and gary abernathy is a contributing columnist at the washington post. we welcome all four of you to the program. thank you so much. let me just lay down the basics. what words would you use, george packer, to describe what happened on january 6? and how much does it matter that we get to the bottom of it, that we hold those responsible accountable? >> at the time, i thought it was an insurrection, and i still do, directed by the president. and i still think that. but i underestimated it. i thought it was a kind of wild shot that nearly hit its target, could have been fatal, but that we dodged. that's not how i see it now. i think it was actually a warning shot and almost a searching for the target that did miss but that found how to get the target next time. and in the year since january 6, what we've seen is efforts by both national republicans and state legislatures and major figures in the party to figure out how to use january 6 to make sure that next time, it works, and next time what didn't work for donald trump in overthrowing the 2020 election a

judy: gary abernathy, you're hearing this. you're hearing george and the others say it's impossible not to take this seriously. gary: i want to be clear. i'm on board with everyone who thinks january 6 was a horrible day for our country. i think it's right to remember it. i think it's right to look back at it as a day that we should all be ashamed of and hope never repeats itself. but i think it's being used politically in some cases to then extrapolate those events and say, well, we can't have any election reform. we can't have anything, because it's all an effort to make what happened on january 6 happen again. and the fact is, a lot of us would argue that our system actually worked on january 6. none of these terrible things came to be, because people like mike pence said, i can't go along with that. so there are degrees of differences here. but, in some ways, i think we're on the same page. jelani: we are not on the same page, gary. and the system did not work, if we think about the law enforcement officers, the capitol po