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House Rules Committee Debates Bill Demanding Trump's Removal. Aired 11:30-12p ET
Aired January 12, 2021 - 11:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:30:00]
REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): And all I want to do is I just want you to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.
So I'm not going to go in excruciating detail at this point about everything that took place but I don't think that there is a reasonable person in the country with his or her eyes open who don't understand that the president was hell bent on trying to challenge, undermine and overturn the results of the election in all of the events leading up to January 6th and on January 6th. That is a profound dereliction of the president's duties under the Constitution.
Now, what are those duties? What are the duties that are referenced by the 25th Amendment that the president must live up to? And if the president is not successfully discharging them, the power can be transferred by the vice president in a majority of the cabinet or, as Mr. Cole tells us, the vice president and majority of the body set up by Congress, which alas, we have not done although I have introduced legislation to that effect over the last several years.
Well, the president swears an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. The Constitution includes the peaceful transfer of power, the counting of Electoral College votes. The president has a duty to defend the American people, to defend the Congress.
The president has the power to defend the country against armed insurrection, mob rule, invasion of public offices. And we will see as you look through the very specific details of what happened the president miserably failed in living up to all of those duties, and that is the very least that we and say.
When the president was begged at various points by both Republican leaders and Democratic leaders to send more help and to call upon the mob to stand down, he was extremely reluctant to do so. He continued to send supportive tweets for -- for periods in which we were under duress on Capitol Hill. He urged everybody during the day to fight like hell.
And he sent out finally a tweet, I think, and this is the one that people are using to try to absolve the president amazingly, this was probably his best or most exculpatory tweet. He sent out a tweet saying, these are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously and viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly and unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love and in peace and remember this day forever.
And, of course, much of the damage had already taken place. As everyone knows, five people were lost in the mob violence that was unleashed against the Congress of the United States, including a Capitol Hill police officer.
And as the scale of the violence and the damage became clear, the president quickly deleted that tweet and then tweeted, I suppose this was his most forceful one, go home, we love you. You're very special. That was at the end of the day when basically most of the devastating damage had already been wrought on the people or the Congress.
My friends, when we talk about the 25th Amendment, we don't have to find that the president committed a high crime and misdemeanor in inciting this mob insurrection. And I think there is overwhelming proof that he did. But we don't have to prove that for the 25th Amendment. All we have to ask is whether the president lived up to the most basic and minimal expectations for his duties of office.
Can you imagine any other president of the United States doing what this president did? Can you imagine President Bush doing that? Can you imagine President Obama doing that? Can you imagine President Lincoln doing that?
Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, or Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, can you imagine any other president in our history encouraging and fomenting mob violence against the Congress of the United States, against our people? That's the question.
And if you're with me and you can't imagine any other president doing that, and you think he failed the basic duties of office, then I think the vice president has a duty to act.
[11:35:07]
And I'm with Mr. Cole in saluting the vice president for doing his duty on January 6th. He came under enormous, phenomenal, unprecedented pressure by the president of the United States to step out of his role as the person simply presiding over the counting of the electoral votes and trying to nullify and overturn the election.
That just deepens the complicity of the president with this horrific assault on the counting of the Electoral College.
But the vice president stood up at that moment. We're asking the vice president to stand up again. For all of those people who voted, I think, foolishly with the president's wishes to deny the Electoral College votes that were cast by our states, by our state officials, despite the fact that the president brought 62 different cases in federal and state court and lost 61 of them soundly, decisively and, in many cases, humiliatingly as the judges castigated the president for bringing such nonsense before the courts.
But for those who decided to go along with that and help to drive that wound into the country and who are now calling for bringing the country together, those people who are now calling for reconciliation, this is the road to reconciliation.
It is the vice president himself who is the key actor and it is the president's own cabinet who make up the key actors, the principal officers each of the departments of government, they can help to lead us out of the nightmare that we've been plunged into by this sequence of events.
They can transfer peacefully the powers of president to the vice president, Mike Pence, for the remainder of this term so that we can have a peaceful transition of power.
My friends, on the extreme right wing websites that help to build the president's rally, the Save America Rally, they are calling for the mobs to come back to Washington and to continue the assault on the republic of the United States. They are calling for continued war and they are calling it war against our government.
They want to see this mob insurrection spread. One of the ones that I read said that they're going to come back with so many people that no army will be able to stop them. This is not just a crisis and an emergency; it is a continuing crisis and emergency. It is not over yet.
Can we say that we feel safe being in the hands of this president with the horror and the threats returning to the nation's Capitol? Well, we are asking Vice President Pence with this resolution and the cabinet to act with the powers that were wisely put into place by the Congress back in 1967. They should meet, they should consider all of the circumstances and they should move to restore order to the United States of America.
With that, I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.
REP. JIM MCGOVERN (D-MA): Thank you very much.
And before I yield to Mr. Jordan, let me just say, without objection, any written materials that you submit to rules documents at mail.host.gov before the conclusion of this hearing will be entered into the record.
At this point I'd like to yield to the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Jordan.
REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I too want to associate myself with the remarks of the chairman and the ranking member regarding our colleague from Maryland and what his family is dealing with.
Mr. Chairman, what happened at the Capitol on January 6 was as wrong as wrong can be. It is not what America is about. Political violence of any kind is wrong. We condemn this violence. We commend the men and women of the Capitol police for their bravery and we mourn those who've lost their lives.
All political violence should be condemned all of the time. This should not be a partisan issue. Republicans have been consistent. We condemn the violence last summer; we condemn the violence last week.
Congress needs to stop this, this effort to remove the president from office just one week before he is set to leave. Continued calls to impeach the president or remove him from office with using the 25th Amendment, I don't think, are healthy for our nation. Rushing this resolution to the floor will do nothing to unify or heal the country.
Under the plan Speaker Pelosi laid out on Sunday, the Democrats plan to impeach the president a second time just days before, as I said, he is set to leave, these actions will only again continue to divide the nation.
Turning to the 25th Amendment into a political weapon, by the demanding of the vice president invoke it to move the president from office I think is just wrong.
[11:40:05]
Let's be clear, Democrats have been wanting to remove President Trump from office since he won the election in 2016. They failed with the Russia investigation, they failed with the Mueller investigation, and they failed with their first impeachment investigation. So here we are again, considering another divisive effort to go after President Trump.
We should use this time to bring our nation together, heal our partisan divisions, we should use this time to help the small business owners across the country who are struggling because of the government's actions that closed their businesses and closed their stores.
We should use this time to honor the men and women of law enforcement here at the Capitol and across the country, who sacrificed themselves to keep our families safe.
But it looks like we're not going to go down that path. We're here again to consider a Democrat resolution to attack the president just eight days before he has said he will leave office, just eight days before we will have a peaceful transition of power, as we've had in this country every four or eight years since our nation's founding. I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution and would yield back.
MCGOVERN: Thank you very much. Let me just -- let me begin, if I could. You know, Mr. Jordan, this isn't a both sides issue. Our Capitol was attacked. Five people are dead. Countless people are wounded. We have a group of domestic terrorists, homegrown fascists that came to the Capitol building to desecrate this symbol of democracy of freedom and to do harm to people.
And I, you know -- and with all due respect, I'm glad that all it took for you to call for unity and healing was for our freedom and our democracy to be attacked. But for the last several months, the gentleman from Ohio and others have given oxygen to the president's conspiracy theories. And I just -- and we all want healing. But in order to get to healing, we need truth and we need accountability.
I mean, people came to the Capitol building to try to launch a coup to stop us from upholding our constitutional responsibilities. I mean, I was on the floor -- the House floor, I know you were and others, I was one of the last people to walk out to the House floor.
And when I went the speaker's lobby, I saw this mob trying to break glass doors to get access to the floor and God knows what else. They defied the Capitol police who were bravely trying to protect us. And I saw in their eyes, you know, hate and evil.
And I'm just grateful that -- that more people weren't harmed in this terrible attack. They came here to destroy things, to desecrate things. And they did so because the president of the United States told them to go do it.
And he's urging, they came to the Capitol. Some of them, I'm listening to some of the commentary, thought he was here, that he incited that mob and, unfortunately, some of our colleagues joined in that effort, to gin things up.
And our job as elected officials is to tell the truth. So my question for you is will you admit that Joe Biden won fair and square and the election was not rigged or stolen?
JORDAN: Can you hear me, Mr. Chairman?
MCGOVERN: I can.
JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, what I did over the past several months is follow the -- the process that the Constitution prescribes. It wasn't me who said it, it was Justice Ginsburg --
MCGOVERN: That is not the question I asked.
JORDAN: I'll get to the question. But I'm going to get to your comments too.
MCGOVERN: I don't need a filibuster. We just want to get --
JORDAN: I'm not going to filibuster, Mr. Chairman. The late Justice Ginsburg said January of 6 is the date of all ultimate significance. That's how Congress set this up and the statute they passed dealing with the 12th Amendment. So we followed that process.
And at 4:00 A.M. on Thursday, January 7, when we concluded our business on the floor, Joe Biden became -- Vice President Biden became President-elect Biden.
[11:45:05]
That is how the process plays out. Those of us who spoke against the unconstitutional way that several states conducted their election were following the process, and we did nothing different than Democrats have done every time a Republican has been elected this century. In fact, or colleague who is sponsoring this resolution objected to -- on January 6, 2017.
MCGOVERN: So is that a yes?
JORDAN: So we followed the process. Of course, it is a yes, and I've said --
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: But I'm not asking about the process, I'm asking you to make a statement that the election was not stolen, that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won fair and square. That is the question.
JORDAN: I'm -- no, question you asked me was is Joe Biden the vice president -- is vice president --
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: No, I --
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: And I said yes, of course he is.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: I'll just repeat the question. So Joe Biden won fair and square?
JORDAN: He won the election because the way the process works is the last chance to object is January 6 and that objection didn't prevail.
MCGOVERN: If we want to talk about healing, we have to talk about truth. And if we want to talk about healing, we also need to deal with the issue of accountability. And what this president incited last Wednesday is unforgivable and unconscionable.
I'm used to the excesses of this president, the over the top statements, the pandering to some of the most intolerant groups in this country. But I never thought -- I never thought I would see what he said at that rally.
And so, I mean -- so the deal is, my question was very simple. I mean, I'm not asking you to make a statement, that the election was not stolen, that Joe Biden won fair and square. And, you know, one of the ways to promote healing is for you to say yes and to put that on your Twitter account, show that all of these people who bought into a lie will start hearing from some of the people that were pushing this.
The answer is, you know, the American people --
JORDAN: Mr. Chairman -- Mr. Chairman. MCGOVERN: Yes.
JORDAN: Joe Biden is going to be sworn in as president. He is President-elect Joe Biden.
MCGOVERN: That is not the question I asked. That is not the question I asked.
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: Our concern -- our concern and why we raised objections was, in several states, the rules were changed in an unconstitutional fashion when the state legislature did not change the election law.
You had secretary of states, you had governors, you had supreme courts, in some cases, you have county clerks changing the election law. That is what we're pointing out. That is all we were pointing out. Just like our colleague, Mr. Raskin, pointed out concerns he had on January 6, 2017 with the election of President Trump then.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: The gentleman must suspend. We're -- I think -- I think I get -- I -- we -- you refuse to answer that question and I think that is one of the --
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: I did not refuse. He's going to be the president. I've said that on television. He's going to be the president. I know that. Our country knows that.
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: That is not the question I asked. I asked you to lay bear the fact that this lie out there, that somehow that Joe Biden did not win the election fair and square, he did. The president, to this day, continues to perpetrate that. And so does --
JORDAN: Are you saying there was no problems with -- there was no concerns with those elections? Is that what you're saying, Mr. Chairman?
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: Reclaim the time.
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: Of course -- of course I understand Joe Biden won, but are you saying there is no concerns with this election?
MCGOVERN: I will yield -- I will yield to the gentleman from Maryland if he has any --
RASKIN: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I just want to make one point about this somewhat abstruse Article 2 Section 1 argument that was made the day when all of us almost lost our lives, as Lindsey Graham put it.
I was moved by something Lindsey Graham said. He said these people came into the buildings without the metal detectors, they could have been armed, they could have had a bomb and all of us could have died.
So I think we do have to try to step up our discussion from the normal level of just partisan rhetorical combat and point scoring. The point our colleague from Ohio makes about Article 2 Section 1 was raised by Trump's campaign team in numerous courts across the country where it faced the same massive decisive repudiation by Trump's own appointees, by Republican judges, by Democratic judges, it is ridiculous and empty. It's an empty void. There is basically nothing to respond to there.
And the state legislatures that they are nominally advocating for are not taking that position. Those legislatures are not going to court to try to say our own supreme court violated our prerogatives, our own governor violated our prerogatives.
[11:50:05]
Nobody buys that.
So, Mr. Jordan is correct. They had an argument. It is a ridiculous and silly argument. And this is a point of common sense. And I want America here to follow the great Tom Paine. Use your common sense.
That argument was made, and it helped to delay the proceedings, and then this mob comes in and there's at least one call from the president during the mayhem and the chaos to a senator telling him to keep the objections going and to prolong the process.
So I just disagree profoundly with the substance of that argument. Every court in the land that looked at it has rejected it. The state legislatures don't buy it. It's fine that Mr. Jordan wants to go back to it, but I think all of us should do some soul searching about five dead Americans.
A Capitol police officer who is dead, dozens of people wounded, lots of our Capitol Hill cops in the hospitals, and a country on edge, and an inflamed right wing which thinks that we are on the verge of a civil war.
Now, come on, guys, can we get it together to act as a rules committee together, as a Congress, to tell the vice president simply to acknowledge what's obvious, which is this president is not up to the job for the next eight days and a lot of danger still faces us? That's my perspective on it.
MCGOVERN: Well, I don't want to belabor this point, but I will be honest with you, I am stunned that after all that has happened that we can't get a definitive answer that --
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman, I said that Joe Biden won the election, but there were problems with how it was done, I think, in an unconstitutional fashion in the things we objected to.
I would also point out --
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: People came here --
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: Do you disagree with what Judge Ginsburg said?
MCGOVERN: People came here, Mr. Jordan, because they believed the lie that the president and many people in this chamber perpetrated, that this election was not run in a fair and square fashion. And the president to this day continues to perpetrate the lie that somehow he won this election by a landslide.
And so I think we want to talk about healing, I mean, people have to -- the people who came here thought the president was telling the truth, thought many of you who were backing him up were telling the truth, and it ended up in this terrible ordeal, which five people lost their lives. So --
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: Mr. Chairman, did you object in 2017 on January 6?
MCGOVERN: I didn't say the election was stolen. In fact, I acknowledged that he was the president the day after the election. Hillary Clinton conceded the day after the election. I went to the inauguration. It was a nice inauguration.
(CROSSTALK)
Mr. Jordan, excuse me. What I raised objections to was the fact that all of our intelligence agencies had raised concerns about Russian interference in our election, which apparently didn't concern to some of you. But I did not -- I did not question -- I did not -- I did not try to overturn the election, and it went --
(CROSSTALK)
JORDAN: So you're allowed to object and we're not, is that it?
(CROSSTALK)
MCGOVERN: (INAUDIBLE) was eight minutes, all right?
So, anyway, I think you've answered my question and I would now --
JORDAN: Now, we have a double standard. You and Mr. Raskin are allowed to object in 2017. No Republicans are allowed to object in --
RASKIN: Mr. Chairman, can I respond to that?
MCGOVERN: Yes, I yield to the gentleman. RASKIN: OK. There is a terrible false moral equivalency going on here. Throughout American history, a lot of members have tried to point out technical or procedural problems in the Electoral College.
The one I pointed out was that there were elected officials who were also electors in violation of the state Constitution. I think it was in Florida and I simply raised that point for -- maybe it was 15 or 20 seconds. Nowhere did I ever incite mob insurrection against the government of the United States.
There were millions people, to take up the Chairman's point, who were convinced that Vladimir Putin, with his cyber sabotage against the DNC and Hillary Clinton and so on had profoundly influenced the outcome of the 2016 election. But what did Democrats do?
They put on pink winter hats, marched peacefully with the million American people, joined Planned Parenthood, worked with their churches to try to reform America. Nobody was out there agitating for a violent armed insurrection against the government of the United States.
I yield back.
MCGOVERN: Yes, I thank the gentleman. And I'll just conclude by saying I acknowledge that Donald Trump was the president-elect the day after the election.
[11:55:04]
I didn't like it, but I acknowledged it. The trouble here is my friends have been spending the last few months saying that the election was stolen. In fact, the gentleman from Ohio even went to a rally called Stop the Steal. And we have a president now that continues to put out this big lie that he won the election by a landslide. So there is a big difference here.
But with that, I yield to the gentleman from Oklahoma, Mr. Cole, for any questioning and comments he may have.
REP. TOM COLE (R-OK): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to go back to what I see is the central issue, which is to exercise the 25th Amendment. And when I asked you, Mr. Jordan, just a simple question, as I recall, you served with Vice President Pence when he was in the House, certainly knowing him as vice president, do you think he's capable of exercising the 25th Amendment? Do you think he would do so if he felt that was the appropriate action for him to take?
JORDAN: And he's actually answered the question. I appreciate the ranking member's question.
The vice president answered the question. He -- as a defender of the Constitution, he said he is not going to invoke the 25th Amendment Section 4, he said that. My understanding is the vice president and the president were together yesterday talking about this issue and others as well. So, Vice President Pence has been clear. As you know, we both had the opportunity to serve with him. He was a mentor to me. I think you and he came about the same time, but I came after the vice president was here, and he has been very clear where he stands on this issue that the other side is bringing forward.
COLE: So you trust him to make the judgment?
JORDAN: Mike Pence? Yes, Mike Pence is a good guy. I trust him. I think the country trusts him. I think the president trusts him.
COLE: That's the only question I have, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
MCGOVERN: Thank you very much. I yield to the gentlewoman from California, Ms. Torres.
REP. NORMA TORRES (D-CA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Throughout our history, the rules committee has met to discuss many, many historic measures, and today is no exception. We are making history once again and to discuss events that will forever stain this great institution in our democracy.
I speak today in support of the Raskin resolution, a call for Vice President Pence to live up to the oath he swore upon taking office, an oath that says he will protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, both foreign and domestic.
And as we meet with wounded hearts in our wounded Capitol building, there is no debate that these hollow halls were violated last week. There is no debate that the mob that breached these walls and was energized by misinformation, bald-faced lies and claims that are in direct odds with our Constitution.
And there is no debate as to who misled those people who sent them here to ravage our Capitol, who it was undermined our American democracy. President Trump, that's who it was. He called for insurrection on social media, on a stage with television cameras capturing his every word. I'm saddened that my colleagues will dare to stand on that stage and do the same.
Six Americans are now dead. Two of them were Capitol police officers. More than 50 officers were injured, 15 hospitalized. Trump incited this attack, and there should be no question as to what Vice President Pence needs to do right now.
Like many of you, some of you, I was caught up in that attack last week. I was one of 12 trapped in the House gallery. I heard the shot being fired. I saw the smoke from the tear gas having been deployed.
[12:00:04]
