On Tuesday's edition of MSNBC's "Deadline: White House," analyst Jason Johnson tore into former President Donald Trump for standing by and allowing his supporters to overrun the Capitol and endanger the lives of members of Congress.
Johnson also took aim at Republicans who continue to defend the former president in the face of all the evidence about his activities that has emerged from the House hearings on the matter.
"He sat on his rear end and willfully ignored the counsel from everyone around him, that what he sought to do on January 6th was illegal, ill-advised, what he sought to do at DOJ would lead to a Saturday Night Massacre, the likes of which would make the actual Saturday Night Massacre look small," said anchor Nicolle Wallace. "What the committee has succeeded in doing is showing that the president knew that January 6th was not an opportunity to overturn the election, that that was illegal."
"Nicolle, that's the thing," said Johnson. "He already knew, hey, dude, it's not working. Every piece of documentation, every corrupt crony that he had put in office, even they said, this is a bridge — this is a Chris Christie bridge too far, right? Just blocked. You can't do it. There's no way you can do this. He knew it already, and so January 6th can be seen as nothing but an attempt at a violent overthrow of the United States government."
"I think what's important, Nicolle, and this is what I'm really fascinated to see on Thursday, it's like, what on earth else could he have been doing at the time?" said Johnson. "What was he doing? What else could be more important? We're mad about Uvalde cops for waiting too long to go in to stop a mass shooter. Their lives were in danger, but that's what we expect them to do. This man's job was to protect the country. All he had to do was make a phone call or a tweet, and he wouldn't do it. In fact, he darn near encouraged people to kill his vice president."
"I'm curious as to what Republicans have to tell themselves at night before they go to bed, having survived last year, to tell themselves that made it okay that for hundreds of minutes, this man did nothing to protect the country as he attempted to slaughter every member of Congress," Johnson added.
Watch below: