Good monday morning, everyone. It is 8 00 a. M. Here on the east coast, 5 00 a. M. Out west. So happy to have Victor Blackwell with me this week. Glad to be here. Good weekend . Very good. We have a lot to get to. Breaking overnight, helicopters collide while fighting wildfires in california. Three People Killed including a fire chief. An investigation now underway. Plus, thousands of beyonce concertgoers forced to take shelter as severe storms swept through d. C. How much her tour spent to keep metro trains running. And simone biles is back. Blowing away the competition after a twoyear hiatus. This hour of cnn this morning starts right now. This is where we begin this morning. Donald trump just hours away from a crucial deadline in the 2020 election interference case. A federal judge has ordered him to respond to special counsel jack smiths request for a protective order by 5 00 today. Smith is trying to block trump from disclosing evidence and making Public Comments that could intimi
seven-point plan to stay in power at all costs, even though he knew biden won a fair election. this is the mob that trump assembled. you re seeing the video once again according to the committee s republican vice chair, republican liz cheney, previously unseen body cam footage shows an officer under attack by insurrectionists. we also heard testimony from people very close to donald tr trump. i had three discussions with the president that i can recall. i made it clear i did not agree with the idea of saying the election was stolen and putting out this stuff, which i told the president was bullshit, and you know, i didn t want to be a part of it, and that s one of the reasons that went into me deciding to leave when i did. how did that affect your perspective about the election when attorney general barr made that statement? it affected my perspective. i respect attorney general barr. so i accepted what he was saying. no surprise that trump s response to this testimon
Argument that trump s lawyer was trying to siet up, saying, i wa specifically asked. and i wasn t asked for a pause. no, that s right. so this is just bluster on the part of trump s team and, you know, that s to be expected, because channeling the candidate. but although pence is becoming more aggressive in his language about the former president s actions ahead of january 6th, dana asked him specifically, can you say you won t vote for him if he s the nominee? and he wouldn t say, no, i m not going to vote for him. now, maybe that s, whell, aisle going to be nominee of the party, but why can t you draw that line? that line would seem to be fundamental. if someone s been indicted or tried to overturn an election in the united states of america, if that s not a deal breaker, what is. but we also all understand that they re trying to win a republican nomination. trump is still popular. 37% of republicans would support him no matter what. and all of these candidates are trying to
He has denied this. he tweeted this, the notion that i ever sought a presidential pardon for myself or other members of congress is an absolute shameless and soulless lie. your response to that? i suppose you re saying it s not a lie. whell, i, again, i m going t let the evidence be unfolded in its proper order, but when i saw that, i was reminded of minority leader, republican leader kevin mccarthy who said what a vicious lie that he had ever called to the president to resign and it was just an hour later that the audio tapes were released, so i think we ll let the evidence unfold in an orderly way. but this notion that this accusation that republican members of congress were seeking pardons, what does that suggest? there are folks who were commenting afterwards that what this suggests is that there was a i guess a knowledge on the part of some of these members