Welcome to "Late Night." It's 12:37.
We're live and very grateful to be here with you.
I swear, we were writing jokes today,
and then, as everyone knows by now,
today was a day filled with surreal and horrifying scenes of
armed insurrection, an attempt to destroy,
through violent means, American democracy.
It was a sequence of events unseen
in the modern history of this nation.
And the images should be seared
into our collective consciousness
for the rest of our lives.
And so, because of that,
our show will be a little different tonight.
In a few moments, we'll be talking with
MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace,
as well as rapper and activist Killer Mike
to break down what happened and what it means going forward.
But, first, I think it's important,
as the first draft of history is being written
and as we're all processing what we witnessed today,
to be as plain-spoken and clear-eyed as possible.
What we saw today was a violent insurgency,
an attempt to overthrow
the legitimately elected government of the United States.
And it was incited, directed, and encouraged by the president,
Donald Trump, and more than a few members of
the Republican Party and right-wing media.
A violent mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.
They violently forced their way onto the Senate floor
and into the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and climbed onto the side of the Capitol,
where they replaced an American flag with a Trump flag.
They carried weapons in violation of the law
and they made it clear what they wanted.
They broadcasted it to the world.
Some shouted, "Trump won the election" from the Senate dais.
Others waved Confederate flags.
And their goal was clear -- to disrupt and subvert
the lawful counting of electoral votes and prevent Joe Biden
from taking office as the legitimately elected president.
And then, as we were all watching
these stunning scenes of violence and sedition,
of insurrection against our democracy,
anxiously hoping for a restoration of calm and order,
the President of the United States
told the traitors and the mob, "We love you.
You're very special. I know how you feel."
And he does.
He knows how they feel because he's spent four years
telling them in great and odious detail how they should feel.
So we can be shocked, but we can't be surprised.
The president wanted this.
He directed it, supported it.
He incited it and encouraged it.
He told that same crowd just hours earlier
that they should never concede,
that they should show strength and fight.
His personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani,
told the crowd they should have a trial by combat.
And for years, the president and his band of seditious henchmen
in the Republican Party and in the right-wing-media ecosystem
have fed their rabid base a steady diet
of unhinged fantasies and conspiracy theories
as a substitute for leadership and governance.
The people who listen to Donald Trump,
to the Republican Party, to Fox News, and all the rest,
what they've been told for years
and what they were told again today
was that their country was being stolen from them,
that shadowy groups and powerful forces
were coming for them, that they should never accept defeat,
that they should fight.
For two months, they've been fed monstrous, inflammatory lies
about the election, and now, here we are.
Ted Cruz, Josh Hawley, and the rest of
the Sedition Caucus in the House and Senate goaded this on.
They're responsible for this.
They should wear this shame and disgrace
for the rest of their lives.
No one who aided and abetted today's actions
should ever be allowed to serve in a democracy
they so clearly detest.
There must be consequences for stoking violence and sedition.
Otherwise, we're going to see it again.
And as for Trump, the only way, the only way
our democracy will survive this harrowing moment is if
he is immediately removed from office
by either the cabinet or the Congress and prosecuted.
Anything less is tacit permission to continue to use
his office and his influence after he leaves office
to foment sedition and dismantle democracy.
And if our government fails to act,
they'll be assenting to the violent destruction
of the democracy they claim to care so much about.
And I think it's worth noting that while
this is the first time most of us have witnessed
anything like this in our lifetimes,
our country has really only been a full democracy,
where everyone can vote, for about 55 years.
In fact, one of the many great shames
of what occurred today is that it eclipsed a historic moment,
a shining glimmer of hope from last night in Georgia.
There were black voters who went to the polls
in unprecedented numbers to exercise a right
that, just 55 years ago, they did not have.
They elected the first black senator to represent
the state and the first black Democrat
to represent any Southern state in the Senate.
They also elected the Jewish son of an immigrant
and, in doing so, also helped repudiate
the violent, racist authoritarianism
of Trump and his movement, a movement that has never been
embraced by a majority of Americans
and which has been rejected by voters over and over again.
We've seen violent insurrection in this country before.
In 1898, a mob of white-supremacist terrorists
marched on city hall in Wilmington, North Carolina,
and staged a violent coup to overthrow
the legitimately elected biracial local government.
Multiracial, pluralistic democracy is
fragile and precious, and it requires our vigilant
stewardship and protection, and anyone not willing to
forward that project with the fullness of their effort
must be shamed and disgraced and removed from office.
And that must start immediately with Donald Trump.
We are going to try our best tonight
to process what happened.
I promise, I promise if you come back tomorrow,
we will have jokes.
And we're going to be right back with Nicolle Wallace.