Today’s hearings will zero in on just how much danger Vice President Pence was in that day.
Rep. Adam Kinzinger is one of two Republicans serving on the January 6th Committee. He sat down with Katie to discuss what the public has learned from the last two hearings, and what to expect from today’s session.
Katie: Just to frame this conversation, Congressman, can you tell us the most important things that you have conveyed to the public through your work thus far?
Adam: When you talk about January 6, it becomes all about the violence that day, which we all know, was terrible. But I think the stuff leading up to that is what is most important — what were the steps taken that got to that point? And more importantly, has anything changed? I’ll give you a sneak peek at that answer: The answer is no. And, you know, what do we need to do to be aware of is the former president was stewing in misinformation and lies, convincing a significant portion of the country that their vote was stolen. In a democracy, the most, the only thing you actually have to agree on is that you’re going to vote and it’s going to count. And then he turned to pressure in the Department of Justice — that will be an upcoming hearing — pressuring the vice president eventually, pressuring states. He basically went through this process of finding a way to get his way on an election outcome. And eventually, when none of that worked out, it culminated in everybody showing up on January 6, and breaking into the Capitol and what we saw. That’s I think, the biggest thing so far, but we’ll of course, fill in those details.
Did this kind of activity start almost immediately after Election Day, and then lead up to January 6?
It actually started prior. A few months before the election, President Trump kept saying things like, “the only way we’ll lose is if it’s stolen.” And, “the Democrats are going to steal all these votes.” And, you know, we knew about this thing called the red wave where basically on the night as votes are counted, there’s going to be more Republican votes, because mail-in votes are usually counted later. And Democrats typically vote by mail more than Republicans. And so he started to prep people to say, “your vote is going to be stolen, we’re going to be ahead and then they’re going to do these vote dumps.” So that’s what led up to election day.
And ironically, he discouraged many Republicans from voting using mail-in ballots, which might have hurt him in several states, because the rhetoric about their vote not counting actually suppressed the vote in several places.
Yeah, I mean, it certainly did. So if you think about it, if you’re convinced that your vote may be stolen, you’re gonna go vote on election day. Well, how many people showed up with Covid that day, or had COVID and couldn’t vote? Maybe there was weather, maybe their car broke down? Or maybe they forgot. It significantly harmed the outcome. There are a lot of Republican operatives upset about that. We had Bill Stepien at the last hearing, and he said the same thing.
Let’s talk about tomorrow’s hearing, because I understand from my sources, it will focus pretty heavily on Vice President Pence, and the massive pressure campaign that he was put through in the days leading up to January 6…
I can give you some top lines of what to expect. So now, you know, the president at this point had tried to pressure states, he had tried to pressure the DOJ to put a justice stamp on his lies. And then all the way up to that January 6 moment in which a lawyer had basically created this memo that said the Vice President has the leverage to just throw out states votes.
Now, all you got to do is look back and say, I’m very sure that our founding fathers did not intend for a vice president be — particularly even before the return limits — able to just say, I don’t accept a slate of electors. But he had evidence. And so what they tried to do was to pressure the Vice President, to send back some of the contested states to the state. Now, granted, probably over time, they would have come back to Congress. The problem is, in the electoral account act it specifies that those votes have to be counted on a specific day. And in reality, if that day goes by without a winner, an argument could be made, according to the Constitution, that now that there’s no winner, it has to go to the House of Representatives for a vote, and President Trump would have won a vote in the House of Representatives.
I understand that they’re going to show you’re going to show just how much danger Vice President Pence was in on January 6, in terms of his proximity to this mob of people. What can you tell us about that?
I don’t want to ruin the surprise, so to speak, but I think it’s what’s important to think about is there’s a perception that I had before I came to DC, that everywhere in the Capitol, there’s probably some secret trapdoor in which you can escape. To be clear, that didn’t exist. And the Vice President came very close to having no exit room.
Think about how much money we spend every year to protect the line of succession to the presidency. So at the point the Capitol was occupied, in theory, you could have had the vice president killed. They talked about hanging him, there was very clear. They came after Pelosi, who was number three in line for the presidency. And then fourth is the dean of the Senate. All of those people in theory could have been killed, in which case, you have no line of succession to the presidency at that point. And you can imagine any constitutional crisis from there. We’re going to put that out in a very compelling way so you can see it, but it’s very chilling every time I think about how close we came.
And while Donald Trump was in the White House watching this action unfold on television, Mike Pence was in the bowels of the Capitol conducting the business of government — reaching out to the Secretary of Defense, calling congressional leaders. That’s a pretty stark contrast, isn’t it? Especially given the fact that ostensibly President Trump commented that day that maybe his supporters had the right idea and that Mike Pence deserved it?
It just goes to show, in the mind of Trump, I don’t think narcissism is the right word. If there’s something beyond narcissism, where it’s only about him, it’s the only thing you can think about. You think about the Vice President, and we’ll be able to show some of these images at some point, sitting in the bowels of the Capitol, refusing to leave because he was afraid they were going to whisk him out. And he wanted to stay to be able to finish this job. And, and making calls to leaders to get action, and get things done. Vice President is not in the chain of command as vice president for the Department of Defense, for instance. But with the lack of anybody taking leadership, he was basically the person that made these calls. There’ll be many people that testify, and many surprising people that they never heard from the President that day on one of the darkest days in his presidency.
I mean, is this going to solidify pre-existing views between Republicans and Democrats? Because, according to one poll, and this is stunning to me, 70% of Republicans still believe that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected, despite all evidence to the contrary. So will this change hearts and minds?
I think there’s near term and kind of long-term impacts. In the near term, I think there will be an impact kind of around the edges. So there are a lot of people that, again, as I mentioned at the beginning, got channelized on the violence of that day, and forgot the things that led to it. And I think their eyes are being opened, there is a lot of interest in what we’re saying. And so that may make some moves around the edge. I don’t expect that, you know, tomorrow or after these hearings are done, that the whole MAGA movement is going to collapse, it may even get solidified. But this is what I think is the most important, when you look in the context of history, five or 10 years goes by pretty quick.
What’s going to matter is what we say here, and what we do here, will guarantee and submit what is written in history books. I can, I can promise you that in five or 10 years, my fellow Republicans that have been part of The Big Lie, will be very ashamed of that. And my son, who was five months old, will be very proud of his last name, because he knew I stood for truth. That’s not why I’m doing it. But I am convinced that in the future, we will look back at this moment and say, I cannot believe we got that close to, frankly, destroying this democracy. So I do think it matters.
I don’t necessarily think you know, the people radicalized are going to change overnight. But the only thing you can do with misinformation is present truth. Lastly, I want to say: This is why leadership is so important. Because people look to leaders to tell them things. And when you have leaders that don’t say anything, or are a part of the problem, they can and the folks saying otherwise, our people they don’t trust, they will simply go with what they believe leaders have to lead if you’re going to come to DC and not be willing to tell the truth, go get a different job, you can probably make more money and work less than coming out in the wind your own constituents.
For more of Adam’s crucial insights, watch the full interview, here.
