Mike Pence says Trump and gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked him to overturn election
Mike Pence says Trump and gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked him to overturn election
Transcript
00:00 - With us now, CNN political commentator,
00:02 Alyssa Farrah Griffin, CNN senior legal analyst,
00:04 Ellie Honig, and CNN political commentator, Van Jones.
00:07 Ellie, I wanna start, I actually wanna start
00:10 with the interview from last night,
00:12 'cause it was so methodical and concise
00:13 in terms of almost taking apart what we've heard
00:15 from the president's lawyers up to this point.
00:17 They have not presented a case.
00:19 We've only seen the prosecutor's version of events
00:21 in the 45-page indictment up to this point.
00:23 But specifically something that Barr said
00:26 on the existence of fraud.
00:29 Take a listen.
00:29 - Here we are, two and a half years,
00:32 and still they haven't come forward with any evidence.
00:35 And in fact, as the indictment puts forward,
00:37 you have Giuliani saying, "Yeah, we have a lot of theories,
00:40 "but we don't have any evidence."
00:42 I mean, that's a pretty big admission.
00:43 No evidence.
00:45 They wanted to overturn the election,
00:47 and they had no evidence of outcome-determinative fraud.
00:51 - Ellie, you keyed on that.
00:54 Why?
00:55 - So first of all, Phil, this was a fantastic interview.
00:58 I stayed up way past my bedtime watching it,
01:01 and I found myself actually agreeing
01:02 with quite a bit of what Bill Barr said.
01:04 However, if prosecutors are relying on Bill Barr
01:07 as a witness, as some sort of divine messenger of truth
01:11 on the issue of was there election fraud,
01:13 they're gonna have a big problem.
01:15 Because yes, Bill Barr, weeks after the election,
01:17 December of 2020, did come forward publicly
01:19 and say there's no evidence of fraud,
01:21 and he has said that consistently since.
01:23 The problem is that for months leading up to the election,
01:26 he was Donald Trump's biggest cheerleader
01:28 when it came to the issue of fake allegations
01:31 of election fraud.
01:32 He went on NPR.
01:33 He said there's massive risk of election fraud here.
01:36 NPR had to run it back and say,
01:37 "We allowed the Attorney General
01:39 "to tell a falsehood on our air."
01:40 Bill Barr went in front of Congress in the summer of 2020,
01:43 said, "Huge risk of fraud in voting.
01:45 "Nothing we can do to police it."
01:47 He was asked, "Do you have any proof of that?"
01:48 He said, "No, but I just know it is common sense."
01:51 He came on our air on CNN in September of 2020,
01:55 and Wolf Blitzer, rightly knowing that Bill Barr
01:57 was pushing the election fraud lie, asked him,
01:59 "How many cases has your DOJ actually prosecuted
02:02 "of election fraud?"
02:03 And Barr hemmed and hawed.
02:04 And then Barr said, "Well, there's one case
02:06 "involving 1,700, 1,700 false ballots,"
02:10 which sounded remarkable until the next day
02:12 when it came out that that case involved one ballot,
02:15 one instance of election fraud.
02:17 DOJ had to run a correction there.
02:19 So Bill Barr has changed his tune quite a bit.
02:21 He is not gonna be an effective witness
02:23 for prosecutors on this issue.
02:24 He's trying to whitewash history,
02:26 but that won't wash in court.
02:27 He was behind this lie.
02:29 He helped spread it during those key months
02:31 leading up to the election.
02:33 - Van, taking aside the issues,
02:37 the real issues that I think Ellie rightly brings up
02:40 about Bill Barr and what he did and said before versus now,
02:43 I was so struck by the fact that he really believes
02:46 that Jack Smith has, quote, "A lot more"
02:48 that's not in the indictment,
02:50 specifically on Trump's state of mind,
02:51 because that's the-- - That's the key.
02:53 - That's the key.
02:54 - That's the hardest to prove.
02:56 And Bill Barr believes that there is a lot more
02:59 that's not in this indictment.
03:01 - Look, Bill Barr was a top cop.
03:03 He's a prosecutor's prosecutor,
03:04 so it makes sense that he would say that.
03:07 That is the whole key.
03:09 If Trump is really that dumb,
03:12 then he gets a chance to walk.
03:14 But if he's actually smart
03:15 and he knew what he was doing,
03:17 then it's a very different story.
03:18 You know, what's going on now
03:20 is that you have these two narratives in the country
03:23 that are basically the same narrative.
03:25 The Democrats are saying the president misused his office,
03:29 used the power of his office to hold onto power.
03:32 That's what we're saying about Trump.
03:33 But what the Republicans are saying about the Democrats,
03:36 the same thing.
03:37 This president is misusing his office,
03:40 the Department of Justice,
03:41 to knock out Donald Trump to stay in power.
03:43 So we're literally in mirror world right now
03:45 where both sides have the same accusation against each other.
03:49 The question you have to ask is this.
03:51 If you're a parent or a grandparent
03:53 and you had a kid that was accused of cheating
03:56 and the teacher says, "We have evidence
03:58 that this kid was conspiring to cheat."
04:00 And you say, "Well, Johnny, what's the truth?"
04:01 Well, the truth is the teacher hates me,
04:04 the students are against me, the principal's an idiot,
04:06 the entire Department of Education is corrupt.
04:09 Who do you believe?
04:11 I mean, it's a lot harder to believe.
04:13 It's a lot easier to believe that Donald Trump
04:15 just didn't want to leave office
04:16 and was conspiring with his friends.
04:17 It's a lot harder to believe
04:18 what the Republicans are saying,
04:19 which is the entire system, local prosecutors,
04:23 state prosecutors, federal prosecutors
04:25 are all conspiring against poor little Johnny.
04:28 - It's also a situation of show your work, right?
04:31 Like there's an indictment, there are three indictments.
04:34 That's the thing that always gets me.
04:36 It's not apples to apples,
04:37 not because it's one side or the other,
04:39 it's because one side has facts and evidence
04:42 and if you want to challenge that in court
04:44 and defeat it in court, by all means,
04:45 that's why the system's there.
04:46 The other side just throws the allegation out.
04:48 - But we don't know what Trump's lawyers are gonna do yet.
04:50 - No, but I mean more about is Biden ordering the justice?
04:53 Based on what?
04:54 Based on, I'm not, like, I would happily, happily
04:56 have and break that story if it existed.
04:59 I'm telling you right now, if you know,
05:00 call me immediately.
05:02 I would love to write the story,
05:03 but we just don't have evidence where there is evidence
05:05 in terms of what the former president did.
05:07 I want to ask you, actually I want to start with this.
05:09 You might have some idea of what evidence they may have
05:12 in terms of what the president's mindset was
05:16 because you testified to this issue specifically.
05:18 We've shown the video a number of times from it.
05:21 What's your sense to that, to Poppy's point,
05:24 of what more they may have?
05:25 - Well, and I do agree with the attorney general.
05:27 I think that there's more here because I think
05:29 the shakiest part of this indictment and following case
05:33 is going to be the mindset and whether or not
05:35 he actually believed the election.
05:36 This free speech argument, I actually think
05:39 is a very shallow and weak argument
05:40 because you can say just about anything in this country,
05:42 but it's when it gets into fraudulent behavior
05:44 and conspiracy, that's actions, that's conduct,
05:47 that's not a matter of speech.
05:49 But I know that Donald Trump knew that he lost the election
05:53 and what this, to Vance's point,
05:54 what this argument is going to rely on
05:56 is despite the overwhelming evidence,
05:59 demonstrable evidence that he lost
06:01 and that every reasonable person around him knew he did,
06:04 he still intellectually just didn't have the capacity
06:07 to understand it.
06:08 This is basically gonna be that Donald Trump
06:10 was too stupid to know he lost argument.
06:12 I think he's gonna hate it when his lawyers
06:14 start having to make this case.
06:16 And I would keep my eye on that because it is,
06:18 there's not gonna be, there might be some fanfare
06:21 of re-litigating, like we wanna go to these seven states
06:24 and for the 20th time see if there was fraud
06:26 and if those election results could have been different,
06:27 but it's ultimately gonna come down to
06:29 he truly believed this even though it was untrue.
06:31 - Ellie, can you also explain why the argument
06:34 that I just said relied on my lawyers
06:36 is gonna be super dicey to make in court
06:39 because then you, if you gotta put Trump on the stand,
06:41 then you pierce attorney-client privilege.
06:42 Explain that to folks.
06:44 - Yeah, so there is such a defense
06:46 that a defendant can raise in court
06:47 called advice of counsel,
06:48 which is essentially my lawyers blessed this,
06:50 my lawyers told me it was okay to do this,
06:51 what am I to know better than them?
06:53 There is risk in making this argument, high risk.
06:56 First of all, you waive, you give up
06:58 the attorney-client privilege.
06:59 So if Donald Trump actually makes that claim in court,
07:02 all of his communications with all of his lawyers
07:04 about anything become fair game for cross-examination.
07:07 Donald Trump would almost certainly have to take the stand
07:10 to make that defense.
07:12 I can only imagine what a cross-examination
07:14 of Donald Trump would look like.
07:15 And it's not a free for all.
07:17 You can't show that your lawyers gave you advice
07:20 that was patently ridiculous,
07:21 that nobody would have reasonably believed.
07:23 So it is there as a defense avenue,
07:26 but it's a really tough road to go down.
07:28 - I think you'd put up all of those
07:30 then administration lawyers, by the way,
07:32 who the indictment lists out,
07:34 who told him the exact opposite.
07:36 - Alyssa, can I ask you, your former boss,
07:38 Vice President Mike, one of your former bosses was indicted.
07:41 The other one was the vice president,
07:42 is at the center of that indictment.
07:43 He spoke about it, he was asked about it
07:45 on the campaign trail.
07:46 I want to listen to this.
07:47 - Anyone who puts themself over the Constitution
07:54 should never be president of the United States.
07:56 It wasn't just that they asked for a pause.
07:59 The president specifically asked me,
08:01 and his gaggle of crackpot lawyers asked me
08:06 to literally reject votes,
08:07 essentially to overturn the election.
08:10 - Well, I love Mike Pence on leash.
08:12 Listen-- - I know, that's what I did.
08:13 I was like, wow, that's a lot for Mike Pence.
08:15 - His lips to God's ears.
08:17 I think he's gonna turn out to be
08:18 the most important witness in this case.
08:20 I think it's very likely that he's gonna take the stand.
08:23 He knows better than most people
08:24 because there were conversations,
08:25 to the best of my knowledge,
08:27 that were directly between just him and the president.
08:29 No former president, no staff around.
08:31 He did keep contemporaneous notes.
08:33 And I applaud him for being unequivocal
08:35 in telling the truth about this.
08:36 When you look at the GOP field,
08:38 there's really only a few who are telling the truth
08:40 about what we all saw with our own eyes
08:41 on January 6th and the weeks leading up to it.
08:44 Van?
08:45 - I think that guy sounds like a leader.
08:48 He sounds like he's got conviction.
08:49 He sounds like the guy who did stand up to Donald Trump
08:52 and who did refuse to cave in.
08:55 Where has he been?
08:56 - More of that, Mike.
08:57 - More of that.
08:58 Up until now, what you've mainly seen
09:00 is this kind of himming and hawing.
09:02 It could be the fact that he doesn't have
09:04 that much left to lose.
09:06 He may not even make the debate stage.
09:08 And I think if you're going to take a stand,
09:12 today is the time to make that stand.
09:14 People are paying attention now in a different way.
09:16 You have these other cases up until now
09:18 that maybe weren't as much a threat to the country.
09:20 This is the big, big deal.
09:23 And he's taking a big stand, and I think it's a good thing.
09:25 - Yeah, it'll be fascinating to watch,
09:26 and not just the hours ahead, but days, weeks ahead.
09:28 Van Jones, Alyssa, Ali, thanks, guys.
09:31 We appreciate it.
09:32 uh... alley thanks got to appreciate