Trump’s shocking ‘pressure campaign’ to get Pence to overturn the election

In their book "I Alone Can Fix It," Washington Post reporters Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker take an in-depth look at former President Donald Trump's final year in office. Rucker has continued to report on the end of Trump's presidency in the Post, and during an appearance on MSNBC this week, he discussed Trump's efforts to pressure members of Congress Pence to overturn the election results in the days leading up to January 6.

Rucker told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell and fellow guest Joyce White Vance (a former federal prosecutor), "There was a days-long effort at the command center at the Willard Hotel, which was just a block away from the White House — where folks like Steve Bannon, John Eastman, Bernie Kerik, the former New York police commissioner, were trying to create this pressure campaign on members of Congress to believe their allegations of voter fraud. There was not, of course, evidence to support those claims. Yet there they were at that hotel, reviewing these claims, trying to fan the flames of dissent."

Those "flames" included the crowd of Trump supporters who eventually rioted and temporarily blocked Congress from counting the Electoral College votes that made Joe Biden president.

Trump and his allies, Rucker told Mitchell, were also trying to "create an environment that could press Vice President Pence…. to take action to try to decertify the election."