the law throughout his life

since he was a young man.

And the way, of course,

has been a constant tactic

since he was taught the basics

of how to break the law

and evade the law by his lawyer,

Roy Cohn.

But I think we need to

cut to the chase here about what

all of these proceedings are about.

They are about a criminal president

of the United States

who attempted a coup,

who tried to take over

the legitimate functions of government

by staging a coup so that his lawfully

elected successor could not take office.

What we have Bob

and I wrote in the 50th

anniversary edition

of All the President's

Men, a new forward, largely

about the criminal president,

Richard Nixon,

and the criminal president, Donald Trump.

And the greatest danger

is obviously from Trump. What is he?

He is the first seditious president

in the history of the United States,

a president who attempted to foment

an insurrection to stop the legitimate

transfer of power

and functioning

of the United States government.

Listen, to what Mitch McConnell,

the Republican leader, said on that day

after January six, that only one person

was morally and practically responsible

for this insurrection.

Donald Trump.

So let's keep our eye on the facts,

as Bob said, and what it's about.

The Repub lican party, which historically

has done the right thing

in the moment of Joe McCarthy,

the great Demagog

Big Demagog did the right thing in

Watergate, forced

Richard Nixon from office.

Are they going to allow

an insurrectionist

seditious president

to carry our democracy

into a terrible, horrible place

where it has never gone?

I want to play a clip here

from the former president's new attorney,

John Lauro.

He appeared on Fox News today.

Here's what he said about what

the former presidents

still presidents at the time

Donald Trump wanted

after the 2020 election.

The only

thing that

President Trump asked

is a pause in the counting.

So those seven contested states

could either reordered or recertify

I've never heard of anyone

get indicted for asking for an audit.

What what

President Trump was looking for was

the truth

was to find out

exactly what happened in those

seven contested states.

That's just not criminal.

Bobby, you've extensively reported,

instead of ostensibly

reported on this issue

and all those conversations

that the former president is

what, you know, match

what you just heard.

Well well, Karl is absolutely right.

This was a coup and there is a coup memo

that was written literally

by one of Trump's attorneys,

John Eastman, the famous

Eastman memo, Jame.

One of your colleagues,

Jamie Gangel,

got it and ran it on CNN and in it

at the

Eastman says over

seven states with contested electors,

Mike Lee,

the Republican senator from Utah,

a big Trump

supporter,

started looking into this and discovered

there were absolutely zero

states with contested electors.

He was quite upset about this.

Senator Lee

actually sent me the coup memo saying

it is unsupported Senator Lee,

when the certification of Biden

came, the finally came after January 6th,

went to the Senate floor

and said there's nothing to this.

Lindsey Graham said nothing to it at all.

These are Trump supporters

who backed Trump and investigated

and found nothing.

And to your point,

it'll be interesting to see

if they can make this case

in a court of law that they make publicly

where they're not under oath as Mr.

Law. The audits were done.

The recounts were done.

All of that was done.

All the court challenges were done.

Yes, the president had those rights

to make those case.

They were all done by January 6th,

and he had lost them all.

To that point, Carl, as we look forward.

The former president on the radio earlier

this week suggested that, quote,

A passionate group of voters

would be more dangerous than in 20, 20

if he were imprisoned

during the election.

What do you make of that?

I make of that that

once again, he's threatening

that his people

are going to go into the streets

and riot and hurt people

and there's

going to be a great movement

that in his favor

that is going to be violent

and the threat of violence is somehow

going to help him in the courts etc.

etc..

Let's just mention

Mike Pence for one minute

and this coup attempt.

Listen to what Mike Pence was told

by the president of the United States

to stop the certification

of the duly elected electors

to the Electoral College

meeting on January 6th.

That indeed the president

of the United States,

clear, as can be telling

the vice president, break the law.

Let's not have a lawful

transfer of power.

We have to look at forget Mr.

Law there for a minute.

We have to look

at the unprecedented nature

of a president of the United States

fomenting insurrection.

The overthrow of legitimate government

in this country

never happened in the White House before.

That's what this is about.

And Republicans, above

all, should be terrified

of allowing this president

to get away with it.

And yet

the overwhelming majority

are quite silent.

Even as even if you support Trump,

you think about the fact

that all of this

is going to play out in the middle

of a presidential campaign.

Which Trump thinks might be good for him.

We'll see as it plays out.

Gentlemen,

we'll continue this conversation

in the weeks and months ahead, of course.

Bob Woodward, Carl Bernstein,

thank you so much.