Welcome to the beat. I am Ari Melburn. I'll tell you right now this is a busy Friday for news after a week that began with the abrupt firing of Tucker Carlson and this addition case against the proud boys for January 6 reaching a jury.

And then just last night we reported that Mike Pence went under oath for the first time about the coup probe to the DOJ that was yesterday.

So each of those are distinct developments but I want to tell you each stem from the ongoing if tardy accountability for the insurrection.

Fox News Reeling from a record payout for election and insurrection lies which former host Tucker Carlson had doubled down on recently which certainly contributed to his problems.

And amidst all this heat on the efforts to undermine the peaceful transfer of power to President Biden back then we should note that this week the current president formally announced he is running for re-election in a video that discusses and shows what he says are the stakes.

And I'll tell you something usually when the incumbent president announces he's running for re-election it feels like a larger story but it has certainly had its competition Donald Trump meanwhile unveiling a reboot of the campaign slogan that he initially originally plagiarized from Ronald Reagan although now he's added the fighting words that evoke a battle an us versus them battle.

One man focused on the true owners of this great man. One movement focused on the true priorities make America great for us again.

For us who's us well that start campaign pitch comes with Trump in New Hampshire and against the backdrop I mentioned yesterday the highest ranking member of the Trump administration to date to testify Mike Pence wrote his motorcade in to do that to discuss under oath how Donald Trump tried to overthrow their loss Mike Pence is literally driving up to finally cough up the facts about that effort.

The DOJ probe must do more than just talk to everybody if there's going to be other additional charges they must determine whether Donald Trump broke any federal laws by trying to steal that election.

That means probing his intent his state of mind that he intent to incite that insurrection did he view those now convicted trespassers and seditionists as his co-conspirers or in the alternative and all fairness if you're trying to understand what happened.

Did they act completely on their own was he surprised or even opposed to some of what they did or all of it did they commit crimes that cannot be legally tied to Donald Trump.

Now everyone is welcome to their own views on that but the DOJ and special counsel Jack Smith they need evidence for that they need hard provable indications about Trump and how he viewed that plot and the violence and if possible the January 6th convicts themselves.

Well Donald Trump a defendant now in New York on a different case and a candidate out there on the trails I showed you just handed investigators more damning evidence about his state of mind his view of those Jan Sixers as he calls them because he embraced one of the people who defied police amidst that crime street by Trump fans which Pence was just testifying about this is new and this new embrace comes along with Trump's public vow to pardon some of these convicts and also efforts to promote the crime.

So efforts to promote them as a kind of sympathetic set of political prisoners.

So the past is an over not the DOJ not in that probe not for Pence who faces this new pressure not for Trump who is clearly mixing his reelection without that kind of rhetoric those kind of embraces.

The past is an over for Fox News or Tucker Carlson who are quite literally paying this week and last week for their election lies and defamation.

It's not over for America the Republican party which has had a Trump problem that has now become a sedition problem with party leaders in the GOP who whatever they've claimed or said privately whatever some of them initially said on January 6th 7th and 8th now minimize or even warm towards the trespassers the seditionists the police.

So here we are in this first official week of President Biden's reelection campaign it is worth connecting the dots connecting that GOP problem to a history that already showed Donald Trump was a huge mathematical drag on this party as we look at the matchup because as one nonpartisan outlet recently put it axios.

Trump aligned and maga candidates have been on a documented and epic losing streak that dates back to those first 2018 midterms.

The prospect of Democrats getting upwards of 40 seats looms very large right now Democrats picked up more than two dozen house seats to take control for the first time in eight years.

The moment the entire country has been waiting for after a very close race.

Joseph R. Biden Jr. is elected the 46th president of the United States winning the White House and denying President Trump a second term.

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