Welcome to the Washington Week extra.
I'm yamiche Alcindor.
Tonight we begin by continuing our conversation about the January 6th committee hearings On
Thursday night, lawmakers played audio of former top Trump advisor Steve Bannon.
That's right, the same Steve Bannon that was convicted of of not complying with a congressional
subpoena that Steve Bannon On talking on October 31st 2020 days before Election Day about how
Trump would declare he won the election, even if votes were still being counted.
So here's Steve Bannon talking in October 2021 or 20 twenties rather talking about stealing
the election, essentially And what Trump's going to do is just declare victory.
The Democrats don't more of our people vote.
Early that count.
There's voted make, and so they're gonna have a natural Disadvantaged and trust them to
take advantage of that's Australia's himself winner.
So when you wake up Wednesday morning It's gonna be a firestorm.
Also, if Trump is Trump is losing
Mm hmm. 11 o'clock at night.
It's going to be even crazier.
Yes, because you just sit right there and said they stole it binds.
Winning.
Trump is gonna do some crazy.
You heard that right?
He said Trump is going to declare that he's winning even if votes are still being counted.
So joining me to discuss this and more.
Hallie Jackson, senior Washington correspondent for NBC News anchor on NBC News, now and here
in Studio Dan Balls, chief correspondent for The Washington Post, and our friend, Nicole
Killian, congressional correspondent for CBS News, So thank you all for being here.
Hallie, I want to start with you because I had to almost listen to that sound a couple
of times and then I had to literally ask my producer.
What's the date on that in the audio?
Talk to me about your reaction is someone who obviously is covered Trump extensively,
of course, is still covering Trump World.
At the chase down Steve Bannon a few times in my day.
You know what I mean?
I mean, listen, this is here's the thing he turned out to be right, right.
I mean, Steve Bannon knew what he was talking about at the moment because things happen.
Um and and Donald Trump did did say that he won the election even when
the evidence came back and showed that there was obviously no widespread fraud and that
he had, in fact lost And this is, um Such an interesting, important and controversial
character in the bigger drama of Trump world, Right, And I don't want to frame it like a
drama because this is serious stuff about the democratic principles which our country
is founded.
But I will say that you know, Bannon likes the show of this.
He is open about that.
He talks about that He wants the optics of showing up every single day during his trial,
right.
While the deliberations are happening before the jury got the coming out every day and
speaking to the microphones and talking to the cameras and Talking with reporters about
what he sees as as he's described You see it here.
The January 6th quote Unquote show trial as he calls it, going after Chairman Bennie Thompson
going after others who are involved with this.
He wants the spotlight.
He talked about it on his, You know, podcast.
I'm war room that he has.
He is somebody who likes the spotlight here and the question for writing bad in
here.
Is not just the criminal exposure because they're obviously you know is going to be
some.
This is a This is a conviction.
He's saying he's going to fight it.
I think there's a real question from legal experts of on what grounds you did not present
a defense, right.
So how does it appeal work on that front?
That's a big question mark that remains but also for the way that so he fits into the
bigger puzzle pieces as it relates to the 2024 potential campaign that Donald Trump
seems very likely to pursue.
And then I want to come to you.
What do you make of the fact that sort of Steve Bannon was saying this in October?
2020.
This is exactly what Trump's gonna do.
He's gonna do declare victory.
Democrats are going to be scrambling.
But who cares?
That's what he's gonna do.
You put that in context when you think about sort of what we all what we know now about
what happened, but also sort of the history of this town.
You've been in Washington covering politics a long time.
And here's someone saying, Okay, there's raw politics and then they're just simply lying
about the politics and planning it ahead of time.
This.
This was a script that was being written by a number of people
ahead of the election, including President Trump.
I mean, we know that President Trump with before the election basically said, the only
way I could lose as if it's stolen.
Bannon is saying if he is trailing He's going to declare victory.
And if it's if if, if you know, if worse comes to worst, it's gonna go crazy.
We also know that Rudy Giuliani was telling him on election night go out and say you one
and so it This was not an accident, I guess is what I'm trying to say This was part of
a prepared script that they were willing to lay out.
In advance and then follow.
And I think what we've you know what we've seen since is, you know that those fabulous
out takes that were shown last night where he said, you know, I don't want to say the
election is over.
He still can't say he won't say that.
The election is over.
And I think that that that has carried through from the early fall of 2020 right where we
are today, So we've got these hearings that are going on that are revealing information.
We've got the DOJ doing what it's doing.
We've got the Fulton County Uh, prosecution under way, and we have the central figure
preparing to run again for president of the United States.
It's all we've never gotten out of this box.
Certainly never gotten out of this box.
We're bouncing in this box, Dan and you talked about sort of the hearing revealing new information.
One of the other things that we saw that we really weren't expecting on Thursday evening
was laughter, actual laughter.
But that's what was heard after the committee called out Republican Senator Josh Holly.
With never before seen video of him fleeing the mob.
He had helped in flames.
So there was video of Josh Holly literally running through the capital, trying to get
away from Trump supporters.
Nicole, I want to come to you.
What do you make of the lawmakers making the decision?
First of all to put Josh Holly in the hearing in this way, and also, I wonder I wonder what
what it tells you about sort of what lawmakers want to accomplish.
Throughout this process.
The committee has put some of their Republican colleagues on blast guest you know
to you From Oracle local You're afraid of the word off blast and Teddy.
Yeah, but But, I mean, I think they also just want to show some of the contradiction right?
And so you know, you saw that one image of Josh Holly holding up his fist to the crowd.
You know, moments before they stormed in, and then you see him running because he doesn't
want to get attacked.
So I mean, you can't have it both ways.
I think it's kind of the point that the committee has tried to make over and over again with
respect to some of these Republican members, and this is some Thing that has continued
even into today because Josh Holly, you know, kind of tried to make a light.
He tried.
He tried to make light of the situation right by, you know, tweeting this like now he's
fundraising off of it.
He's got this coffee mug, you know, Show me strong with a picture of him holding up his
fist.
And you know a little emoji attached to that tweet.
But then you have one member of the select Committee Adam Kinzinger who kind of trolled
him and then posted that running shots.
So you know this might continue to play out even Until next week when when lawmakers
return on the hill.
One thing I thought was interesting.
Is it late today?
Josh Holly did speak to Fox and said that he doesn't regret anything in terms of, you
know.
That day, uh, and that he referred to the committee as a clown car.
So certainly no apologies from Josh Holly.
Even after showing that video Nicole I just have to point out that you used the word patrolled
on blast and clown car in your answer to Germany to Josh Holly and what we were saying.
It's exactly what we wanted from for you from that answer, because it was it was it was
entertaining, but it was also sort of.
You're laughing at your own house burning down because it is also the sort of serious
subject of like democracy being in crisis and the Is happening.
So thank you.
For that.
I also want, of course, turned to the other big story that I and a lot of the people of
the team here at Washington week have been deserved obsessed about And that is that the
mystery of the missing super tourists text messages from January 5th and January 6th
and the new turn that they took this week.
On Wednesday, it was revealed that after lawmakers subpoenas Secret Service communications From
the two days the agency submitted one single text message.
That's right, just one single text message, And on Thursday, we learned the Department
of Homeland Security Inspector General's probe into the lost text messages had had been elevated
to a criminal investigation.
So I really want to come to you here, Hallie talk a bit about sort of your reaction.
What you're hearing from your sources about the fact that the Secret Service can't find
any text messages or at least not more than one text message from The two days where our
nation was focused on safety insecurity.
It's a great question.
Can I just say first, though, Nicole killing wins my bingo card for Washington Week extra,
So thank you, Nicole.
For that.
I appreciate it as it relates to the text measures.
Here's the thing I hear from lawmakers, Um, when I talk to them, obviously deep frustration
over what happened with the Secret service text messages because you know, this is something
that they had wanted to see.
Like, right.
The members of January 6th committee and they talked publicly about this.
This was something that they subpoenaed not for fun because it mattered because they
wanted to see what was going down, right?
And 5th and 5th and the sixth.
This takes on obviously some new residents after the testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson
regarding just how heated things got testimony that as Nicole and Deanne have alluded to,
we heard a little bit more about last night as they Put some corroborating witnesses out
there to back up the idea that this was this either altercation or heated discussion.
Whatever you want to call it as far as the rest of it goes right.
Where does this go moving forward?
As you said, This is now a criminal investigation.
Looked at it looking at this chair.
Let's say you're looking to this charity, right?
At the least.
This was an issue of And the Secret Service Migrating.
These text messages are migrating these these devices to a new system and failing to comply
right with the Federal Records Act with the law of archiving these messages, But it's
our reporting that obviously was on the shoulders and the and the heads of the individual agents
and individual employees and staffers to preserve what they thought were going to be critical.
If this, you know, migration, it happened, right.
That's sort of it feels like that's a charitable view.
The other piece of it is where I think you're seeing some concern, especially Part of Democrats
here, which is was this actually something more?
Was this malicious intent?
If you will, um and done in a way.
Even after they had gotten some email reminders at least one before the migration happened
to save things related to January 6th how that factored in, I would also have a bigger
picture.
You know, the politicization of the Secret Service and this question Mark.
I'm not saying that that's happened.
But I'm saying the question mark and that sort of shadow Now that I think is placed
over the Secret service, our colleague Chuck Todd said this in our coverage last night.
The Secret Service has not had an awesome decade.
You know, as it relates to some of the scandals that have come up, I mean, dating back to
the Obama years, so this is another tough moment for that agency.
Yeah.
And Dan last question to you in the in the 30 seconds we have left here.
What do you make of this story?
Given sort of the the legacy of the Secret Service.
They've had a real tough decade as highly put it
very, very tough decade in my colleague Carol Enoch has reported on this For most of that
decade of all of the scandals that they've had, and and for this to come on top of that,
I think is it is a terrible blow to the Secret service, frankly, as an institution and the
idea that there is now a criminal investigation that this is Elevated to that level.
It tells you that there is in inside the institution.
Homeland Security.
Some concern that the initial story that was put out may not be the right story.
Hell, he's right.
We don't know whether this was accidental or malicious.
Um, but but the fact that they returned only one tweet raises the question of what are
they?
Are they really trying to hide something and what is actually going on a story that we're
going to have?
Have to continue to follow.
We'll have to leave it there tonight.
Thank you so much to Halle to Dan to Nicole for joining us and for sharing your reporting.
I'm yamiche Alcindor Goodnight from Washington.