Jan. 6 hearings: Day 8 details Trump's refusal to stop Capitol riot

At the last hearing, the Jan. 6 committee showed a brief clip of former Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia, a renowned Washington, D.C. lawyer and son of the late Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. Why — I wondered aloud to some of my Maddow Show colleagues — would Scalia have been asked for testimony unless there was some Cabinet-wide effort to intervene with Trump?

Indeed, tonight, the committee revealed that there were such efforts, and Scalia, in his respectful, gentlemanly way, seems to have been the ringleader. While he testified that he considered resigning in the wake of Jan. 6, he felt obligated “to stay the ship” in the waning days of the Trump administration. If he resigned, he would lose any ability to help stabilize the nation. So after consulting with Cipollone and Pence, Scalia wrote to the president on Jan. 8 and requested that he convene an “immediate” Cabinet meeting.

Scalia’s memo, while delicate, was also stark. Not only would a Cabinet meeting be a “natural” and “fitting exercise of presidential Leadership” following the “deeply disturbing” attack, but it would allow Trump to assure the Cabinet that he would no longer question the validity of the election and would commit to an orderly transition of power. Scalia also urged Trump to reduce “the role of certain private citizens” — ahem, Giuliani, Powell, and others — “who, respectfully, have served you poorly with their advice.” Yet for as much as Scalia coated his memo in politesse and gratitude for Trump’s treatment of Scalia’s mother and family, its rebuke of Trump’s inflammatory rhetoric was clear. 

To no one’s surprise, Scalia does not seem to have gotten his meeting.

One of the most frequent complaints from Trump World and the House Republican Conference is that there is no cross-examination of Jan. 6 committee witnesses. Things would be different if there were real Republicans alongside Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, they claim.

Well, Cheney had a perfect response to those grumbles:

"And for those of you who seem to think the evidence would be different if Republican Leader McCarthy had not withdrawn his nominees from this committee, let me ask you this: Do you really think Bill Barr is such a delicate flower that he would wilt under cross examination? Pat Cipollone? Eric Herschmann?  Jeff Rosen? Richard Donoghue? Of course not — none of our witnesses are."

If anything, cross-examination would likely show those witnesses sticking by their guns even in the face of whatever wild non sequiturs or conspiracy theories or whataboutism was thrown their way. But this way was definitely better.

It was a struggle for White House staff to convince Trump to deliver a video to the public on Jan. 7, 2021. But footage that the committee has obtained shows that it was a struggle for Trump to even deliver that speech.

Parts of it were, frankly, laugh out loud funny as the former president stumbled over the words written for him. “Yesterday is a hard word for me,” he declared at one point. Other parts were more sinister, including his refusal to admit defeat even after what had occurred less than 24 hours beforehand. 

“But this election is now over,” Trump read from the teleprompter. “Congress has certified the results — I don’t want to say the election is over. I just want to say ‘Congress has certified the results’ without saying the election is over, okay?”

That was how he felt after watching his supporters storm the Capitol, and it’s how he still feels today as he continues to try to somehow un-lose the 2020 election. The election isn’t over for Trump and never will be, which may be the biggest reason to keep him from running again in 2024. 

Matthew Pottinger, a former Marine and respected defense policy analyst before he joined the Trump administration to serve as its deputy national security adviser, is not inclined toward theatrics. So, when he testified that the destabilizing effects of Jan. 6 were not entirely domestic, he cannot be dismissed.

“When you have a presidential transition, even under the best circumstances, it’s a time of vulnerability,” Pottinger testified. “I was certainly concerned that some of our adversaries would be tempted to probe or test U.S. resolve.” 

Indeed, he cited a December 2020 attack on the U.S. embassy in Baghdad by Iranian proxies as evidence that America’s adversaries were eager see how we’d respond. Although no similarly kinetic attacks on U.S. assets followed the events of Jan. 6, that does not mean they were harmless to our interests abroad.

“Our national security was harmed in a different way by the sixth of January,” Pottinger said. The riot and the presidential agitation that precipitated it provided “ammunition” to America’s adversaries abroad to claim that “our system doesn’t work.”

Pottinger further noted that some representatives of America’s allies reached out to express their concerns about the “health” of the American republic, a testament to their declining faith in the stability of the globe’s sole hegemony and its leading liberal democracy. That assessment from a patriot and public servant cannot be so easily dismissed.

Trump only begrudgingly told his violent supporters to leave the Capitol after it became apparent that the attack at the Capitol would not be successful and that the electoral count would be certified. Members of Congress were safe and the military was ready to go. 

Words matter. Once Trump did speak to his supporters, let’s note the first thing he said. It wasn’t that the violence must stop. It was that the election was stolen. The leader of the free world then wandered his way towards a statement that the rioters should go home, but not before he thanked them and told them they were special.  

After all we have heard over the course of these hearings, it is worth asking what Trump would have said if it looked like the insurrection might be successful.

At its base, Jan. 6 is a tale of Americans’ obsession with winning — or at least, not losing — and how Trump’s refusal to accept defeat festered into a critical wound to our democracy.

As Sarah Matthews testified, even those White House staffers who believed Trump’s tweets that afternoon were insufficient and akin to “pouring gasoline on a fire” fell prey to this political fixation with victory: How can we avoid giving the other side a win?

Matthews, however, rejected that framing. Pointing at the TV, where the Capitol attack was well underway, she asked her colleagues, “Does that” — meaning the violence and chaos unfolding on the screen — “look like we’re effing winning?” For Matthews, Team America took precedence over Team Trump. But some of her colleagues, including those who shared her view that the election was long over and that the attack was an abomination, still could not see past the usual spin.

I remember when I first saw Trump’s video tweet on Jan. 6 telling his supporters to go home. The contrast between the violence that was unfolding and the president’s mild, friendly tone was jarring, as was his repeating of the lies that caused the attack in the first place.

It was clear then too that those were Trump’s own words, rather than a speech that had been prepared by his staff. The Jan. 6 committee revealed tonight that there was a speech prepared for him, one that he chose to ignore. Here’s what it said: “I urge all my supporters to do exactly as 99.9% of them have already been doing — express their passions and opinions peacefully. My supporters have a right to have their voices heard, but make no mistake — NO ONE should be using violence or threats of violence to express themselves. Especially at the U.S. Capitol. Let’s respect our institutions. Let’s all do better. I am asking you to leave the Capitol Hill region NOW and go home in a peaceful way.”

The difference between those words and the raw footage of Trump shooting his video the committee unveiled tonight couldn’t be starker. Trump was in no way upset about the violence that his supporters had delivered — he wanted them to stay upset about his election loss.