Watch Woodward and Bernstein analyze the “historic” January 6 hearing
Bernstein: “We have a picture now of the audacity of a criminal, conspiratorial President of the United States”
Published
Citation From the June 9, 2022, edition of CNN's Attack on Democracy: The January 6th Hearings
ANDERSON COOPER (HOST): Was there anything really new tonight? I mean, for minds that are already made up, was there anything new that would convince people to look at this in a new light?
BOB WOODWARD (GUEST): Oh, yes. I think what happened tonight was historic. I think it is a brilliant, truly brilliant presentation by Bennie Thompson and by Liz Cheney. Listen to the detail and -- they have it. They have it cold as best I can tell and from my own reporting.
I just wanted to throw one thing that Bob Costa and I found out when we did our book, "Peril." And this is a real serious evaluation done by Gina Haspel, who was the CIA Director. This is a controversial CIA Director -- maybe it's impossible to be a CIA Director and not be controversial, but tough. Was a case officer. Spent years and years evaluating leaders and their stability and who they were. And this is what she said a week after the election that Trump lost, when he fired Mark Esper, the Defense Secretary. Quote, yesterday was appalling. We are on the way to a right-wing coup. The whole thing is insanity. He, Trump, is acting like a six-year-old with a tantrum.
I think that's what we saw tonight, and I also think that this committee has done kind of the equivalent of what happened in the famous Army-McCarthy hearing, when Joe McCarthy was accused by a lawyer in a very memorable way saying, you have -- do you have no shame? And this committee has essentially said to Donald Trump, do you have no shame?
COOPER: Carl.
CARL BERNSTEIN (GUEST): First of all, we have a picture now of the audacity of a criminal, conspiratorial President of the United States. Not just sedition, but a coup that he attempted in which he tried to take over the vice presidency, the Department of Justice, the Attorney General, the states attorneys general. This was a coup in this country we've never even seen an attempt at anything like this. And there are, this is a moment of truth for the Republican Party. There have been few like it. There has been 68 years ago, Joe McCarthy, Nixon. This is the next real test of what the Republican Party is. And Liz Cheney said, there will come a time when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain. There is a chance -- and look, the Republican Party is certainly not going to listen to me.
WOODWARD: You got that right.
BERNSTEIN: I got that right. But really, Bob's asked the right question here. Have you no shame? To go along with this president. Let's look at what those around him did and say privately. Let's look at Betsy DeVos, the Secretary of Education saying, let's invoke the 25th Amendment. Why would she be saying that? Why would she be trying to do this? Because she believed, as did other cabinet officers, that a president, a President of the United States had gone off the rails, criminally and mentally. What did the Secretary of Defense, what did General Milley try to do? They tried to take away the nuclear commands of this president while this was going on.