THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

Hayes: Speaking of that violence, last night in your speech you accused President Trump of willfully endangering the lives of FBI agents and deliberately stoking political violence more broadly--January 6, of course, but it sounded like you were talking about the things he's saying and doing contemporaneously.

I'd make the argument that nobody is a bigger target than you are. Does that factor into your thinking about what to do next? 

Cheney: I don't think you can let it. I think what he's doing now is--violence is a direct and foreseeable consequence of what he's doing. I think it's malicious when he releases the search warrant with the names of the FBI agents on it. When he reportedly has somebody call the Justice Department in a way that sounds very much like mafia tactics. All of that--it can't be something that we accept in American politics.

Hayes: Former Vice President Pence said this morning that he's open to talking to the January 6 committee if he's invited. And there were some more [qualifications] around his answer but that's more or less what he said. Are you going to invite him?

Cheney: I haven't seen specifically what he's said. We've had discussions with his attorneys previously and that was not his position, so I'm interested to see what he's said now and see if there really has been some kind of change. Previously, his view has been that there were serious constitutional issues involved with having a vice president testify in front of Congress. 

Hayes: (Reading Pence's exact words) Pence said, "If there was an invitation to participate, I would consider it. Any invitation that would be directed to me, I would have to reflect on the unique role I was serving in as vice president. It would be unprecedented in history for the vice president to be summoned to testify on Capitol Hill. But as I said, I don't want to pre-judge. So if any formal invitation was rendered to us, we'd give it due consideration." 

Cheney: We'll continue our engagement with his counsel and make a determination going forward about any conditions under which he would come and testify. I would point out that in fact you have had situations where, for example, in the aftermath of 9/11, you've had the president and the vice president testify to the 9/11 commission. After he granted Nixon's pardon, President Ford testified before a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee. So there is actually precedent when you have a national crisis for presidents, vice presidents to testify. The 9/11 commission obviously was different--it wasn't technically Congress. But certainly the subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee was. 

Vice President Pence played a critical role on that day. His comments in the aftermath have varied in terms of his willingness to talk about the seriousness of the crisis the nation faced--or in terms of his description of the seriousness of the crisis.

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