what russky bowers did was break down both. he told you rudy giuliani told him, we're both republicans here. why are you pushing back the political loyalty? >> the man who made famous the phrase country before party, i'm referring to john mccain, he is saying party over country. >> yes. and for rusty bowers to put party over god because he saw that as you're not just asking me about my country, you're asking me about my faith. you're asking me about all the different things that make e me. his family, hick daughter, his quiet but powerful wife, they were all scared and continue to be scared. so the democracy is not just about also what's happening in new mexico two weeks ago, but also what's happening every saturday in his neighborhood. that is the legacy of former president trump on his doorstep with him having to deal with people who are armed at his door claiming he's a pedophile, which goes to qanon and all these different conspiracy theories. the fact he was about to cry tells you just how disturbed he is that all this hap

rusty bowers is his name. he was one of those officials who was pressured directly by the former president's legal advisers. he offered more evidence today that they all knew their scheme was illegal and he spoke of his refusal to help not only in terms of law but also his faith. >> it is a tenet of my faith that the constitution is divinely inspired, of my most basic foundational beliefs. and so for me to do that because somebody just asked me to is foreign to my very being. i will not do it. >> there was also a key moment of testimony during today's hearing that for the first time directly linked the former president to the utterly bizarre scheme to install fake electors in seven states to swing the election. equally important was who was providing that testimony. ronna mcdaniel, the chairman of the republican national party and a strong ally of the president. >> what did the president say when he called you? >> essentially he turned the call over to mr. eastman, who then proceeded to talk about the importan

it was disturbing. >> bower's daughter, casey bowers died on january 8th, 2021. the following month, in february, the far-right patriot party of arizona -- against speaker bowers for refusing the coup. the recall eventually failed in june due to technical -- -- this year he is running for state senate. he faces a challenger that says the 2020 election was stolen. as we look back at what we have seen and heard over for committee hearings, rusty bowers embodies a key part of the story. because there are a few people, more than a handful faced with the great moral test. who acted with integrity, and ultimately, that it was saved our democracy in the end. but the other part of the story, is that the republican party as a whole, as an institution in american political life, is a continuing threat to the republic. even if some of its members did the right thing when called to against great odds in great pressure. and mr. bauer summed that all up when after that test when he gave, he told the associated press, in spite of everything that happened to him, and his family

>> reporter: according to bowers, trump is simply lying about that. he told the committee, quote, anywhere, anyone, any time who has said that i said the election was rigged, that would not be true. david? >> jon karl leading us off tonight. jon, thank you. >>> we're going to turn now to those images coming in tonight just as we came on the air of a passenger plane catching on fire just after landing at miami international airport. the flight from the dominican republic. emergency crews dousing the plane with foam. 126 passengers and crew onboard. they did get them off the plane, but there are reports of some injuries tonight. abc's victor oquendo live from florida with late reporting for us. victor? >> reporter: david, the details are still coming in at this hour. we've learned it was red air flight number 203. it landed from santo domingo at 5:30 p.m. at miami international airport with 126 people onboard. we have learned that at least three people have been transported to area hospitals. that's according to miami-dade aviation. the fire has been ex

bowers is the speaker of the arizona state house. he was the star witness on tuesday at the january 6th committee hearing. he told in painstaking detail how he was brow beaten and cajoled by the trump administration, by the president, by the president's lawyer rudy giuliani. it was rusty bowers who had the exchange with giuliani when he was trying giuliani to manipulate the outcome ingiulia have a lot of theories, we don't have a lot of evidence. back on december 4th, 2020, a month after the election, a month before january 6th, bowers took the unusual and notable move of releasing a statement criticizing team trump's efforts. he said, as a conservative republican, i don't like the results of the presidential election. i voted for president trump and worked hard to re-elect him, but i cannot and will not entertain a suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election. and then rusty bowers found himself and his family subject to ridicule, scorn and threats from people who were upset because he wouldn'

what rusty bowers could have left it at that. he could've said that the giuliani and eastman block was procedurally impossible in arizona, and not pass judgment on it. but he thought as more than that. he thought as a violation of his oath of office. >> i took an oath. i swore to the constitution to uphold it, and i also swore to the constitution and the laws of the state of arizona, and this is totally foreign as an idea the or theory to me. i will not break my oath. >> religion does not strengthen adherence to the oath of office. that has been proved countless times over the centuries. many atheists have demonstrated profound devotion to the principles in the oath of office. for rusty bowers, his religion seems to have strengthened the oaths grip on him. he said, today, that he believes the constitution itself was a divinely inspired. that was his phrase, divinely inspired. he believes that the god he prays too had a hand in writing the constitution or guided the hands that wrote the constitution. and so, to violate the constit

but bowers, again, refused to get involved. citing his oath to the constitution and his faith. >> i said, look, you are asking me to do something that is counter to my oath when i swore to the constitution to uphold it. and i also swore to the constitution and laws of the state of arizona. and it is a tenant of my face that the constitution is divinely inspired, of my most basic foundational beliefs. and so for me to do that, because somebody just asked me to? it is foreign to my very being. i will not do it. >> speaker bowers continue to face pressure. especially from giuliani. as trump and his people spread the big lie across the country. in early december, -- it occupied the arizona house building, looking for bowers. committee member adam schiff revealed this video. >> this was previously undisclosed video protesters illegally entering and refusing to leave the building. one of the individual prominently shown in this video is jacob chansley. perhaps better known as the qanon shaman, this -- and to the capitol on january si

bowers. brad raffensperger, he is responsible for supervising elections in georgia and maintaining the state's public records. welcome, mr. secretary. gabriel sterling is a chief operating officer in the georgia secretary of state's office. mr. sterling was the statewide voting systems implementation manager for the 2020 election in georgia, responsible for leading the secretary of state's response to the covid pandemic and rolling out modernized voting equipment. i will swear in our witnesses. witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand. >> do you swear or affirm on the penalty of perjury the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? thank you, please be seated. let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative. speaker bowers, thank you for being with us today. you are the speaker of the arizona house and a self-described conservative republican. you campaigned for president trump and with him during t

speak a bowers. thank you for being with us today. before we begin with the questions that i have prepared for you, i want to ask you about a statement that former president trump issued out which i received just prior to the hearing. i have you had a chance to review that statement. i my counsel called from arizona and read it to me. yes sir. in that statement i will read it in its entirety of former president. trump begins, i call you a rhino republican, the name only. he then references a conversation in november 2020 in which he claims that you told him that the election was rigged and that he had won arizona. but to quote, to the former president, during the conversation, he told me the election was rigged and that i won arizona, unquote. did you have such a conversation with the president? i didn't have a conversation with the president. i'm. that certainly isn't it. that there were parts of it that are true, but her parts that are not, sir, i and the part that i read you, is that false? anywhere anyone any time has said that i

welcome, speaker bowers. brad raffensperger is the 29th secretary of state of georgia serving in the role since 2019. as an elected official and a republican, secretary brad raffensperger is responsible for supervising elections in georgia and maintaining the states public records. welcome mister secretary. gabriel sterling is a chief operating officer in the georgia office. mr. sterling was the statewide implementation manager for the 2020 election in georgia, responsible for leading the secretary of state's response to the covid pandemic and rolling out modernized voting equipment. i will swear in our witnesses. witnesses will please stand and raise the right hand do you swear upon the penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you god? thank you, please be seated. let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. speaker bowers, thank you for being with us today. you ought to speak -- your speaker of the

trump himself even calling bowers, putting rudy giuliani on the phone. who claimed to have evidence of fraud. >> you're asking me to do something against my oat and i will not break my oath. >> reporter: trump and giuliani wanted bowers to convene a special session of the arizona legislature to throw out the electoral votes joe biden won and replace them with a phoney slate of pro-trump electors. giuliani was relentless. >> he would say, aren't we all republicans here? i would think we would get a better reception. >> reporter: bowers kept asking for evidence of fraud. >> he said, "we've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence." >> did anyone provide you with evidence of election fraud sufficient to overturn the outcome of the election in arizona? >> no one provided me ever such evidence. >> reporter: even though bowers was a staunch trump supporters, he believed what trump and his allies were asking him was immoral and illegal. >> and i said, you're asking me to do something that's never been done in history, the history of the united stat

so freaked out about rusty bowers and what he was going to testify, to he felt the need to lie about him immediately before the hearing. >> that's right. >> which i thought was a real tell that trump knows these hearings are powerful in the presentation of evidence, so i -- i think that shaye and her mother will go down in history. she got the profile in courage award this year from the kennedy institute. she deserved it. i think they will go down in history as examples of the abuse of power and the painful result of that in people's lives that are merely doing the right thing. >> yeah. >> it was really -- it was powerful stuff. >> it was powerful stuff. >> i don't know if we played the right sound bite before. can we play son bite one. the skrimpingts attempted citizen's arrest. sound bite one. >> she called me screaming at the top of her lungs, shaye, shaye, oh, my gosh, shaye just freaking me out saying that there were people at her home and they -- you know, they knocked on the door and, of course, she opened it and seeing who was there, who it was, and they just started pushing

trump also said that bowers told him he won the election and that bowers said the election was rigged. congressman schiff asked bowers about that, and bowers said all of that is false and that he did not say any of that to the president, and he repeated again and again in his testimony that he would never do anything illegal to overturn arizona's election results. judy: we should add that speaker bowers described himself as a conservative republican. lisa, we also learned that some of this pressure campaign was coming from members of congress themselves, who work -- work -- were pushing officials to accept what they called alternate slates of electors. >> in addition to the idea laura was talking about that the president and those around him were pushing states to simply overturn the results and say that he won the popular count in each state, we heard testimony the trump campaign was also trying to push a different idea, alternate slates of electors that no matter what the results were in the end, they were preparing lists of people who would be the electors, and as many of our viewe

. >> speaker bowers there is a man named rusty bowers was the first witness of today's hearing. he's a conservative republican, a trump supporter, who campaigned for president trump 's reelection. nevertheless, he came under intense personal pressure from the president and the presidents lawyers, that he should throw out the results of the election in arizona. rusty bowers is live, a count today of how intense that pressure was, and how he responded to it, and what it is to his life. this sort of jaw dropping testimony, we're gonna play it for you in just a moment. it's really something. before we do that, though, before we move on to that emotional testimony from rusty bowers, i just want to check in to make sure we are absorbing all of this. on these first revelations from investigators, we've got trump, personally, sort of, cajoling and persuading officials that he wants to get to do something that they don't want to do. and then, he personally escalates to direct his supporters to go after them. >> what's interesting now is that the committee, this is the fourth hearing, rig

welcome, speaker bowers. brad raffensperger is the 29th secretary of state of georgia, serving in this role since 2019. as an elected official, and a republican, secretary raffensperger is responsible for supervising elections in georgia and maintaining the state's public records. welcome, mr. secretary. gabriel sterling is a chief operating officer in the georgia secretary of state's office. mr. sterling was the statewide voting systems implementation manager for the 2020 election in georgia responsible for leading the secretary of state's response to the covid pandemic and rolling out modernized voting equipment. i will swear in our witnesses. the witnesses will please stand and raise their right hand. >> do you swear or affirm on the penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you god? thank you. please be seated. >> let the record reflect that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. speaker bowers, thank you for being with

out in the rain-- ( laughter ) rusty bowers. bowers, life-long republican, testified that he faced massive pressure from rudy giuliani and other lackeys, demanding that he flip the state which he knew had no right to do. and here's why they thought bowers should cooperate. >> he would say, "aren't we all republicans here? i would think we would get a better reception. i mean, i would think you would listen a little more open to my suggestion that we are all republicans." >> stephen: okay, overturning an election is asking for some serious brand loyalty: "what do you mean you won't burn down my house for the insurance money? we both drink diet pepsi!" ( laughter ) the former-- are they sponsors? i don't know. we'll find out. the former president and the former rudy giuliani promised bowers that they would eventually get him proof of this supposed voter fraud they kept talking about, but they never did. then bowers gave this revealing quote from rudy: >> my recollection, he said, "we've got lots of theories. we just don't have the

rusty bowers was right. and almost no one else in republican politics was willing to tell that truth to the public about it at that point. all these people who were sort of getting it right in retrospect,ti right, he got it right in the moment. and he will be tomorrow's first witness. there will also be two republicanth state officials fr georgia, youia probably know th georgia story better, that's, you know, trump calling up the secretary of state in georgia and demanding, basically in threatening the secretary of state that he needed to throw out just enough biden votes or somehow mysteriousy find just enough trump votes for the secretary of state's office to be able to say oh, actually the result here in georgia has flipped ant secretary of state, his office wouldn't go along with it, and then trump sicced his supporters on the georgia officials and then the deputy secretary of state's office, gabriel sterling in front microphone, he gave his own public press conference in december, not only were p the fr

bowers in arizona. ron johnson's aide trying to get his boss to physically give fake elector certificates to then vice president mike pence and an aide saying no, you do not give that to him. some new pieces of information. let's bring in ali vitale. do you have anything from inside the room where mr. bowers was visibly, audibly emotional, seeking to compose himself before talking again, specifically when it came to his faith and his faith in the constitution and how it effected his family on a personal level. ali? >> reporter: those were the two prongs of the hearing. there was both the direct threat of violence and threats against the election officials, including rusty bowers detailed at length, not just in arizona but places like michigan and pennsylvania and georgia, things that we knew about at the time but hearing people at the center of them talk about how their kids were home alone, protesters were outside threatening them, they had to disconnect their phone lines, that was one key piece. then

amy: republican arizona house speaker rusty bowers, longtime trump supporter. his daughter casey bowers died january 20 8, 20 20, a few weeks after the january 6 insurrection. we come back, we will hear more testimony from the public hearing, including the black election worker and her mother in georgia whose lives were forever changed president trump claimed the women helped rig the vote when he lost georgia. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break] amy: "mother i sober" by kendrick lamar. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman. during tuesday's hearing of the house select committee to investigate the january 6 attack on the united states capitol, members laid out the argument that then-president trump and his campaign "were directly involved in advancing and coordinating the plot to replace biden electors with fake electors not chosen the voters." this is a video presented as evidence that features casey lucier, an investigative counsel for the committee, outlining details of the plan to organize fake electors for ump in states that he had lost. it includes comment

rusty bowers mentioned seeing a guy with three bars and a gun. that's the 3 percenters which is another group we haven't heard a lot about. i think we're going to see more information there about people who are involved in the physical violence aspect of either on the capitol or enforcing violence and extending violence outside the capitol. and then the last thing -- i absolutely agree with neal. this is a lot more complex than i anticipated. my sense going in was trump and his attorneys were going around. you had the lawsuits. it appeared to be helter-skelter amateur hour. but it's clear there were a lot of moving pieces. the way the committee is tell it is i think the only way they can tell it. if you try to do it chronologically, there are too many actors and people are going to get confused. doing it the way they're doing it, they take all these different component pieces, and again, i agree with neal, the place that comes together, the place where all the narratives come in the road and meet at one spot, that spot is donald trump, and that's

thank you. >>> listen, kirsten, trump today attacked rusty bowers and said bowers told him in november, 2020 conversation that the arizona vote was, quote, rigged and that he won arizona. this is rusty bowers' response today. >> anywhere, anyone, anytime has said that i said the election was rigged. that would not be true. >> what is he describing there? we heard the same thing last week from pence's counsel greg jacob. he said it was categorically untrue. when trump put out a press release saying trump and pence were in total agreement on the january 6 plan it was another lie. >> yeah. that's what trump does, right? there is nothing unusual about that. doesn't mean we should accept it or normalize it but he just creates alternative reality and asks everybody to sort of come along with it. and i think, you know, what we're seeing here is actually something that we've seen in every trump investigation actually we are reminded of regular people who -- who are not famous people or people in the public eye but just regular americans who are just doing their jobs. you know, and who are -- w

rusty bowers saying they told him thousands of illegal undocumented citizens voted. he said show me the evidence. thousands of dead people voted, show me the evidence. they never did. brad raffensperger going through the same thing, repeated calls, pressure from the white house chief of staff, do something, fix it. gabe sterling said a month before january 6th, mr. president, please stop. >> someone is going to get killed. >> someone is going to get killed. the threats are escalating. there's no evidence, we keep looking. and then again, you look at the results. in georgia, just shy of 12,000 votes. a count on election day, there was a recount, there was an audit. then they investigated the fraud. the president had his day in court. joe biden won georgia. it's simple fact, it's honest math. the same in arizona. joe biden won, a slightly smaller margin, but again, they counted, they recounted, there were court challenges. they investigated these different claims. you heard the republican house speaker saying they wanted me to call a special session. i don't have that

republican arizona house speaker rusty bowers choking up today when describing to the committee why he wouldn't go along with the scheme saying to do so would be foreign to my very being. bowers and other witnesses including a georgia election worker vilified by some trump supporters recounting the lies, threats and backlash they faced. that's where we start tonight with garrett haake. >> reporter: the january 6th committee today outlining a scheme they say began well before the attack on the capitol. pressuring key state officials to find trump votes or send fake pro-trump electors to washington from states joe biden won. >> anyone who got in the way of donald trump's continued hold on power after he lost the election was the subject of a dangerous and escalating campaign of pressure. >> reporter: republican officials in pennsylvania and michigan describing the aggressive push from trump allies to intervene. >> all of my personal information was dumped online. >> all i remember is receiving just shy of 4,000 text messages over a short period of time calling to take action. >> reporter

bowers recounted a conversation he had with john eastman. in that conversation, he asked to call a vote to decertify state electoral's -- state collectors. here's what he said in response. >> i said, what would you have me do? and he said, just do it and let the court sorted out. and i said you're asking me to , do something that's never been done in history, the history of the united states, and i'm going to put my state through that without sufficient proof? and that's going to be good enough with me? that i would put us through that - my state - that i swore to uphold both in constitution and in law? no, sir. >> bowers said he also faced pressure from trump and he told trump that he would not do anything illegal to overturn the relet -- the elections. even now, bauer feels a target on his back from trump. ahead of today's hearing, trump put out a statement that bowers is a republican in name only, and that he told bowers he won the election and the election was rigged. he was asked about that in his testimony today, and he said that was a

you have the integrity of rusty bowers. you have shea and her mom, lady ruby, which is trending on social media today. if you're going to pay attention to something on social media, it should be stuff like that, but refusing to be pulled into this scheme. >> yeah. i got to be honest. i had kind of forgotten what it sounded like when principled conservative republicans put their convictions ahead of trump. we were it from from time to time, we heard it from liz cheney, adam kinzinger, but you don't hear it all that koften, and i was reminded these election officials, the secretary of state, that you didn't know about until january 6th and everything that happened, everything they did to prevent worse. i am grateful for those people, and it gives me some sense of hope that there are more out there like them, because they want to try it again. trump and republicans want to keep trying to break our democracy. and they're going to vote for secretaries of state who want to keep breaking our elections and weak continu weakening th

john eastman at one point says to rusty bowers, just do it and have the courts sort it out. as gabriel sterling from georgia said, there were no secret suitcases with magical ballots. it just did not exist. >> certainly. bowers at one point testified that rudy giuliani was then trump's personal lawyer told him, and i'm quoting now, we've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence. caitlyn, does that tell you everything you need to know about what happened? >> basically. you saw the testimony "today" show just how persistent these officials were in pushing this on these state officials like rusty bowers who was testifying today who was saying he was getting calls from rudy giuliani who said i don't have the evidence, but here is the claims that we're making and this is what we want you to push. you saw former president trump calling rusty bowers and asking him to hold hearings in the arizona state capitol because he's the speaker. you saw andy biggs, a congressman and trump ally, calling him and asking him to decertify the votes. that's what stood out today, just h

bowers in arizona wanted him to win. but they did the constitutional duty by certifying the electoral's as they came in. >> this is whether or not you are willing to lie for the former president. and they were not going to do so. this is a far-reaching consequence. a small number that did not get a lot of attention but was pointed out today, the president's tone, demeanor and wrath of a lot of things he doesn't like what people do things. and his base goes after critic's. that took a toll on him. he traveled with the president in 2020 before the election. he saw the vitriol that republican voters had against the president for his demeanor his tone in the way he treated people. that took a toll on him running in 2020 as well as the senator's running in midterm elections. he said specifically, looking at the numbers 20 thousand republicans went to the polls in georgia and voted down ballot. in these are republicans who are fed up willing to report republicans but they had that message moving forward. they are tired of it.

right there, that was rusty bowers. he supported donald trump, but he told committee members today, quote, i do not want to be a winner by cheating. i want to bring in two very special guests. former minnesota democratic senator, right here in new york with me, al franken. he's the host of the al franken podcast. and michael steele joins us, former chairman of the republican national committee, and former lieutenant governor of the state of maryland. al, you were an elected official. the preservation of our democracy is everything. that is the whole ball game. but do you think voters realize that? >> unfortunately, i think a lower percentage of voters realize that, it used to be when i was even -- ten years ago, twenty years ago, i think the polling shows that. and that is, of course, tragic. this president, this former president, attacked our democracy. when he tried to do, he led the conspiracy to try to overturn a legitimate democratic election. i don't understand why everyone is having such a problem saying there is

arizona's republican statehouse speaker rusty bowers testified to the january 6th committee about how the president's lawyer, rudy giuliani, tried to convince him there was widespread voter fraud in his state but never provided any evidence to back up his dubious claims bowers described a phone call he had with giuliani and president trump. >> he said that they did have proof, and i asked him, do you have names for example, you have 200,000 illegal immigrants, 5 or 6,000 dead people, et cetera i said, do you have their names? yes. will you give them to me yes. the president interrupted and said, give the man what he needs, rudy. he said, i will. >> did you ever receive from him that evidence, either during the call, after the call, or to this day? >> never. >> nothing in fact, bowers says rudy giuliani later seemed to admit he didn't have any proof >> my recollection he said, we've got lots of theories, we just don't have the evidence i don't know if that was a gaffe, maybe he didn't think through what he said, but both myself and others in my group, the three in my group and my couns

today you'll hear from rusty bowers. the republican speaker of the arizona house of representatives. you will tell us about his conversations with the president, rudy giuliani and john eastman and what the president's team asked of him and how his oath of office would not permit it. you will then hear from brad reference burger, the republican secretary of state of georgia, who trump directed to quote, find 11780 votes that did not exist, but just the exact number of votes needed to overtake joe biden. you will also hear from gabriel sterling, the chief operating officer, his chief operating officer about this various claims of fraud in the elections in georgia. and who responding to a cascading set of threats to his elections team warned the president to stop that someone was going to get killed. and you will hear from one drea, one dreyer's seamus, a former local elections worker in fulton county, georgia about. busy how all of the lies about the election impacted the lives of real people who administer our elections.

. >> but rusty bowers, the arizona speaker of the house and other election officials were not just facing pressure from the trump team. many also endured harassment and in some cases actual violence from people in their states who believed trump's election lies. listen to this tape from the michigan secretary of state, jocelyn benson. >> 45 minutes later, we started to hear the noises outside my home, and that's -- my stomach sunk. i thought, it's me. and then it's just, we don't know what's going -- the uncertainty of that was what was the fear. like, are they coming with guns? are they going to attack my house? i am in here with my kid. i'm trying to put him to bed. so it was -- that was the scariest moment, just not knowing what was going to happen. >> we also heard from a former georgia election worker, she and her mother ruby were the targets of trump's lies, specifically lies about them. the former president accused them, falsely, of moving suitcases of ballots on election night. moss described the toll this has taken on her. >> i don't go to the grocery store at all. i haven't been

it was disturbing. >> rusty bowers daughter casey bowers died after a longtime illness on january 28th, 2021, just weeks after the attack on the capitol. but that was incredibly moving on so many levels. >> it was extraordinarily powerful. and we have more of his testimony. just the power of it, at one point, when he kept being asked to violate the constitution of the united states, he said, i swore to uphold the constitution the law. it is a tenet of my faith. that the constitution is divinely inspired. my most basic foundational belief for me to do this is foreign tole my very being. john heilemann, more extraordinary words from people who, as -- and in the speaker's words, i supported you, i voted for you, i'm not going to do anything illegal for you. that neatly sums up most of the witnesses in this hearing so far. >> yeah. joe, look, rusty bowers, he's a conservative guy. i mean, you wouldn't even say conservative. i think some people would say radical. some people would say maga. he's a guy that has pursued donald trumpian policies. there are those who accuse him of leading voter

casey bowers died in january 2021, just weeks after the january 6 riot. i'm joined by another republican who faced the same hideous anger and intimidation tactics and threats against his family and children, al schmidt. former commissioner of philadelphia, he testified before the january 6 committee last week. mr. schmidt, thank you for joining us. you received threats for overturning votes and overturning false electors, what did you think of that when you also received similar threats yourself? >> i knew how widespread this was for election officials across the country, and that the former president intentionally targeted them, targeted them by name and just unleashed his deceived sort of followers and all of the ugliness in their direction. >> let's recall, because you and i talked about this before. in philadelphia a lot of the counting was being done in the civic center, in the convention center, rather, downtown. there were lunatics arrested heading there with guns. >> and i think that's a very important point, and that example really ties a lot of

but what really struck me on speaker bowers is that he was totally fact based. of all the stuff we've heard about, the kind of fake news, fake facts -- he kept demanding, where's the evidence? show me the evidence. and the best that rudy giuliani could do was say, well, i've got some theories, but i don't have real evidence. i mean, it almost reminded me of barry goldwater. maybe it's because they're both from arizona and both kind of look the same a little it. but it was barry goldwater that based on the facts and tapes in watergate took the republican delegation to the oval office to richard nixen and basically told them the jig was up, it's time to resign. and it was the same kind of common sense, no nonsense dedication to the constitution that i saw coming out today. >> yeah, as you say, it was sort of -- it was old school and centaurian at times, and that may be compelling as the human side of it. you mentioned giuliani, and brings us to a key rebounded of evidence today, how this coup plot demanded state level officials betrade their oaths to steal the ele