Hey, I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to prime time. We are monitoring what's happening in the Senate and in the house at this hour. Obviously they are re-introducing their legal duties to certify the electoral votes from the states.

Now, we're taking this moment to pause. We are monitoring and as anything that said is operative in terms of the state of debate, we'll go right to it.

But Senator Hawley of Missouri deserves a moment of pause. The Kansas City star, his home state paper, said today that he has blood on his hands for the insurrection attempt that we saw today.

That but for him, it may not have happened because we may not have had the level of controversy during this procedure that we're having.

Now, what is the basis of the case against Hawley? Let's look at it and reverse it and it'll be more clear. Hawley's case is this.

What happened in Pennsylvania, not his state, okay, but that's okay. Is wrong. And they never had any chance. This all just happened unchecked so that the Senate, this final forum, is the only place and the proper forum to address that.

Now, first you have the law. The forum that they have right now is not for the litigation of state issues with their election. It was born out of a time when the Congress was blindsided by states sending in competing slates of electors.

And there was nothing in the Constitution or in federal law at that time to deal with it. They didn't know what to do in 1870, whatever, too. So they had to come up with rules where they could object to the certifications of those electoral slates. They needed a process.

But it was not to go through any type of litigation of what happened in states in the certification process, in the election process, that they are responsible for. Then you get to the facts.

In Pennsylvania, he says they never got to hear it. That's not true. This was an animal of that legislature. It was tested by that state's Supreme Court and it was found lacking for federal review. Those are three levels, three levels of looking through this situation by the state.

So he doesn't have a law and he doesn't have the facts, but I'll tell you what he does have. He's got a place in history after what happened today and for what he's trying to do on the congressional floor of the Senate right now. Let's bring in David Gregory, Michael Smirk-Honish.

Smirk, Home State, Pennsylvania, you're an officer of the court there. You're reckoning of what Senator Hawley is saying that it has to be done here because Pennsylvania's never got a chance to review these matters that control their election.

I think it's totally belied by the facts. As you've already laid out, these issues were extensively litigated in the state court system and in the federal system.

And I think most significantly were cast aside by judges, including one in the third circuit of Pennsylvania, the Appellate Court, just below the Supreme Court of the United States, who was a Donald J. Trump appointee.

So it makes for great sound bites. And I paid particular attention, Chris, to when he said, hey, we're not talking about fraud. Part of this continuing disconnect between that which the president has said in social media, that which Rudy Giuliani has said in the court of public opinion, but not that which has been litigated.

And that disconnect between the two is something that stunned me for the last two months.

So David, then it comes to what the political play is here because he has to know what smirk and I are discussing. By all accounts, he is an intelligent man.

The focus of stupidity here seems to be what he projects onto the people who are hearing him that they're dumb enough to buy this.

What is his political play that is worth what happened today?

Well, let me just back up for a second and ask this question, who is Josh Holley to question the wisdom of the Supreme Court of the United States, which decided not to intervene?

Who is Josh Holley to weaponize his education and his experience as a clerk at the Supreme Court?

To suggest that this is the place to overturn the will of the people that is not the job.

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