'The make-or-break moment for the Republican Party': Hutchinson talks GOP loyalty to Trump 44:10

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Start right in. This is who is going to be our guest tonight. And this is from page 184 of the book. On the evening of December 18th, Mark Meadows, my boss, chief of staff, returned from a meeting in the Oval Office and abruptly asked if I could tell his detail he wanted to go home as if there was an emergency there. His detail quickly prepared his limo and he left campus without further explanation. Shortly after Mark's departure, I walked down to visit with Molly and get a sense of the president's evening plans.

Usually, if Mark went home before the president went to the residence, I would stay at my desk in case the president needed anything from Mark or me. But since Mark had left early with such confidence, I thought perhaps the president was wrapping up for the evening and I would get to go home early, too.

When I walked into the outer oval, I saw that the president was meeting with General Mike Flynn, the former national security advisor who had pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his involvement with Russian officials, cutting a cooperation deal in special counsel Robert Mueller's inquiry into interference in the 2016 election.

Three weeks before today's meeting on November 25th, Trump had issued Flynn a presidential pardon. Why is Mike Flynn here? I asked Molly. I'm not sure, Molly said. Then added, he's just talking to the president about some things. Talking to the president about some things. Got it. I went back to my office and settled in. Molly came to my office soon after and asked if we had a wine opener.

"No," I said, "Mark doesn't drink, so we do not keep alcoholic paraphernalia in his vicinity." I tried to joke, but she did not crack even a slight smile. I sighed. "I know the vice president has one. I'll call his assistant." Once we secured the wine opener, we parted ways back to our respective desks.

A few minutes later, Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, Eric Hirschman, and Derek Lyons barreled down the hallway past my office door and rounded the corner toward the Oval Office. I was imagining various reasons Mike Flynn could have for being there that had the lawyers in a panic. But then I remembered it was Derek Lyons' last day at the White House. I figured I was overthinking it. Flynn had probably left. There was maybe a toast for Derek in the Oval Office to celebrate his tenure at the White House.

Pat Cipollone's top aide and Derek's fiancee, Liz Horning, wandered in and asked if I knew what was happening in the Oval Office. She had dinner plans with Derek and could not get in touch with him. I said, I'm not sure, but a bunch of people are in the Oval.

On cue, we both turned toward the sound of raised voices coming from that direction. Although the Oval Office was about a 10-second walk from my desk, it was highly unusual to hear any noise coming from there. We could not make out distinct words that night, just people screaming at each other. Molly called me to come to the outer oval. Dan Scavino was pouring the last of a bottle of wine into a glass. The screaming was much louder than I had anticipated.

I looked into the Oval Office and saw a larger group. Along with the White House lawyers were Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, and Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com. How did all these people get inside the building? I could tell the meeting was growing more contentious, so I decided to text Tony Ornato, the deputy chief of staff. Flynn is still here. And Sidney Powell. There's a brawl. He responded, oh, holy hell.

Tony immediately called and asked if I knew what they were brawling over. He had been in the Oval Office earlier that day and heard the president talk about invoking the Insurrection Act or martial law. If that's what they were arguing over, Tony said, I needed to get Mark Meadows back to the White House as soon as possible. Eventually, I got a hold of Mark, who seemed reluctant to get on the line with the president. I urged him that it sounded like it was a matter of national security. A Secret Service agent who was standing outside the Oval Office came by.

The agent said, I don't want to hear all of that. It's really upsetting. I wouldn't recommend going down there. The West Wing was officially unhinged.

Hutchinson continues. Things seem to be breaking up as people filed out of the Oval and walked by my desk. Molly told me the president wanted to have dinner in the residence and was planning to reconvene the meeting in the Yellow Oval after he finished eating. I told her I would stay in case something happened. She wished me luck and then she left for the night. Dan Scavino stopped by on his way home and said, this is effed up.

Eric Hirschman walked into Mark Meadows' office in a fury, pounding his fist on the wall. This can't be effing happening, he said. This is effing insane. Pat Cipollone, looking traumatized, said to me, this is nuts. Mark needs to come back.

Derek Lyons asked, quote, does the chief really need more of a reason to come back? Here it is. Martial law. I mean, for God's sake, we called Rudy to come help us do damage control. Rudy Giuliani, you know it's bad when we call Rudy for backup. The chief needs to come back.

I continued to call Mark. He continued ignoring my calls. So I called one of the Secret Service agents on his detail. Go pass your phone to Mark now, I ordered. Seriously? The agent asked. What if he's in bed sleeping? What do you expect me to do? Shake him awake? I responded, yes, this is a matter of national security. You need to put me on the phone with him.

After a few minutes, I had Mark on the line. Mark, the president is reconvening the meeting in the Yellow Oval. Rudy is on his way as backup for Pat Cipollone. Rudy for Pat Cipollone. We are talking about the Insurrection Act, seizing voting machines. I felt my voice begin to sound desperate. Please, Mark, you need to come back here. He said, all right, I'm on my way. Hutchinson continues.

I walked with Mark to the residence and he had asked me to come back at midnight to break up the meeting if it had not already ended by then. I heard the president scream, I don't care how you do it, just get it effing done. Mark and I exchanged a pained look and he disappeared into the yellow oval. My hands were sweating as I walked back to my desk. I had never heard the president sound so desperate before. I went to the residence around 11.55 p.m.,

But the meeting had begun to end. I used my key to the Rose Garden Colonnade to unlock the door to let everyone out. Mark escorted Rudy off the premises to make sure America's mayor didn't wander back to the residence.

One hour after the meeting broke up, my watch buzzed with a Trump tweet alert. Quote, Peter Navarro releases 36-page report alleging election fraud more than sufficient to swing victory to Trump. A great report by Peter. Statistically impossible to have lost the 2020 election. Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there. We'll be wild. Wild. Cassidy Hutchinson.

was the witness who told us all the worst things that we learned about the plot to overthrow the government after former President Trump lost re-election. From Cassidy Hutchinson, we learned that the president was told by his deputy White House chief of staff about the number of weapons and the types of weapons people had brought to the rally site in Washington, D.C. on January 6, 2021. From Cassidy Hutchinson, we learned that

That the president, having been informed about all those weapons, then ordered that the metal detectors be taken down so the armed crowd could be allowed in with their weapons. He then, as planned apparently, told that crowd to march on Congress. From Cassidy Hutchinson, we learned that he not only told the crowd at the rally out loud that he would go to Congress with them, he also tried to do it.

So once the president had gotten into the vehicle with Bobby, he thought that they were going up to the Capitol. And when Bobby had relayed to him, we're not, we don't have the assets to do it. It's not secure. We're going back to the West Wing. The president had very strong, very angry response to that. Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president. Take me up to the Capitol now.

To which Bobby responded, "Sir, we have to go back to the West Wing." The President reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engle grabbed his arm, said, "Sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol."

Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And when Mr. Renato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.

We learned from Cassidy Hutchinson in that remarkable day of live public testimony that the former president not only tried physically to steer the presidential limousine to Congress and in her telling, physically lunged at the Secret Service agent, telling him that the limo would not be going there. We learned from her as well that the president acknowledged repeatedly that he had, in fact, lost the election, but he just didn't want to have to admit it.

We learned from her that when Trump was told that the rioters had in fact breached the Capitol building and were surging in toward the members of Congress who were trapped inside, he refused repeated requests to ask the rioters to stand down. We learned from Cassidy Hutchinson that when Trump heard that the rioters were calling for the lynching of his vice president, who was on the premises, Mike Pence, we learned from her that he said Pence deserved that fate, that the rioters weren't doing anything wrong.

When she gave that testimony, she was 25 years old and very much alone in the world and very much without resources. And I mean that literally to the extent that she was flat broke. She had a couple hundred dollars in her checking account. She had not paid her rent for months. Her Wi-Fi had been cut off at her apartment. This was a very young woman who had had, yes, a very high-end job at the White House. She was effectively the chief of staff, the top staffer to the White House chief of staff.

But she was a young woman who had only ever had government employment. When the Trump administration ended the calamitous way it did, she was alone and very much without resources. This is a working class kid, first in her family to go to college. All the connections, all the pull she had in life, she had developed herself on her own as much as a person can do by the age of, what, 24?

When she was subpoenaed to testify, she was very much alone. She was unable to afford a lawyer on her own. She reluctantly, therefore, got one from Trump World. She says that that lawyer effectively encouraged her to not tell what she knew. That arrangement lasted for a few of her first depositions until she could no longer live with herself. She finally connected with new counsel who would represent her for free and without what she felt was potentially conflicted loyalty.

And then she told all. She says in her new book, in the prologue, quote, before retaining my new lawyers, at times I had told less than the whole truth to a congressional committee charged with investigating a matter of the highest national importance.

a matter that posed a threat to America's future greatness. I had withheld information about events that I had witnessed or that had been recounted to me by witnesses. Those events had precipitated the shocking assault on the United States Congress, an institution I cherish, and threatened the continued success of American democracy. My conscience was bothering me, and I came to the decision, in parliamentary language, to clarify and extend my testimony. Well, that is how she ended up telling the whole truth.

She is further clarifying and extending her testimony in this new book that is out tomorrow, which is called Enough. It contains a lot of new information. I started off taking notes when I started reading the book, thinking that I would want to keep the main new points of information on a sheet or two of paper so I could stay focused on what I wanted to talk to her about. I ended up taking 20 tiny scribbled handwritten pages of notes all about what was new here to me.

The new information in this book includes information about bizarre, apparent mishandling of classified information, including some at least previously classified information, potentially still classified information being carried around in a Whole Foods bag and dropped off with some reporters.

There's a strange news story about what the White House chief of staff did in the last 15 minutes that the Trump administration existed on Inauguration Day, something that required him to move with lights and sirens through downtown D.C. to get there before noon, whereupon Joe Biden would become president.

There's new information that as early as May 2020, the White House, the Trump White House, May 2020, was already trying out the phrase, stop the steal in messaging about the 2020 election. That's six months before the election even happened. There's new confirmation from Cassidy Hutchinson that Trump was mortally ill from COVID, that he was so ill his life was in danger when he was hospitalized with the virus. There's confirmation from Cassidy Hutchinson that it was the former president himself who

Who ordered the firing of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jeff Berman? Mr. Berman telling us tonight that before hearing that that's what's in Cassidy Hutchinson's book, hearing that from us tonight when we called him for comment, he had been aware that his firing had been ordered by the president himself.

There are six, count them, six different allegations about various White House men and Capitol Hill Republican men groping or creeping on Cassidy Hutchinson in this book, although I should mention that two of the six are both Matt Gaetz. So it's six alleged incidents, but only five different men. We'll have more on that later. There's a lot to talk about here. There's a lot. And I'm

And I'm cognizant that we're going to do a big interview on this. There's a lot to talk about in general. Right. In the news right now, it looks like the writer's strike is finally over in Hollywood. President Biden's going to walk a picket line with the United Auto Workers tomorrow, something no president has ever done before. Senator Bob Menendez now has three of his fellow Senate Democrats calling for his resignation after his indictment on corruption charges last week. And now former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is calling for his resignation as well.

In the Senate, Democrat John Fetterman was the first to call for Menendez's resignation. Then Sherrod Brown. Now Senator Peter Welch is also calling on him to resign. Senator Menendez says he won't resign. But this is now a boulder that is running downhill at him. It is hard to see how Senator Menendez stays.

Still looking at a government shutdown by the end of the week. There are even odds that a shutdown might also bring with it the end of the speakership of House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, someone with whom Cassidy Hutchinson was very, very close. We've got the second Republican presidential debate two nights from now, with former President Donald Trump still not planning on showing up despite his lead in the polls. Instead, he's making headlines in the last few days for saying this weekend that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be executed for treason.

Then today he said this news network you're watching now should be investigated for treason and it will be if he's elected president again. Then this afternoon he tried to buy a gun. People under felony indictment aren't legally allowed to buy a gun, but that was a real moment today. For Cassidy Hutchinson, it has been 15 months since her testimony that turned the world on its ear. She has spent those 15 months out of sight in part for her own safety,

But also to write this book and also to do three separate interviews with U.S. Justice Department prosecutors and one with the grand jury in Fulton County. Former president she served and who she says she at one point adored and to whom she was quite loyal for a very long time. He's now been indicted in four different jurisdictions on dozens of felony counts.

Cassidy Hutchinson says she found the bravery to stop effectively lying by omission, to start telling what she actually knew when she first read the story of this man, a man who had basically the same job as hers under a very different president. Alexander Butterfield had also been effectively chief of staff to the White House chief of staff under President Nixon.

Sort of a low profile, low name recognition position, but one with access to very high level, very sensitive goings on. Like Cassidy Hutchinson, Mr. Butterfield was a loyal Republican, loyal to the president, didn't ever want to be anything other than good at his job and a help to the administration he served. But like Cassidy Hutchinson, Alexander Butterfield also felt he needed to be honest about what he had seen and what he knew. Alexander Butterfield is how the nation learned there was a taping system in the Nixon White House during Watergate.

Cassidy Hutchinson, seen here meeting with Mr. Butterfield after her testimony. She is how the nation learned all the worst things we now know about, as she puts it on page 321, quote, an unhinged chief executive willing to overturn the will of the people and plunge the country into chaos and violence on the advice of crazy people. For what? To avoid the embarrassment of conceding an election he knew he had lost?

She said, quote, that is who he is. In her testimony, we also know that is who she is. She's a paragon of bravery. She has a new book out called Enough. It comes out tomorrow. She's here tonight for the interview live. Stay with us. There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the ohs, or the no, no, nos. It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season.

The feeling that comes with getting MGM Rewards benefits or earning bonus bets. So, whether you're drawing up a same-game parlay in your playbook or betting the over on your favorite team. Turn it.

The BetMGM app is the best place to bet on football. You only get that feeling at BetMGM. The sportsbook born in Vegas, now live across the DMV. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, DC only, subject to eligibility requirements. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell. I grew up in the front row of the spectator section in courtrooms. My father was a Boston cop who became a lawyer and he had me in the courtrooms all the time. And I was learning literally the rules of evidence when I was in high school. My first book was about a case that went on for seven years. And so everything that happens in courtrooms makes perfect sense to me and my job is to try to make it make sense to an audience. The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.

Weeknights at 10 p.m. Eastern on MSNBC. Here we go. Back at my desk, I hear the news break. The first rioters have breached the Capitol. They're inside. I'm registering the development as Pat Cipollone and Pat Philbin barrel past me and barge into Mark Meadows' office. The rioters are in the Capitol, Mark. We need to go down and see the president now, Cipollone insists. Mark has a statue on his couch. He doesn't want to do anything, Pat.

Pat calmly gives Mark direction. Mark, something needs to be done. People are going to die and the blood is going to be on your hands. This is getting out of hand. I'm going down there. My eyes are locked on Mark. Get up. Go with Pat. Mark slowly stands, leaning against the arm of the couch and walks silently to my desk. He's clutching his eyeglasses in his fist. His knuckles are white. He sets his phones on my desk. Let me know if Jim calls, meaning Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan calls minutes later. I feel a pang of hope.

One sec. I'll go get him. I go to the dining room. Is Mark in there? I asked the valet. The valet nods. I look through the peephole and see the back of his suit. I open the door to get his attention. The group is having a heated conversation about the rioters. Mark sees me. I point at the phone screen where Jim's caller ID is visible. He comes over to take the phone, propping the door open with his body as he talks to Jim.

I take a few steps back as Mark takes my place in the doorway, and I strain to listen to both conversations. The TV in the Oval Dining Room is blaring. The president is yelling. What's he saying? I can't make it out. I hear him say, hang, repeatedly. Hang. Hang. What's that about? Mark hands his phone back to me, the cue for me to return to my desk. Back in my office, my phone notifies me of a Trump tweet.

Mike Pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country and our Constitution, giving states a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth. Hutchinson continues, I'm struggling to process what's happening as Mark, Pat Cipollone, Pat Philbin, and Eric Hirschman stumble back to the office. I overhear their conversation and suddenly everything makes sense. They are calling for the vice president to be hanged.

The president is okay with it. He doesn't want to do anything. He doesn't think they're doing anything wrong. He thinks Mike is a traitor. This is crazy. We need to be doing something more.

My phone is pinging nonstop with emails, texts, signal messages, and unanswered calls. Mark's phones are too. I am devoid of emotion as I consider what I should do. And then letting what I just heard sink in, I'm gripped with anger and hurt. I snatch my coat. I run out of the office to go to the Eisenhower building. I need to check in with Mark's Secret Service detail. We need to have a plan in case the worst happens, in case this is the beginning of a coup.

That is from Cassidy Hutchinson's new book, which is called Enough, which is out tomorrow. Ms. Hutchinson, it's nice to meet you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me, Rachel. This is the first live interview you've done in the media. It is the second live interview you have done in life. The first one was your testimony. How are you doing? I'm doing well. It's a pleasure to be here with you. And it's an honor to have this as my first live interview. Thank you.

Second live interview, I guess. Second live interview. The first one much more consequential than this one. Don't worry. Um,

I mean, it's been 15 months since that testimony. Your life has changed dramatically since then. I said, based on what I read in your book, but I didn't ask you about this ahead of time, I said in my introductory remarks that a lot of the reason that people haven't heard from you or seen you out in the world in the last 15 months is at least in part because of concerns about your security. Is that fair? Is that still a real life concern for you? That's a fair assessment, yes.

How are you taking care of yourself in that regard? I mean, you don't have to tell me anything I shouldn't know. No, no, you're fine. Open book. It's been difficult in a lot of ways. It's also, it's open, this year has helped me open my eyes to the dangers that Trump actually poses on people in these situations. And I'm not the only one. And I wish I could say I'd be the last person, but unfortunately I won't. And that's

That's what he does to people that he thinks that speak out against or that detract from him. And it's one of the more dangerous things about Donald Trump, too. This is something we've seen time and time again. And it shouldn't have to be like this. You write about in the book repeatedly about your regret as for having not

supported him, but specifically for having facilitated some of the political attacks that he launched as president on people that were designed the way he designs them to hurt people maximally and in some cases to expose them to danger. Did that give you any insight into why he needs politics to work that way for him and any insight into how to combat it?

It gave me an insight into his psyche while I was writing the book and helping understand my circumstances with it and what I dealt with after I testified. But with that said, it helped also open my eyes to

what he wants from people. He wants to know that he's getting a reaction. He thrives when he has an audience. It could be a negative audience. It could be an audience that he likes. It could be his base. What he needs is to hear people reacting to him. And that's when he knows in his mind that he has been successful to something. Is that why you've never responded to his attacks on you? I've never responded to his attacks on me because I don't need to give them oxygen. He is going to say what he's going to say. And he said much worse things about much better people than I am.

The kind of pressure that you describe experiencing to protect Mr. Trump, I mean, some of it was...

Self-directed, right? You say at one point in the book, and it struck me, you said that you adored him at one point, that you were and are very much still a Republican, that you believed in what he was trying to do for the country. You wanted to be a good staffer. You wanted to serve the White House. You wanted to do right by your colleagues. And that sort of easily leads toward the next post-presidential project for him, which is protecting him from all the investigations around January 6th and everything else.

But that pressure not only came from you, it also came from his world. You didn't have financial resources to hire your own lawyer. You didn't have access to a lawyer at the outset who would represent you for free. You ended up with a Trump world lawyer who you describe as having not told you to lie, but encouraged you to not tell everything that you knew. Yeah.

That pressure is very much, it's not just a Cassidy Hutchinson biographical detail, it is a live issue for a lot of people right now. It's a lot of people in multiple jurisdictions deciding how they're going to respond to a subpoena, what they may testify to in court, what they're going to do about their legal representation. This is a live issue for a lot of people right now. And some of them may be watching right now. What would you say to them about how to balance the equities in that kind of a calculation? In my opinion...

I don't know if there really is a way to balance the equities. If you have a self-interest of being completely forthcoming and truthful in what you're witnessing that could potentially hurt or damage someone.

Mr. Trump and not even speaking to the issues of legal counsel, just as a person knowing what I experienced. And like you said, some of it was self-inflicted for me. I did. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew how I felt about these circumstances surrounding January 6th.

But I also was scared, to be frank. I was scared at times to make that break. I had seen what happened to some of my former colleagues who had made that break and how they became the subjects of the vitriol and the vile rhetoric that comes out of Mr. Trump and his associates when you break with him.

If I were to say anything to the people, though, that may be finding themselves in a similar situation to the situation that I found myself in or just that they want to make that break, it's possible. No, we can't. And what I think is, in my opinion, and what I think is damaging in ways is...

isolating the people that come out and then questioning why they did. It is hard to come out. It was hard to find my way out because of what we said. I had financial limitations and I did have other counsel

But it was also hard coming out on the outside because I didn't know if I'd be welcomed by people. So I think that, you know, if we can create and foster an environment where people feel that they're welcomed and that there is a life on the other side, which is one of the more eye-opening parts of this experience for me too, is that like,

There are good people in this world that want to help and that are there and that have similar interests that we do. We all want the republic to survive. We all should want this republic to survive. But in the way that Mr. Trump's trajectory currently is going, I'm not confident that he will have it survive. And I would just encourage them to think about that.

When you say that we speak at a moment when Mr. Trump is dozens of points ahead of his nearest opponent in the Republican presidential primary, the tone in the political press about what's happening in the Republican presidential primary is that even people who support his competitors are effectively conceding that he's going to be the nominee. Republicans seem poised to choose him again, even after what happened the last time and specifically what you were able to tell the country about what it was like inside the White House.

I was struck in the book, not just about what you said about January 6th, but some of the other ways that you described what was bad about him as a president. On COVID, you said, I doubt any politician could have led the country through the deadliest pandemic in 100 years without making errors of judgment and execution. But of all the people in the world, President Trump was uniquely unsuited to the challenge. He lacked empathy and was stubborn and impatient.

You said he had a restless, impulsive personality. You described his attention span not being up to an average meeting. I noticed that his eyes often wandered the room when the meetings outlasted his attention span. Ultimately, you described what happened on January 6th is from him, at a minimum, a shocking dereliction of duty. I mean, all of the things that you described from having seen him up close are public record now. None of these things are secrets. Right.

Why do you think your fellow Republicans want him more than they want anybody else as their next candidate for the White House? I can't speak to the psyche of my I won't say my fellow Republicans, because I do not think that we are a part of the same Republican Party.

I still consider myself a Republican. I consider myself a Republican in the sense of Senator Mitt Romney and the Reagan Republican Party. I believe that the Republican Party needs a strong conservative party. I do not believe that Mr. Trump is a strong Republican. But in this next election cycle, it's, in my opinion, it's the make or break moment for the Republican Party.

Now is the time if these politicians, these men and some women that are currently in Congress want to make the break and want to take the stand, they have to do it now. We can't wait any longer for them to do it. I don't know why they're so willing to support him. I think it's extremely disappointing and it is not a hard issue to take. It's we're talking about a man who at the very essence of his being is

almost destroyed democracy in one day. And he wants to do it again. He wants to run for president to do it again. He's been indicted four times since January 6th. I would not have a clear conscience and be able to sleep at night if I were a Republican in Congress that supported Donald Trump. And, you know, I think that if they're not willing to split with that, then we're in serious danger for the party.

I want to talk with you about those indictments. I know you've spoken with federal prosecutors and with the Fulton County grand jury. I want to ask you about some of the news that you've broken in the book. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back. Cassidy Hutchinson is our guest. We'll be right back. There are some football feelings you can only get with BetMGM Sportsbook. That's right. Not just the highs, the ohs, or the no, no, no's. It's the feeling that comes with being taken care of every down of the football season.

The feeling that comes with getting MGM rewards benefits or earning bonus bets. So, whether you're drawing up a same-game parlay in your playbook or betting the over on your favorite team. Hit it!

The BetMGM app is the best place to bet on football. You only get that feeling at BetMGM. The sportsbook born in Vegas, now live across the DMV. BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. See BetMGM.com for terms. 21 plus only, DC only, subject to eligibility requirements. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER.

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Back with us once again is Cassidy Hutchinson. Her new book is called Enough. It comes out tomorrow. Thank you again for being here. You write in the book about, in detail about your interactions with the January 6th committee. You did six interviews with them, plus the live testimony.

But then you also say that you met, I believe, three times with Justice Department personnel and prosecutors and once with the Fulton County Grand Jury. Is that all correct? Do you expect to be called to testify in any of the Trump trials? I have fully complied with all government investigations in all entities thus far, and I will continue to do so. But you can't talk about whether you're going to testify. If I am, if or when I am asked to testify, I will comply as fully as I have in the past.

Did prosecutors involved in any of those conversations or any of the live cases ask you to leave certain topics out of the book? No, no. Everything that everything that is in the book is also consistent with my transcripts that are on the record with the government or with the January 6th committee. OK, well, everything pertaining to the election fraud. Yeah. And Mr. Trump's attempt to overthrow the government to stay in power on the public record.

One of the things that you describe in some detail in the book that I don't just quite know what to make of involves your direct boss, Mark Meadows. I've been describing you with the shorthand and you use this in the book. You say sort of chief of staff to the chief of staff. You're essentially the top staffer to Mr. Meadows. So you're with him a lot of the time. You definitely know what's going on in his life. You're close to him in the work sense every day that he's in the office.

And yet there is some mystery that I don't totally understand as to what he was burning in his fireplace and to what he was doing with either classified or previously classified documents related to Crossfire Hurricane, related to the Russia investigation.

Are you describing what appeared to you to be either mishandling of classified information or mishandling of presidential records, destruction of presidential records, which, of course, is not allowed? The final days, obviously, was chaotic in a number of ways. I was under the impression, and I know there were several of my colleagues that were under the impression, that how classified documents were being handled was not...

within proper protocol. Now, with saying that, I think it speaks also just to

to how reckless and careless much of the administration was, not taking classified document protocol seriously a lot of the time. We've seen that with Mr. Trump as well. But specific to my experience with Mr. Meadows in the final days of the administration, I talk about it a lot in the book to shed light on how chaotic things were, but I can't really speak to what he was doing. I would leave that as a question to him.

I mean, it does sound like there were confrontations in the White House, including those that involved you, related to perceived mishandling of sensitive information. I dropped the bag on Pat Cipollone's floor. Here are your classified documents back from the reporter's mark.

I didn't hide my contempt, my words rife with sarcasm. Mark and Mr. Cipollone peered into the bag. I saw Mark swallow hard. Pat shot me a piercing look. Overwhelmed, Pat agonized. Seriously, seriously, we do not have time for this. I was already walking out of his office.

You then describe Mr. Meadows at 11.45 a.m. on Inauguration Day asking the Secret Service how quickly they can get to the Justice Department because he wants to try to declassify something literally in the last 15 minutes when Donald Trump is president. Joe Biden's about to get sworn in, so yes. What was that about? What was he trying to do? That specific binder was pertinent to Crossfire Hurricane, which, for the record, at the time, I had no idea what Crossfire Hurricane was.

But I, you know, looking at the bigger picture here, bringing it back to next year's election, these people very well could be in power again. And do we want people who have already shown that they're willing and want to overthrow an election, a duly elected, for a duly elected president?

which is the pinnacle of our democracy, do we want to put people like that back in power? Do we want to put people back in power that have mishandled and have been showed to mishandle the most sensitive national security secrets that our nation has?

You know, that's the question that we need to ask ourselves. We got a statement from a spokesperson for Mr. Meadows tonight, not sort of just vaguely casting aspersions at you. Most of the statement, but then saying much of her claims in this book about Mr. Meadows or otherwise are filled with half truths, falsehoods and purposefully omitting context to sell books.

Mr. Meadows essentially just casting aspersions on your character, saying that you are making things up out of whole cloth in order to make money. You worked so closely with him for a long time, but you also describe in the book that you never really trusted him. And there are several instances you describe in which he flat out lied to you, even on close working matters where you should have been on the same side.

I should just ask for a response to you for that statement and ask you what you think happened between you and Mark Meadows. I don't think there was anything necessarily wrong

to happen between me and Mark Meadows. I was very outspoken after January 6th about how I felt about it. Mark and I also knew that we were two different people, and that's okay. We regularly talked about it. We would regularly joke about it that I was more moderate than he was, but we did in large part work well together. More ideologically moderate. Yes, ideologically moderate, more so than he was. But

Putting that aside, in an environment like that, that doesn't matter as much. In terms of his statement, I would encourage him to go testify under oath if he thinks that what is in the book and what I have testified to under oath, which is consistent with what is in the book, is true.

He can go testify under oath if he has strong feelings about that. Were you disappointed that the Justice Department elected not to prosecute him for contempt of Congress when he ignored the congressional subpoena that you responded to from the January 6th investigation? I'll leave it to Mr. Meadows and his team to respond to that. What I will say is I hope that Mark is now doing the right thing, what I define as the right thing, which is

coming forth and honoring your oath that you swore to protect your country, not your president. We're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back. I have something to ask you about that creeps me out. I'm sorry. I'm in advance. I'm used to it. It's okay. All right. All right. The creepy questions. When we come back. Yeah. What a tease, huh? We'll be right back with Cassidy Hutchinson right after this.

Joining us once again is Cassidy Hutchinson. Her new book is called Enough. It comes out tomorrow. Ms. Hutchinson, one of the claims in your book that received some attention ahead of publication is an allegation you make that Rudy Giuliani effectively groped you at the Trump rally on January 6th. You say that he reached his hand under your blazer and then under your skirt.

Mr. Giuliani's spokesperson has called this a disgusting lie against Mayor Giuliani. He gave us that statement again himself tonight. But I was struck by the fact that he was not the only one. Page 52 of the book, you say that John Boehner, of all people, looked down at my cranberry vodka and whispered dark liquor or red wine from now on. Then he tugged on the ends of my hair, saying, and lose the ponytail.

You describe one man who worked in the White House, Mike McKenna, as having a tendency to publicly single out women with crude and demeaning comments. You describe the president, and this is not groping, this is not

physical, but you describe him as telling you to add blonde highlights to your hair, which you then went home and did and came back to the White House the next day. That doesn't happen in normal places. I'm just telling you now. Sorry. I learn a lot on the outside. Yes. There's a whole world out there when guys get fired for doing stuff like that. It's unbelievable. Well, it shouldn't be unbelievable. But yeah.

There's also a couple of instances involving Congressman Matt Gaetz. I will omit most of the context here, but I'll tell you the lines that have kept me up and up and uncomfortable. He chuckled and brushed his thumb across my chin. Has anyone told you ever told you you're a national treasure? You describe a night at Camp David.

when he was leaning against the doorframe while somebody answered the door to another cabin. Matt straightened his posture when Kevin McCarthy asked him what he wanted. He explained he had seen my golf cart parked outside and thought this was my cabin. Embarrassed, I got up and asked Mr. Gates what he needed. He explained that he was lost and asked me to escort him to his cabin. I told him to proceed around the circle drive. All the cabins are clearly marked. It's impossible to get lost. He asked me one more time to leave with him.

Kevin McCarthy then said, quote, get a life mat and shut the door. Now, now, Mr. Gates, we asked him for comment on these allegations tonight. He told us, I don't remember either of these events. And based on Cassidy's prior false statements, I doubt they occurred. I did date Cassidy for a few weeks when we were both single years ago. We parted amicably and remained friends thereafter, even during President Trump's post-presidency term.

And then he goes on to make other unrelated claims. I'm sorry to ask you if you want to respond to that, but I'm going to ask you if you want to respond. I would love to respond to that. Thank you for giving me the option. I will give Matt credit in his part of his statement that we did have an amicable working relationship and we were good friends at points. Matt Gaetz, in my opinion, is somebody that I personally do not hold in high regards to.

in terms of trust. And I do not think that Matt Gaetz has the best track record for relationships and condoning his relationships, how he thinks that they might be defined. I will say on behalf of myself,

I never dated Matt Gaetz. I have much higher standards in men. And Matt, frankly, is a very unserious politician. We see that today with the ruckus that he is causing on Capitol Hill with the spending negotiations. And I'm not I don't really have much else to say to somebody that is more concerned about a soundbite than actually passing legislation.

Mr. Giuliani's remark in response to your allegation about him, which was graphic and gross, was that this was a disgusting lie against him. Do you stand by that statement despite his pushback? I stand by this by my statement and what I described in the book. And I agree that it was gross.

Cassidy Hutchinson, you have been through a lot, particularly as a very young woman who had to do a lot of this on her own. The record that you've given us is much, much, much more complete than anybody else could have given us. And it took a lot of bravery to get there. This has been a hard time in your life, but you've done a service to your country. And I hope that good things happen for you. Thank you, Rachel. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. All right. Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson has a new book. It is called Enough.

It's out tomorrow. It is full of news. You should read it. We'll be right back. One last thing. Since we've been on the air tonight, we just got word that these are the qualifying candidates for the Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night this week. Two nights from now, this is the second overall debate in the Republican presidential primary. Last time there were eight candidates. This time they'll be down to seven. Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson didn't quite make the cut for this one. Of course, one other major candidate,

um, is not going to be there, but no need to talk about that since he won't be there. Uh, we're going to bring you live analysis of that debate starting at 11 PM Eastern on Wednesday night. I'll be here for that joined by my colleagues, Joy Reed and Nicole Wallace, and all of our friends here at MSNBC special coverage right after the Republican debate, 11 o'clock here, Wednesday night. I'll see you then. That's going to do it for us for now.

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