thanks for joining us. anderson starts now. >> tonight on 360, new word on how prosecutors plan to use the former president's embrace of january 6th defendants against limb in court. we'll talk about that and more with liz cheney whose new book has plenty to say about donald trump and the threat she believes he poses. also new reporting on how much longer israel might continue high intensity ground operations in gaza which today saw some of the heaviest fighting in the war. plus, what key voters in a key swing state have to say about their choices for 2024. jon king has our series of reports all over the map. good evening. our guests tonight here with me in studio is liz cheney. former wyoming republican congresswoman, vice chair of the house january 6th committee. our conversation comes at the end of a day that saw two potentially significant january 6th related developments. the first involving the evidence in the subversion case want jurors to see. the second on what mike johnson wants to keep americans from seeing and soon to be released video of the attack on congress. my conversation with the congresswoman is going to start in a moment. first, the latest on both stories from paula. so, what are federal prosecutors in washington signaling tonight? >> they're giving us a preview of their case and exactly how they spend to use trump's words against him in a court of law. now, they're really going to emphasize how trump's continued support for those who attacked the capitol is evensidence of a conspiracy. they said trump quote continues to openly and proudly support individuals who criminally participated that day including by suggesting he will pardon them if re-elected. even as he has conceded he had the ability to influence their actions during the attack. they also say they want to show the jury things trump said in the lead up to election day. including his refusal to denounce the extremist group the proud boys and his refusal to commit to a peaceful transition of power. they insist all of this is evidence of his intent to get his supporters like the proud boys to attack the capitol and undermine the results of the election when it didn't go his way. and interestingly, they're going to try to take it back to 2012 over a decade ago and show how trump has repeatedly tried to claim fraud when elections had outcomes he didn't like. and prosecutors say look, this laid the foundation for what he tried to do in 2020. now this is their plan but all of this has to be approved by a judge. >> what did speaker johnson say about the footage? >> this was interesting. he said he wants to release this footage in the interest of transparency but is insisting the faces of the people in the mob be blurred to quote protect them from the justice department. that's an odd thing to say because federal investigators have the raw footage. they've used it to prosecute hundreds of people. now the speaker subsequently backtracked in a statement saying instead, he's trying to prevent all forms of retaliation from non government actors. again, online sleuths, the public, non government actors, have identified hundreds of people in that footage and the justice department has even asked for their help in identifying others. first, the speaker was actively involved in efforts to undermine the outcome of the election but he says he wants to release the footage so people can quote, do their own research on the capitol attack. >> thanks very much. joining us now is liz cheney. former member of the house republican leadership and someone who might easily still hold both titles tonight expect she stood up for democracy up to and including her role on the january 6th committee which set her apart from the former president. her new blockbuster book out today is oath and honor. a memoir and warning. certainly speaks to the moment. thanks so much for being with us. this is not only a fascinating, terrifying book and a warning as you say, it is also a really well written, captivating story that just takes you from the f first pages and gallups you through the last many years of the dissent of our democracy. you write a lot about mike johnson in the book. when you were writing this, he wasn't the speaker. didn't know he was going to be the speaker. talk about this idea that he wants to blur the faces. what does that tell you? >> i think pfirst of all with tt to the videotape, the department of justice already has these tapes and i think we're experiencing a situation where the speaker, speaker johnson, is somehow attempting to suggest there's something in these tapes that would change the facts of what happened. there's nothing in the tapes that can change the fact of what happened that day. that can change the violent assault. i have called on him to release the tapes. we need to make sure obviously that we protected security issues at the capitol, but at this point, what's happening, i don't know why he's dragging his feet after having proclaimed he's going to release them. >> also this idea of blurring the faces. seems like it's kabuki theatre that he's standing up to protect them when in fact it actually has no purpose. >> yeah and it's a perfect example of the lengths to which he will go. even in his rhetoric. he said to protect people from the department of justice. and at the same time, he proclaims that he is representing the quote rule of law party. so i think the game's got to stop and if he's going to release the tapes, he needs to release the tapes. >> he portrays himself as this devout and earnest and thoughtful person. that is not, he seems like a slippery character in the pages of your book. the reality of him behind the scenes is very different. >> yeah. i certainly wouldn't question anybody's faith, but i, you know, knew him well. we were friends. we were elected at the same time. i believed him to be somebody who was honorable. but then sadly, i watched through the whole process first of the amicus brief that he pushed members of the house to sign on, which you know, was constitutionally infirm in the supreme court. >> let's talk about that. he spentent out a letter to mem of congress saying do this for president trump. >> right. >> and the arguments he was making according to you were, they just didn't, they weren't sound. >> he was claiming and telling members that the brief itself was just simply an effort to convince the courts to hear this case. when in fact, the brief itself made serious charges alleged you know activity that was unconstitutional. alleged that people in the states had conducted themselves in ways that were unconstitutional and made these allegations even though courts across the country in each of these states had heard these facts and already determined what the brief was asserting was not true. i also think there are serious ethical problems. somebody who's a member of the bar asserting in front of the court facts known to them about which they don't have. >> he was also saying he was a constitutional scholar and that there was an implied threat in his brief. >> yeah. i heard from a number of our colleagues who said wait a minute, you know, he's taking down names and making a list for donald trump to look at. is this in fact a threat? he denied that it was but the activity continued into the objections over the electoral votes as well. i wasn't the only one who was raising a red flag about his activities. kevin mccarthy's senior counsel was doing the same thing. she in fact said she had talked to him and he knew what he was doing didn't have any basis in the constitution. >> you write mike johnson and republican leaders have played a destructive role. he appeared especially susceptible to flattery from trump and aspired to be anywhere in trump's orbit. he was telling colleagues he was a constitutional law expert while advocating positions that were constitutionally infirm. do you believe he poses a threat to the integrity of the 2024 presidential election? >> i do think that if we come to a place where he's the speaker of the house where the republicans are the majority on january 6th of 2025, there are real questions about whether or not that majority will do what's required under the constitution. for example, if an election would be thrown into the house or even going through the process of counting electoral votes. >> an election could end up going to the house where the house will determine you think the republicans in the house are not responsible enough to do what is right and legal. >> i think the lesson we've seen over the over the last couple of years is this dwgroup of electe republicans can't be counted on to defend the constitution. that's a very sad thing for me to say. a very dangerous place for the country to be. but that's what we've seen based on the actions of the last several years. >> what will get this fever dream among these republicans to stop and to go back to being a party that can wants to actually g govern and get stuff done? >> i think we have to have the majority of the american people who are not part of sort of this, the cult of personality around donald trump. there's a portion of the party that absolutely is not going to be convinced to move away from him, but it's a much smaller number than you know the vast majority of republicans, democrats, and independents combined. and those of us who understand the danger have to be committed to working across party lines to protect against it. >> kevin mccarthy in the details that you have about mccarthy in this book, we reported last week that mccarthy told you that his trip down to mar-a-lago where he went to kiss the ring, was that trump was depressed and not eating. the former president has responded the other day saying he was angry and eating too much. you don't buy either of those explanations. >> you know, i didn't buy kevin's explanation. trump's maybe that's the first truth he's ever spoken, i don't know. but the bottom line is what mccarthy, what he was really doing was when big donors cut off donations to the republicans after the insurrection, he needed money and the only place he could get money was to go see trump and get access to his list of donors. that meant going down there and helping him to begin to wipe away the stain of what he'd done. >> why do you think so many, lindsey graham who said he was done with trump, he's out that night then i remember somebody yelled at him in the airport on his way back down to south carolina then all of a sudden, he's playing golf with the former president. >> i don't understand it. i think there's a lot of years are going to be spent on psycho analysis of the number of members of my party. i think that the danger that we face though is that people are now willing to sort of accept these really extreme things that donald trump is claiming he'll do. we're not guessing about what he'll do. >> do you think, do they actually believe these lies? >> no. i think the number of people who believe the lies in elected office is very small. i think in the house republicans it's probably single digits. but you have a far larger group of people, some who have determined they're going to be fully on board and aggressively sporting and enabling trump and a lot of others who said we're going to look the other way. that's really dangerous because then people around the country sort of start to say well it must not be that bad if you don't have that many republicans speaking out against it. >> your dad told you just before the joint session of congress on january 6th. >> i was in the cloak room off the house floor working on remarks i was going to give and he called me and asked if i was watching the speech and i said i wasn't. he told me trump said we have to get rid of liz cheneys of the world and he said to me, you're in danger. he said we need to talk about whether or not given that he's just done this, that he's just targeted you specifically, what that means for you going on to the house floor, speaking against the objections. through the course of our conversation, it was clear we knew i couldn't not proceed because of this threat from donald trump. but that's a, you know, you can imagine sort of the emotion of the moment to have my dad calling me to say the president has just targeted me in a way that put me at risk. >> do you understand the bill barr, who has you know, was very loyal to the president while he was in office and then clearly has had a change of heart. and yet not saying categoringly that he would not vote for the former president. >> i guess i have a couple of views about that. i think there are a number of people including bill barr who were around the president, who stopped the president from doing far worse. bill barr certainly is one of the people who told the president repeatedly that what he was saying was untrue about fraud in the election and said it publicly. but i don't think that you can acknowledge and recognize the facts in the mountain of evidence that points to what donald trump did. his direct involvement in attempting to seize power and overturn an election then turn around and say you would vote for him again. i think people have to come to grips with the facts that those are inconsistent and if you'd vote for him despite what he's done, you're helping him continue as a force in the politics of this nation and that's dangerous. >> we all see historical events, movies, and think how could there be people who would work for that government and do these things. there was a lot of people saying well, if trump ever got a second, who would work for a second term of donald trump? there are actually a lot of people. and some are very smart people who are willing to do this. that's a real danger. because they've learned from mistakes of the first administration and the first of his first term and they know what to do now. >> right. and you won't have some of the good people to stop him. and you know, he said people like mike flynn will be the national security adviser potentially. jeff clark possibly the attorney general. >> mike flynn is selling t-shirts and making outrageous statements at conventions. >> right. >> those are the people who will be around him if he were to be elected again. the other thing that people have to realize is what it means if a president of the united states won't enforce the rulings of our courts and that is absolutely what he said he will do. he's gone to war with the rule of law. and a president who won't enforce the law creates a situation where things just unravel. and he will have people around him who will help him do it. he will i'm sure offer pardons to people if they're concerned about their own criminal liability. >> pardon january 6th? >> certainly. i think he's been very clear repeatedly about his glorification of that day and again, that's a, you know, the republicans were almost unanimous in the days just after january 6th, recognizing you know, he bore responsibility and he had to be held accountable. very quickly though that began to dissipate. that unanimity and now we have an effort underway to whitewash it, including what you saw today from the speaker of the house. >> according to a report, he praised your powerful voice and said if trump wasn't running, not sure i'd be running. you haven't ruled o aut a third party run. you've also said you weren't going to do anything to help donald trump. if you were to determine your candidacy would take more votes away from trump than biden, would that be a catalyst to get into the race? >> i'm going to look at this through the lens of how do we stop donald trump. on some level, it's not about me. what i'm going to do or not do. i look at it very much from the perspective of right now, absolutely have to keep our eye on the goal of stopping him. i think there's a huge amount of work to be done after this election cycle. whether it's rebuilding the republican party, which increasingly looks like you know, maybe an impossible task or helping to begin a new party that's very focused on what the republican party used to stand for before this cult of personality, but right now and in this election cycle, i'll do whatever i have to do to make sure donald trump's not elected. >> how concerned are you about third party candidates out there already? you've got -- >> look, i think that you know, we're at a moment where the possibility of a third party run is more something we have to consider more than we ever have before because of the threat that trump poses. but i also think we have to ensure that at some point, we're unified against him. it goes back to what we were talking about before that it can't be a partisan issue. it has to be a situation where we say i don't care what your view is on this issue or that issue or whatever the big policy issue is. if you care about the constitution and you're going the defend it, we have to work and vote together for that. >> what do you say to the vast number of republicans who believe trump's messaging that it's joe biden who poses the greatest risk to democracy? >> i think the overwhelming majority of republicans understand that's disinformation, a lie. that's been sort of trump's method of operating. he knows that it is a real threat to his political success if people recognize that he himself is trying to unravel democracy. so i think he's projecting. trying to turn that around but i don't think it will work. >> you've also said you don't think trump would willingly leave office after a second term. you said if voters return him to the white house, there may not be any more elections to vote in. the pushback is that that's alarmist, it's hyperbolic. there are institutional guardrails that would prevent that. >> i think it's naive and a real misreading of what we've lived through to think we can count on the guardrails we have in place. donald trump tried to seize power in 2020. he tried very hard. he put in place a multipart plan to ensure that you know, joe biden wasn't going to be certified rightfully as the president of the united states. so he's done it once. what we saw in 2020 was that it was the people. it was the fact that there were republicans at the state level who stopped him. there were people in his white house, the justice department, who stopped him. but he knows now you know, what to do. he's learned the lessons of 2020 and 2021. so i think anybody who says well, don't worry, you can count on the balance of power and the institutions, that's really wishful thinking that we can't afford. >> we're six weeks away from the iowa caucuses. what is your message to voters going into this 2024 election? >> that whatever you do, whatever you think about you know, the possibilities that donald trump might prevent, he's not an acceptable option. alternative. i hope he is defeated in the primary but if not, we have to defeat him in the general and people need to take seriously and literally what he's saying, which is that he would in fact unravel our democracy, potentially terminate the constitution. it's a risk we can't take. >> liz cheney, thank you so much. congratulations. really just a, i don't want to say fun read, but it is a fascinating read. engrossing. thank you. >> appreciate it. >> the book's out today. already best-selling on amazon. oath and honor, a memoir and a warning. reaction next from the right and left and what was a heavy day of fighting in gaza, exclusive reporting on how much longer u.s. officials expect such intensive ground operations to continue. we'll be right back. in just a moment, public reaction to what liz cheney told me about the threat a second trump term poses to american democracy. first, i want to replay a portion of our conversation about republican lawmakers and what drives their continuing support for the former president. >> do they actually believe these lies? >> no, i think th