the law throughout his life
since he was a young man.
And the way, of course,
has been a constant tactic
since he was taught the basics
of how to break the law
and evade the law by his lawyer,
Roy Cohn.
But I think we need to
cut to the chase here about what
all of these proceedings are about.
They are about a criminal president
of the United States
who attempted a coup,
who tried to take over
the legitimate functions of government
by staging a coup so that his lawfully
elected successor could not take office.
What we have Bob
and I wrote in the 50th
anniversary edition
of All the President's
Men, a new forward, largely
about the criminal president,
Richard Nixon,
and the criminal president, Donald Trump.
And the greatest danger
is obviously from Trump. What is he?
He is the first seditious president
in the history of the United States,
a president who attempted to foment
an insurrection to stop the legitimate
transfer of power
and functioning
of the United States government.
Listen, to what Mitch McConnell,
the Republican leader, said on that day
after January six, that only one person
was morally and practically responsible
for this insurrection.
Donald Trump.
So let's keep our eye on the facts,
as Bob said, and what it's about.
The Repub lican party, which historically
has done the right thing
in the moment of Joe McCarthy,
the great Demagog
Big Demagog did the right thing in
Watergate, forced
Richard Nixon from office.
Are they going to allow
an insurrectionist
seditious president
to carry our democracy
into a terrible, horrible place
where it has never gone?
I want to play a clip here
from the former president's new attorney,
John Lauro.
He appeared on Fox News today.
Here's what he said about what
the former presidents
still presidents at the time
Donald Trump wanted
after the 2020 election.
The only
thing that
President Trump asked
is a pause in the counting.
So those seven contested states
could either reordered or recertify
I've never heard of anyone
get indicted for asking for an audit.
What what
President Trump was looking for was
the truth
was to find out
exactly what happened in those
seven contested states.
That's just not criminal.
Bobby, you've extensively reported,
instead of ostensibly
reported on this issue
and all those conversations
that the former president is
what, you know, match
what you just heard.
Well well, Karl is absolutely right.
This was a coup and there is a coup memo
that was written literally
by one of Trump's attorneys,
John Eastman, the famous
Eastman memo, Jame.
One of your colleagues,
Jamie Gangel,
got it and ran it on CNN and in it
at the
Eastman says over
seven states with contested electors,
Mike Lee,
the Republican senator from Utah,
a big Trump
supporter,
started looking into this and discovered
there were absolutely zero
states with contested electors.
He was quite upset about this.
Senator Lee
actually sent me the coup memo saying
it is unsupported Senator Lee,
when the certification of Biden
came, the finally came after January 6th,
went to the Senate floor
and said there's nothing to this.
Lindsey Graham said nothing to it at all.
These are Trump supporters
who backed Trump and investigated
and found nothing.
And to your point,
it'll be interesting to see
if they can make this case
in a court of law that they make publicly
where they're not under oath as Mr.
Law. The audits were done.
The recounts were done.
All of that was done.
All the court challenges were done.
Yes, the president had those rights
to make those case.
They were all done by January 6th,
and he had lost them all.
To that point, Carl, as we look forward.
The former president on the radio earlier
this week suggested that, quote,
A passionate group of voters
would be more dangerous than in 20, 20
if he were imprisoned
during the election.
What do you make of that?
I make of that that
once again, he's threatening
that his people
are going to go into the streets
and riot and hurt people
and there's
going to be a great movement
that in his favor
that is going to be violent
and the threat of violence is somehow
going to help him in the courts etc.
etc..
Let's just mention
Mike Pence for one minute
and this coup attempt.
Listen to what Mike Pence was told
by the president of the United States
to stop the certification
of the duly elected electors
to the Electoral College
meeting on January 6th.
That indeed the president
of the United States,
clear, as can be telling
the vice president, break the law.
Let's not have a lawful
transfer of power.
We have to look at forget Mr.
Law there for a minute.
We have to look
at the unprecedented nature
of a president of the United States
fomenting insurrection.
The overthrow of legitimate government
in this country
never happened in the White House before.
That's what this is about.
And Republicans, above
all, should be terrified
of allowing this president
to get away with it.
And yet
the overwhelming majority
are quite silent.
Even as even if you support Trump,
you think about the fact
that all of this
is going to play out in the middle
of a presidential campaign.
Which Trump thinks might be good for him.
We'll see as it plays out.
Gentlemen,
we'll continue this conversation
in the weeks and months ahead, of course.
Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein,
thank you so much.
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