Welcome to the beat, everyone. I'm Ari Melbert. President-elect Trump is taking sides against police and four violent convicts, showing some of his most extreme rhetoric during this campaign will indeed guide how he governs. This is our top story. I'm going to walk you through it. Donald Trump says he will likely pardon the people convicted of horrific violence against the United

States, against the police, against the Capitol on January 6th. And when pressed in this first

sit-down interview since the election on the details about that, President-elect Trump stood by

pardoning the convicts specifically who attacked the police savagely that day with weapons

and with vengeance. Several officers, as you may recall, went on to die after that brutal day.

Trump's plans sound like they could include also pardoning the leaders of the insurrection

who were convicted of those gravest felonies, including sedition.

Trump's statements flatly sighed against police and law enforcement.

These pardons would bolster a precedent against law and order in our country.

Unlike anything we've seen in a long time, I'll get to historical comparisons in a few moments

to give context, to give a factual baseline for just how unusual this is in law and

history. What this would also do is create a kind of ongoing validation and quite literal legal

support for anyone who wanted to do this in the future to follow an election loser's bidding,

even if it leads to violence and federal

crimes and felonies and even insurrection. So for context right now, we're actually going to air

President-elect Trump's answer at some length. You promised to pardon those who had attacked the

Capitol on January 6th. Are you still bowing to follow through with that promise?

We're looking at it right now, most likely. Yeah, most likely, I'll do it very quickly.

Very quickly. Okay. But some of them, 169 of them, have pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers.

Because they had no choice. 900 pleaded guilty to other crimes. They're also going to be eligible

for a pardon from you?

Listen, it's a very tough system. Do you know, almost nobody, I saw people that didn't even go into the building and they were convicted.

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