colossal feat handed last night. Thanks for your extraordinarily shift and the broadcast just completed that i watched all of, tank you for sticking around for an extra minute to help explain just what it is were witnessing tonight. We ask the same of our correspondent Garrett Haake who remains on capitol hill. Youve been inside the Russell Senate office building, the oldest of the three, which is kind of kittycorner from the
senate corner of the u. S. Senate. What can you tell us about the environment around capitol hill right now . Its been a surreal night all the way through, brian. I can tell you that the police and npd and alphabet soup of law enforce 789cement agency haves control. Fbi and secret Service Counter assault teams have been here. Wonder where they were earlier today but when they first let us back into the capitol a few hours ago, an incredibly striking scene, super official damage but damage done theless in the rotunda in statutory hall and the crypt. If youve been on a tour to washington d. C. Youve been to the places and patrolled by Counter Assault teams i suspect will be with us for the duration tonight. These lawmakers spent time locked down maybe six hours or so in not very large rooms all
together in a time of a pandemic that is still going on and were just powering through at this point, brian. I think the air has probably gone out of the senate objectors like lawrence was just saying but we could still be in this for another couple hours on whats been an absolutely bizarre day. Garrett, hang in there. If there is news, well come back to you. Thank you for hanging out to talk to us. Back to claire mcelderccaskill. Senator from missouri. Forgive me, i put your home state in front of mine, which i also live in once. Let me ask you a very basic question, claire, that is this can ythis can you believe in the chamber you once served they were sweeping up broken glass, some of the desks have been gone through in the chamber and when mike pence sat down tonight to start the proceedings, the last
person that sat in that chair was a member of a mob who had broken into the capitol. Yeah. That was the hardest thing to watch. A close second is watching someone walk through the halls proudly displaying on a flag pole the Confederate Flag. I dont think a Confederate Flag has been inside the capitol for many years, for all the right reasons, and keep in mind whats most astounding about this is that we dont know how many of these people were armed. Many of them could have been armed. Because there was absolutely obviously no screening. This was a breaking and entering, an unauthorized entry but dozens and what i am very hopeful i am still, i mean, nicole and i have actually
discussed this off camera, where is the Law Enforcement briefing . I mean, youve covered so many events, brian, where there has been National Consequences involving the breaking of law. How often have we gone this long without anyone in Law Enforcement authority having some kind of briefing for the press . We have not even been told who shot the woman who died. We dont know if it was another protester for sure or if it was a police officer, what the circumstances were, what she was doing. Where are, you know, it is just inexplicable to me were not getting some kind of official briefing about what happened and what steps theyve taken to make sure it not going to happen again. Claire, two points on that point, number one, i think by one way of looking at it, we were probably lucky today. Why . Once the flood gates opened to the capitol, once it was clear, there was a free flow of
civilians through the halls. You could in a free country with a Second Amendment have driven a long gun across the river from virginia into the u. S. Capitol. I parish the thought and shutter at the thought but i think in a way we were probably fortunate. Number two, weve learned tonight the death toll from today is four. One because of the shooting. Three because of unrelated Health Emergencies during the midst of this and finally, to your point, you are absolutely right. Normally, we would have homeland security, metropolitan police, park service, Capitol Police, the fbi and so on and so on and so forth in a line at a News Conference briefing the news media. I cannot for the life of me understand the silence thats got to be who would put such an
order out on Something Like that . Well, obviously, someone is afraid to begin to give any more seriousness to this. I hate to think that. I would think Christopher Wray or the acting attorney general, and this is the thing that people need to understand. District of colombia is a little different. You know, federal government does not have jurisdiction on quote unquote garden variety crime. The u. S. Attorneys office and the department of justice typically only has jurisdiction on a very limited number of Crimes Involving more than one state. Because the district of colombia is not a state, in fact, the department of justice has complete Law Enforcement authority within the district so if you commit a burglary in the district of colombia, youre prosecuted by the disinstruct of columbia doj personnel as
opposed to a local prosecutor. So thats why its the doj has not stepped forward because they will the police with nofelony crimes. Final question is about josh holly and i was on the air with you earlier when you explained you have endeavored very carefully over the last couple months not to be personal at all about senator holly but here is a guy with degrees from stanford, yale law school, clerked for the Supreme Court justice. Hes not dumb. Here is a guy who made a sizable bet and put all of his chips on running for president in 2024 further that he wants this to be his base. This is the hill he wants to die
on. He has doubled down on that after a day of violence tonight in the senate chamber. What is the chance, claire, that he has terribly miscalculate . Well, we can only hope, you know, all of us are a little concerned because i think most of us would have never predicted that donald trump number one would get elected president , number two, would in fact, burro his way into the hearts of so Many Americans with his lies. So i dont think we should take for granted that this is a deal breaker for josh holly. Listen, im the last person to krit siesz criticize ambition. I think everybody should have a little ambition. Nothing wrong with that. This is a man who has only lived in missouri eight years since he went to high school. Went to a prep school then he
went to stanford, then he went to teach over at oxford in england and then went to law school then he clerked in the Supreme Court, worked for big firms out in d. C. And when he ran for attorney general, he said that he was not running for one office to turn around and use it to return for another and literally two years later he was running for the quiunited state senate. He hadnt even been sworn in the United States senate and hes running for president. Youre supposed to want to take a time out and serve and do your job. This is a guy whose ambition has over ridden, i think, the heart of a public servant. Judging from social media today alone, the picture of him with clinched fists held aloft is now for better or worse going to become the defining photograph of young senator holly and number two, hes about
to intimately get to know the men and women of the Lincoln Project it would appear. Fair warning to all those on that list. Claire mcelderccaskill, former senator. Thank you for hanging out after a long day, journey into tonight to be part of our coverage tonight. With that we bring in phil rucker for the Washington Post who is of course, among our political analysts. Phil, i want to show the good folks watching at home the front page of your newspaper for tomorrow by my count, 14 separate by lines on page 1, two of our best friends are solo by lines at the bottom of the page. Ashley parker and phil rucker. The day american democracy was brought to the brink. That caught my breath when i read it. There had to come a time late this afternoon on deadline when
you put your thoughts together and your reporters notebook and sat down at a keyboard. What was that like to try to do what most of us have all day, if not several days to do and sum up what you just witnessed happen to your capitol and country . Brian, it was a remarkable day and i spent it almost entirely here in my home in washington and i could hear the sirens out the window as police all afternoon were rushing up to the capitol and, you know, my assignment began to write about the theater of the day. I was going to write about the spectacle of the president leading this rally outside the white house and then cruz and holly and some republican senators going through these performative motions in the senate to object to the Election Results but of course, we knew what the outcome would be. Never did i imagine there would be a mob, rioters storming the capitol vandalizing pelosis
office. I spent part of the afternoon intervening historians. Has there ever been a time like this in history . The answer was no. The closest parallel is the secession that led to the civil war in the 1860s and so this is a dark day. It one that trump has had coming. We should keep in mind that trump dating back to his 2016 president ial campaign has encouraged his supporters to express themselves politically through physical demonstration and violence in some cases. He has refused to condemn white sup preliminar preliminary s and he said to the proud boys to stand down and stand back to be ready, basically. To give them an invitation to act in a moment like this. What do you think happens to washington overnight and into tomorrow . What do you think the 7th of january, a new day dawning will bring . We would hope, brian, it would bring some truth, some facts. I agree about the call for a briefing. There is very Little Information that we have about what happened today and i think there is a real desire on the part of the public and certainly some of the public leaders to have accountability for what happened here, but i also dont know that the violence is going to be over. All those people who are at the capitol are now out in the city streets. They might be staying in hotels here or airbnbs overnight. Well see what they have planned tomorrow. Well see what the president has planned tomorrow. Hes kicked off twitter for 12 hours but those 12 hours are going to be up and at some point overnight hes going to be able to share his message with the world and i dont know what thats going to be. My reporting in the last couple of hours with people, you know,
in and around the white house suggest that the president is in a very, very fragile mental state right now. He is not taking well to whats happening. He feels betrayed by his Vice President mike pence and has become maen complaining about h day long feeling like hes been stabbed in the back by pence. This is by people familiar with the president s thinking and a lot of Administration Officials are uncertain what he might do tomorrow when the sunrises. Phil, so many questions are going to be asked about security. So many questions are going to be asked about the u. S. Capitol police and i know the hill per se is not your beat, but any of us who have spent any amount of time in washington have had encounters, most of them cordial with the police except when a guy like Mitch Mcconnell goes home to kentucky for the weekend. The officers with him on the
airplane. The officers driving the suv to pick him up at the other end of the airport are also Capitol Police that have the responsibility for protection of the leadership. Where do you think the questions will begin first . After all, the president advertised this gathering weeks ago. The president exhorted his followers in his speech to make the 1. 5mile walk, the length of pennsylvania avenue, though not breaking and entering at the other end but exhorted to make that march to the capitol. These are questions the Capitol Police will have to answer why they werent better prepared for the moment and crowd. We as news organizations were prepared for mass demonstrations downtown and near the capitol and white house today. It was clear it was being organized online. It was being encouraged by the president for days now begging
supporters to all descend on washington on january 6th for this very moment and yet, this did not appear to be the Law Enforcement presence around the capitol to fortify that building. We should keep in mind some of the big vents we have in washington, inaugurations, you know, other resources that augment the support of the Capitol Police. You see other mpolice forces there for big vents. It unclear what other agencies if any were involved in helping protect the capitol before the rioting began but clearly, it was not enough because those protesters and rioters were able to breach the barricades and reach the capitol and occupy the house senate and chamber and let free and many of them were shown the door and not arrested on their way out. It was certainly not the way authorities handled some of the black lives matter protests
during the sup r of lammer of l and thats another round of questions and investigations to come. In fact, im told Garrett Haake is still monitoring our conversati conversation. Garrett, they are not known as among the more muscular misforces of all the alphabet soup of organizations that work in the district. Most of us journalists who come in and out of the capitol, your encounter with the Capitol Police when you enter and god forbid your camera tripod is over that invisible line on a night like state of the union, theyll come along and mpolice that but thats about it. This is the definition of a major event for them. Reporter thats right. Capitol police are used to dealing with protest and people that are compliant. I think back to some of the big protests ive covered on capitol hill around the kavanaugh
confirmation when you had large groups of protestors in the Senate Office buildings, you know, occupying Senate Offices, those protesters were peaceful and when they were done, they were done. You know, they allowed themselves in many ca