In the seventh Jan. 6th public hearing, the committee focused on the days leading up to January 6th and the role extremist groups played in the attack. The panel also revealed details on the "unhinged" Oval Office meeting before the former President sent his infamous "will be wild" tweet. Rep. Cheney said Trump tried to call a committee witness after the last hearing.

LAWRENCE O`DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: That is tonight`s "LAST WORD". THE 11TH HOUR with Stephanie Ruhle starts now.

STEPHANIE RUHLE, MSNBC HOST: Tonight, explosive new details of Trump`s call to action late night tweets, last minute changes to his speech that ignited the deadly insurrection, and a possible attempt to intimidate a witness.

Plus, team crazies attempt to push their baseless big lie in a secret White House meeting that turned into a screaming match. And testimony from a former member of the Oath Keepers warning, the events on January 6, could have been the spark that started a new civil war. How much worse could have been as THE 11TH HOUR gets underway on this Tuesday night.

Good evening. Once again, I`m Stephanie Ruhle. Today, as its seventh hearing on the January 6 committee laid out its case that Donald Trump summoned the mob to the Capitol, who the now infamous December 19, 2020 tweet promising that that day would be wild.

REP. STEPHANIE MURPHY (D-FL): This tweet served as a call to action and in some cases as a call to arms for many of President Trump`s most loyal supporters.

REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Donald Trump`s 1:42am tweet electrified and galvanized his supporters especially the dangerous extremists in the Oath Keepers, the proud boys and other racist and white nationalist groups.

RUHLE: There were many, many revelations about the days that led up to January 6, after Joe Biden had officially been declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election. We learned that Trump was considering announcing a march ahead of his January 6 rally.

MURPHY: The committee has obtained this draft updated -- undated tweet from the National Archives includes a stamp stating President has seen. The draft tweet reads, I will be making a big speech at 10:00 a.m. on January 6 at the Ellipse south of the White House. Please arrive early, massive crowds expected. Marched to the Capitol after. Stop the steel.

Although this tweet was never sent, rally organizers were discussing and preparing for the march to the Capitol in the days leading up to January 6.

RUHLE: The hearing also focused on an on hinge December 18, 2020 White House meeting between Trump and a team of election deniers who had been advising him on how to overturn the election. They wanted him to do a whole lot of crazy things including considering seizing voting machines.

RASKIN: They brought to the White House a draft executive order that they had prepared for President Trump to further his ends. What ensued was a heated and profane clash between this group and President Trump`s White House advisors who traded personal insults, accusations of disloyalty to the President, and even challenges to physically fight.

RUHLE: They threatened to beat one another up in the White House. Details of that night were revealed during a video of closed door depositions, including one with former White House Counsel Pat Cipollone.

PAT CIPOLLONE, FMR. TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL: I opened the door and walked in. I saw General Flynn, I saw Sidney Powell sitting there. I was not happy to see the people in the Oval Office.

SIDNEY POWELL, FMR. FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Cipollone and Herschmann and whoever the other guy was, should nothing but contempt and disdain of the president.

CIPOLLONE: The three of them were really sort of forcefully attacking me verbally. And we`re asking one simple question. As a general matter, where`s the evidence?

ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP SENIOR ADVISOR: Flynn screamed at me that I was a quitter, and everything kept on standing up and turning around screaming at me. And a certain point I had it with him. So I yelled back better come over. Better sit your effing ass back down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were looking for avenues that would enable -- that would result in President Trump remaining President Trump for a second term.

RUHLE: Sent your effing ass down that was shouted to another person in the Oval Office. Committee member Jamie Raskin described what happened when all of this was over.

RASKIN: The meeting finally broke up after midnight. During the early morning of December 19, Cassidy Hutchinson captured the moment have Mark Meadows escorting Rudy Giuliani off the White House grounds to quote, make sure he didn`t wander back into the mansion.

Certain accounts of this meeting indicate the President Trump actually granted his power security clearance and appointed her to a somewhat ill- defined position of Special Counsel.

RUHLE: Special counsel and as we now know, Trump sent his quote, will be wild tweet, referring to January 6, not long after that night. One supporter named Stephen Ayres responded and was eventually charged for entering the Capitol that day. He was back at the Capitol earlier, as a witness for the committee, along with a former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers. Ayres testified about what he did on the day of the insurrection.

MURPHY: When you arrived on the Ellipse that morning, were you planning on going to the Capitol?

STEPHEN AYRES, PARTICIPATED IN JAN. 6 CAPITOL RIOT: No, we didn`t actually plan to go down there. You know, we went basically to see the stop the steal rally and that was it.

MURPHY: So why did you decide to march to the Capitol?

AYRES: Well, basically, you know, the President got everybody riled up, told everybody head on down. So we basically we just fall on what he said.

RUHLE: Here`s something else to get riled up about. The hearing ended with a bombshell from Republican vice chair Liz Cheney, who revealed that Trump himself tried to contact a witness for the committee.

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): After our last hearing, President Trump tried to call a witness in our investigation. A witness you have not yet seen in these hearings. That person declined to answer or respond to President Trump`s call, and instead alerted their lawyer to the call. Their lawyer alerted us. And this committee has supplied that information to the Department of Justice.

RUHLE: We also found out late today the next January 6th Committee hearing will be taking place next Thursday, July 21 in primetime and you know we`ll be airing it right here.

With that let`s get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel tonight, Luke Broadwater joins us, Pulitzer Prize winning congressional reporter for The New York Times. He was in the room for today`s hearing, Frank Figliuzzi with us, former FBI assistant director for Counterintelligence and Professor Melissa Murray of the NYU Law School. She was a law clerk for Sonia Sotomayor on the federal bench before her nomination to the Supreme Court.

Luke, you were in the rooms we`ve got to start with you. The Committee showed us that draft tweet about that Trump drafted about marching to the Capitol. So, you cannot say that this thing was spontaneous who knows -- he knew nothing about it. How much of a game changer is this revelation that Trump was waiting in the wings having drafted a tweet saying let`s go.

LUKE BROADWATER, TH ENEW YORK TIMES CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Well, you know, for months, all of us have been looking for sort of secret planning or things that we didn`t know about when it relates to January 6. And I think what today`s hearing showed was one there was planning that we did not know about. There were extra rallies planned for the capitol that were purposefully kept quiet, that weren`t supposed to be announced or known publicly until the President made that announcement at his speech at the Ellipse and the rally organizers who were in on this were purposely keeping it quiet themselves. But we`re spreading it amongst themselves as these text messages that the committee revealed showed.

The other thing I think it showed is they didn`t need to be a secret plan. There was a very clear examples of call and response between Donald Trump and the mob. You see how when he puts out his be wild tweet that immediately, extremist groups and far right groups sprang into action and start planning to bring huge crowds to January 6, and you heard from rioters themselves, one rioter that Donald Trump could send them to the Capitol, and he could also pull them back and call them back with his public comments.

So, they didn`t need to necessarily have some secret agreement to do these things. It could all be done out in public, but even knowing that there was some secret planning going on about moving crowds to the Capitol, and that was some of the shocking evidence we heard today.

RUHLE: But Luke, do you feel like there is a clearer picture now of who really paid for this thing? Who hosted it? Because these insurrectionists came from all 50 states, the Department of Justice has open cases in every state. They flew, they drove, they took buses, they took planes, some of them private, and they stayed in hotels. Do we yet know if there was sort of a master organizer underwriter, right. At the end of the day when you want to know who`s behind something you figure out who paid the bill.

BROADWATER: Well, the committee has actually one of its teams dedicated to answering this very question. And I think we`ll hear more about that in the final hearing next week. But their job has been to track every single dollar that went into planning these rallies. And we know that there were several groups involved in planning the rallies, that all sort of converge.

Now many people took it upon themselves. They saw the President`s tweet. They heard about this rally, and they bought their own plane tickets, booked their hotels, but there were some large financers as well, people who put significant money into getting buses -- busing people to the Capitol and hosting the rally and that sort of thing. So I do think we`ll hear more about that in the final hearing.

Now, again, hosting a rally is not illegal. That`s not necessarily a huge problem. But once that rally becomes irresponsible, and those people are directed to go to the Capitol, and you know they have weapons, now we`re talking about a very serious matter that`s moved beyond just a normal political rally. And then there`s something that`s very dangerous.

RUHLE: And traditionally speaking, if we are going to follow the money, what Donald Trump is most known for is getting himself paid, not being the one who pays. Melissa, I actually want to share what Liz Cheney said about Trump`s responsibility for all this and a new strategy to allow him to escape blame, watch this.

CHENEY: In this version, the President was, quote, poorly served by these outside advisors. The strategy is to blame people, his advisors called quote the crazies for what Donald Trump did. This, of course, is nonsense. President Trump is a 76-year-old man, he is not an impressionable child. Donald Trump cannot escape responsibility by being willfully blind.

RUHLE: Melissa, how key is this? Because up until now, Trump kind of rolls mob boss style that it`s he never signs his name. He`s not the one on the phone. And it`s a Trump associate or ally that does it, but never him.

MELISSA MURRAY, NYU LAW PROFESSOR: Well, this is critical, Stephanie, because the real question here and a number of people have noted it is trying to figure out what the President knew, when he knew it. And whether or not there was some agreement. The critical point of a criminal conspiracy is that moment of agreement. And it seems that by putting all of these people who are really extreme seem somewhat deranged on the stage to sort of testify to having all of these different plans afoot and to sort of distance the president from it like that could be a very conservative strategy to muddy the waters about what his mental state was, what his intent was going into all of this.

And I think this was Representative Cheney`s very earnest attempt to prevent that kind of strategy. And to make clear that he was the one at the center of all of this. He was the one who set this in motion, who incited this mob and brought those people to the capitol and he did it not spontaneously, but in a way that was deeply, deeply premeditated.

RUHLE: Melissa, you have not taken us to your kitchen before. I`m thrilled to be there tonight. That celery green, it`s giving me life.

MURRAY: It frighten me, not my kitchen.

RUHLE: Whatever it is, it is fantastic. Frank, we are not in your kitchen. But let`s get in your head. I want to talk about December 18, that meeting at the White House, you`ve got White House officials, election deniers, all they`re screaming at one another eating Swedish meatballs, threatening fistfights. But beyond the drama, they`re actually pushing really crazy, dangerous ideas. They wanted Trump to consider seizing voting machines. And I want to share what Pat Cipollone said about that.

CIPOLLONE: To have federal government seize voting machines, that`s a terrible idea for the country. That`s not how we do things in the United States, there`s no legal authority to do that.

RUHLE: What does that night? What does that meeting tell you about how close we came not to a crazy reality show, but a real crisis?

FRANK FIGLIUZZI, FMR. FBI ASST. DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE: Yes, I mean, this is what you study with regard to third world countries and military, coups and huntas. This is behind the scenes actually, that really none of us wanted to believe happened, but now we know did happen. And it really, Stephanie, presents such a stark contrast between in a very meeting that night, the rule of law represented by Pat Cipollone, and others just trying to speak sense into darkness.

And then the rule of Trump, which is really I don`t want to hear the facts or the truth. I want to get my objective accomplished by any means necessary. And that was a deliberate choice that Trump made to do that.

In fact, the chronology of events here, I can`t get the official folks to tell me what I need. I`m going to move to the crazy folks to see what they do. Well, they got shouted down.

So I moved to door number three, which is I`m going to now appeal to the public masses. And I`m going to hope we actually can all cause change physically at the Capitol on January 6. So, it was quite helpful, I think, for me today to see that timeline play out really represented in that crucial meeting that night rule of law versus rule of Trump. Lawful activity versus lunatic activity.

RUHLE: Melissa, Liz Cheney dropped this bombshell at the end of the hearing that was really scary. She talked about Trump himself, contacting a witness and said the Department of Justice was notified. Just last night, I interviewed Alex Holder, he`s the documentarian who made that new docuseries where some of their footage was actually part of the hearing. He wouldn`t answer when I asked him if Trump or Trump allies had contacted him ahead of him testifying. We knew that Cassidy Hutchinson was pressured.

How concerning is this, that there could be real witness tampering on the part of the former president or his allies?

MURRAY: Was obviously deeply concerning, Stephanie, the question is whether the Department of Justice will seek to actually elevate it to the level of criminal charges. I mean, it is serious to impede or obstruct a congressional investigation. And this sort of witness tampering is a kind of thing that with ordinary people, I think most departments of justice, most state officials dealing with this would not tolerate it. The question is whether this is going to be something that becomes an end for the Department of Justice to really focus on a criminal charge against this President and those around him.

RUHLE: Luke, before we go, another thing that stood out, the former president himself changed some of the language, change some of the script in the speech he gave at that rally on the sixth. Why is that significant?

BROADWATER: Well, it shows that the own -- there`s one potentially responsible portion of that speech where he says peacefully and patriotically, and that was written in by staff. Everything else that was added as the President as Donald Trump`s talking himself becomes more irresponsible. He`s attacks from Mike Pence, or in the actual script, or if there is -- there`s one reference to Pence or a small reference to Pence, and he blows it up and starts attacking Pence all the more.

He adds more heightened language, more inflammatory language to the script on top of it. So, so he every chance he got to do something responsible or irresponsible, he chose the irresponsible choice because he wanted the crowd to get rowdy. He wanted them in his own words to be wild, and that he wanted them to march to the capital. And sure enough, that`s what they did. And we saw what happened.

RUHLE: He did exactly what he asked them to do. Luke Broadwater, Melissa Murray, thank you. Melissa, whoever is the owner of that kitchen, send them my best. Frank, please stick around. When we come back, we`re going to talk about how much worse things could have been on the sixth. What we heard from a former Oath Keeper about what he calls a dangerous militia. And later, look at how the big lie spreads like wildfire on social media, and what can be done to stop.

THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on this Tuesday night.

JASON VAN TATENHOVE, FORMER OATH KEEPERS SPOKESMAN: I think we need to quit mincing words and just talk about truths and what it was going to be was an armed revolution. I mean, people died that day. Law enforcement officers died this day. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol. This could have been the spark that started a new civil war, and no one would have won there. That would have been good for no one.

RUHLE: A former Oath Keepers spokesman making it very clear, January 6, could have gone a lot worse. He also spoke about the founder of the Oath Keepers Stewart Rhodes.

TATENHOVE: You may remember back to the conflict in the Middle East where our own military created a deck of cards, which who was a who`s who of kind of the key players on the other side that they wanted to take out. He wanted me to create a deck of cards that would include different politicians, judges, including up to Hillary Clinton as the Queen of Hearts. This is a project that I refuse to do. But from the very start we saw that.

RUHLE: Well, let`s bring in Chuck Rosenberg, former U.S. attorney and former senior FBI official. Frank Figliuzzi is still with us. Chuck, that was a former Oath Keeper himself. Does that fact impact how we view his testimony because it wasn`t long ago? He subscribed to all of this.

CHUCK ROSENBER, FMR. U.S. ATTORNEY: Yes, it`s a good point. Stephanie. You know, as prosecutors and Frank as a FBI agent, we deal with this all the time. A wise man once told me that if you want to draw a map of hell, you don`t ask an angel to do it. I mean, if you want to know how the Oath Keepers work, it`s really pretty helpful to talk to an oath keeper. And if you want to know how a drug cartel works, it`s pretty be helpful to talk to a drug dealer.

So, you know, we don`t pick our witnesses. I`ve often told juries that if I had my choice, all my witnesses would be nuns and librarians. It just doesn`t work that way. Crime doesn`t work that way. Fraud doesn`t work that way. Life doesn`t work that way.

So, you know, we take them as we find them. They struck me as truthful. But you know, and while I believe in redemption, and second chances, Stephanie, I`m also a skeptic. And it`s not lost on me that there are many victims of this not just the brave officers on January 6 from MPD and the Capitol Hill police. Remember to the election workers from Georgia, right, Lady Ruby and her daughter, Shae Moss, whose lives were up ended because of people like we heard from today.

So yes, redemption, great second chances all for it. But I`m a skeptic, let`s see a lifetime of sustain good to make up for some of the bad. Like I said, if you want a map of hell don`t ask an angel to draw it.

RUHLE: Well, you`ve gotten a map of hell over these last seven hearings, Frank, given all that you`ve seen all that you`ve heard, how concerning is it to you? Yes, lots of Americans are watching, lots of Americans care. But should these hearings not be almost a public emergency? When you hear about that deck of cards with Hillary Clinton as the Queen, should this entire country not be panicked over where our democracy is and how fragile it is?

FIGLIUZZI: To answer that question, Stephanie, rests with whether or not we`ve totally and we`re comfortable with totally mitigating and resolving the threat and risk posed by domestic violent extremists. And the answer to that, to jump ahead is no we have not --

FIGLIUZZI: -- resolve that threat at all. And I think, well, look we heard today, for example, so great value added today in the two former Oath Keepers people needed to hear that from a counter radicalization standpoint, I hope their colleagues, their peers, or potential joiners that Proud Boys or Oath Keepers were hearing this and saying, Oh, my God, I did go down that rabbit hole. And now two guys I kind of aligned with are saying they don`t believe the big lie anymore. They were suckered. So tremendous value there.

But you know who else we heard about today, that really hasn`t gotten enough coverage, in my opinion. And you talk about the continuing threat to the country. And that`s that former Twitter employee, right face mask, voice disguised. Right?

What is that signaling to us? Someone at Twitter was raising this concern months before January 6, claims that Twitter did nothing about it, right, until after the fact. And that threat hasn`t gotten away either. The role of social media keeps coming up over and over and over again, whether it`s the radicalization process, whether it`s a call and response between Trump and the extremist groups.

And we heard about that reaction right now. We have data now to defend that Trump absolutely impacted response after he said to the Proud Boys stand back and standby, we now have the data to defend that he impacted them. So what are we doing about the social media threat, which still continues?

RUHLE: Chuck, what do you think about that, the fact that a Twitter employee was given anonymity, they felt like they were at risk for being a whistleblower, but the former Oath Keepers weren`t? Cassidy Hutchinson was, what does that tell you about the cesspool that Twitter is and the dangers that lie there in this largely unregulated platform?

ROSENBERG: Yes, the question sort of answers itself in a way, Stephanie. Social media, in my humble opinion, is a cesspool. And that`s why you will never find me on it in any form, anytime, anywhere, any place. But more than that, we`ve seen, we`ve seen, we`ve heard from witnesses who have been threatened, whose lives have been upended.

I just mentioned, Lady Ruby and her daughter, Shae Moss down in Georgia election workers, this Twitter employee, whoever he may be, they have reason to be fearful because that cesspool is out there. People continue to act on bad information and with bad intent. It`s extraordinarily dangerous. Frank knows as well as anyone else. And I`m not sure that I have an answer. I wish I did. If I did, I would share with you.

RUHLE: Extremism, domestic terror remain a massive threat in this country, the takeaway, we`re simply not doing enough. Frank Figliuzzi, Chuck Rosenberg, thank you both for joining us tonight. I appreciate it.

Coming up next, I want to continue this conversation about social media and dig into how lies and conspiracies helped fuel the Capitol riot and still do today how people are becoming radicalized when THE 11TH HOUR continues.

REP. BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MA) JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN: Can you tell us about your life before January 6?

AYRES: Yes, basically nothing but a family man and a working man worked at the company, a cabinet company up in Northeast Ohio for going on 20 years. Mother than that was my family camping, playing basketball, playing games with my son.

RUHLE: Stephen Ayres told the committee that he lived a pretty normal life before January 6. But then he`d been radicalized on social media.

AYRES: I was, you know, pretty hardcore into the social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, I followed, you know, President Trump, you know, on all the websites, you know, he basically put out, you know, come to stop the steal rally, you know, and I felt like I needed to be down here.

RUHLE: And the consequences for his actions that day went far beyond criminal charges.

AYRES: Basically, you know, I lost my job since this all happened, you know, pretty much sold my house. It changed my life, you know, not for the good. Definitely not for the, you know, for the better.

RUHLE: Ayres said he deleted his social media. He no longer believes the big lie. After the hearing, he approached each Capitol Police officer pretty emotionally, and he offered his apologies.

With us tonight, NBC News Senior Reporter Ben Collins. He covers disinformation and extremism on the internet. Ben, I was thinking of you when I was watching him, right watching someone real time really talk about online radicalization. But I was also thinking last night I interviewed Alex Holder. That`s the guy behind the new Trump documentary. And he said a couple of months after the election, he was down at Mar-a-Lago Trump was furious. He was angry. And he asked him to Oh, is it because they lost? And they said, No, it`s because he doesn`t have access to social media anymore.

Talk to us about the power and influence one can have on social media and the ability to radicalize people?

BEN COLLINS, NBC NEWS SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, we`ve heard a lot of different stories about how people ended up with the capital, but really keep hearing the same version of the same one, right? A guy on social media or a woman on social media, who realized that this was going to be the last hurrah, who realized that the guy that had been following, you know, almost like a deity for last few months and years, was going to give his last speech there. He needed help. He kept pointing to this one day, Donald Trump did not point to one day very frequently. He didn`t say he needed, you know, people to come by for one day to help him out. And they all wound up going there. This is basically the same story as Roseanne Boyland died on the steps of the Capitol.

What`s interesting about these stories is that the social media stuff, it seems to have replaced what we used to call the monoculture. Monoculture was like, everyone watched the same episode of Seinfeld, however, and went to church on Sunday. Everyone basically did the same stuff.

If you were following Donald Trump on social media, he gave you a standard set of characters to follow and hate a specific set of dates to follow get really behind it. If you were into QAnon it would be even more dates. So they know it was almost biblical. He had specific posts to point to, to give you directions.

And that collapsed for them very quickly. They realized that this wasn`t going to happen anymore at the end of the Trump presidency. And a lot of people went there on January 6, as a way to vent back against that. And they got caught up in what was effectively a civil war launched by the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys as well.

RUHLE: But Trump is still spreading the big lie on any platform he can I want to share what Ayres said about that.

AYRES: It makes me mad because I was hanging on every word he was saying. Everything he was putting out I was following it. I mean, if I was doing it, hundreds of thousands or millions of other people are doing it or maybe even still doing it, it`s like he just said about that. You know, you got people still fall son and doing that. Who knows what the next election could come out? You know, they could end up being down the same path we are right now. I mean, just don`t know.

RUHLE: Ayres literally went to the Capitol because Trump told him to do it and left. When Trump said it`s over. He is warning us about what could happen in the future. What are you seeing on these sites recently?

COLLINS: There is sort of good news and bad news here. The good news is the fealty to Donald Trump has waned, frankly, a lot of these people have fealty to the movements instead. And the movement has grown more vicious. It`s you know, it`s revanchist, it`s basically trying to win back parts of the culture where they believe they`re lost -- they believe that they have lost.

So, things like trans` rights, they`re aggressively constantly attacking LGBTQ Americans everywhere that they can do it. You know, things like CRT or, you know, they will go back down the line through every culture where they believe they lost and try to imperialize it each way.

It doesn`t necessarily depend on Donald Trump, but I will say something like, even if it`s not Donald Trump, whoever plays that playbook, Donald Trump playbook, the best is the guy who`s going to win this, it`s the guy who`s going to win in the hearts of these people on these message boards.

Some of the places they talked about in -- these forums that they talked about, in this hearing today that were filled with racial slurs and horrific stuff, talking about killing people in the day of the rope and you know how it`s time to kill all the minorities and stuff. Those places are still very, very active.

COLLINS: But they are not there -- they`re filthy Donald Trump isn`t there anymore. It`s to this culture war now.

RUHLE: Yes. But before Trump, there was never someone who was in the White House, who was wink, wink nodding at them. Right? You had a presidential debate, where the sitting president said stand back and stand by.

So without someone with that kind of visibility, influence and seniority, does the movement have such power? Is there someone else who right now could say come to Washington, and they would?

COLLINS: I don`t think so. But I don`t think Donald Trump could do it at this second with that same level of gravitas. That said, he started this. There`s no other way to put this. He created this vehicle that anyone else can grab onto you that is an accelerationist vehicle. It`s going to try to stampede through every cultural war issue. It`s going to try to stampede through people they believe that are in their way of pretty standard old American biases against, you know, LGBTQ Americans or minorities in general. That`s the plan is to is to go through those things.

So look, he did not -- he may not have the same power he had two years ago but he absolutely created a thing and not stop now.

RUHLE: Marjorie Taylor Greene is sitting in her peach tree dish, trying to do it as we speak. Ben Collins thank you so much. Coming up, how have a cult like devotion to drunk swept through Washington and pressured Republicans into keeping him in power. We`re going to go one-on-one with Mark Leibovich, when the out when THE 11TH HOUR continues.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Parscale said quote, this is about Trump pushing for uncertainty in our country, a sitting president asking for civil war. And then when he said this week, I feel guilty for helping him when Katrina Pierson responded, You did what you felt right at the time and therefore it was right. Mr. Parscale added, yes, but a woman is dead. And yes, if I was Trump, and I knew my rhetoric killed someone, when Ms. Pierson replied, it wasn`t the rhetoric. Mr. Parscale said, Katrina. Yes, it was.

RUHLE: The January 6th Committee revealed those stunning text messages to the American public for the first time between Trump allies Brad Parscale and Katrina Pierson. For more, let`s get straight to Mark Leibovich, staff writer at The Atlantic, he is the author of the new must read summer book, "Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump`s Washington and the Price of Submission."

Mark, I`m so glad you`re here just before the show, you just said I was concerned I was feverishly looking for some reporting. Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post reported that Brad Parscale after those text were publicized, he called Donald Trump. After those texts that clearly show Brad Parscale blaming Trump`s rhetoric for people dying. According to a few people, Brad Parscale still thinks he`s going to work for Trump.

Can you explain to me how this loyalty, how these relationships work? Because last I checked, Brad Parscale is a really smart digital media guy. He can make a whole lot of money elsewhere. Why keep going back to the well?

MARK LEIBOVICH, THE ATLANTIC STAFF WRITER: I think, first of all, I`m not sure he can make a lot of money elsewhere at this point. But here`s the dynamic. Here`s --

RUHLE: There`s a lot of dark places for people who no had no internet --

RUHLE: I`m not saying he could work at the White House, but come on.

LEIBOVICH: IBM or something like that. No, that is true. I think what`s interesting is the dynamic here though, Donald Trump loves people bowing down and apologizing and cowering before him. I mean, there`s really nothing that pleases him more.

And when people feel like they need to make up with him, that they need to apologize profusely and remember a few weeks ago, and Kevin McCarthy was caught on tape, basically saying, I`m going to ask him to resign. This is atrocious. And you know, was like two days. I mean, what`s Trump going to do? What will daddy do? And McCarthy`s basically cowering before him and apologizing and so forth. And Trump says, Oh, OK. And you know, it`s like I have asserted my mastery over you.

And, look, I think there`s a lot of like, kind of warped psychology, you know, that contributes to the loyalty that he enjoys, or sort of lords over a lot of the Republican Party, but he has certainly exploited it to his benefit.

RUHLE: But why? You recently wrote in the in The Atlantic, the most pathetic man in America and you talk about Lindsey Graham and others who didn`t need to be pathetic shills for Donald Trump. They had big, long standing careers long before him, right. Like I get it why Sean Spicer is willing to be a human shield.

The last time he was in the White House before Trump, he was literally wearing an Easter bunny suit. I get it. They`ve never had a seat at the table, never gone to the party. Lindsey Graham has. Why do this?

LEIBOVICH: Well, Lindsey Graham needed to be reelected in 2020. So I mean, and this is one of his colleagues said to me about Lindsey Graham. There is no one who needs the U.S. Senate more than Lindsey does. He doesn`t have a family. He doesn`t have much else in his life. And the guy just absolutely lives to be in Washington to have his big office, have big staff and be relevant to be at the dice table as he says. He gets a real kick out of this life and he needs it.

Even better than being in the Senate is being the President`s golfing, buddy. I mean, he loves Alpha dogs, John McCain was his alpha Dog for all these years. Lindsey has always been a very happy sidekick, right? The guy who can sort of go along be the mascot and be in the room.

RUHLE: But a sidekick who is willing to get kicked. Talk to us. I mean, you have covered politics in Washington for years. Have you ever seen this kind of unwavering loyalty, even after something like January 6, right? Was Richard Nixon surrounded by loyalists and homeboys after the fact?

LEIBOVICH: Not after the fact. I mean, look, every politician has loyalists, every politician has acolytes, but Trump takes it up about 100 new levels. And look, I -- the point of the book here is that Donald Trump did not have to happen. I mean, Donald Trump is just sort of a geriatric Fox watching golfer in Florida, like a lot of people fit that category without the backing of the Republican Party.

RUHLE: He`s brilliantly shameless.

LEIBOVICH: Absolutely. It`s a superpower. I mean, you know, he can`t be embarrassed. He can`t be shamed. And he also has a superpower --

LEIBOVICH: It is. And he also I remember, he told me this at the end of 2015, I was like, I was doing a profile of him for the New York Times Magazine, and he said, Mark, you know, I`m going to win. I`m going to win because all these people on stage with me, this is after debate. They`re weak. And I know how to find weakness and people and exploit it.

And I don`t know if he`s were exploited or take advantage of I think that was his exact word. And in this particular case, he was 100 percent right. I mean, they just rolled over even those who were like the most bitter rivals at the end, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz. I mean, eventually they became doormats. And it didn`t take very long and ultimately, they still are very much subservient.

RUHLE: Well, those doormats are silent today, right. Today, who are you hearing from in terms of GOP leadership? Today, Elise Stefanik, was supposed to be in charge, right, of the pushback after the hearing --

RUHLE: -- it`s radio silent.

RUHLE: Do you believe that a whole lot of those Republicans are quietly crossing all their fingers and toes hoping --

RUHLE: -- that Donald Trump is actually getting weaker because of these hearings? So they don`t have to bow to him anymore?

LEIBOVICH: Maybe, I think they`re probably embarrassed too. I don`t think they have anything to say because they know if they`re going to sort of speak the truth, or what they`re hearing,

RUHLE: They had four years of embarrassment and they were down with it.

LEIBOVICH: I think that they`re very uncomfortable. I think a lot of them wish they could have the strength to be like Liz Cheney at this point. I think ultimately, they know, maybe not that deep dark, that deep in their hearts that she`s right. And, you know, they know she`s right. And they`ve made a different calculation. And they have to sort of make an argument or sort of run from this argument that, you know, somehow they have to justify what they`re doing. And silence is really the only option at this point.

RUHLE: Thank you for your servitude out today.

RUHLE: You got to read it. Mark, thank you so much.

LEIBOVICH: Thanks for having me.

RUHLE: Congratulations on the new book.

LEIBOVICH: Great to be here.

RUHLE: Thanks for staying up late.

RUHLE: Coming up. the powerful closing remarks from today`s hearings on what`s at stake for the future of our democracy when THE 11TH HOUR continues.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.

RUHLE: The last thing before we go tonight, a precious inheritance. It has been nearly five and a half years since Donald Trump spoke the shocking words American carnage in his inaugural address. Today, January 6, committee member Congressman Jamie Raskin used his closing remarks to give his take on the now famous phrase in the state of our democracy.

RASKIN: American carnage, that`s Donald Trump`s true legacy. His desire to overthrow the people`s election and seize the presidency, interrupted the counting of Electoral College votes for the first time in American history nearly toppled the constitutional order and brutalized hundreds and hundreds of people.

The Watergate break in was like a cub scout meeting compared to this assault on our people in our institutions.

Mr. Chairman, these hearings have been significant for us and for millions of Americans, in our hearing next week will be a profound moment of reckoning for America. But the crucial thing is the next step. What this committee, what all of us will do to fortify our democracy against coups, political violence and campaigns to steal elections away from the people.

This is not the problem of one party. It is the problem of the whole country now. American democracy, Mr. Chairman, is a precious inheritance, something rare in the history of the world, and even on Earth today. Constitutional democracy is the silver frame as Lincoln put it, upon which the Golden Apple of freedom rests.

We need to defend both our democracy and our freedom with everything we have and declare that this American carnage is here and now in a world of resurgent authoritarianism and racism and antisemitism. Let`s all hang tough for American democracy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.

RUHLE: So let`s all hang tough for American democracy, our precious inheritance, Congressman Jamie Raskin in his closing remarks and before I sign off here`s a quick reminder.

A lot of people got distracted today by Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the big fight they got in, calling one another losers. Don`t get distracted by that. Focus on the fact that the former guy was talked about all day today and possibly tied to January 6, pushing the big lie, unwilling to accept a peaceful transfer of power and potentially inciting major violence.

And as for Elon Musk, think more about Twitter, the company he may or may not take over, and a whole lot of very, very dangerous stuff, that still continues to be pushed on that platform and pushed legally. Don`t get distracted. Focus on that, not the sideshow.

And on that note, I wish you all a very good and hopefully very safe night. From all of our colleagues across the networks and NBC News, thanks for staying up late with us. I will see you the end of tomorrow.