Blockbuster new reporting in this yet to be released report bears that out and adds to our understanding of the horrors of January 6th including the new detail that trumps white House Counsel expected trump to be charged with a crime, sedition, on that day. In the new book we learn more about the extreme pressure campaign. Donald trump exerted upon his Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the will of The American people on January 6th. They write this, quote, trump called pence, who was spending the morning at his naval Observatory Residence before heading to the capitol. Pence again explained the legal limits on his authority as Vice President and said he planned to perform his ceremonial duty as prescribed by the constitution. But trump showed no mercy. Quote, you dont have the courage to make a hard decision, he told pence. Its a sentiment he repeated even as the crowds turned violent with the threat mounting. The excerpt says this, quote, as rioters marauded through the capitol, i
Election, that he was thinking about those things in the runup to the election itself, that he was talking about what he would do, how he would resign, how others would resign. having those contingencies in place tells you a lot of people in the government, the trump administration, knew the threat that was sitting in the oval office, and yet they all struggled with how to stop it. how to constrain donald trump. obviously a lot of enablers, mark meadows, rudy giuliani, great reporting in the book about their role in encouraging some of his worst impulses but none speaks to the health of our democracy. it further illustrates how the constitution is just a piece of paper. the people who are entrusted with these positions of power it s up to them to carry our system forward and whether the person at the top of our government was going to do that.
The department of justice is engaged in one of the largest investigations they ve ever undertaken and certainly there are some excerpts from this book that are remarkable. and i think that jeremy s right. ultimately the institutions held, but barely. mark milley had a plan for resigning himself and then have generals resign if he was asked to use the military for personal reasons. they had to threaten trump with his own resignation, who would then have a press conference to explain that donald trump s ros his children and rudy giuliani amounted to obstruction of justice. now they held and there were
Of representatives cannot take an election from the american people. and then when you re done making sure that s not the case, you need to make sure that in georgia, is able to be the arbiter of the results, in texas that is the election system, the trump wing of the republican party has gone state by state and has been successful in 22 states. that part of our conversation is to be continued. thank you so much for starting us off on this mind blowing new reporting. eli is sticking around. much more from the book including the crisis that we ve been talking about, that trump ignited or tried to ignite at the pentagon, the chairman of the joint chiefs reportedly feared a coup aimed at keeping trump in power. just how close did it get? plus, as we learn more about trump s role, the committee moves forward with leader ken
Here is more from i alone can fix it. quote, what they re trying to do here is overturn the government, milley s friend told him. this is all real, man. you are one of the few guys standing between us and some really bad stuff. according to the book, as trump continued to push the big lie, milley grew more anxious. he was so worried, in fact, that trump would use the military in an attempted coup that he spoke to his closest deputies about preparing to guard against it and said, quote, they may try but they re not going to succeed. the nation s top military officer, believing the nation was on the brink of an historic crisis is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends. retired u.s. army general barry mccaffrey is here, former national security council member, now lucky for us an msnbc military analyst. also joining us retired u.s. navy admiral james stavridis, former naval