one year ago today trump supporters from across
the country gathered in the nation's capital to protest congress's certification of
the 2020 presidential election results to use a favorite term that all of you people
really came up with we will stop the steal at a rally near the white house president
trump spoke to a crowd estimated in the thousands everyone from ordinary
americans to conspiracy theorists to members of right-wing extremist groups
we will never give up we will never concede trump repeated the lie that the election
was stolen urging his supporters to march to the capitol and fight you'll never
take back our country with weakness we fight like hell and if you don't fight like
hell you're not going to have a country anymore around 1 pm as trump is wrapping up his remarks
in the park the day turned violent a group of his supporters on the western side of the capitol
confront the handful of police guarding the barriers and force their way through moments after
mr trump finished his more than hour-long speech thousands of protesters streamed from that rally
site and walked this route down pennsylvania avenue directly to the u.s capitol grounds
several people told us that day they expected vice president pence to overturn the 2020 election
results what needs to happen today is vice president pence needs to not open the seven state
electors envelopes for the states that i mentioned set them aside and send it all
back to those state legislatures we're going to stop this deal from happening
because if we don't nobody's ever going to vote again there's not going to be
any integrity in our voting system as the crowd grows clashes between trump
supporters and capitol police officers clearly outnumbered intensified we're not
going to take it anymore this is our country outside the capitol's west front became a
battleground inside the joint session of congress to certify election results was underway
the traditionally ceremonial process is upended by republicans led by representative paul
gosar of arizona and senator ted cruz of texas challenging trump's loss sending lawmakers
to their separate chambers to debate what does it say to the nearly half the country
that believes this election was rigged if we vote not even to consider the claims of illegality
and fraud in this election meanwhile around 2pm the east side barricades are breached here's what
i saw from outside the capitol half an hour ago vehicle barriers that had been set up about
a hundred yards away or so from the capitol were first breached by a group of protesters
capitol hill police retreated a little bit more then hundreds more protesters started to
stream up this walkway in front of the capitol it is a remarkable scene on the west front
the mob tore down scaffolding battled their way through the last line of police defense
and broke into the capitol building itself newshour congressional correspondent lisa
desjardins was inside the building reporting live as it happened judy there are protesters
protesters have now broken into the u.s capitol and it will stand in recess until the call of
the chair the senate was called into recess and evacuated the mob of trump supporters roamed the
historic halls damaging property and searching for lawmakers security footage captured the moment
capitol police officer eugene goodman shuttled republican senator mitt romney of utah to safety
before running ahead to divert the approaching mob away from the senate chamber rioters came
within a hundred feet of vice president mike pence whose security detail took him
to safety from an office near the senate while this was happening at 2 24 p.m
trump tweeted from the white house criticizing pence for not having quote the
courage to do what should have been done remarkably the house was still in session when
rioters attempted to break into that chamber a police officer shot ashley babbitt an air force
veteran from california and q anon conspiracy theorist as she in a crowd tried to break into
the rear of the chamber where some lawmakers were still sheltering according to an analysis from
the new york times rioters breached the capitol in at least eight different places they entered the
rotunda statuary hall and the senate chamber some broke into the offices of lawmakers including
house speaker nancy pelosi's law enforcement arrived to clear a hallway above statuary hall
where newshour correspondent lisa desjardins was sheltered i do hear shouting as police seem to
one by one be taking down the protesters telling them to get on the ground trying to control the
situation democratic senator patty murray from washington state spoke with judy woodruff about
hiding in her office with her husband that day and we heard somebody saying we saw
them they're in one of these rooms and they were pounding on our door and
trying to open it and my husband sat with his foot against the door praying that it would not
break in meanwhile outside as the crowds grew so did the violence officers on site continue to
call for backup throughout the day and while some reinforcements did arrive from local and state
and federal agencies it took national guard units about three hours to respond to the capital
rioters outnumbering law enforcement by more than 50 to one attacked dragged and beat police
officers crushing them underfoot and spraying them with chemicals they began to beat me with their
fists and with what felt like hard metal objects in testimony to congress former d.c metro police
officer michael fanon recounted being pulled into a crowd of protesters i was electrocuted
again and again and again with a taser in total nearly 150 police officers were injured
on the day during the attack those closest to president trump privately urged him to take action
and tell his supporters to stop the assault house republican leader kevin mccarthy spoke with him
from the besieged capitol his son donald trump jr and several fox hosts texted white house
contacts to tell trump to address the crowd hours passed before president trump did anything
to address the insurrection just after 4 pm he released a video repeating unfounded claims
about the election results 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 around this time police began to secure
the capital flash bangs and tear gas were used to clear the western terrace
the site of presidential inaugurations police declared the capitol complex secure around
8 p.m to those who wreaked havoc in our capital today you did not win in the early hours of
the next day january 7th congress finished certifying the election results some senate
republicans withdrew their initial objections the chair declares the joint session dissolved a capitol police officer brian sicknick
suffered two strokes and died that evening in the days and months following the attack
four police officers who were on duty died by suicide more than 720 people have been arrested
and charged with crimes linked to january 6.
The physical destruction of that day has since
been cleaned up but questions of how to repair the deeper damage to our democracy remain for
the pbs newshour in washington i'm amna nawaz we are going to be examining what happened last
january 6 as well as the misinformation extremism and political divisions that contributed to
the attack and continue to plague the nation to this day william brangham begins our coverage
he recently traveled to one part of the country that produced an outsized number of people charged
in the capitol riots and heard from others in that community who are still trying to understand the
forces that propel their neighbors to the siege any other patriots on the fence about joining us
in d.c don't think just do they have reached up onto the terrace of the capitol as tv screens
showed the destruction and chaos at the u.s capitol on january 6th real estate agent java
johnston watched it all unfold on social media from her house in frisco texas as one facebook
friend after another posted from the capitol then when i started not only
just recognizing names but faces and people that i've known for a long time
johnston worked in the same circles as jenna ryan the notorious realtor who went to d.c on a private
jet and live streamed on facebook throughout the riot they said somebody in there is like shot in
the face i don't care shoot me in the face there's wonderful anna ryan that's the frisco realtor
johnston had also been friends since high school with another local realtor who flew
to dc with jenna ryan these were neighbors a lot of them from right here in north
texas we hang out together we would go to happy hours together it was shocking but then
when i took a step back and i started thinking a little bit more about who that person
was it was less surprising i think that there is a certain section of these people that
became emboldened and they feel righteous and i believe that he is one of those that got swept
up in that this region was an epicenter for people who went to the capitol on january 6th the dallas
fbi field office has arrested 35 people for their role in that day's events that's among the
highest numbers of any field office in the country when you saw that a lot of people in this
region were being nabbed by the authorities for january 6 did that surprise you no it
didn't it didn't really surprise me we have seen a pretty dramatic change in shift over
the last five years i think that politicians you know somehow keyed into the idea that
divisiveness and demonizing the other side created more more of a frenzy george fuller is the mayor
of the north texas city of mckinney he's pushed back on the various lies and conspiracies that
animated so many people here to go to the capitol the main one the repeatedly debunked
fantasy that donald trump won the election i'm here to tell you as a republican the election
wasn't stolen republicans lost the presidency and is that a fraught thing for you to say aloud in
front of a camera well i will yeah i will catch a tremendous amount of grief for that the
mayor says it's not just the election he's had to push back on all kinds of conspiracies in
his community and even within his own family you know i have one sister that the fact that i was
engaged in setting up a mega vaccination center i was part of the deep state i am i am you know
i'm injecting people with with tracking chips i said for you to be right i have to be part of
this conspiracy and her response was yeah you are you must be you know i say it with a smile but
it's actually very sad i was very close to my sister but she finds you know she spends her time
in in the in the deep black holes of the internet and and finds all kinds of things that convince
her she's she's right and these things are real those black holes and different realities are
expanding as fast as these north texas suburbs as you see around me this area is going through a
housing boom according to the u.s census the city of frisco texas was the fastest growing city in
all of america over the last 10 years and as this region grows the demographics are shifting as
well this local county dropped from 63 percent white population down to 51 percent in that same
time period debbie teaches at a local public school she asked that we only use her first name
she says given the current atmosphere she does not want to trigger any more anger she's lived
in this area for over 40 years and she's seen some backlash to its rapid transformation we saw
a language about you know keep plano suburban and you know keep away the apartments i mean
that's that's a dog whistle right it's against diversity of people of socioeconomics it's just
another culture war others point out that nativist and at times violent rhetoric is also coming from
the pulpits of some of the christian evangelical churches in this area like brandon burden pastor
of kingdom life church who told his congregants on january 10th it was god's will for trump to stay
in office and told them to keep their guns loaded debbie saw similar inflamed talk in the schools
in increasingly heated fights over mask mandates so-called critical race theory and growing calls
for banning books we started the school year with tons of people showing up with signs
and screaming with horrible things on their t-shirts and on these signs and it's
terrifying they harass people last year sodoff hawk was the target of that kind of
harassment her family is one of the many who moved to frisco for the growing economic opportunities
but when she ran for city council in 2020 she saw an ugliness laying below frisco's shining surface
during my campaign i started to face a lot of hate misinformation just brainwashing the attacks that
i got from you know different extremist groups trying to paint me as anti-semitic trying to paint
me as you know just anti-anti-police you know anti-american even at the polls
i was yelled at i was spit at lost her race and now says if she knew the
extent of the xenophobia that would bubble out of some of her neighbors she'd have thought
twice before running i think if i had seen what went down on january 6th if i had forecasted
everything that happened leading up to november i wouldn't have really i wouldn't have it's a
paradox this region's booming development is quite literally built from the ground up and maintained
by an influx of non-white residents and immigrants they do construction work they do cleaning houses
and roofing electricians everything to do with the building of a house alex camacho is a long
time pastor in mckinney and also a lawyer who helps immigrants work through the legal process he
says what he saw on january 6th turned his stomach for us the american flag is a symbol of respect
when we become citizens we play solutions to the flag but now that we see these writers uh using
the flag as a symbol and screaming and attacking people and destroying property of the government
in washington uh we kind of you know is that the purpose of the flag meanwhile rioters like jenna
ryan seemed to revel in their white privilege she said sorry i have blonde hair white skin a
great job a great future and i'm not going to jail in fact ryan reported to prison right before
christmas for a 60-day sentence another january 6th rioter from north texas mark middleton charged
with assaulting d.c police officers is now running for a seat in the texas legislature on a platform
of building trump's border wall gun rights and possible secession from the union and the big lie
conspiracies continue this county is one of four in texas where officials have launched more audits
of the 2020 election initial results released on new year's eve found what all other audits have
found no evidence of widespread voter fraud for those who've borne the brunt of lies and
conspiracies this new year could not come soon enough there was a while where i couldn't even
walk in my neighborhood because i just wasn't i wasn't ready to face the world i mean i'm
raising three daughters what kind of a world are we living in how do we get out of it a year
since the january 6th attacks and the gulf between families neighbors and political parties seems
wider and more unbridgeable than ever for the pbs newshour i'm william brangham in collin county
texas on january 6 as rioters breached the capitol security perimeter capitol police officers tried
pushing back the crowd in an attempt to protect the building and the lawmakers still inside one
of those officers was brian sicknick pro-trump rioters sprayed him with a chemical substance
during the insurrection he collapsed later that evening he suffered two strokes and he died the
next day at the age of 42.
Officer sicknick and sandra garza were together for 11 years and
she joins me now sandra garza thank you so much for joining us to talk about something so
personal to you tell us a little bit about him oh well brian was just one of the sweetest kindest
men i've ever met and i know that sounds so cliche you know when a loved one or someone that you
care about so much passes away for people to say oh they were the kindest sweetest you know person
i've ever met but it really was true and i mean to really emphasize how true that was about brian
even the investigators who were investigating brian's death you know because it took you know
three and a half months to find out what caused his death they actually said to me that they
could not find one person not one single soul to say anything negative about brian that's how
well liked and how good of a person that he was brian got along with everybody he was just
a warm loving person and so it really hurt me a lot to know that he suffered greatly before
his death so and we know he was a good person i know some people have have looked at what happened
they've read a little about it and they've they've questioned the connection between what happened
to him as we mentioned he was sprayed with a chemical substance then he suffered two strokes
he died the next day some people have questioned the connection but you've said there's no doubt
in your mind that it was that what happened in that riot that led to his death well i've said
that i accepted the medical examiner's conclusion and their report but what i will say is the
medical examiner did say that all that transpired that day definitely played a role uh in
kind of escalating or tipping the scales to escalate his death and i agree with that and
i hope i'm not you know misquoting the medical examiner but i mean that's pretty much how i
see it you know brian was running from one end of the capital to the other end of the capital he
was exerting himself and you know he was attacked uh you know all of those factors combined and
being highly stressed you know producing a lot of adrenaline and cortisol in the body worrying about
his colleagues as well as himself i mean i know if i was approached by thousands of people and there
was only you know three or four officers next to me and they're screaming at me and throwing
things at me and assaulting me i'd be pretty darn stressed so you know i think definitely that
played a role in tipping the scales for him to pass away much faster brian was we know now brian
was had been a supporter of former president trump he had opposed his first impeachment but
then of course these events took place um who do you hold responsible to what extent do you
hold the former president responsible for this i hold donald trump 100 responsible for what
happened on january 6 and all of the people that have enabled him enabled him that
day and continue to enable him now but definitely yes and i think sadly brian did not
live long enough to see the evidence that has come forth to show what kind of man donald trump really
is clearly he doesn't support law enforcement i mean he watched for hours law enforcement being
pummeled and beaten attacked and he did nothing he later we had you know four officers kill
themselves because of the events of that day the stressors that they experienced and of
course the the last two officers sadly that uh committed suicide we don't know all the factors
uh that you know combined that caused them to take their lives but clearly we know that january 6
was a terrible event and i think that coupled with maybe other stressors in their life certainly
played a role and i think brian would be horrified i think he would have viewed donald trump in a
very different light and of course on that day all the officers were in their you know respective
areas it was only after the event that they got to see all of the footage from that day that they
got to see what you know their colleagues on the other end of the capitol were experiencing so i
think they were horrified yeah and you're right it has taken a long time for many of those details
for the video pieces of the story to come together how do you think the former president should
be held accountable personally for me i think he needs to be in prison that's what i think but
you know donald trump has been playing these legal wrangling games for decades you know he knows how
to skirt the system uh you know he he knows how to he's a very litigious person you know himself
and then when he's been sued he knows how to you know play these games to get around things
and avoid jail and prison time so you know that's the sad piece but it would be a very uh you know
what's the word i'm looking for satisfying to me to see him in prison you know i don't regret
uh for for voting for trump i identify as an independent by the way brian was a republican
but you know the the horrific thing that he did on the six is unforgivable and uh you know
it's it's uh terrible yeah he's he's just a horrible person and he still has not contacted
me by the way he has not been in touch with you no no he doesn't have the courage or
the spine to do it he just doesn't one other thing what do you what do you say to or
think of the members of congress most republican members of congress are saying in effect let's
move on january the 6th happened it's in the past we need to focus on the future yeah what i
would say to that is trump is the type of man who incites violence uh and you know so it's not
gonna stop and if they don't stand up and say enough is enough uh it's just gonna continue and
and sadly i really worry about the safety of of our officers still i worry about another january 6
6 like attack i mean this is serious stuff and and they're concerned about money in their pocket and
power it's ridiculous it's it's really ridiculous they don't care about the american people that
says it right there they care about themselves well sandra garza we know what a tough week this
is for you remembering all that and remembering of course your longtime partner brian signing
thank you so much for joining us we appreciate it thank you judy i really appreciate you
having me it was nice speaking to you in the months since the riot a number of far-right
extremist groups have become household names and as nick schifrin reports some of their core
beliefs and even their tactics have moved from the fringe to the mainstream on january 6
in a sea of thousands of trump supporters members of the far right group the proud
boys descended on the national mall among them matthew greene who just a month
earlier had joined the central new york chapter law enforcement officials say green and other
proud boys seen wearing earpieces were among the first to barge through the police line last month
green became the first proud boy to plead guilty to conspiracy and he's cooperating with federal
authorities who are attempting to untangle a complex web of planning and coordination i think
you'd have to be naive to fail to understand how organized these groups were michael
german is retired fbi special agent who focused on domestic terrorism he
sees january 6th as a culmination years of activity from the deadly 2017 white
supremacist rally in charlottesville virginia to violent post-election protests in november 2020
that convinced these groups they could act with impunity these groups were increasingly emboldened
to publicly announce their intention to commit violence at a public rally commit violence at
the public rally walk away despite this criminal activity occurring in plain view that created an
atmosphere where they believed not just that they were going to get away with engaging in violence
but it was actually encouraged by law enforcement law enforcement has cast a wide net charging more
than 700 rioters including dozens from right wing groups the proud boys oath keepers and three
percenters but the majority of those are not for violent acts such as assault the justice
department's effort seemed to front load uh people who were involved in the least egregious
conduct there were hundreds if not thousands of people engaging in violence against police
officers that should have been the primary focus because many of those people still have yet to be
charged and are out in the communities still able to organize still able to attend events this year
across multiple states proud boys have attended school board meetings to back those opposed to
coveted measures and critical race theory or crt anytime that there is a contentious issue
such as the mass mandate or crt in our schools or forced vaccinations of our children you're
going to see more proud boys propublica reports at least 10 sitting state lawmakers are
members of the militia group the oath keepers experts say an insurrectionist mentality is
becoming normalized and more popular what we have is a new type of political movement with violence
at its core and what's new about the movement is that it's coming heavily from the mainstream
robert pape is a university of chicago political science professor and director of the
chicago project on security and threats his team studied those arrested for
january 6 and found more than half are business owners or white collar workers
including doctors lawyers and architects nearly 90 percent are not members of militia
groups and they come from 44 states half from counties won by president biden paper
surveys found 21 million americans 8 percent called president biden illegitimate and
supported violence to overthrow the 2020 election we have a tinder box in front of us think
about this as a wildfire uh scenario where what i'm describing with the 21 million with these
insurrectionist sentiments are the combustible dry wood that could be set off by a lightning strike
or by a spark or by a match and that combustible material is really quite significant at this point
in time the problem of domestic terrorism has been metastasizing across the country for a long
time now and it's not going away anytime soon in march fbi director christopher wray told
congress the fbi had for years considered domestic terrorism as much of a threat as isis this is a
top concern and remains so for the fbi in june the biden administration released the first national
strategy for countering domestic terrorism more information sharing inside and outside government
preventing extremist group recruitment improving prosecution and tackling endemic problems such as
racism the only way to find sustainable solutions is not only to disrupt and deter but also
to address the root causes of violence and following a stand down to try and reduce extremism
in the ranks the pentagon released a new strategy including a ban on liking white nationalist or
extremist social media content while extremist activity in the force is rare any instance can
have an outsized effect i think it's a good first step and this is fundamentally a problem
for our political leaders our community leaders our leaders of faith this we need to broaden our
approach to this because it is a broader problem a broader problem as more americans support and
are willing to commit insurrectionist violence the political violence we have most to worry about
today is them coming rooted in the mainstream that is a challenge it's a challenge i believe
that we'll be able to meet but that's the core test of our democracy today so to explore how
radicalization and extremism are testing our democracy i'm joined by kathleen bellew
professor of history at the university of chicago and the author of bring the war home
the white power movement and paramilitary america and michael jensen a senior researcher at the
national consortium for the study of terrorism and responses to terrorism at the university
of maryland welcome to the newshour both of you michael jensen let me start with you uh do you
see more radicalization today than in the past and is the speed of radicalization increasing
yeah absolutely i think in many ways january 6 was the culmination of things that that have
happened for for at least 20 years in this country and that really is the mainstreaming
of radical political uh opinion uh certainly the events of january 6 were tied to some of
the extraordinary circumstances that we all endured um during 2020 pandemic racial justice
protests and a hotly contested election but for decades we've seen the surge in especially
right-wing extremism in the united states and is it moving faster all indications are
yes this is something that primarily happens now online on social media and social media
is a hyper mobilizing environment it's a 24 7 echo chamber where individuals hear these views
that are mobilized to act so it absolutely is moving much faster today than in the past kathleen
baloo the mainstreaming of radicalization how are you seeing that uh into politics as well i think
this is the critical question we know that one stream of activism that took us to january 6th
was the white power and militant right groups that have been active in our country since the late
1970s but the big question is how they are able to recruit and radicalize from the other groups
of people who were there that day things like the trump base q anon groups and even within stop the
steel there's a large degree of separation between people who came simply to a free speech action
and people who came with the intent to do violence and in the middle somewhere are people who
are instantly radicalized on that day so the question really is how that flow works between
the extremist groups that are highly weaponized and highly organized and those mainstream
people who are just now finding this ideology and kathleen blue let me stay with you is it
not only the flow but is it also a question of what the goals are of these groups of these people
are the goals political are they policy is it to so distrust i think this is the big question and
my guess as a historian is that we really don't know the full answer here yet because earlier in
the white power movement part of the reason that these groups became violent and declared war on
the federal government all the way back in 1983 and many of these groups have considered
themselves at war on the state since then is because they never thought mainstream politics
could possibly deliver the kinds of reforms that they wanted to see mainstream politics though
is not a closed door for many of these activists anymore and some people are finding entry into
our mainstream in all kinds of ways this is something that would have been unthinkable to the
people in the white power movement in the 1980s michael jensen let me take us back to 2020 for a
second and a point you were making about what led to january 6.
We had unprecedented isolation
uh thanks to covet lockdowns people spending a lot of time online then in the summer of
2020 widespread black lives matter protests and president trump painting the election as an
existential threat we are now in the process of defeating the radical left the marxists the
anarchists the agitators the looters and people who in many instances have absolutely no clue what
they are doing how did that rhetoric and those variables help lead to january 6th well january
6 was a product of having millions of people that were quite vulnerable to a radicalizing
narrative as you mentioned these are people that were sitting at home they were isolated they were
scared they were anxious about what was happening around them and in their communities and in
their lives and they were looking for answers and ultimately they were spending an awful lot
of time online looking for those answers in in in those spaces they often encounter disinformation
as much as they they found truth and evidence for mass radicalization like we saw on january
6 to occur you have to have a narrator that is politically powerful and whose message carries
weight and nobody's message carries more weight than the president of the united states so when
the president says that the election was stolen um that's going to energize his base and
that ultimately mobilized thousands of people uh to act uh on his bathroom these unfounded
claims that the election was stolen from him kathleen blue let's fast forward to today and
look at the two strategies that we've seen from the buy administration the pentagon trying
to tackle recruitment of active duty but also veterans by extremist groups and also the bidet
administration with a counter-domestic terrorism strategy the first ever what do you think
of those efforts so far these are both very positive steps in the right direction the dod
policy is particularly noteworthy because since the mid-1980s the pentagon has been trying to
prohibit what it called active participation in extremist groups but it did not define what active
participation was or what an extremist group was this new policy defines both of them and
the definition is broad enough that i think it would have limited several of the people
who were involved on january 6th it asks for service members even to take accountability for
retweeting and reposting content from hate groups and also sort of lays out a landscape of
how we can begin to think about this problem michael jensen you've talked about the need for
mass deradicalization are you seeing signs of a policy that can achieve that as as is it
even possible to achieve that yeah when you when you look at the the events of the the
past year i actually think the department of justice has done quite a good job in terms of the
criminal investigations tied to january 6.
It's the largest criminal prosecution in the history
of the united states but where we haven't done as good a job is is tackling the disinformation
that made its way into the mainstream in 2020 it's still very much front and center in our national
political discourse an overwhelming majority of republican voters in particular believe
that the 2020 election was ramped with fraud we see anti-vaccination conspiracy theories q anon
movement uh et cetera are still very much in the mainstream political discourse and we haven't
had a unified voice that's really come out um to counter that disinformation and i think really
importantly is we haven't had a collective voice from both sides of the aisle of you know
powerful political leaders condemning um that disinformation what happened on january
6th and so unfortunately um if anything we've we've moved in the opposite direction because
on top of all that disinformation we now have this revisionist history around january 6th um you
know the certain political commentators promoting the idea that it was a peaceful protest
and that the truly aggressive people that day were the police and that the you know the
demonstrators were just protecting themselves and their their true patriots um and so now
we have this disinformation that's making its way into the mainstream on top of all the other
disinformation that was there prior to january 6. michael jensen kathleen ballou thank you very much
thank you as we know police officers were on the front lines defending the united states capitol
on january 6 for many of them and even for the capitol police force as a whole the year since
has been difficult lisa desjardins begins there one year later some officers like u.s capitol
police officer harry dunn are still recovering from the emotional scars of that day others
like capitol police sergeant aquilino gannell are still recovering from the physical toll gannel
recently tweeted out graphic photos showing the gashes bruises from crushing and other injuries
to his shoulder to his hands and to his foot dun and ganel co-wrote this op-ed today for the
washington post demanding accountability for the capitol riot officer harry dunn and sergeant
aquilino gannell join me now thank you both so much for protecting the capital me personally and
thank you for joining us now and i want to start first off with that op-ed you had strong words
in that one sentence that you wrote was this you wrote it will not be enough to identify and punish
only those who physically attack the capital and try to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power
those are strong words sergeant canal who do you mean there and what do you want to happen in terms
of that accountability well there's a lot of uh people who are involved with with what
transpired germany six including some of the elected officials that even after
we put our bodies uh arrest of injuries and even death like uh office
sickening they continue to downplay this tragic horrific event of jeremy six and it's
mind-boggling that what they do trying to downplay everything it sounds like you're talking
about you're talking about politicians is that right being called more and more electoral
first shows that on january 6 on johnny seven they all knew where to put the blame and point
the finger at they all knew that the president for almost three hours did not do his job
uh and he paints me that 16 blocks away he was watching everything on tv despite the
horrific images that were coming live on tv i didn't see on tv but i'm sure uh by
then everybody around the country were watching with their own eyes as i
was battling those people in the lower worst interest i was people know it down the
tunnel you're talking about the former president and former president trump put out a statement
just in the last few weeks calling what happened on january 6 an unarmed protest um also at one
point officer dunn fox news host tucker carlson called you a quote angry left-wing activist this
is the battle now a battle of words over what happened on january 6th and officer dunn i want to
ask you how do you respond to people who say that your accounts and the way people look at it are
exaggerated and perhaps it wasn't that bad well well thanks for having me on happy new year
to you um angry left-wing activists i uh when i heard that i had to stop and think about it
for a little bit um it's fair to say i am angry i'm a registered democrat so i guess i'm a
left-wing and if activists mean somebody who's standing up for what's right and fighting for
what they believe in then sure i'll be that um but outside of that i don't have any response to to
him or anybody over at that network because uh it just seems like they like to talk about people
and not to people so if they're interested in having an actual conversation about the facts
about what happened that day i'd be happy to talk to them but until then i i'm just gonna keep on um
talking to people that matter and uh fighting for accountability and justice for what happened that
day if i may i mean you're talking about people who never raise the hand who say hey i don't
solemnly swear to protect and defend this country and the constitution they never done that so they
they are talking from their office and in comfort uh despite us doing the hard work and
protecting and serving something that they never thought about doing themselves both
as a police officer or as a military person you wrote in your op-ed that you feel there is
an effort to whitewash what happened on january 6.
What do you mean by that officer dunn you know
uh just just a simple down playing um just like recently i i wasn't aware that uh with the former
president's statement was that you just that you just quoted um i wasn't aware of that statement
but i guess that's the perfect definition to the answer to your question about what they're
trying to whitewash it and you know an unarmed demonstration uh i would like to refer to it as
a terrorist attack um i i went through it and uh a lot of my co-workers physically hurt
still to this day one year later and um there's so much that we do not know about what
happened that day and uh we're starting to find out more and more about what happened that day so
i think we just need to continue to sit back and let all the facts come out and it will no longer
be people's opinions that are valid once all the facts are out on the table so i'm interested in
talking to both of you first you sergeant grinnell about why you think january 6 happened you saw
the faces of your fellow americans attacking you why do you think what was driving them what's
going on here sergeant during the last almost five years we have an individual telling a lot of
people the system is ready if i lose but if i win it's okay everything is okay and
people are susceptible to to to lies uh and the way that he was amplifying it made
it even worse uh coupling that with the type of charges that some of these insurrectionists are
getting and people can see that as a as a way to explain it to themselves and say you know
what it wasn't that bad it wasn't as horrific as they saying but it was horrific if you were
in the entrance of the lower west terrace it was do or die it was these people were trying to
her officer in fully closed police uniform officer dunn do you think this danger is still
here where are we right now in terms of the threat to democracy from your view you know it's
it's scary to think about um where we are like sure we succeeded as far as our mission that day
democracy went on uh late in the night january 6 into january 7th democracy prevailed but i think
it's very important for everybody now to think realize how close and fragile democracy is
and that everybody everybody even anybody watching anybody listening has a job to
do in protecting and defending democracy that could be us police officers we police
the legislators the lawmakers they need to do their job and legislate the judge's
judge and the american people need to vote about who to put into those positions that
we need to we need accountability and we need to make sure the right people are
in office that want accountability also how's the police force doing how is the u.s
capitol police force doing i know there have been improvements they announced today more equipment
but we also know that some 200 officers have left since january 6th recruiting is tough um officer
dunn how's the police force you know i like i don't i don't really want to speak for everybody
else so i'll just speak on some things that i know we're still hurting a lot of people are struggling
with what happened i'm still upset but i'm recovering i'm starting to heal but i don't think
total healing can happen until accountability has had has been had so sergeant canel
how are you doing i'm okay i mean there are these uh things comes in in waves i hit you
uh left and right there are times that i'm okay for a minute then something a word or sound or
smell would trigger some of the things that uh that happened back at work on that day and going
back to the question he posed to harry the former president still wears a lot of influence
over these people and i'm worried that uh in the future he could just tweet something
make a statement and the same people who were on january 6 2021 they could end up back at
the capitol yes we have made a lot of improvement yes we have a lot of training but the forces
that are con culminated and on january 6 uh they're still in place and that's why we need
accountability that's why we want to hold those responsible i know you both are faced in facing
the thick of the fighting and we talk a lot about the difficulties of that day but i also know you
found some bright spots in the hundreds of letters and tweets of support and uh i just have
to thank you all for speaking to us tonight officers harry dunn and sergeant aquilino ganel
thank you thank you for having me happy new year just three days after being sworn in to serve
his first term in congress representative peter meyer a republican from michigan was among the
lawmakers in the house chamber last january when pro-trump rioters attacked the capitol he
voted later with nine other house republicans to impeach then-president donald trump that
decision has resulted in death threats and now he is facing a trump endorsed primary challenger
as he runs for reelection congressman peter meyer joins us from grand rapids congressman thank you
so much for being with us as we said you were in the house chamber on that day what memories does
it do come back to you as you reflect on that i would thank you for having me
tonight i would say just feelings of of anger or frustration of feeling like
something sacred was being trampled on um and that you know in the history that
was made you know a very dark uh dark you know possibility raised of the threat
that every four years we would no longer have a peaceful transfer of power but that we've just
chosen to expand what we compete on in a political playing field outside of elections outside of
our institutions and frankly put everything up for a debate as we mentioned you were one of
just a handful of republicans to vote to impeach president trump over inciting that riot and
we also mentioned death threats you've had a reaction very negative reaction from your
constituents even from family members are you able to have a rational discussion
about what happened with any of these people certainly on a one-on-one basis i
think oftentimes we'll find that the misunderstanding or or where we differ is
a lot less significant than you know it may appear from the outside especially talking
about the lack of response in the immediate hours after the capital was broken into you
know there's obviously people who still have very strong beliefs about the november 2020
presidential election but when you start to get down to brass tax and what actually occurred clear
away some of the fog some of the the deception and the misinformation that's out there it's very
hard to justify how the former president reacted at the very least in the hours after the capital
was attacked when the vice president and the next two individuals in the presidential line of
succession were under assault in the capital well i want to ask you about how you reconcile those
views because in a poll we've just done only 10 percent of republicans said they could call what
happened on january 6th an insurrection and then coupled with that you have the great majority of
republicans who don't believe president biden won how do you explain these views both of
which are are clearly not based on facts i think you whenever you're asking a survey or
a polling question you know there's a certain defensiveness that can come in i think i've seen
that plenty of times where somebody will publicly be very defensive and then on a one-on-one
conversation you know where the guards let down where somebody doesn't feel like it's their tribe
against another you know they're more than willing to accept and acknowledge things but you know
when we have a highly polarized context when it's you know black or white when it's all or nothing
when we're dealing with absolutes it's very uh tempting to you know feel like it's us versus them
when at the end of the day we're all americans but 10 of the republican party uh saying members
of the republican party saying they don't think it was an insurrection i also want to ask you
congressman about you you did an interview with nbc news over the weekend you were asked about uh
president trump whether there was another option for the republican party other than to
support him and you said there's no other option i mean what is it what do you got
to clarify when asked about whether why there was the reversion back after january
6 to supporting donald trump i said because individuals did not see an alternative they did
not see another path not that there is no choice but that you know we need to be creating the
path we need to be working on what a party that is reflective of the concerns of conservative
americans but that also is a party that adheres to the rule of law what that looks like and to
me that is a charge that is a an opportunity to be defining that not you know succumbing to a
belief that there is no other option but that the charge is to create it and just to clarify
on that that poll uh that only ten percent of republicans described as an insurrection i
think the other options were a protest or a riot and i think riot was um 30 and i think protest
was 40 if i'm referencing the same poll but i think it's clear that you and you're listening
to the police officers we just heard from there's there's no doubt in there or at least it what
came across is they believe this was an attempt to to overthrow the results the election
congressman you didn't vote for this january 6 committee in the house you've said that you want
to wait and see what the work product is but i did interview yesterday the longtime partner brian
sicknick who was a capital police officer who died the day after the attack on the capitol and
she said unless members of congress or including republicans are able to to hold president
trump accountable there's going to be more violence what what do you say to to sandra garza
who again long time partner of brian sicknick now i say we absolutely have the same fears that
i agree for um the the tragedy that that struck her and her family uh in those moments i mean the
the loss of officer sicknick um and and then the subsequent uh loss of several um other capitol
police officers and metropolitan police officers who took their own lives in the days and weeks and
months that followed is an absolute tragedy and why it is even more frustrating to see people
whitewash and downplay the events of january 6.
We have to face it for what it was we have
to recognize the threat of political violence and say that we should not be tolerating that that
was one of the reasons why i voted for impeachment the fact that we cannot in our political system
be playing around with such dangerous rhetoric and encouraging uh spurring you know inciting people
to go and try to use use force use threats uh use violence in order to achieve a political end
that cannot be tolerated in our politics but but i would say sorry i was just excuse me i was
just going to say but you know the leadership of your party in the house and the majority of
republican members of the house are saying that this committee shouldn't be there it shouldn't be
doing this work that it's important to look ahead not to look back in other words it's just the
opposite of what these police officers and what ms garza are calling for oh and there were dozens
of my republican colleagues who voted in support of a bipartisan independent commission that
was styled after the 911 commission and i think i'm still deeply disappointed and frustrated
that that commission was not formed uh again i said that i will look at the work product and
the results coming out of the january 6 select committee you know as it continues along but in
my mind the the opportunity that was missed and i hope that the ultimate work product will be this
was to have something that could be looked at and viewed objectively by the american people that can
be clearing away a lot of again the rumors and the innuendo and the deception and the misinformation
uh the the whitewashing the blame casting that we saw in the days weeks and months after january
6th and still you know today trying to make it seem like anything other than it was which
was a violent attempt to interfere with the proceedings of congress and specifically uh the
certification of the electoral college results and and we're hearing your voice uh a minority
voice uh in in the republican party congressman peter meyer thank you very much for joining us
thank you one year ago this week crowds stormed the u.s capitol while lawmakers were inside
affirming the results of the presidential election we have two different of you views on the events
of january 6 from lawmakers on opposite sides of the aisle who were both at the capitol
that day lisa desjardins begins our coverage and now i'm joined by troy nels a republican
congressman from texas also a former sheriff and combat veteran thank you for your
service and thank you for talking to us today i know on january 6 you were there with a chair
leg in your arms at the door to the house chamber to keep rioters out i wonder how you reflect
what what do you think happened on january 6 how do you see it well actually thank you lisa
for having me it actually was a was a hand sanitizer it was a wooden hand sanitizer i was
at the back doors the center doors leading into obviously the house chamber those doors would be
the same doors a president would walk through when he would deliver a state of the union and i was
positioned back at those doors and and obviously you know once we went we're going through the
objectors in arizona the state of arizona was there and then all of a sudden several uniform
personnel and plain clothes you know obviously the plain clothes uh rushed nancy off the dyess back
there and rushed her back into her speaker's lobby but the door started shaking violently i mean the
doors were locked but uh people were banging on those doors and and capitol police were there um
i was told by one of them that i must leave and i i chose not to i said i'm not i am not leaving
i'm gonna sit there and i'm gonna be there with my brothers and sisters in blue and the doors kept
shaking violently you could hear the commotion on the other side and then you can see in some of
the photos that furniture was brought over to help secure those doors but there was a these wooden
hand sanitizers and mark wayne mullen another member of congress was there and he broke off
uh broke off that hand sanitizer off that wooden base and there was another one there and i did the
same thing so that that was my weapon for the day um should those individuals uh uh be
successful in getting through those those doors and thank goodness they they weren't
i know that you've called what happened criminal you have been very clear in saying that it was
dangerous those who incited violence were wrong but there is a real divide over the narrative
about january 6 and there's a real divide over the role of president trump the former president
who i know you support i wonder how do you see his role that day well let's go back to the to
the the individuals you mentioned i use the word criminal and yes there were individuals inside
that capitol building that day that committed a very assault on police officers and some of those
assaults even being aggravated if you were inside the capitol that day and you broke windows and you
destroyed property you should be held accountable if you assaulted a law enforcement officer you
shouldn't just go to jail you should go to prison and i think most of the american people agree with
that that that when you were in there and you were committing criminal violations of the law assaults
destruction of property breaking the windows you should be held fully accountable for your actions
that day but what we do know is there were many people inside that capitol building that day
that were not doing any of those things they they weren't touching anybody they weren't
assaulting anybody they were walking around inside that capitol building many of them were grandmas
many of them almost appeared to be ushered in uh and so they're only crying that a majority
of the people inside that building uh uh the people that entered that building i guess the only
crime was maybe entering the building and many of them quite honestly didn't even realize that they
were committing a violation of the law that is the united states capitol it's open to citizens and
and it's it's the it's the country's building so i kind of question some of the motives of the
doj uh and others who are are claiming that every person inside that building is an insurrectionist
uh that term gets to to be used quite a bit by the by the liberal media but nobody has
obviously ever been charged with insurrection so i have i i pause uh as it relates to the 700
or so individuals that have been arrested by the fbi and the doj as they're related to their
activities on that day i gotta check your language and i heard you say that it seemed some of them
were ushered in i didn't see anyone ushered in i saw people breaking in i also want to come back
to the former president former president trump at four o'clock on january 6 you wrote this
tweet after seeing what you did you wrote what i'm witnessing is a disgrace violence is never
the answer a strong tweet from you but at that moment as of that time president trump still had
not told the riders to go home and we know there were many many trump supporters in that crowd if
not the majority of the crowd from my experience did he do enough what do you think his role
was that day well i don't i'm not in donald trump's head i wasn't in the the oval office
or wherever he was positioned that day and i wasn't one of his top advisors so uh i i
don't know i mean could he have maybe said but he's your pr he he was our president maybe but
i have to say he is our republican you support him but but you alluded to earlier about when
i made the comment about being ushered in nobody on this select committee and it's pelosi
select committee benny thompson is the puppet and she is the puppet master you want to claim
that it's bipartisan when you look at bipartisan miss cheney and kenzinger are pelosi republicans
kenzinger isn't running again and and obviously liz cheney is going to be defeated here in 2022
but that that entire committee they all have one thing in common they hate donald trump they don't
hate they despise him they talk about him all the time and i kind of joke that they have a serious
crush on this guy they have a serious crush on donald trump because that's all they want to talk
about what they want to do is blame donald trump for january 6 with everything they want to go
after all of his associates they could do you you know contempt of congress against bannon then
it was mark meadows but nobody on this committee is asking the real difficult questions the
questions that the american people need to know about and that is why were the capital police so
ill prepared to deal with that day how do we move forward how do you think we get past the divide in
the country in just a sentence or two i i that's a very difficult question i think our country
overall lacks faith i think we need to get back to our basic principles and and we're losing faith as
a country but there is that divide unfortunately i went to donald i went to joe biden's inauguration
on january 20th and he got up there and he said that he would he would work with his friends on
the other side of the island quite honestly as a member that's been there for 12 months i haven't
seen any of it i haven't seen any of it joe biden despises president trump he completely reversed
his immigration policies he completely reversed all these other things so there is a divided
country uh and and we must do better than that we owe it to the american people to come together but
right now you just don't see it i certainly don't see it from this administration congressman
troy nels we appreciate your time thank you thank you god bless with few exceptions members
of the two political parties view january 6 very differently for a democrats take now we are joined
by the chairman of the house democratic caucus he is representative hakeem jeffries of new york
congressman jeffries thank you very much for being with us i believe you heard at least part of what
congressman nels was saying but i want to ask you you were on the floor of the house on january 6th
what memory do you take away from that day well what took place on january 6 was a violent attack
on the congress the capital and the constitution and it was of course incited by the former
president of the united states donald trump who for several months prior to january 6 had
perpetrated the big lie that he actually won the election and that it was stolen from him he
radicalized millions of people across the country and some of them showed up on january 6 intent on
effectively overthrowing the government and trying to halt the peaceful transfer of power it you
know it's a day like pearl harbor and like bloody sunday down in selma alabama and like september
11th that should live in infamy here in america and throughout the world as we said you were
there on the floor how close did it come to being even worse than it was ultimately these writers
were not able to get into the house chamber they did get into the senate but from your perspective
how close did we come we came very close i recall the sergeant-at-arms interrupting the debate
that was underway with respect to the results in arizona and he said something that i can remember
as vividly as if it was said just today when he said the mob has breached the capitol
they're on the second floor they're a few steps outside of the house chamber be prepared
to hit the floor and secure the gas masks that are underneath your seats i'd been in
congress at that point for eight years never did i have any real understanding that
there were gas masks in the house chambers let alone would have to utilize them one day and
thankfully at some point the capitol police found an escape route and they were able to safely
evacuate members of congress but many of us at that particular time thought we were
actually going to have to fight for our lives and when we heard congressman nels refer
to some people or many people in his words being ushered in to the building
did you witness that in any way the capitol was violated folks urinated they
desecrated the citadel of our democracy this fantasy and fiction that you know for many people
it was all wine and roses is after the fact spin that's why the bipartisan january 6 select
committee is so important in uncovering the truth presenting it to the american people in terms
of what happened why it happened that day and also coming forward with some recommendations
as to how to prevent that type of violent attack and assault on our democracy from ever happening
again and judy let me make this one point about the democratic and republican members of the
select committee chairman benny thompson vice chair liz cheney they're doing a great job no
member of that committee hates donald trump but they do love democracy they do love america we
all do we do love the peaceful transfer of power and that's why we're committed to uncovering
the truth and and you've spoken about how in fact uh congresswoman cheney approached
you even as the assault on the capital was taking place spoke to you about how to hold
president trump accountable as you point out she congressman kinzinger now serving on that
committee they are though the very much tiny minority in their party have any republicans
in the house spoken to you privately reflecting any views differently from what we're hearing
from the republican leadership in the house well the republican leadership has
completely abdicated any responsibility in the context of ensuring that the events
around january 6 never happen again and that they shouldn't be looked at through a partisan lens
because that was an american tragedy now there are dozens of house republicans that did fortunately
vote to certify the election of joe biden and i do have conversations with many of them they
did the right thing that night and hopefully they will continue to try and do the right thing and
stand up to the efforts by donald trump and his authoritarian co-conspirators to really
obliterate american democracy which would not be good for anyone not good for democrats not
good for republicans not good for independence not good for america but do you think there
are more than the the ten who voted uh uh to impeach him later i mean are we are we looking
at a situation where there may be more closet republicans who are prepared to stand up or is
what you see what there is well it's my hope that that republicans of goodwill beyond liz
cheney and adam kinziger and those who voted to hold donald trump accountable for inciting
that violent insurrection through their impeachment vote will stand up and reclaim
their party because right now the republicans are not the party of ronald reagan and not
the party of john mccain and not the party of bob dole or george h.w bush or george w bush
they're not even the party of mitt romney you know they are the party of donald trump and a violent
insurrection take your party back for the good of america congressman i want to turn to something
that has grown out of what happened that day and of course to challenge the election that's the
effort by democrats to get voting rights reform legislation passed up until now no republicans
have at least in the senate have expressed a willingness to do this but just in the last few
days that we're hearing from some republicans that that they would might be willing to look at the
the way the electoral vote is counted instead of voting rights reform is that something that you
think could be acceptable well it's not an either or all situation we have to do both the right to
vote is sacred to the integrity of our democracy this principle of one person one vote and
government of the people by the people and for the people is really brought to life by every single
american being able to exercise their franchise choosing who represents them at all levels of
government and so we've got to elevate that because we have a voter suppression epidemic
that is taking place all across the country and the john robert lewis voting rights act and
the freedom to vote act are critical in making sure we push back against that at the same time
this principle of the peaceful transfer of power which is central uh to american democracy
republican presidents handing off to democratic presidents and vice versa that was interrupted
uh and and and almost disrupted permanently uh on on january 6 and reforming the electoral account
vote act is an important thing that should be done to tighten up some loose ends that exist right
now in that peaceful transfer of power congressman in the time we have left it is a political
year midterm elections coming in november it doesn't look like a good year at this point
for democrats for historical reasons and others right now is there one thing what would you like
to see president biden do that could could help the demo democratic prospects this november
well president biden is doing a great job in making sure that we confront the covert crisis
anchored in science and evidence in a decisive fashion and he'll continue to lead in that way at
the same time deal with the economic challenges that we confront inflation continue to create
millions of good-paying jobs and then we'll have to sell the american people on what we've
done and we'll be able to do that particularly when we get the build back better act over
the finish line and and uh but my question is how confident are you that can happen given
uh opposition in your own party in the senate well i'm very confident you know we're not a cult
we're a coalition and so we have to work with the various components of that coalition including
senators mansion and cinema i believe president biden who knows the senate better than perhaps
any president in modern american history he'll get it done are you prepared to see big changes
though in the buildback better bill as it is for example cutting in half the threshold
household income amount for the child tax credit well the tax cut for children and families through
the child tax credit has been transformational for working families low-income families and middle
class families and i think we have to continue to keep it robust but let's have a conversation and
see what senator manchin comes up with at the end of the day we need a product that decisively makes
life better for everyday americans and if we get that product it's something i can live with so
maybe something below 400 000 household income just finally uh congressman jeffries we know
speaker pelosi has said she does intend to serve through the remainder of this term but if she
decides not to run for leadership again are you going to run for your party's top position
in the house well i've got a job to do with share the house democratic caucus and i also
have to go back to the voters to try to get my two-year employment contract renewed in
2022 so i'm going to keep the focus on that for the moment we will leave it there
representative hakeem jeffries of new york the chair of the democratic caucus thank you
very much thank you the attack on the u.s capitol nearly one year ago was based on a big lie about
election fraud in 2020 and the hope of supporters for former president trump that they could stop
the certification of electoral vote results but starting that day there has
been a new misinformation campaign to recast downplay and misrepresent the events
that unfolded at the capitol amna nawaz reports they broke through barricades assaulted
police smashed their way into the capitol and sent lawmakers into hiding yet even
as the attack was playing out there were already alternative narratives being spun
about who was to blame there are some reports that antifa sympathizers may have been
sprinkled throughout the crowd possibly antifa insurrectionists possibly could have infiltrated
some of these movements and maybe instigated some of this the washington times has just reported
some pretty compelling evidence from a facial recognition company showing that some of
the people who breached the capital today were not trump supporters they were masquerading
as trump supporters and in fact were members of the violent terrorist group antifa yeah in the
first hours and days afterward you could see trump and his allies and supporters sort of
groping for what the appropriate narrative was david graham is a staff writer at the atlantic
magazine so on the one hand you had trump you know coming out with his video on the day of
saying we love you but now go home but you also saw people saying oh this is agitators
it was antifa it was black lives matter that despite contemporaneous texts between pundits
on fox and the white house showing they thought trump supporters were responsible when subsequent
arrests confirmed that publicly the narrative on the right shifted to downplay the violence that
day here's former president trump on fox in march right from the start it was zero threat look
they went in and they shouldn't have done it uh some of them went in and they're they're
hugging and kissing the police and the guards there was no insurrection and to call in an
insurrection in my opinion is a bold face line republican congressman andrew clyde at a hearing
in may you know if you didn't know the tv footage was a video from january the 6th you would
actually think it was a normal tourist visit strange to see somebody like you know congressman
andrew clyde who of georgia who we saw in videos and footage from january 6 helping to
bar the doors suddenly saying well these were just tourists they were walking through another
recurrent theme shifting focus away from january 6 and towards protests for black lives matter the
year before republican congressman clay higgins of louisiana 19 people died during b.l.m riots
last year hundreds and hundreds were injured 2 000 police officers were injured from blm rise last
year voices on the right have also recast those awaiting trial for their part in the attack
as political prisoners here's republican congressman paul gosar of arizona last month
these are dads brothers veterans teachers all political prisoners who continue to be
persecuted endure the pain of unjust suffering so too with the death of ashley babbitt the
air force veteran shot by capitol police as she attempted to breach the speaker's lobby here's
republican representative jody heiss of georgia in may in fact it was trump supporters who lost
their lives that day not trump supporters who were taking the lives of others former president
trump reinforced that in a july interview on fox who was the person that shot an innocent wonderful
incredible woman a military woman the idea that they were all motivated by these good intentions
they believed the election was stolen which of course was false it was a lie that had been
peddled to them by the president and many of his allies but they were going in and they wanted to
stand up for what was right um that they were sort of like the you know the american revolutionaries
or like you know the confederate rebels who wanted to really uphold the best of the constitution in
an october piece in the atlantic graham explored this idea how those who committed criminal acts
to stop a democratic process have been recast by the far right as heroes patriots and martyrs for
a just cause much like the confederate soldiers celebrated by the mythology of the lost cause the
fact that those people are referred to by some of these circles as patriots what does that do to
the narrative it makes them into the you know the errors of what was right it turns something that
was one of the darker moments in american history into one of the brighter ones and into a moment
of unity and um and rebellion against what's wrong and standing up for what's right um which i
think is really dangerous if we can turn something that's an assault on a constitutional process
into a moment of triumph and a moment of uh a sort of load star for what's to come i think that
doesn't bode well for american democracy these efforts could be working an npr newshour marist
poll conducted last month showed a sharp partisan divide over how americans view what happened on
january 6th the legitimacy of investigations into it and decreasing blame for president trump even
as the former president continues to push the lie at the heart of january 6th the durability of that
lie where does that fit into sort of the larger misinformation campaign the very thing that
brought people out on january 6 in the first place well it's essential to the legitimacy of trump as
a political actor today if he's somebody who had the election stolen from him that makes
him still a sort of heroic figure and a more legitimate leader perhaps than joe biden
in the eyes of his supporters and that makes it that enables a lot of other information
information or more accurately misinformation questioning or undermining everything from
measures to stop the spread of covid19 to the safety and efficacy of vaccines from bogus stories
about vaccines tracking and controlling americans to campaigns to stop teachers from talking about
race or racism in schools so when people in the trumpet orbit spread misinformation about
joe biden or they spread misinformation about vaccines or about covid all these spring from his
legitimacy as you know the real elected leader which depends on the the lie of the election being
stolen for more on the misinformation surrounding january 6 and how it's spread and evolved
i'm joined by two people who track and study just that jennifer cavanaugh is a senior
political strategist at the rand corporation she co-authored the book truth decay about the
rise of misinformation and claire wardle is the u.s director of first draft as a non-profit that
tracks misinformation online welcome to you both and thank you for being here claire i'll begin
with you as we just saw immediately after the capital attack there were already alternative
narratives being spun despite live pictures live reports people seeing it in real time in our
latest newshour npr marist poll it shows a divide on how americans saw that day 89 percent of
democrats say january 6th was an insurrection was a threat to democracy but only 10 of republicans
agree with that how does that happen claire because there was a foundation being laid all
the way through 2020 and then from election day onwards this stop the steel narrative was
emerging this idea that the election was not safe that the election was stolen there was this drip
drip drip throughout november and december and so when we had the events of january 6 very quickly
very smart people began shaping these narratives that already had a foundation that made sense to
people who wanted to believe a certain world view jennifer talk to me about the role of news
and journalism and all this because you have studied this about the declining trust and news
american skepticism around news how much do you think that contributed to people being willing to
say what you're reporting what you're showing me i don't believe i think it played a big role i
mean people get their information from specific sources and when they see information coming to
them from sources that they don't trust they tend to discard that information it's also really hard
to change people's minds once they've made it up so when people see additional information coming
at them that contradicts that they're not ready to discard what they've been believing for months
or what they've been hearing from their trusted figures the fact that people have such low trust
in media plays a big role in their uh lack of their lack of ability to change their mind and
the difficulty that we face in trying to spread accurate information after the fact claire we know
one of the main ways in which that information was spread even well before the capital attack was
on social media right we saw even leading up to that day the whole stop the steel narrative how
those groups not only organized online but then mobilized online got people to show up
in real life to commit criminal acts after that organization what responsibility lies
with the companies behind those those social media platforms when you look back at the timeline it
was only september of 2020 when twitter started marking as false tweets from the president for
example saying that the votes couldn't be trusted so i think the platforms were absolutely weren't
ready for this and then as we saw on essentially january 7th and 8th they panicked and like
dominoes they all started changing their policies and de-platforming but the disinformation
ecosystem is really participatory and engaging and that's what's happening on these platforms not
that much has changed in a year and that's what we should be more worried about not to see it as a
one-off and what changes have the platforms made and i would say not enough jennifer you've used
this phrase truth decay in your work and nowhere have we seen that more potently than when it
comes to the pandemic and disinformation on social media and other places around the efficacy of
vaccines and the efficacy of mitigation measures and these are all things that are backed by
science they're backed by data but as you lay out there's declining trust in in those two things
so can that decay as you lay it out can it be reversed well the challenge is that disinformation
tends to have an emotional component as claire described as participatory it becomes part of
the believer's identity trying to reverse the decay as you described it is not simple it's very
very challenging because you're actually having to break into people's world view and change how
they see the world this is a challenge for a whole range of stakeholders social media companies
are one researchers and scientists are another how do we make data whether it's about vaccines
or covid or election integrity how do we make that data that narrative compelling to people who are
not inclined to believe it um one piece of that is thinking about who provides the messages there's
a concept of strategic messengers trusted people within communities that are vulnerable or at risk
for believing conspiracies and disinformation election integrity is one of those cases where
identifying allies within the communities that are vulnerable to that information is is a challenge
and i don't think it's a challenge that has been addressed yet which is why this the conspiracies
and disinformation around the 2020 election continue to thrive claire you've also done some
work on this about how people can arm themselves right how they can outsmart misinformation or
disinformation campaigns whether it is around elections or political candidates or vaccines
or the pandemic what are some of those tactics what should people know what the research shows
is whilst it's important to have fact checking what we should be doing is actually rather than
focusing on the individual rumor or conspiracy teaching people the tactics of those
who are trying to manipulate them because what the research shows is whoever you
are you know whatever your political persuasion or even education level nobody wants to believe
that they're being hoaxed or fooled so the more that community can work with each other to teach
them well you know if you see a text message that says my brother works for the government and
he's telling me dot dot dot and anecdote as jennifer just said that in itself teaching
people well just be a little bit more savvy about that because that's a known tactic so the
more we can teach people tactics and techniques rather than waiting for the rumor and then kind
of playing whack-a-mole we're actually seeing the research shows that's a much more effective way of
building the resilience that means that when they see misinformation they're more likely to identify
it as that clara i have to ask after all the work you've done and jennifer i'll ask the same thing
of you with misinformation and disinformation so prolific now being pronounced and perpetuated
from even the highest office in the land at times do you have hope that that can be brought back
under control i still have hope otherwise i wouldn't get up every day but i think what we
have to realize is this is a very long game i'd say you know this is the the battle of our
lives the next 20 to 30 years around climate elections vaccines health and we need to start
thinking that this is a long game there's no quick fix we can't just shift the facebook algorithm
and make it all go away jennifer what about you i agree with claire i think it's important to
recognize that this the challenge that we face now has evolved over several decades and it's
going to take just as long to figure out a way to to manage the situation so really thinking
about this as a from a holistic perspective and understanding that whatever future we work
to that's hopefully better than what than what we face today it's not going to look the same as 20
or 30 years ago the goal isn't to put the cat back in the bag the goal is to figure out sort of what
we want online spaces to look like what we want our societies to look like and how we want to
interact in that way and i guess that's what gives me hope is thinking that you know we can we
can work towards that that better future rather than thinking about how we make things go back to
the way they were that is jennifer cavanaugh and claire wardle thank you so much to both of you for
joining us thank you thanks for having me on this january 6 solemn ceremonies at the u.s capitol
replaced the violent scenes of rioters ransacking the building one year ago it was also a day when
a sitting president denounced the man he succeeded in stark terms congressional correspondent lisa
desjardins begins our coverage my fellow americans today a speech a location and an anniversary
which were all unprecedented one year ago today in this sacred place democracy was attacked in
one of the oldest parts of the capital president biden took on the january 6th attack with his
most direct confrontation yet of his predecessor we must be absolutely clear about what is
true and what is a lie and here's the truth the former president of the united states
of america has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election he's done
so because he values power over principle he can accept he lost the words echoed inside
statuary hall a place that was filled with pro-trump rioters one year ago a mob that wanted
to stop the electoral count and the biden win he recounted the scene that day in historic terms
rioters rampaging waving for the first time inside this capital confederate flag that symbolized
the cause to destroy america to rip us apart even during the civil war that never ever happened
the address was unusual for president biden who has often resisted drawing attention to 2020
and to what's called the big lie from former president trump about election fraud biden
didn't mention trump by name but he did level very clear charges for the first time in our
history a president had not just lost an election he tried to prevent the peaceful transfer of
power as a violent mob breached the capital but they failed they failed on this day of
remembrance we must make sure that such attack never never happens again we fight like hell
mr trump fomented the attack the president said and then let it continue what did we not see
we didn't see a former president who had just rallied the mob to attack sitting in the private
dining room off the oval office in the white house watching it all on television and doing nothing for hours former president trump responded
shortly after president biden's remarks with several statements lashing back he wrote biden
used my name to further divide america the political theater is all just a distraction for
the fact biden has totally and completely failed and mr trump doubled down on the false claim that
the election was fraudulent that incredible divide and mr trump's sway and his party were evident
on the house floor now i ask all members which meant for a brief january 6 commemoration and
moment of silence nearly no republicans attended but among the few who did a very big
name former vice president dick cheney he attended with his daughter congresswoman
liz cheney reporters asked his thoughts on how current republican leaders have handled january
6 sparking remarkable pushback from a top party member it's not a leadership that resembles
any of the folks i knew when i was here chaney used to be considered among the most
hard right but those who hold that position now representatives marjorie taylor-green
and matt gates showed the divide by holding their own separate news conference all this as
many members simply wanted to address the harm and their experiences from last january 6.
I'm
emotional because my memories are very similar to many of yours the house held an unusual event
an opportunity for members to give testimonials those of us trapped in the gallery
relived it ducking crawling under over railings hands knees the sounds the
smells we had a front row seat to what lies hate or plain old misinformation
conjures the january 6 committee did not meet but has indicated it hopes for public
hearings soon and a report in coming months and lisa joins me now along with our chief
washington correspondent jeff bennett who's at the white house so lisa you've been at the
capitol most of this day tell us a little bit more about what you're picking up there on this day of
looking back judy the feeling today was reflective and the tone was soft and quiet to be honest in
fact i want to show you just ended a few minutes ago was a vigil held by congressional leaders
mostly democrats there including house speaker nancy pelosi you know really today seemed
to me to be about an idea of healing and about members dealing with their own personal
memories very different from what i've been experiencing in the last year which is members
talking about the greater political high stakes those however are still evident i spoke with one
democratic senator who came to the capitol today told me she is determined that january 6 makes her
more determined about their agenda all that said judy i've been speaking to so many house members
this week and i have to tell you that democrats lawmakers that i spoke to did not seem to have
a really clear message a real counter punch to president trump's false charges about january 6 to
his following they seem to have different messages until today when president biden spoke speaking
to some of those same democratic lawmakers today they said they've heard something different than
they heard before and one in fact said it was as if president biden said what had had been on
his mind all along so we'll see if that changes how democrats act going forward and picking up on
that jeff we we we did hear some in lisa's report of what president biden had to say but you've
you've learned a little more about what was behind the thinking in having him deliver this message
today that's right and the president as you know has described this moment as a battle
for the soul of the nation and his remarks this morning i'm told by sources familiar with his
thinking were an acknowledgment that really trying to unite the country starts with a forceful
condemnation and a direct calling out of the forces that seek to divide us and so for president
biden for much of the past year he's really tried to avoid talking at length about donald trump
and i'm told it's for a few reasons one he didn't want to try to elevate him or sort of draw more
attention to the lies the former president told about the election that he lost he also judy
didn't want to really personalize what he sees as being a debate that should focus on trying to
defend and preserve the democracy but really all of that changed today president biden standing in
that capital he so reveres with a top to bottom takedown of trump and trumpism and on his way
out of the capital the president was asked by a reporter if his words might have done more to
divide than heal and the president shot back he said no he said understanding how to move forward
requires an understanding of the extent of the wound and we should also mention that the speech
in many ways sets the foundation for democrats as they move forward and try to renew their push
for voting rights there are a pair of bills that are stalled in the senate and so this is going
to be a messaging battle that really starts with a kind of direct language we heard from the
president and vice president today judy it was a noticeable turn jeff bennett at the white house
lisa desjardins at the capitol thank you both and as we've been discussing president biden and
vice president harris both spoke at the capitol this morning to mark this anniversary of the
insurrection and that was the focus as i began my conversation with the vice president earlier
this afternoon madam vice president thank you very much for joining us on this day one
year after the assault on the capitol you president biden speaking out very forcefully
on the need to correct the lies out there about what happened and to hold former president trump
accountable but we know one year later those lies have only settled in why do you think it is after
all this time that attitudes have not changed well judy first of all it's great to be with you um i
will say as i said in my speech this morning that i do believe that um there has been a slow attempt
to unravel our democracy that proceeded one year ago and um and it is important that we look at
what happened one year ago on january 6th um as as as a moment in a series of events that have been
taking place some would argue over the last 15 years slowly but steadily in terms of an attempt
to erode our democracy and when i think then about where we are as of today this is a moment where we
reflect on this violent assault on our capital um an assault that i think in many ways symbolized
what can happen if there is a a destruction of democracy meaning chaos and violence and
um and a lack of order or adherence to rule of law but let's also see this as a moment
where the duality of the the the existence of a democracy that is both fragile and strong
was highlighted in that at the end of january 6 that night one year ago where i was there
still as a senator and vice president-elect right members of all parties democrats republicans
and independents went back to over to to show their loyalty to the constitution above party or
person and uphold the tenets of our constitution and our democracy but just as many people today if
not more believe the lie lies about what happened what's to stop this from just staying this
way this deep polarization for years to come our democracy will not stand and it will
not survive if we each of us is not vigilant in understanding we can take nothing about
it for granted so to your point there have been moments in history such as this where
there has been rampant misinformation lies and it is incumbent then on those who are informed
who are knowledgeable to be vigilant in speaking truth no matter how difficult sometimes it is to
hear much less speak because the truth is that the democracy of the united states of america
is only standing as it is because of the faith and and and the purpose of the american people
to fight for it given attitudes out there do you believe the january 6th house committee will get
to the bottom of what happened i do and i from what i'm witnessing from the outside it seems
that they are um exercising great diligence and they are being guided by the facts and law and
doing their job and upholding their oath to defend and support the constitution of the united states
i do have faith in in the process that they have embarked upon and and i think we will see i i hope
and i believe we will see justice come out of it i want to ask you about what the vice chair of
that committee representative liz cheney one of the only republicans seeking to hold the
former president accountable said she said former president trump quote summoned this mob
assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack is she right yes and again these are moments where
we must speak truth and i applaud her courage in the midst of uh you know a number of her
colleagues who have failed to show such courage or those who have shown courage and sadly are not
seeking re-election or have not sought re-election um i applaud her courage to speak truth if that's
the case then does that not mean there will have to be serious consideration of a criminal
prosecution i am not privy to the internal facts that that are before that committee so i can't
speak to that and you know perhaps i'm burdened by also my career as an attorney and as a prosecutor
where i'm not going to judge or speak to the facts and the law in the case which i don't know well
let me ask you about the aftermath of all this you and president biden are going to be speaking out
more publicly in the days to come about the need for voting rights reform but we know right now
there aren't enough votes for that in the senate some republicans are countering right now with a
proposal to reform the way the electoral college vote takes place why is that not an acceptable
compromise because it's not a solution to the problem at hand which is that right now
in the united states of america we need federal laws that guarantee the freedom and
right of every american to have access to the ballot to be able to vote the john lewis
voting rights act the freedom to vote act addressed that issue and those are the issues that
are are present and that are imminent and that are really dispositive frankly of this moment in time
in terms of whether we are going to fight for some of the most important pillars of a democracy such
as the freedom to vote in free and fair elections so let us pass those two pieces of legislation and
ensure through the federal law that all americans have meaningful access to the polls three
other things i want to ask you about madam vice president kovitt is the first six of the prominent
public health advisors who were part of the biden harris transition team have today gone public with
a plea to the president to adopt an entirely new pandemic strategy geared to what they call the
new normal of living with this virus indefinitely trying to minimize the risk first of all what
we know without any debate and i think all of us agree um is that we have tools available to us
to address this pandemic in a way that we can at the very least mitigate the harm to the greatest
number of people and so we are going to continue as an administration to urge all people who are
eligible to get vaccinated to get the booster to wear masks when they are in public and and to
do what is necessary for us to get beyond this we welcome of course any um anyone who has
information especially those who are experts about how we can accomplish these goals but
there are certain things that are without debate and and really not even necessary
for discussion at this point among people who are knowledgeable about what needs to
happen in terms of vaccines and boosters and masks but is it time for a new approach is the
question i mean this administration came in promising to get things on track here we
are a year later we're in the fourth wave there aren't enough tests nearly enough we
know that the approach in terms of vaccines boosters and masks work so i don't think
that that's what we're discussing right now but let's also talk about to your point where
we are today versus a year ago today the vast majority of schools are open today we have a
vaccine that the majority of americans have actually received boosters we are seeing great
progress with that people are wearing their masks so we have seen progress we are seeing businesses
reopen and i think it's important for us to to to see in this moment we're still it is
extremely frustrating there's no question for all of us but we also must acknowledge that there
has been progress and that that is the trajectory but there are still um steps to go we have still
work to do and in particular around the vaccines and and masks we want to make sure that everyone
is taking advantage of all the tools that we do have available to us right now two other things
one is your administration the biden harris agenda in the beginning a year ago got off
to a strong start but it's obviously stalled right now the president's approval ratings have
taken a dramatic hit did you try to do too much well i think that there there are many um metrics
by which we can measure where we are today one of them again is is where we are and on covid which
we just discussed um let's also look at where we are on the economy last year we created six
million new jobs last year we brought unemployment down to i believe it was 4.2 percent which the
economist most didn't believe would happen until at least 2023 2024.
So we have seen great progress
we passed an infrastructure law people have been both both parties as administrations have been
talking about doing for generations there has been great progress no doubt you know covet for
example i mean we're all well you know everybody is frustrated with that and i understand and i
fully appreciate there is a level of of malaise we're in two years into this thing you know people
are that we want to get back to normal we all do but we have to to then do the tough and hard work
of pushing through with solutions understanding that there are going to be challenges but
let's meet the challenges where they are and let's also take a moment to see the progress
we've achieved last question this year madam vice president has not been an easy one for you there
have been a rash of stories about dissension inside your office inside the white house
about questions about your role what would you say you've learned over this year well one
of the things i've learned is to get out of dc uh i think it's important to definitely be
out and um and be you know i i can't tell you when i've been able to to get out of dc and
be with the folks who are actually informing our policies and will be impacted by our policies
i do hope that this year i will be able to get out there more i know the president feels the
same way so that we can make sure that we are we are with the folks and not just frankly
you know hanging out in dc with the pundits madam vice president kamala harris thank you
very much for joining us today we appreciate it good to be with you thank you happy new year
to help us understand the broader effects that january 6 is having on our politics our culture
and democracy itself and consider where we go from here i spoke yesterday with four writers who spent
the last year engaged in this conversation george packer is a staff writer at the atlantic he has
written extensively about the country's political divisions jelani cobb covers race and politics at
the new yorker and is a professor of journalism at columbia university stuart stevens is a former
republican strategist he worked on many republican campaigns including from mitt romney in 2012
but has since written the book it was all a lie how the republican party became donald trump and
gary abernathy is a contributing columnist at the washington post we welcome all four of you to
the program thank you so much let me just lay down the basics what words would you use george
packer to describe what happened on january 6 and how much does it matter that we get to the bottom
of it that we hold those responsible accountable at the time i thought it was an insurrection
and i still do directed by the president and i still think that but i underestimated
it i thought it was a a kind of wild shot that nearly hit its target could have been fatal
um but that we dodged that's not how i see it now i think it was actually a warning shot and almost
a searching for the target that did miss but that found how to get the target next time and in the
year since january 6 what we've seen is efforts by both national republicans and state legislatures
and major figures in the party to figure out how to use january 6th to make sure that next time it
works and next time what didn't work for donald trump in overthrowing uh the 2020 election and the
constitution last time is going to work next time and that for that reason i think a year later i'm
far more concerned even than i was when i was in a state of shock on january 6 2021.
Gary abernathy
what about you how do you see what happened well i think it was a very disturbing uh day judy
one of the most disturbing and embarrassing things that i've ever seen it makes me actually angry
at donald trump because of someone who supported trump and frankly i'm still glad he was president
but i think the event disqualifies him from uh future office not legally but by in the hearts of
people they should say we can't vote for this guy again and it's because of what he didn't do but
as president of the united states he should have done more to tamp down the emotions of that day
and he should be held politically responsible for not doing that i think it's a stretch to
say he's legally responsible for not doing that and i think the worry for me is going too far the
other way to try to really use this politically to to slam the republican party in a way legally that
really is better adjudicated at the ballot box so to speak jelani cobb how much does it matter
that we understand what happened on january 6th i mean it matters it's crucial i can't think of
anything that's more important in fact uh you know i agree with george you know if i were to use
a single word here to describe what it was i would say harbinger because you know at the moment
you know people thought uh that this had been uh averted and that the danger had passed but uh
in reality if we think about you know january 6 at the capitol uh there was a convergence in a single
place and that building was overwhelmed uh and you know supposedly the most fortified secure city in
the country in terms of federal presence and that building was overwhelmed rather easily what would
have happened if we'd had a brush fires across the country in the state legislatures as we saw in
michigan what if people had come back militias had come back in in michigan in georgia in arizona in
places uh where there was suspicion being ginned up and how would that have played out we could
have wound up with a much much worse situation and there's no guarantee that we won't wind up
with a similar kind of situation in the future stu stevens you've heard what the others
are saying uh how how do you look on what happened um i think what's important to wrap our
minds around is that what happened on one sixth is just part of a larger uh effort here which
is autocratic movement in america and i think that it's a mistake just to isolate one sixth
is okay this one event some people came there look what followed these coordinated effort to
pass these voting legislations and make it more difficult for people who don't vote republican to
vote and george packer we heard gary abernathy say in so many words that uh it would be wrong to over
interpret overreact to what happened what do you think about that uh how can one overreact to a
mortal threat to american democracy the first in my lifetime that that that actually seems to be uh
on a road toward making it um impossible for the popular world to be respected at the ballot box
that's been the goal of all these bills passed or debated across lead legislatures in georgia
in arizona in michigan wisconsin pennsylvania um which are not just about restricting access
to the ballot but are about putting elections in the hands of reliable partisans so that next
time around we'll have states that claim that the election was somehow wrongly held and that it's
thrown into the hands of a partisan legislature which sends its own electors to congress um to
choose the next president that's exactly the strategy going on right now and it's building
on what the republican party learned from 1-6 and these events around it which was you need
the right people in the right offices to be making these decisions in order to seize power
they didn't have it last time they're trying to get it next time i can't possibly overestimate
the seriousness of that gary abernathy uh you're hearing this uh you're hearing uh george and
the others say it's it's it's impossible not to take this seriously i want to be clear i'm i'm
on board with everyone who thinks january 6 was a horrible day for our country i think it's
right to remember it i think it's right to to look back at it as a day that we should all
be ashamed of and hope never repeats itself but i think it's being used uh politically in some
cases to then you know extrapolate those events and say well we can't have any election reform we
can't have any anything because it's all an effort to to make what happens on january 6th happen
again and the fact is a lot of us would argue that our system actually worked on january 6.
None
of these terrible things came to be because you know people like mike pence said i can't go along
with that so there are degrees of differences here but but in some ways i think we're on the
same page we are not on the same page gary and the system did not work if we think about the
the law enforcement officers the capital of police officers who lost their lives you know those the
the officer who died on that day and the those who who subsequently died who have left uh we can't
gloss this over and make it seem as if it were uh florida in 2000 where there were a simple
bit of electoral glitches that were resolved administratively bureaucratically that's not what
happened we had people beating physically beating police officers and threatening to lynch the
sitting vice president of the united states none of those are minor things i want to move
and br and bring in stu stevens again and and talk about the role of the of the political
parties the republican party uh in this we know most republicans today say they believe
donald trump was reelected that joe biden is not legitimately the president when we say that the
majority of republicans don't believe that joe biden is a legally elected president that means
the majority of republicans in this country don't believe we live in a democracy they think that
we live in an occupied country and if you follow that to a logical conclusion it means not only
do they have a right to reinstate their rightful uh president united states some feel they have an
obligation and that's what they're going to teach their children and if you go down that line of
thinking it justifies uh terrible acts of violence and terrible acts of legal authorities and
legislatures to try to overturn the will of the people we've never been here at least not since
1860.
George packer what about the future how how do we keep this democracy strong with this
deep division existing in our political body i mean the lesson that i've learned over the
past year is that democracy actually depends on a kind of reason obtaining among the electorate
people behaving in a at least a roughly rational way and not falling under the spell
of conspiracy thinking and irrational uh interpretations of events and the spell of
an authoritarian demagogue like donald trump but what's happened is one of our two major
parties has fallen into that it really is simply a matter of each and every american citizen finding
it in themselves to resist that uh that force and to try to rescue the democracy that we love
from uh our fellow citizens who seem determined to take it into a direction that i
think is dark and and destructive and that i fear very much gary abernathy
do you see from where you sit politically a way through this that keeps our democracy
strong well one thing i constantly try to argue for is judy we need to respect each other again
we need to respect each other's differences again i don't care what polls you look at if
you look at polls that say forty percent of americans and eighty percent or ninety percent
of republicans think that the election was stolen we can't suddenly just demonize and and you
know minimize these people as the americans that they are we've got to work our way through
this talk our way through this not you know not just divide into our media camps and our feeds
that just reinforce what we believe we've got to do a good job of continuing to communicate
and eventually truth wins out stu stevens do you see that as the way yeah i think i i think
that's a fantasy um you you can't negotiate with evil how do you negotiate with the person who's
in the capital united states in a camp auschwitz sweatshirt you don't want to meet those people
halfway you don't need to understand them they're wrong people who believe in democracy are right
the solution to this is pretty straightforward you have to beat these republicans you have to have
more days like january 5th last year where you elect democrats in georgia because the democratic
party which i spent 30 years pointing out flaws in is the party that represents democracy in
america now and we have to just accept that and put these other differences aside well it
is a conversation we need to continue to have uh as the american people and i want to
thank all four of you for being part of this conversation today stu stevens gary abernathy
jelani cobb george packer thank you so much with the one year anniversary of the capital
insurrection with a renewed push on voting rights and with vaccine mandates getting their day
in court it has been a full week to consider it all we're joined by brooks and kay part
that is new york times columnist david brooks and jonathan k part columnist for the washington
post very good to see both of you even though you're not here in the studio i was going to
start with something else but i have to begin with january the 6th jonathan listening to what our
correspondents were saying and thinking about what president biden yesterday said taking it right to
his predecessor saying that that former president trump was holding a dagger at the throat of
our democracy that's a stunning statement what do we make of that it's a stunning statement
judy and it is a true statement you know the thing to keep in mind about president biden is that
he is since the campaign uh he has been never been more clear focused direct passionate and
determined than when he is talking about american democracy or as he called it the soul of america
and the damage and danger that donald trump was to both uh he started his campaign in talking
about charlottesville and why that animated him to jump into the 2020 race and then there in
sanctuary hall as president of the united states with to his mind the clear and present danger of
donald trump and what he did as president and what he could do um down the road if he decides to run
for president in 2024 i think the president after uh uh uh almost a year in office of getting some
legislative wins under his belt decided that the anniversary of the the most dangerous moment uh in
in in history for congress that that was the time to say clearly uh and forcefully that what
happened in that building was a travesty and uh and that he's gonna do everything that he possibly
can to ensure that it doesn't happen again and the first step in that is talking about it naming
names and trying to hold them publicly accountable for what they for what they did and david
what do you make of the of president biden using this stark imagery hold a dagger yeah i i
thought the president was right to not talk about trump directly for most of this past year because
there was the hope that trump would fade away and i must say on january 7th of last year i thought
what the events of january 6 were so horrific and so disgusting that it would be an inflection
point and people would look at the whole trump era as something lamentable and terrible i was
wrong about that uh donald trump has not faded away he's if anything stronger in the republican
party so if donald trump's not going to fade away you might as well tell the truth and you might as
well go after him correctly and you might as well go after him with the passion of a man who worked
for 30 years more than 30 years in that building and who mentioned yesterday that the rotunda where
they were sitting that's where abraham lincoln sat uh that's you know a few feet down the hallway
there's john f kennedy a few feet down the other hallway there's tip on heel and so this is
american history that was trampled something joe biden has devoted his life to extending
and making prosperous so there's got to be strong emotions there and i'm glad to express
them and and jonathan i mean as you're pointing out as david's pointing out this is a turn for
president biden he hasn't he hasn't wanted or hasn't spent a lot of time talking directly about
the former president but now he's going after him uh is there a risk in that uh there are risks
in everything but i think that the president and the white house have made the calculation
that if you're going to take any kind of risk if the risk is in defending uh american democracy
then it is a risk worth taking and i think that the president the speech yesterday was terrific it
was what the nation needed to hear but it it can't be the last step it has to be the first step
of many to remind people about what happened who did it and also to remind people that even
though the focus right now is on donald trump what donald trump unleashed
will survive donald trump whether he runs for president or not and that is
the big danger that i think a lot of people are um might be getting themselves into by focusing
so intensely on donald trump and the damage he did to this country that they're maybe
not paying attention to the forces that he unleashed that can't be put back in the
bottle now that they have been unleashed david pick up on that i mean how is it a gamble
for for president biden to be taking this this tack right now in his presidency i don't think so
uh you know the democrats criticizing donald trump is not exactly a new thing it's not exactly a
risky thing for democrats to take it down a notch to the fairest political level the democrats are
going to try to win keep that their majorities in 2022 joe biden presumably he's going to try to
keep the presidency or at least have a democrat in the presidency 2024 his approval ratings are
not high enough to do that on the basis of his own accomplishments and frankly he didn't win the
presidency the first time because people love joe biden that he won it because people really dislike
donald trump and so raising the saliency of trump is uh is probably the smart thing to do now
there are clear limits to that as we learn in the virginia gubernatorial rape uh when uh the
democrats tried to tie younkin to trump and it didn't work so i don't think it's the only
thing he can do to keep democrats in office but it's certainly a key part of it well one of the
things we're seeing the president and the vice president do they're heading to atlanta jonathan
next week to make what they're calling major speech or statement on on voting rights a big
push for legislation that they have not been able to get through congress meantime some republicans
and i know you all talked about this a little bit last week but meantime republicans are coming
back and saying well let's look at electoral vote count reform i asked vice president harris
about that when i had a chance to talk to her yesterday here's what she had to say about
about how to think about these two things it's not a solution to the problem at hand
which is that right now in the united states of america we need federal laws that guarantee
the freedom and right of every american to have access to the ballot to be able to vote the john
lewis voting rights act the freedom to vote act address that issue and those are the issues
that are are present and that are imminent so jonathan she's saying uh voting rights
has to come before anything with elect the electoral vote count well because
as she was saying what is happening in the states um is happening because
of the big lie suppressing the vote keeping people from voting and also now the
prospect of once people have voted boards of elections that have now been um taken over by
state legislatures having their votes tossed out so that's why there's such this there's this big
push for the john lewis voting rights advancement act to be passed with the freedom the vote act
to be passed but i also think in in the in your interview with the vice president i i think
she goes on to say that it's not an either or both of these things have to be done it's a matter
of priority and when it comes to the electoral count the electoral count act you know congressman
jamie raskin who's a member of the select january 6 select committee um writes in his his new book
unthinkable about how they saw months by may of 2020 that the electoral count act was probably
the way that donald trump was going to try to mess with the election because it was so squishy so the
electoral account act must it must be reformed but doing that instead of passing the john lewis
voting rights advancement act or the freedom to vote act that's not a solution to the the
near near-term uh danger that uh faces uh the right to vote right now how do you david how do
you see movement on on these two things or not well i think we probably need to do both but i
really do think the democrats have to completely revamp their approach to the national emergency
january 6th started or donald trump's sergeant is continuing expanding right to this day
they're sort of three elements to an election there's casting the votes there's counting the
votes and then they're certifying the results we do not have a crisis in casting the votes
we just in 2020 had the highest vote turnout in american history we don't have it all problem
in counting the votes we counted the votes without fraud and without error pretty much in
2020 as we've seen we have a complete crisis in the certification of the votes it's that third
thing where we have this complete crisis where state legislatures are politicizing uh the vote
certification where they're attacking the the people who bravely stood up to donald trump where
republicans are running for these local judge clerk judge uh of elections positions republicans
who are trumpy and truly use them for nefarious ends and so we have this massive assault on our
democracy in the certification of the results the problem with the freedom to vote act is it has
very little about that it's all about elements one and two and so to me what the democrats need to
do is really focus on the certification protecting the people who are non-partisan and certifying
results the democrats need to get much more active locally on these local races for for judge
of elections and other all those other things and they're not doing that the republicans are far
outpacing them on the ground on the grassroots and so me that's that the house is on fire on
that and so we should be focusing on that and get take care of that immediately and then we can
do the other voting rights which are very hard to pass uh we can do it now or we can do it
later we need to focus on that third thing jonathan what about that uh i agree with david
that the house is on fire um but i don't agree with david and david mentions this uh as mentioned
this at least three times about how there's no you know the vote is not being suppressed i you
know there there are a lot of uh democratic and progressive activists and actual voters who would
disagree would disagree with that especially those who are standing in line for hours and hours
in multiple locations multiple states in order to vote but look all of these things that we
are we are talking about need to be addressed the only problem is we don't live in a monarchy
and we don't live um in a dictatorship where you know president biden king biden dictator biden can
just go and say this shall be done what the senate needs to do is to is to take action to ensure
that whoever wants to register to vote can vote that the person who registers to vote is able to
vote as conveniently as possible and then when that person does vote that their vote actually
gets counted and that their voice is actually heard by not having a state board uh overturn
the voice of the people the will of the people at the ballot box that has to be done and that
can only be done at this point if the united states senate rallies around and gets it done
but unfortunately we spend a lot of our time talking about two senators one in particular
who's still even though the house is on fire is refusing to be a part of the
solution to put the fire out uh david put the button on this uh why isn't
that the priority you've got 30 seconds i don't think the problem the answer is in
washington democrats need to rally people in harrisburg pennsylvania and state capitals
around the country they need to work on state legislators they may need to make it extremely
painful for anybody to vote to politicize the certification of a result i think the focus
on washington is the wrong focus right now and the republicans know this and they're
doing something about it and democrats are not on it clarion call from each one of you
david brooks and jonathan k part thank you both on this friday night thank you so much thanks
judy thank you we returned to some familiar faces our own newshour correspondents who were
on duty covering the events of january 6. lisa desjardins who was inside the capitol amna
nawaz who was outside the building as the crowd gathered and yamiche alcindor who was at the
white house the four of us spoke last year in the days following the insurrection for our
podcast america interrupted and when we came together again earlier this week we talked about
how the country has changed in the year since lisa let me start with you you were inside the
capitol i remember it vividly as the rioters broke through the glass in those doors you were
eyewitness to the worst attack on the u.s capitol in 200 years from a political standpoint lisa
it looks like a much more partisan place what does it feel like from the inside i didn't think
that the capital could get more partisan than after the 2020 election ended in 2020 but it has
and and i also have to say you know a year ago we all felt these palpable very raw emotions
from lawmakers right after january 6th and i knew they would continue i thought they would
continue february march april democrats just seething with anger democrats who don't usually
express this kind of anger were saying things like this to me that they couldn't look at republicans
couldn't even get in an elevator with some of the republicans who had objected to the election i was
sure that that would wane by the end of the summer and i have to say it it really
didn't it continued through the fall as we saw some republicans increase their rhetoric
on the other side i will say just this one holiday break this this past holiday break i have sensed
in my phone calls with lawmakers finally a little bit of breathing and a little bit of relaxing of
that anger but i just don't know what's going to happen when they return to washington interesting
and and yamiche you were at the white house you were on the lawn as all this was unfolding at
the capitol you were trying to stay in contact with then trump administration officials on the
inside how has our understanding of what then president trump was doing during all this how
has that evolved and changed over the last year well judy i do remember standing on the white
house lawn and watching people break into the u.s capitol the president was watching it
all unfold on tv like so many other americans and he was in some ways both enjoying the idea
that his supporters had taken his lie about the election being stolen so seriously that they
were breaking into the capital to sort of defend his line his his his idea of what should be
happening in this moment but he was also in some ways fearful because there was real violence
happening the president's lie has metastasized it's grown all across the gop and now you have
gop lawmakers elected officials who at first were outraged who at first were telling me that the
president had gone too far they've now all sort of fallen in line so the president former president
has continued to lie about the election continued to say that the election was stolen and his power
that seemed to be teetering that seemed to be almost coming to an end on january 6 it's only
grown and grown and then amna you were outside the capitol you were talking to the protesters
and others uh outside and watching as all this unfolded recollect for us some of the language you
were hearing from them and talk about how that's evolved in in the years since you know judy in
terms of everyone we talked to outside that day there was one thing everyone had in common and
that was they believed the election lie they believed that the election had been stolen beyond
that in terms of rhetoric it was really a mishmash i mean there were conspiracy theorists out there
waving human on flags there were anti-vaxxers and koba deniers who harassed me and our team
for wearing masks out there they were far-right extremists they were white nationalists white
supremacists openly wearing the insignias of these groups and and walking around and it was this
overlapping this sort of toxic brew of ideological beliefs and personal grievances that really
caught a lot of people by surprise and caught a lot of national security and counterterrorism
experts by surprise at the time too they hadn't seen it before well how much has that changed in
the year since not much if anything it's gotten worse i mean we know the potency of that election
lie that millions of people still believe we know where we are with anti-vaxxers and covet
deniers and we also know where we are with the larger threat to the u.s from some of those
groups those blending of beliefs experts say is more volatile than ever you know the top two
lethal threats domestic threats to the u.s today are violent white supremacists and anti-government
extremists and those remain the top concerns for counterterrorism officials and in terms of
holding people accountable we've seen over 700 people arrested charged in connection with
the assault on the capitol lisa you have a firsthand connection with all of this what is
it two of the people who were following you inside the capitol have been sentenced in the
last week or so that's right and you know judy i didn't know that i was being followed until this
summer when the department of justice contacted me and said we see on video that two of the rioters
followed you for a significant distance those two uh two men from pennsylvania were just sentenced
this week and their attorneys were both asking that they'd be given no more than one day in jail
this was their first offense for both of them neither of them harmed anyone when they in
their building they did pick up some papers some congressional papers at some point and put them
down and that is one of the things the judge said was serious the judge did give them 30 days in
jail which was a disappointment to their attorneys but the judge said it is not enough to say that
you just wandered into the building or you didn't mean to be there or you wished you could have left
or that you regret it the judge was very strong and said this was an attack on our democracy
and i cannot condone this kind of mob violence some of the language we heard from these these
rioters that day clearly there were racist elements to it yamiche we've talked over the
past year about how that language has persisted and how it's played into what was already a
fraught controversy conflict in our in our nation across our nation over over racial justice
how do you see that coming together a year later well a year later the language that we saw used at
this attack on the capital has sort of spread and deepened across our country we've had seen really
an evolving of the conversation on race where we saw of course the murder of george floyd
and the swelling of this idea that america really needed to be better when it came to not
only policing americans but also the way that we talk about justice and race and there's been a
big backlash to that movement and what we've seen really is that january 6 um was not the end of
something but it was really the beginning of this ugly phase so we've really seen a lot of people
i think twisting the idea of pushing for racial equality in this country and making excuses
frankly for the people who broke into the capital and that has been detrimental i think to our to
our democracy and that continues to be the case and i want you to pick up on that because
this this notion of how we use language uh with racist overtones and and just arguments
over what word to use about what happened on january the 6th the words to use whether it's
white supremacy whether it's insurrection versus a coup um all of these things are have have
not only been they've they've filtered out into the public discourse but there are things
that journalists have had to think about that's absolutely right judy i think it's
important to point out that some of those forces that we confronted face to face that day
on the capitol grounds have always represented some of the biggest threats to people of color
and to marginalized people in this country and it was a mostly white crowd who had openly
talked about bringing violence to the capitol that day who authorities did not see as a threat
who felt entitled to storm a federal property and try to overturn a democratic process because
they were angry and i think we've all done this long enough to know what that response would have
been if that had been a crowd of all black people or all brown people or all muslim people or all
immigrants and this kind of organized eruption really laid bare what so many of us have long
known and lived which is that white anger is seen differently here i want to close by asking each
one of you to think about what stays with you what sticks in your mind as you go back and you think
about that day lisa i think one that stays with me this is going to sound so corny there are two
things it's just the walking away from the capitol that night you know we were there until three
four in the morning for the election to finish and it was so important for all of us to
stay there and i just i think of that image and it was just i just have such faith in
the capital sorry i'm getting emotional yeah one year later i just had it was just it's
a it's a it's a beautiful place and i i really walking away from the capitol that night looking
at it i just remember that feeling of faith in our constitution um and in that building and one
more thing someone loaned me a phone charger at a critical moment and that is something i will
always hold on to it is my lucky phone charger and yamiche for you what what memory stays most
with you the memory that sticks most with me um watching the capital being attacked is that sense
of entitlement that these white protesters had to break in and i kept picturing what it might
have been like had these people been the protesters that i covered so closely in ferguson
the black people that were demanding justice and police accountability it's very easy to see
those people being shot frankly dead on the steps of the capitol if they if they were black
or brown or immigrants um and to see some of the some of the white protesters walk away with their
lives i think it's something that sticks with me because to me it taught a lasting of who could be
outraged who could break into the capital and keep their lives and who are the people who if they
stand peacefully on a street and demand justice they might die just for asking peacefully for
respect and finally amna what what stays with you well judy as you know i spent years as a war
correspondent a conflict reporter overseas parachuting in and out of places where quite
frankly scenes like this were expected um and i said on the day and it is still true that i never
expected to see that scene unfold in my own home country but also on the steps of the u.s capitol
and i think what last year has shown me is that while america is absolutely unique as a nation
with its democracy it is not immune from a lot of those same forces that can wear away and
tear away and and eat away at foundational parts of our democracy and that includes journalism
right a fee a free and fair press so i think what i carry with me what sticks with me is really just
this the sense of duty to continue to not just report on everything we see and to bear witness
but also to remind people about what's at stake well the three of you were absolutely
essential to the newshour's reporting on that historic tragic and historic day in in
america so we cannot thank you enough for what you did on that day and the reporting ever
since and of course right up until right now so i want to thank you lisa desjardins and yamiche
alcindor this is your last program as a newshour correspondent white house correspondent you
are leaving us to go on to nbc news you we wish you the very best we're going to miss
you you've contributed so much uh to the work of this program uh but we will miss you and
we thank you all three thank you so much judy it's been an honor to to work and report
with you and so many others on this program thank you thank you all one year ago
supporters of president donald trump breached the united states capitol building in an
attempt to disrupt the democratic process lawmakers staffers maintenance workers capitol
police officers and many others feared for their lives as insurrectionists trampled barriers
shattered windows and broke into the capital and as a predominantly white crowd shouted
rhesus epithets and threatened lawmakers there was a particular concern that people of
color would be targeted by the violence i spoke with representatives sheila jackson lee grace
ming and norma torres all congresswoman of color who were trapped in the capitol that day i want to
start off by asking you where were you on january 6 2021 what happened and and how did you navigate
that we were looking forward to um watching democracy you know uh unfold as we began to uh go
through you know this process of certifying um the election results that had already been certified
by all states um so you know it it started as um for me getting those alerts those text alerts
on my phone um i noticed that of my colleagues not all of them were receiving those text
alerts i was sharing that information with them really going through the process of you know
one building after another after another being breached by these riders that were attacking
us and it got to a point um where i thought we're gonna be here for a long time i never
imagined they would breach the the capitol itself but also um the doors of the balcony where
i was sitting balcony number three at one point the door swung open and it was an
officer um in plain clothes that had been shoved in and he would have been shoved
in so hard that he almost lost his balance a cell phone was dropped immediately he
shot back and i don't know what that was that first exchange was but i know that it was a
violent exchange um the doors were closed locked then he came back and picked up a phone and the
members at this point were all watching the floor hadn't really um understood what happened
so i heard a lot of loud noises i wasn't exactly sure what was going on the room that
we were in had no windows um and so what i did which i later regretted was turned on the
television um and i turned on the television and i saw images of people marching and banging
things and i realized by seeing the images that um they were right outside of our room
um which made me more nervous because the sounds were muffled even though they were
loud so i didn't exactly know where they were but seeing it on tv made me realize
that they were right outside of our door um so we started moving furniture and blockading
the doors whatever way we could uh at about the same time i was texting with my staff the entire
time because we didn't want to talk on the phone i didn't want anyone to hear me from the outside we
had the tv on mute and i was texting with my staff and they said something about how people in the
chamber in the house chamber had been instructed to put on their gas masks so i looked around
the room where we were in and couldn't find any gas masks so we also prepared to um to wet
the curtains in the room there were curtains on fake windows they're not real windows they're
just like um for decoration and so we we got these curtains and we were prepared to wet them
because we were told that they could be used as uh as a good substitute uh in case of tear gas
being used and then there was sounds like lock the doors locked the doors locked the doors
and it was a sound that one had never heard the last time that it happened it was the
1950s and uh it was attacks inside the chamber by uh individuals who are nationalists but it had
not happened in the last 50 to 70 years at least or at least between 50 and 70 years and here we
were being told to lock the doors and there was a matter of confusion but we began to as members
look out for each other but embrace uh the call to get down get down get down and literally
we were crawling in order to make our way to an exit that the capitol police could assist
us still not knowing what was going on still literally uh grabbing our belongings
until there was a point where i was uh crawling and bending down uh with a
lot of scurrying going on but bending down checking on our colleagues in front of us checking
them and uh in back of us i just left things on the floor i i dropped a notebook and a shawl
and things that would keep your hands occupied i kept a phone uh because as news was
breaking the phone began ringing and we we made it to a point of an exit but we were
still uh couldn't move it was not safe enough according to the capitol police for us to move uh
there was slight crying i think i was astonished i had been in the capital actually in the
capital on 9 11.
Again i was actually in the capital hearing gunshots um in the u.s capitol
is not normal um hearing tear gas being deployed and seeing the smoke rise isn't normal seeing
a mob violently attacking officers hitting them with a u.s flag isn't normal and every
single person that works in the u.s capitol has been impacted one way or another
people were shocked to see insurrectionists carrying the confederate flag and shouting
racial slurs at capitol police officers and they're even photographs of some wearing
shirts with anti-semitic slogans on them i'm curious to hear how did your race and
gender factor into your concerns for your own well-being that day as a latina as a you know as
a female of color um we knew that we were going to at that moment that we thought we were going to
have to fight for our lives to get out of there um and it as i looked around um and i saw these
two brave members uh of congress you know two females um trying to stand at the door uh mickey
was one of them spanberger was another um you know getting themselves armed with um a
pen we had pins those were our weapons um you know that that we had to prepare
ourselves but thinking about when those doors are open and this violent crowd
walks in who are they going to unleash their you know madness on first
who would be the first that they grab how are we going to protect ourselves up
here i thought about that a lot because i was afraid that they would find me
and i was afraid that just based on how i looked that they would assume that i was
not let's say a fan of president trump and i was nervous how they would react if i did happen to
encounter them so my thinking at the time was just to do everything i could to avoid that situation
from happening um you know we just turned off the lights turned off the sound muted ourselves
uh turned off the sound on our cell phones um and still you know texting my staff like
asking the capitol police to come rescue us um so yeah we were really nervous and just
desperately hoping and waiting for the capitol police or someone to help help us get out of there
but for a brief period of time i i was worried that i wouldn't you know make it we did not have
all the exterior um exhibitions of hatefulness that occurred that we saw after the fact i would
only say that i viewed myself as an american and as a patriot that's why i was there to see
america in her best in the transition of power i think if i felt any extra danger it was that
the color of your skin always draws more angst and anger and if there was a situation where we
were fleeing and there were people chasing us i might have had an intensity of
fear for what they would do to me if i was captured but i was equally concerned about my brothers and sisters who were there
who did not look like me but in this instance uh the hurt was that these were americans
domestic terrorists insurrectionists attacking this democracy that belonged to all
of us and so it was only after when i knew and met the police officers african-american
in particular who indicated the racial epithets that were thrown against them or towards them or
said to them and then the noose that was hanging that was supposed to be for vice president
pence a noose has always been a terrorist weapon because it's always terrorized people
and hanging is one of the most vowel ways of dying and terrorists foreign terrorists
use hangs and beheadings because it's so vile and so to have a noose hung out on the
outward area of the united states capital i don't know if history reflects whether
there was ever a news was anyone ever hung on the grounds of the united states capital
then this news certainly had to be the first ugly sign of the stigma of race hatefulness racism
since january 6 we've seen violent threats against other women lawmakers of color you know most
notably representative bogart's message to representative omar and representative gosar's
sharing a video of fantasies about the death of representative ocasio-cortez do instances like
that make you question whether or not the right to feel safe while representing your constituents
and and being in the people's house is equitably applied um nothing about being a member of
congress um from different regions you know of the country is equitable um when you think
about you know just the cost of living for example um but what we go through um and what are
our colleagues think about you know members that come from let's say california
because it is a very progressive state it is so easy for them to you know dehumanize
members members of color uh females it is so easy because people allow it um you know by
staying silent um that silence from their constituents is a message to me that it is okay
for their member of congress to attack somebody that looks like me simply because i look the way
i look simply because of the color of my skin um and and that's not acceptable that is not the
america you know that i grew up you know loving being an immigrant um and you know thinking about
the sacrifices of my parents sending me to the us to escape the same type of violence that was
brought upon the u.s capitol on january 6 that is the political violence that my parents
wanted you know so much for me to get away from little did i know that you know i would you know
eventually have an opportunity to be a member of congress represent my community my community
by the way that is 70 latino um you know i go there you know because you know they empower me
to be there and i have to be able to do my job um members of congress cannot be uh intimidated
you know to go on the floor and speak about the issues that are important to their constituents um
my constituents are not necessarily interested in another welfare uh program but they really
need services they're minimum minimum wage workers um and and just because you know they
they can't afford to buy the luxury things that many of my colleagues you know have and take for
granted doesn't make them any less human it's just it has been really disappointing i mean you know
most people on both sides of the aisle we we sacrifice a lot with our families and our personal
time and that's fine we don't mind the hard work we really believe that we are trying to improve
the lives of people in our district but we don't believe i don't believe that you know we signed
up for a job where our lives should be at risk i know that many of us are much more careful
at doing and participating uh in very public events with large crowds it's something that
i'm much more mindful of than than in the past and so it's it's definitely something that
that is scary i mean my my mom has asked me repeatedly you know why i can't find
another job perhaps the safer job to help people in similar ways so people are definitely
very nervous and it's really upsetting to see when um our fellow colleagues you know
even though they're on the opposite sides of the io uh i consider them my colleagues
and never want to put any one of my colleagues or their loved ones in danger of any kind and to see
that sort of behavior come from just a few of our colleagues is just really disturbing um it's it's
not something that is appropriate uh at all um in any workplace much less the people's house
well i was outraged as a woman as a woman of color on the attacks of congressman omar and the
acts of violence um that happened against my colleague from new york as well alexander
ocasio-cortez was simply tragic and horrific there is no response to it
but as someone who i think can look over the time that i've served and the
ugliness that has come towards me and the attacks and the impeachment proceedings that
i um participated in and the vowel attacks during that period one way or the other
um i really stay focused on service and i don't hesitate to say what i think is right on
behalf of my constituents and the american people because of the color of my skin um i i think i
really want to focus on how unique january 6 was and how in all of my career even 911 which
brought people together brought members of congress together brought america together we had
a common enemy against us how different it was for january 6.
And so in january 6 i think what is
most frightening is the uh the the ripping away uh the tearing away the fragility of democracy
and that they're persons who took the oath who would now want to kill me maybe or my colleagues
a big part of your job and the responsibility that your constituents have invested in you to to
take on requires you to go back to the capitol how does it feel going back there and how have
you navigated being back in a place where you experienced a life-threatening and life-changing
traumatic experience i do not feel safe i have um an extra change of clothes which you know was
suggested uh to me by friends in law enforcement that i should have you know a change of
clothes and at any moment be prepared to remove my uh my pen um and try to blend in but how
do you blend in in a crowd when you look like me you know i can't you can't just blend in um i it
doesn't matter how many hoodies i put over my head i am still you know a latina um i am still
you know uh someone who comes from california you know who lives in the city of pomona i i i
can't change who i am i think the metal detectors um have given me a little bit of relief because
i know that every member has to go through it i have a vest also a bulletproof vest
in my office that i keep there um we have gone through with my staff as to
you know what are the emergency procedures in our office locking the doors block barricading
ourselves in our office these are things that you know we have taken for granted these are the
freedoms that are guaranteed by our constitution and these are freedoms that are no longer
guaranteed uh to members of congress because of the threat that we have within our us capital
i think there's just you know a lot of resentment and hostility even if we don't talk about it
every day you know walking past the very glass doors and windows where um shots were fired
and and people were destroying property uh it's just there's such a sense for me of a
violation of democracy and our workplace you know the the capital is a place where even the youngest
of children understand somehow and get a sense uh that it's a sacred place they they whisper
right they they they behave and act very quietly and respectfully um there's just a sense that
this is a place that belongs to everyone in a physical sense uh in an emotional sense um in
in the true spirit of of what congress and what the capital means to so many people across
america and across the country and so to be there and to to be reminded of what happened on that
day it really just seems like such a violation of of the basic foundation of our country and
and democracy how do you assess whether or not it's worth it to take those risks to hold
public office um to be honest those thoughts have crossed through my mind um more often in
recent years than in the past before january 6th but i think that serving in a time of covid
serving in a time where in new york for example we had many people affected by the flooding
of hurricane ida i really feel like there's a place and a role for me and so many to serve
and to make that sacrifice and to help bridge a lot of the gaps that aren't necessarily being
met between government and the everyday people in our communities um the services and the
resources that government is providing and even those that are not being provided have not fully
reached the people in our districts and in our communities and i feel like the risk is worth it
because i think that i can continue to try to to bridge that gap and to make sure that more people
are getting more services from our government that that they so desperately need and deserve i'll be
darned if i'm going to allow evil forces to chase me out of something i love won this country and
i believe i need to stay here as long as i can to bring her back to her higher angels and
values even when i came to the united states congress there were obviously two parties there
were other political interests but we found a way to disagree and not be disagreeable but most of
all to not be violent having gone through january 6 gives me a reason to go back because my life
is worth a great deal to the people that love me but my democracy in my country is a great deal
to all americans and i think that we have to this is our sacrifice of this time to continue
to push forward to be able to deliver for the people that have been suffering for so long that
have not been heard being that voice for them is what keeps me going we're gonna keep telling
stories like this for more of our coverage of january 6th head to pbs.org newshour
i'm nicole ellis thank you for watching