Peter Navarro appeared to realize he said too much at one point in an interview where he told a reporter that he and Steve Bannon plotted an attempted coup to keep Donald Trump in the White House.
The former White House trade adviser revealed in his new memoir that he and Bannon coordinated an effort with Republican lawmakers to stop the certification of Joe Biden's election win, which spun into the violent Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, but he told The Daily Beast they had lined up 100 lawmakers, including some senators, to complete their coup -- which ultimately failed.
"This House select committee that's investigating the events of Jan. 6 aren't just looking at the mob that attacked the Capitol," Daily Beast reporter Joe Pagliery told MSNBC's "Morning Joe." "They're also looking at the attempt to rip apart the fabric of our republic using the legislative branch, and what we've got here is Peter Navarro saying, 'Look, we had nothing to do with the violence, it didn't work in our favor because it stopped us from what doing what we really wanted to do, which was stop the certification of President Biden's win.'"
"But here's the thing," Pagliery added. "The way to think about this is, there was an attempted coup, but that's the hard coup. Someone called this, on the record, the soft coup. We have a former active White House official saying while he was in the administration was using his power there to put this into play, which I think is absolutely fascinating."
After the rioters were cleared from the Capitol, 147 Republican lawmakers voted against certifying Biden's election win, but Pagliery said Navarro became cagey when he asked which ones conspired with him and Bannon to halt the process.
"I don't have that list," Paglery said. "When I asked Mr. Navarro to talk to me about who he spoke with, he seemed reticent to do so. I think at that point he may have been realizing, 'Oh no, I've said too much.' The book and the conversation with me he details how he got text messages from Steve Bannon, he woke up to messages from people who were on board with this plan and he was in communication with them that morning, before a morning run around the National Mall."
"It's right there," he added. "If the committee investigators want to look into this, the guy is saying he's got communications and, as far as we know, he hasn't been subpoenaed yet or asked to turn over documents. That might change after this reporting."
Watch below.
Reporter reveals the moment Peter Navarro realized he may have landed in hot waterwww.youtube.com
