Importantly, tonight we have Speaker Nancy Pelosi joining us, and im not sure where this story would be if she had not appointed that january Six Committee. So true. This begins with that very difficult and somewhat controversial decision to move forward without the candidates that Kevin Mccarthy wanted on that committee, and the work that they did, maybe the foundation of where we are today. Im really eager to hear how she did it and how she made it work so well. Gonna be a great show. Thanks, alex. Well, yesterday, as i began reading the newest indictment of donald trump, i wondered if this indictment would exist without nancy pelosi. The roadmap for the conspiracies described in this indictment was provided to the Justice Department by nancy pelosi through the work of the january Six Committee that she created. On the darkest day of the history of american president ial transitions of power, january six, 2021, america was lucky. But nancy pelosi was Speaker Of The House. As long trumps attackers at the capitol were trying to find her, she was rushed from the building, along with other democratic and republican members of the congressional leadership. The next day she began planning the second impeachment of donald trump for inciting an insurrection. 57 senators voted to convict donald trump, including seven republicans, but that was not enough to reach the two thirds of 67 for conviction required by the constitution. Nancy pelosi did not stop at impeachment. She appointed a special january Six Committee to investigate everything that donald trump and his associates did leading up to and on january six, to try to overthrow the president ial election and overthrow american democracy in the process. Each member of that committee was chosen by speaker pelosi, including the two republican members. They conducted a ten month investigation, relying heavily on a highly experienced investigative staff, before making their first evening primetime nationally televised presentation of evidence to the nation. They obtained massive amounts of information using subpoenas, and some other subpoenas to republican officials were ignored. They recommended steve bannon for prosecution for ignoring the subpoena, and merrick Garlands Department convicted steve bannon for contempt of congress. He has not yet been sentenced pending his appeal of that conviction. People eager to know the truth criticize the committee for moving too slowly. There was much public doubt about what the committee could accomplish with some other subpoenas being aiken word and republicans like mike pence refusing to cooperate with the committee in any way. I shared much of that doubt myself. Congressional investigative committees are notoriously bad at investigating. No one runs for the house or senate saying i will be the best investigator in the building. Some of them have previous experience as federal prosecutors, but they never have investigative tools as powerful as the tools available to federal prosecutors like jack smith. When investigative committees are often plagued by eagle mania when the cameras are on them, with every member wanting to make the most of their five or ten minutes on camera. Nancy pelosi eliminated all of those built in defects to congressional investigative committees by choosing the specific members she chose who all realize that the work of their committee was much more important than any attention they might get for their service on the committee. It is impossible for me to exaggerate my personal shock at the discovery that not every member of the january Six Committee would get to speak in every one of the hearings. That is the very point of being on a televised committee, to get your star turn on television every time. In most of the committees public meetings, most of the members of the committee did not speak. And public presentations by the committee were simply the best in the history of congressional committees. And again, that was thanks entirely to the design of the committee as well as the supremely thorough work done by the Committee Staff and the members in preparation for every public presentation. And it is thanks to the work of the january 6th committee, that the indictment we read yesterday felt like something we have read before, the report of the january 6th committee, very importantly jack smiths indictment of donald trump has more details than a january Six Committee was able to discover because a federal prosecutor Subpoena Power is much more immediately effective an enforceable then congressional Subpoena Power. Mike pence, who refused to speak to jerry Six Committee, was subpoenaed to speak to jack smiths grand jury, and mike pence did not just show up to testify, he also issued a subpoena to hand over he obeyed subpoenaed turnovers notes to mike smith whos refers to mike pences notes in the indictment. Jack smith didnt have to do that. When describing a December 29th Conversation between then President Donald Trump and Vice President mike pence, jack smith did not have to include the phrase, as reflected in the Vice President s contemporary us notes. Jack smith referred to the president s annexed can brainiacs notes more than once in the indictment to make it very clear to donald trump right now what he is up against in this case and to make it clear to the American People how solid the prosecutions evidence ears in this case. Donald trump was eventually going to discover, through the Legal Discovery process of evidence, that mike pence took notes a long trumps conversations and the prosecution has those notes. The indictment clearly implies that everything that appears in quotation marks, and on trumps conversations with mike pence, comes from pences notes, including the line you are too honest. As i emphasized here, don trump saying you are too honest to mike pence is gonna be the headline of the Trump Trial Coverage of the day mike pence raises his right hand to take an oath as a witness to tell the truth about donald trump. That is the day mike pence will tell a jury in a criminal trial in washington, d. C. , and jennifer, astonished when he won, when you told donald trump, once again, and the Vice President did not have, quote, the authority to reject a return votes to the states under the constitution. The defendant told the president , the Vice President , you are too honest. Everything the jack smith needs to prove, under the laws cited in the indictment, is in that exchange. There is the president United States trying to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiring to defraud the United States. That exchange contains non trumps knowledge of the what mike pence said to him as true. The Vice President has no authority to reject electoral votes. That exchange contains what appears to be proof beyond reasonable doubt that donald trump knew that he was lying about the Vice President s authority and he was lying to mike pence about the Vice President s authority. That exchange contains proof of Donald Trumps two state of mind. And yet another attempt by donald trump to obstruct an official proceeding. Some of the most compelling testimony presented by the january Six Committee is not part of this indictment at all, including this conversation between Cassidy Hutchinson and white house Chief Of Staff mike meadows. Driving back to the white house, i remember does the president really think he lost . And he said a lot of times hell tell me that he lost, but he wants to keep fighting it. He thinks there might be enough to overturn the election, but he has pretty much other acknowledge that he has lost. Youre not gonna see testimony like that of the trial. January Six Committee was able to present evidence publicly like that that might not even be admissible in the trial, that might be hearsay, for example. There is this committee was able to allow witnesses to tell him narrative story in a way that made clear sense to an audience without being peppered by questions and lawyers objections. In the areas where the january Six Committees Presentation Overlaps with what will be the criminal trial in this case the Geniuses Committees Presentation is probably more clear and more human and more compelling than what we might hear in court. Here is a piece of evidence developed by the january Six Committee that does appear in the indictment as an indication that donald trump knew that he had lost the election. So were in the oval, a new discussion going on. And the president says, i think, it couldve been but he says words to the effect, yeah, were gonna let that issue go to the next guy. Meaning president biden. America was ready for this indictment unable to understand the credibility of most of what is in this indictment, thanks to the work of the january Six Committee. When the capital was under attack on january 6th, the Speaker Of The House got word that the president wanted to come into the capitol. They have dissuaded, only to other bitter have the resources to protect him here. So the moment he is not coming. That could change. If he comes amid a punch him out. Ive been waiting for this. For trespassing on the capitol grounds. Im gonna punch him out, and i will go to jail, and would be happy. Shes not going to jail, and hes now indicted for what he did that day. Joining us now, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is an honor to have you with us tonight. I have to tell you, that is soon as i started reading that indictment yesterday, i started thinking about you, and i started thinking about that decision that you made to establish that january Six Committee, to appoint exactly who you are pointed, and i was left wondering, if we would be here tonight, if you hadnt made those decisions. Well, thank you, i listen to your presentation with great emotions, with great pride in the work of the january Six Committee. The leadership of benny transom, chairman bennie thompson, mississippi, vice chair of the committee, liz cheney of wyoming, they were great leaders of the committee but every member made his or her contribution with patriotism an excellence. To your point, they werent there to perform. They were there to be patriotic, to seek and find the troops. It wasnt an easy path to get there. People said to me, youre taking a real risk. And i said no, we know what were doing. We have really, we were striving to have an outside commission, a bipartisan commission. We had offered equal staffing, equal payroll, equal Subpoena Power, everything, to the republicans. In the senate they thought they had the votes, but in fact unfortunately Mitch Mcconnell went around to the senators and said do me a personal favor, dont vote for this. And they saw what they had 13 votes and it ended up being six. One person was absent, so maybe wouldve been seven, but what was interesting about it is people said to mitch, at the time, you dont think nancys gonna let this go away . And why would he saying that . He already had a vote in the house so bipartisan commission, they wouldnt accept, and we then voted to do our own committee in the house. And it was about the respect, thinking about our founders on what they had in mind for this country, this democracy. Not a king, not a monarch, but a democracy, a separation of power and a peaceful transfer of power. It was about our men and women in universe uniform, who Fight For Freedom for our country, for our democracy, and for other democracies as well. And that principle was at stake. And always its about the children and the future in the country that they will live in, that it would be clear that there would be clarity, that our democracy was based, our constitution, we take an oath to protect and defend it. So i give credit to the committee members. They were courageous. You have no idea the heat that they received but they were patriotic and they wanted to get the job done. So, to your point, they built a foundation of facts. A foundation of facts built on, in relationship to the law. The fact similar. And the rule of law. And they had nine public hearings, and, yes we wanted the narrative to be clear, and so there were decisions that had to be made and our members were part of those decisions. Can i ask you, madam speaker, about those decisions, because like you i have seen more congressional hearings, house and senate, then i can count. I have never seen such discipline. Ive never seen such clarity a presentation. I have never seen a more flawless delivery of compelling information to the public. The hearing was about, from where i was sitting, public comprehension. It was not ever about members needing attention or members exercising their egos. And the whole time i was watching that, tell me if im wrong, but i was crediting you with the discipline that i saw imposed on that committee. , lawrence, the fact is, we made a decision that we were going to have the clarity, the purpose, like clarity of message, and the respect for the facts and the truth. Once you make the decision, then you have to make every decision in favor of reaching that goal, and we did. Our members cooperated. We had nine hearings, nine members, each one took a major part of each hearing so we didnt have 30 members taking five minutes and as you said before, i was not going to have that. I think my members knew i was not gonna have that. But not just me. It was a consensus. We always build things by consensus. So when we made that decision and the excellence of the staff, the staff was superb, and the collection of data, the acquisitions, the investigation, all of it was superb. And then we did have some professional help as to how to have timing and the rest as we went forward. But the important thing to note is, this was our honoring our Oath Of Office to protect and defend the constitution. There was no room for any, shall we say, ego boost or whatever else. Some of us might enjoy in the course of the hearing. It wise very disciplined. You have to have discipline if youre going to be effective and get the job done. Again, i collection of facts. Remember, most of the people, except i think the one witness, were republicans. The people who testified, who gave this information, who provided the truth, many of them appointed by donald trump. Many of them appointed by donald trump. And say this is what was heavy and we had nine hearings, 70 witnesses, overwhelmingly except for maybe one appointed by trump or a republican and van in the founder of 2021, excuse me, 2022 the committee came together to give its final report, last december, and called for charges to be made against the president. Nothing happened for a while. I was calm, but i thought well, if i were, the Attorney General i would want to collect the vax myself, build upon this in a way that is different from a congressional hearing. So i wasnt too apprehensive about what was happening, but i was awfully glad, and so were our members because they knew the evidence. They knew the law. And they knew that charges should be brought, because no one is above the law. Not the president of the native states, not anyone. So people said oh, this will cause a farce if you take him to court. Well, he is not above the law. And thats what the Attorney General kept saying. The more Merrick Garland would say no one is above the law, the more i came to believe that he was willing to investigate. When you go back to january 6th, as we just took you for a moment with that video that your daughter shot that day, where you were in the thick of that emotion of that moment, ready to punch the president as United States and get dragged down to that courthouse and arraigned for it. Tomorrow former president United States is going to be arraigned in the courthouse that you are thinking about that day on january 6th and how does that feel for you . Heartbreaking, because the president United States did not have the respect for the office that he held. Heartbreaking for the fact that some people in our country still believe him. And i respect their point of view. I dont respect the members of congress who were on under threat that night. I thought i was gonna get a bullet in the hand and the Vice President and he was gonna get strangled or whatever, hung. They were all under threat and many of them scared of what that might what might happen. Some of us had, i had my security, so i wasnt particularly worried about myself. I could see on tv that they were shouting my name and coming after me and all that. It was incited by the president United States, but i was much more concerned about the Vice President because of what the president , what, clearly, he had in mind. But the thing that i find unforgivable, two things, one, as you know, lawrence, you know this from your own life. Many of