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CNN This Morning
Democrat Warnock Wins GA Senate Seat, Grows Party's Majority; Since Launch: Dinner with Racist, Convictions, Taxes, Legal Setbacks for Trump; Interview: Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA). Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired December 07, 2022 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(MUSIC)
(CHEERING)
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POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: What's that song called?
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I don't know this song, but I've definitely heard it.
HARLOW: Isn't it called "All We Do is Win"?
LEMON: All I ever do is win, win, win.
But here's the interesting part.
HARLOW: What?
LEMON: It looked like a rave.
HARLOW: It did!
LEMON: I want to have a party on the show. It was amazing. Lit, as they say.
Good morning, everyone. That was the crowd at Senator Raphael Warnock's headquarters, singing and cheering as Warnock secured Democrats a 51st Senate seat.
So where in the world is Kaitlan Collins? There she is right now. She's actually standing by live in Atlanta. And ahead, she's going to give us a sense of the mood on the ground this morning.
HARLOW: But we can tell you, Democrats are ecstatic. Some at the rave that Don just mentioned. No, that was the celebration party for Senator Raphael Warnock. Winning, beating Herschel Walker, helping Democrats not just gain control of the Senate -- they had it -- but get a tighter grip on the Senate.
John Berman is at the Magic Wall with the numbers.
LEMON: And it has been a bad month, really bad month for Donald Trump, his family business found guilty of criminal tax fraud, and a criminal referral could be headed to the Justice Department. Is this the comeback Trump had hoped for?
Plus this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PETE AGUILAR (D-CA): We want to make sure we get this right. That is our focus and our objective is to make sure that the final product is something that we feel confident about and that we can stand behind.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: That is Congressman Pete Aguilar, sitting down with Kaitlan, just as the January 6th panel signals it will issue criminal referrals to the Department of Justice. You will see that interview, straight ahead.
LEMON: Well, we're going to start with Democrats putting a great big exclamation point on the 2022 midterms. CNN projecting incumbent Senator Raphael Warnock has defeated Trump-picked Republican challenger, Herschel Walker, in Georgia's runoff election.
President Joe Biden calling Warnock to congratulate him, tweeting this, as well: "Tonight, Georgia voters stood up for democracy, for our democracy, and rejected ultra-MAGA-ism."
Warnock got emotional as he thanked his supporters.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): My roots, like the roots of those oak trees, go deep down into the soil of Savannah and Waycross and Screven County and Burke County. I am Georgia.
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LEMON: Well, Herschel Walker was quick to concede, sort of. You have to really listen to the language and what he said. He didn't really talk about his opponent, just thanked his supporters, vowing to never stop fighting for the people of Georgia.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HERSCHEL WALKER (R), GEORGIA SENATORIAL NOMINEE: There's no excuses in life. And I'm not going to make any excuses now, because we put up one heck of a fight. And that's what we got to do. Because this is much bigger -- this is much bigger than Herschel Walker.
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LEMON: So look, you guys don't want to see me this morning. This is who you want to see, John Berman, the guy -- guy of the hour, the man of the hour, besides Raphael Warnock, I should say.
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.
LEMON: At the Magic Wall. Everyone wants to know what happened. You've got the numbers. You have the evidence. So take it away.
BERMAN: Look, here's the margin.
First of all, Raphael Warnock with a 95,000-vote margin, about 2.8 percent.
Compare that to just one month ago. The general election was only one month ago. You can see, Warnock led by .9 percent and 37,000 votes. So he's grown that lead.
Where has he done it? Let's look at where Warnock over performed one month ago. Almost everywhere. Almost every county here is lit up.
So let's look at it a different way. Where did Herschel Walker underperform? And this is telling. Look at this. Because what all these areas have in common, you have the Atlanta area, the urban and suburban area, right around Columbus, right around Augusta, right around Savannah.
What all these areas have in common, it's where the large population centers are.
LEMON: Yes.
BERMAN: The bigger the circle, the more the population. All the big circles, really, in those areas were Herschel Walker underperformed.
And what's interesting, and I think as you talk to Republicans over the course of the morning, what you'll find, the areas they're most concerned about, the suburban areas around Atlanta.
Take Gwinnett County, for instance. You can see, Raphael Warnock won Gwinnett County -- what's the math there -- by about plus 25. Let's do D-plus 25 in Gwinnett County. That's a big margin, especially when you're talking about hundreds of thousands of votes.
Just two years ago, that margin was D plus 21. OK? In the presidential election, which was right around that time, it was D plus 18.
Go back to the presidential election in 2016, Hillary Clinton, it's D plus 6. See a trend there?
LEMON: I do.
BERMAN: It's growing, or getting smaller depending on how you look at it.
In 2012, Mitt Romney won Gwinnett County.
LEMON: Wow. BERMAN: Ten years ago, you went from Republicans winning that county by, what, you know, nine points almost, to now you have a Democrat winning it by 25 points.
LEMON: Yes.
[06:05:08]
BERMAN: That's a remarkable turnaround. And again, these are the suburban areas. And you lived there for a time, Don. You know it's not just urban Atlanta. It's these growing suburban areas that are booming where Democrats are gaining in population and gaining in popularity.
LEMON: It's areas that are more diverse.
BERMAN: Yes.
LEMON: As well.
BERMAN: Absolutely.
LEMON: If you -- listen, that's why, you know, people say, Well, Georgia is a pink state, or purple or whatever it is. But I mean, look at all the red there.
I still consider Georgia to be a red state. That's just my personal opinion. The -- the cities and the surrounding suburbs, blue. But I mean, if you look at the vast majority, at least land wise, area wise, it's still a pretty red state.
BERMAN: It is. But geography doesn't vote. People --
LEMON: Right.
BERMAN: So you're looking at all the red counties. I'll put that up again, where Walker outperformed. Walker --
LEMON: Geography votes, though, in national elections.
BERMAN: Yes. Well, with the Electoral College, it has a little bit of advantage.
LEMON: Yes.
BERMAN: But you look here. Look, Herschel Walker did better in Dade County than he did one month ago, but you can see, you're only talking about 5,000 votes. Yes, he did better. He got more percent, 2 more percent than he did one month ago. But you're dealing with 5,000 votes.
And you compare that to, Don, you compare it to Fulton County. Again, you're talking about several hundred thousand votes. Dekalb County, several hundred thousand votes. It's where the people live right now.
And particularly suburban areas that used to be Republican strongholds. Cobb County, right here. This was Newt Gingrich lived here. And now it's voting for Democrats by 20 points.
LEMON: Wow. Wow, now that is a fun fact --
BERMAN: Yes.
LEMON: -- so to speak.
John Berman, always a pleasure. Thank you, sir.
BERMAN: Don Lemon, great to see you.
LEMON: Appreciate it -- Kaitlan.
COLLINS: Thanks, Don and John. And as, you know, we're looking at those numbers, let's bring in the "Atlanta Journal-Constitution's" political reporter, Patricia Murray, to talk about this.
One of the things we were watching last night were how these candidates fared in November versus how they did last night. As John was just highlighting there, Warnock doing much better in those metro Atlanta areas.
Warnock -- Walker did OK in some of the ruby-red areas, the rural parts of the state. But what were your biggest takeaways of what changed from just a month ago to this runoff election?
PATRICIA MURRAY, POLITICAL REPORTER, "THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION": So as John Berman laid out really, really well, Herschel Walker had one job to do last night; and that was to expand his lead in those rural areas to really start to run up his numbers and to catch up with where Brian Kemp had been just a month ago. Herschel Walker didn't do that. He even shrank in some of those rural areas.
He grew his numbers in some cases but only by 1 or 2 percent. He needed to grow that by 5 or 6 percent. And so we didn't see him do that.
And at the same time, Raphael Warnock did expand his lead in the bi metro areas, around Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, Atlanta, of course. And so they both were dealing with a change in enthusiasm. It really felt like Herschel Walker's enthusiasm for his candidacy really fell off almost a cliff. You could feel it in the state.
And you could feel Raphael Warnock and the Democrats say to themselves, OK, this -- this party just lost eight statewide elections in November. We have one more chance to win statewide, and that was Raphael Warnock.
He also ran a totally different campaign from Herschel Walker; reached out to those moderate and independent voters. And he was everywhere all across the state throughout the runoff. And Herschel Walker really kept a very limited schedule, didn't get back out to the areas he hit before. And so you just saw that in the numbers last night.
COLLINS: And he actually took five days off the campaign trail. MURRAY: Yes.
COLLINS: I know that's been a source of frustration that I've heard from from some people in Walker's campaign. He came out, though, last night and conceded. And his campaign made clear, yes, that was a concession speech.
MURRAY: Yes. Because in his speech, he didn't say, "I called Raphael Warnock." He didn't say that. He didn't say, "I officially concede." But he wasn't saying that he won. He did call himself and his supporters winners, but really just, we won because we tried and we did our best.
But afterward, his staff did tell reporters that was an a concession. This is -- there's going to be no attempt to challenge these results.
And I think it's something that the state really needed to see from Republicans. This was the first time that we've had a Democrat win statewide since the last elections. And Herschel Walker coming out and conceding and sort of stepping off the stage, I think that's something that the state needed to see, and I think that's something that he did well last night.
COLLINS: And you know Georgia so well. What John and Don were just talking about there, is what does this mean for the state? Does it mean it's more of a purple state?
But as you noted, you know, Republicans won every -- every election on the ticket statewide, except for Herschel Walker's seat. And so what's your sense? Was it -- was it more about a reflection of the state, or was it just candidate quality?
MURRAY: I think it's both. I mean, you can't ignore the candidate quality of Herschel Walker. During the runoff period, he also had his major gaffe about vampires versus werewolves. There were more accusations of abuse against him that came out, as well. So he had a really bad runoff campaign after a really tough general election campaign, as well, for him. Just not a great candidate.
[06:10:03]
However, what we see in Georgia right now is that this is a true battleground state. A candidate from either party can win. And that's a place that Georgia hasn't been in decades. It has -- I can't remember the last time somebody could say, I'm going to run statewide. I'm a Democrat. I'm a Republican.
And there are reasons for those national parties to get behind them, because they've all got a really good shot at winning this state. It's winnable right now for both parties.
COLLINS: Yes. Big implications for 2024.
MURRAY: Huge.
COLLINS: Patricia Murray, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
MURRAY: Thank you.
COLLINS: I'm sure you were up late last night.
MURRAY: So were you, I'm sure. Thanks.
COLLINS: We all were.
All right. Poppy, Don, back to you.
HARLOW: Kaitlan we'll get back to you very soon. Great reporting down there.
I want to play more now of what Senator Warnock had to say last night, in this big speech, about voter suppression. Let's play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNOCK: Just because people endured long lines that wrapped around buildings, some blocks long; just because they endured the rain and the cold, and all kinds of tricks in order to vote, doesn't mean that voter suppression does not exist. It simply means that you, the people, have decided that your voices will not be silenced.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Let's bring in the A-team: political commentator S.E. Cupp; also with us, Errol Louis, political anchor for Spectrum News, host of the "You Decide" podcast; and David Urban, former Trump campaign adviser.
Good morning.
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning.
LEMON: A -- huh. Joking. Joking. Good morning, guys.
HARLOW: Good morning. Thank you for getting up early for us.
All right, S.E. Cupp.
S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: OK.
HARLOW: Why does what happened last night matter so much --
CUPP: Yes.
HARLOW: -- in terms of the future?
CUPP: Well, there are so many lessons from this race. It really is like a microcosm of a lot of Republican problems. The first and most obvious, I think, is that candidate quality does matter. And Georgia Republicans deserved a better candidate. Many of them didn't demand one, but they deserved one.
HARLOW: So McConnell was right?
CUPP: Absolutely 100 percent. Look at the map. Look at where Republicans won everywhere else but this race.
Secondly, I think, the lesson is that Herschel Walker didn't win, but he almost won. And that means that a lot of Republicans didn't put character on the ballot; didn't care about things like integrity, transparency, honesty, intelligence.
I think Republicans should -- should look introspectively at whether that should be acceptable going forward, considering the bargain wasn't worth it. It didn't even work.
And finally, I think money and the machine matters.
HARLOW: The Democrats. So double --
CUPP: Well, I mean, Raphael Warnock had a huge campaign cash advantage. And I think maybe Republican leaders should rethink, like, the RNC paying Trump's legal bills and instead asking him to fork over some of his cash for candidates.
LEMON: Yes. But look, also, I think it matters, the turnout of the black vote there. I mean, let's just be honest. That's what put Raphael Warnock over the top, especially black women.
You had -- LaTosha Brown is coming up a little bit -- a little bit later on in the program. But that's what really happened there. So finally, there was some sanity, at least on -- you know, by some people here.
But speak to that, and then I want to ask you about something else.
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's a reconfiguration for Democrats of what it takes to win. Right? And they can squeak out a victory with a solid black vote. That's the base of the party. That's what you start with, the third or so of the electorate, that spike.
But they also, I think, do a little bit more. This was a very close race, and so there were ads for Raphael Warnock in Korean. You know, why? Because there's an AAPI, there's an Asian-American Pacific island vote in that state. That's a little bit less than 5 percent of the vote. That was arguably the margin of victory in this case.
So you have to get a little bit creative but yes, absolutely right. Got to start with the black vote. You've got to maximize it and so forth.
And by the way, when Raphael Warnock talks about the long lines and so forth, one of the things that I think backfired on Republicans that they really should think about is that putting in place a lot of these measures, making it harder and harder to vote, actually is an organizing tool for Democrats, and it's what keeps them active between races. And that's the key to building a political machine, is that you're doing stuff between elections. You're keeping people mobilized. You're keeping your organizers out in the field. That was a big part of why Raphael Warnock won.
LEMON: As a matter of fact, I want to talk a little bit more about that. This is Ronna McDaniel and Sean Hannity talking about mail-in voting, early voting. And I'm going to get David to respond to that. Let's watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: It seems that Republicans in many states are reluctant, they are resistant to early voting or voting by mail.
RONNA MCDANIEL, RNC CHAIR: There were many in 2020 saying don't vote by mail, don't vote early. And we have to stop that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: Yes. Many in 2020 -- many in --
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It was the president. It wasn't, like, many. It was the president of the United States saying don't vote by mail, you can't trust it.
Now Republicans are getting their clocks cleaned in early voting. Right? I mean, we are getting destroyed by mail-in and early voting.
Listen, as you guys know, when you vote by mail, you can see the votes come in. If you vote incorrectly, you can cure. There's a lot of thins you can do. You can see who didn't turn out. This is what Errol's talking about.
Democrats have built an incredible machine that can do this. They go out and see who's coming out, who didn't come out. Republicans don't know until after election day, because they wait till election day to vote.
And so the former president got that 100 percent wrong. We need to really, really focus on this. Because people --
LEMON: Lesson learned, though?
URBAN: It's a lesson learned.
LEMON: But do you think they've learned the lesson?
URBAN: Listen, Lee Zeldin right here in the state of New York, you saw Lee Zeldin came out and said right afterwards, he said, Look, we've got to get better at this. Where it's legal, where it's called for, we need to really work on this or we're going to continue to lose.
CUPP: You know, Newt -- Newt Gingrich said that, as well. That we need to look at and reexamine some of these things.
However, if you watch another program on FOX News last night, Laura Ingraham, she blamed the Senate Republicans for not backing Herschel Walker enough. So it wasn't that he was a bad candidate. It wasn't that there was voter suppression efforts that backfired. It wasn't bad messaging.
URBAN: Look, that's what I said.
CUPP: It was that Senate Republicans didn't double down on Herschel Walker.
URBAN: Lesson learned is that candidates matter.
CUPP: Yes.
URBAN: There was an earlier -- there was a graphic up here, right, about --
LEMON: No, no. You mentioned -- Is a lesson learned, to her point.
URBAN: No.
LEMON: Because she's saying --
URBAN: No, no.
LEMON: It's about -- because --
URBAN: So, again, John Avlon, the hour before this said, Listen, as long as Trump wraps up about 35 percent of the party, right?
LEMON: Yes, look at that.
URBAN: Look at these numbers right here. You can't look across that board and say, Wow, we did well. Trump can't wake up this morning and say, I did OK. He lost everywhere.
My home state in Pennsylvania, we got drubbed. Right? And so candidates matter. Candidate quality matters.
CUPP: Yes.
URBAN: And we can't be so tied to, like, these base Republicans who do very well in a primary but then go to a general election and get slaughtered. Right? We -- we need to get away from that.
But as John pointed out earlier in the hour, as long as Trump controls 30, 35 percent of the vote, right, in the primary --
LEMON: Does he still?
URBAN: Yes, he still does. Listen, America, I'm sorry you're waking up to this if you don't like it, but Donald Trump is still the dominant force in the Republican Party, this morning, tomorrow morning, the next morning. And he most likely is going to be the nominee. And he stands a shot at being the president again.
So that's the facts, no matter the Weisselberg indictments, the Fulton County grand jury, the special counsel. You know, Donald Trump stands a very good chance of being president of the United States, despite the Warnock loss, despite all those Senate candidates going down; because they're the ride or die Trumpers. They're going to be with him until the end.
LOUIS: Yes. I mean, Herschel Walker didn't just walk in off the street. He won his primary with, like, 68 percent of the vote. I mean, that -- that's the kind of influence that Donald Trump still has.
HARLOW: Errol, history made last night. Either candidate was going to be the first full-term elected black senator from the state of Georgia.
I thought this was so interesting from "The New York Times" this morning, talking about all of Walker's scandals and everything they knew about him before putting him forward for this seat. He said, it appeared to have a profound impact on his standing, especially with black men, some of whom saw Mr. Walker as the white power structure's mistaken idea of a candidate that would appeal to them. Talking about black men.
LOUIS: "Mistaken" is a nice word. Look, it was an interesting political --
HARLOW: Remember that Lindsey Graham sound a few weeks ago?
LEMON: But also not just black men but to black people in general.
HARLOW: Yes.
LOUIS: It's an interesting political science experiment. Because like, look, to just be perfectly honest about it, Herschel Walker wasn't qualified in any way for the duties of being a United States senator. To vote on Supreme Court appointments, international treaties, public safety, the economy. He had no experience in government whatsoever.
And so he was observably unqualified, and yet, he almost won. That really says something.
HARLOW: What does it say?
LOUIS: Well, I mean, look, among other things, it says that what the electorate wants, or thinks that it wants, can be really quite different from what the requirements of a job are.
And to the extent that that remains true, anybody who's going to run for office has to take into account that, you know, Donald Trump wasn't entirely crazy in saying, Hey, Herschel Walker could probably win this seat. Even though he's utterly unqualified for the job.
LEMON: OK. I've got to ask this question. Then I know we're going to go. But does it speak to what the Republican leadership or establishment think of black people? Because they think that they can put someone like Herschel Walker in there and that black folks are going to go out and vote for him, just because he's black?
URBAN: So I saw this pastor on social media giving, you know, kind of a sermon in his church. Don't forget, this isn't a monolith. The party, there's no, like, giant smoke-filled room where the party got together and said, you know, chomping on cigars and said, Herschel is our guy --
LEMON: This is Trump saying --
URBAN: It's one guy, right? One guy said this is our guy. Right?
So it isn't some giant, you know, decision by the elders in the party that Herschel Walker is the candidate to win --
LEMON: But then you have him flanked by the elders in the party.
URBAN: Well, they're on flank. There's nowhere -- Trump has them flanked. Right? Because there's nowhere to turn for those folks.
CUPP: But this is why leadership is so important. Because if you had a strong Republican leadership that was willing to say to Donald Trump --
[06:20:06]
LEMON: That's my point.
CUPP: -- this candidate is crap, and we're not going to win with this candidate, then you might have had some different outcomes.
LEMON: That's my point.
(CROSSTALK)
LEMON: She's -- she's making the point that -- the question -- she's answering the question that I asked you. That is what the Republican establishment thinks of black people.
URBAN: No, no. I don't think that's true.
LOUIS: That's what they think of ethnic voting. Right?
LEMON: OK.
LOUIS: There are some who look at it and say, Well, black candidates seem to really draw out a lot of black voters, so let's get a black candidate.
LEMON: I agree with you. That's OK. There's black people now. If it was Latino, it would be the same thing. You understand what I'm saying? Yes.
URBAN: Again, I'd push back on that. I don't think that there's -- listen, this is one person's candidate. Right? Donald Trump. Mitch McConnell said, Hey, look, candidate quality matters. Herschel's not a great candidate. We should do better. Right?
I think a lot of people, to Errol's point, if they looked across the state of Georgia, they'd have picked -- you know. You could have gone out and recruited a whole lot of different folks that would have done a lot better than -- than Herschel. But it could have -- you could have picked, you know, a woman African-American. There could have been a lot of candidates who would really stand out.
CUPP: Or just someone qualified?
URBAN: Yes, but I'm saying more qualified. Right? If that's what you're looking for, you could have picked somebody. Right? If that's what they're --
LEMON: Werewolves and vampires. That's where we are.
Thank you, all. Appreciate it.
HARLOW: S.E., thank you, David. Errol, good to have you.
LEMON: Thank you.
CUPP: Next, a rough start to the 2024 campaign for Donald Trump, to say the least, from dinner with a racist and anti-Semite, to his company being convicted by a jury.
And also this --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: How are you preparing to deal with a GOP majority that is vowing to be very aggressive?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LEMON: So coming up, we're going to have Kaitlan Collins' one-on-one interview with the newly-minted No. 3 Democrat in the House in the next Congress, Pete Aguilar.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:26:04]
LEMON The ex-president, Donald Trump, is only three weeks into his 2024 presidential campaign, and those three weeks have been turbulent, to say the least.
Trump announced his bid for the White House on November 15th, and since then, he had a dinner with anti-Semitic rapper Kanye West and a Holocaust denier, Nick Fuentes.
House Democrats received obtained six years of his federal tax returns.
A day later, an appeals court denied him a special master review of documents seized at his Mar-a-Lago home. That same day, a federal judge ordered top Trump White House lawyers to testify in a criminal grand jury investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
Which brings us to this weekend, when Trump, who took an oath to defend the Constitution, called to terminate it.
And this week, a jury convicted the Trump Organization on all counts of criminal tax fraud.
Criminal referrals are coming.
COLLINS: More bad news could be coming for former President Trump when it comes to those criminal referrals. Because that's what we're learning from the chair of the House January 6th Select Committee.
While Bennie Thompson did not say whom they are considering, multiple sources tell CNN that the committee is weighing criminal referrals for former President Trump and a number of his closest allies.
A criminal referral is, by nature, largely symbolic, given Congress does not have any kind of formal say in what the Justice Department does. But it would be a significant development for this committee. And it could up the pressure on Attorney General Merrick Garland to potentially bring prosecutions.
This week, I was in Washington. I spoke with a committee member, Congressman Pete Aguilar, about the committee's forthcoming final report and those potential criminal referrals.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
AGUILAR: We want to make sure that we get this right. That is our focus and our objective, is to make sure that the final product is something that we feel confident about and that we can stand behind.
We feel like we're making significant progress towards that end. We look forward to sharing what we have learned, both about the activities of January 6th, the lead-up to January 6th, as well as other items that are of interest that we have highlighted in the past.
COLLINS: You said recently it's pretty clear, based on the evidence, based on the hearings that we've done, who was responsible. If that's Trump, how do you end this -- this committee, this report gets published and not have a criminal referral for him?
AGUILAR: Well, stay tuned. I'm not going to get ahead of where the members are on the final product. We're not closing any doors, but we're having a number of conversations as to what this looks like.
What we have said, or our pledge to the American public is that we would do this not just in a bipartisan way but in a non-partisan way. And that's exactly what we've done.
I know not everybody believes that, but we all get along with each other and have been working with each other for 18 months to make sure that we get this right, and that's our sole focus right now.
But we're all very mindful of who is responsible. We have laid out in our hearings the role that the former president played in January 6th and inn supporting and pointing to the U.S. Capitol and telling his supporters to come out here to this very location, to this very corridor where we are. That's not lost on any of us.
But we have some work to do, and we want to make sure that we get this right. I'm not going to get ahead of the final product.
COLLINS: What does getting it right look like, though, to you?
AGUILAR: It means telling the truth and make sure that we, within the time that we have, that we ask every available question; and that we aren't shy about making suggestions and recommendations, both to protect the United States Capitol as well as to hold people accountable. If we feel that it meets that threshold, that's what we're going to do.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COLLINS: Former Vice President Pence, of course, did not speak with the January 6th Committee ultimately, but he did say recently he's considering a Justice Department request to speak with him.
I asked Congressman Aguilar about that. He said that it's something that makes him sad, that he wished Pence had actually come before their committee.
We should note, the Congressman has also just made history. In the new Congress, he is going to be taking on the highest-ranking job every held by a Latino in congressional leadership.
[06:30:00]
