day. >> >> that's awesome. >> way back in the day. easy doing much better, then and now, than i ever will. but it is super exciting, and i am so happy that you had him on the show. thank you, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us with his very big hour of news. today was a massive day of developments in the world of trump legal. tonight we've got the news that trump's defense team has filed a response before the supreme court. remember, right now, the federal election interference case is frozen, while the supreme court considers a request from trump's lawyers to keep this case on ice as they planned their next step. yesterday the special counsel asked the high court unfreeze the case. the case.

could have a huge impact on whether to trial before the november 2024 election. mow that is one of the several major pieces of news we got today about donald trump's legal peril. today in fulton county district attorney fani willis' election conspiracy case, there was a hearing about herself and fellow prosecutor nathan wade. a hearing that has the potential to upend that case entirely. and in just a minute we're going to uncap the very high georgia that unfolded today and break down what it means in the case against trump. but the news we start with tonight is this. the first criminal trial of an american president. and that would be manhattan

district attorney alvin bragg's hush money case against trump. instead the judge set a march 25th start date. that's the day that jury selection will begin just about a month and a half from today. and the judge said the trial should last about six weeks. now, on the surface this case is about trump's affair with an adult film star named stormy daniels and the hush money trump arranged to pay to keep ms. daniels quiet. but at its heart d.a. bragg is saying this case is about something less salacious and actually quite serious, election interference. >> it is often short-handed to hush money as we laid out in public court filings. the case is not -- we would say

it's about conspiring to corrupt a presidential election and then lying in new york business records to cover it up. >> maybe the most memorable moment from the 2016 election it was filled with memorable moments, but this one really stood out, the "access hollywood" tape. it was sort of dictionary definition of october surprise. one month before that election "the washington post" published video of that republican candidate saying absolutely vile things about women. things like when you're a star, they let you do it. grab them by the -- you know, you can do anything. "the post" published that tape on october 7th, one month before the election. the next day, october 8th, stormy daniels contacted david pecker, the editor of the national enfirer. daniels was looking to sell the story back in 2006 when trump was already married to melania trump and just months after she'd given birth daniels and

trump had an affair. the editor and enquirer then told trump's lawyer, michael cohen, and cohen and daniels immediately began negotiating about how much it would cost for that story to just go away. by the end of the month at trump's direction michael cohen had wired stormy daniels $130,000 for her silence. here was michael cohen testifying to congress in 2019 about the purpose of this payment. >> were you concerned about this new story becoming public right after the "access hollywood" story in terms of impact on the election? i was concerned about it but more importantly mr. trump was concerned about it. >> that was my next question. what was the president's concern about these matters becoming public? in october as we were about to go into an election. >> he was concerned with the

effect that it had on the campaign, on how women were seeing him, and ultimately whether or not he would have a shot in the general election. >> finally -- you finally completed that deal as it were on october -- >> 28th. >> days before the election. >> now, the ultratrumpy part of this whole story is it would not be illegal for trump to pay off an adult film star to stay quiet about an affair. it would be a scandal, yes, but it would not by illegal. what makes this story truly trumpy and what makes this all allegedly illegal is how trump paid for it. after the election month after month donald trump paid michael cohen back by pretending the money was part of a preestablished legal retainer. that's where the crime part comes in. >> under new york state law it

is a felony to falsify business records with intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime. that is exactly what this case is about. >> now, we can expect to hear a lot more from michael cohen once this trial begins. he is the prosecution's star witness. as for the defense and its star witness, that is a bit more complicated. former trump organization cfo allen weisselberg who famously took the fall for the trump organization in a different criminal matter is reportedly in talks with d.a. bragg to plead guilty to perjury in yet another trump-related crime case. that's a lot of criming in a lot of different trump related matters. now, whether this all means that trump has just lost his most important witness here in the first criminal trial of an american president, that remains to be seen. all we know right now is that this case is going to trial, and the implications of that are somewhat profound on a number of

levels. march 25th is after super tuesday. donald trump will likely be the republican nominee for president by that date. and, wow, is that going to make campaigning for president interesting. >> we're here during the day and i'll be campaigning during the night. i'm going to have to sit here for months on a trial. i think it's ridiculous. it's unfair. >> joining me now lisa rubin and melissa murray. no two better people to have sitting right here as we unpack all of this. first, i want to get your reactions about this being the first -- d.a. bragg's case which was the first, you know, criminal charges -- the first criminal indictment of

sitting -- former president. holding into account one of the formerly most powerful people in the world. >> so, again, this was the first indictment to hit and it got a lot of attention because of that, but it's sort of been in the shadow. the fani willis indictment also about election interference. i think it's significant alvin bragg is talking about it as election interference. that raises the stakes. it's not quite so much about tawdry hush money payments. it's about the idea these tawdry hush money payments were going to defraud the american electorate about who this man was when he was a candidate. and again play tuesday context about the other indictments. it paints a really damning portrait. this is man who before he was president, while he was president and then after he was president in the mar-a-lago document indictment was doing crime. like those are the allegations. before, during, and after. and i think if you take them all together this may not be the

most consequential one in terms of democracy, but it is part of a larger pattern deeply disconcerting. >> that's really interesting logic. some people have said, oh, but the others said this is so much more serious. this is going to undermine the gravity of the other ones by starting with something trivial. >> this is the aabuse bouche. >> i feel like there are some of us who owe alvin bragg an apology to say we discounted the importance of your case. as melissa said it's been popularized as the hush money case. and even though the crimes that are being alleged here is falsification of business records, in order to commit or conceal another felony, and he's always been clear about the fact that that other felony could be either state or federal election law, not withstanding that part

of us are like, oh, this is insignificant, this isn't that big of a deal. but actually the way it is framed now, it is. the opener to a much larger panoply of election interference and fraud that persists throughout donald trump's political career and also persists throughout his life. alex, as you know i've been following this little fraud case that's not criminal in nature right now, but the consequences are severe enough they might be. >> and we're going to find out more on the engoron case tomorrow. i do wonder, though, that old chestnut michael cohen is going to be center stage, and what you make of that given, you know, his sort of -- and how much that either hurts or helps d.a. bragg's case. >> so, yes, michael cohen has a past. this is probably not something that's unusual for the

prosecutor's office. frequently prosecutors have to have as their star witnesses individuals who have unsavory records. and so this is not going to be a big deal. i mean will it be sensational for the public, talked about in the press? undoubtedly. but the idea you have as your star witness or at least part of your star witness if that's someone who has a criminal past, that's not as big a deal i think. and more importantly what michael cohen is going to be testifying to isn't necessarily the things for which he's already been punished. he's going to be talking about and making the connections between donald trump and this catch and kill strategy that was coordinated with the national enquirer company and david pecker in order to conceal these acts from the public. yes, he has a past, but this is something connected unrelated to his past. >> and i would say the looming specter of allen weisselberg who is just the poor man that keeps

taking the knee for trump and going to rikers for it -- i say this as if it's happening repeatedly, but it's always looming out there, right? the fact this individual may be the defense's star witness and at the same time may be pleading guilty to perjury in a separate case, does that not undermine his testimony? >> first of all, i don't think he will be the defense witness at all if he pleads guilty to perjury. because the first thing he'll be susceptible to is having to confess to the jury not only has he pled guilty to an unrelated criminal tax fraud scheme and done time for it, but he has recently been quan victed for perjury and yet another unrelated matter. that's not a good setup for a witness. i think actually if weisselberg is indeed in negotiations that are completed before this trial, that's a big win for the d.a.'s office. why? because a number of the meetings that took place in furtherance of the scheme are between three people, the defendant, donald trump, michael cohen, and allen

weisselberg. and guess what? when we compare the alleged crimes of those three people, guess who looks the best? michael cohen. >> yeah, right, true. everything's relative, right? one of the things they're asking for in this, lisa, is a change of venue. they're saying trump can't get a fair shake in manhattan. do you think there's any -- is that within the realm of possibility? >> no, and they haven't asked for it yet. in talking about jury selection, tom blanch, one of mr. trump's lawyers essentially said i need to know why people who raise their hand and say i can't be fair in this case are saying that because their answers may be helpful to me. but rashawn's answer to that -- >> rashawn the judge. >> i'm sari, rushawn the judge is the risk to your client going to be any less a month from now,

a few months from now or by analogy a difference in jurisdiction? no. saying the enron case he was involved in two decades ago it wasn't the problem the case was being tried in houston where enron was headquartered everyone at the time understood enron was a front page headline making business fraud. >> jury selection as points out is going to start march 25th. can we talk about the reality of the calender moving forward here? it is bonkers, right? you have this case six weeks. who knows what scotus and the supreme court does on the immunity claim? based on conversations i've had with random people but many of them legal experts, could this go to trial the federal election interference case, that would not be the amuse bouche that

would be an entree. if you're a defendant, you've got to be there. the practical implications for campaigning are catastrophic, are they not? >> again, this is part of his defense and his arguments toward the supreme court in urging them to freeze the proceedings below, to not allow this trial to happen. he wants the d.c. circuit's opinion stayed, and he wants this to sort of be put on ice. and he says it's imperative that it be put on ice so that the american public has the chance to weigh in on his candidacy, and he gets the chance to campaign. again, this was always a tight time line. it was the reason that jack smith made such a concerted decision to only charge donald trump and only to levy four criminal charges against him to keep this lean and mean and keep this moving. donald trump has done his level best to delay this, and it's worked so far. the fact we got to the d.c. circuit, the fact the d.c. circuit took more than a month to issue its very methodical,

very deliberate but late opinion means donald trump has pushed the calender back, and we're not just running up against the campaign. we're also running up against the doj's internal guideline. >> does that apply? you say, no, the 60-day rule -- >> i think if we keep getting further and further out that is going to be a discussion. can we get so close to the election the entire process gets tainted by it? >> i think the policy as it stands applies to investigative steps. it doesn't apply to a trial per se. but i think melissa is right that the policy concerns and debating doj's own policy how to treat a trial before the election at least have a discussion how appropriate a trial is as you're bumping up against an election. >> when it's a presidential candidate. >> yes, let's not lose sight of the sort of -- it's a day for

history. we know that the first criminal trial of an american president will be starting next month, a little over a month from today. lisa rubin, melissa murray, don't go anywhere. we're going to talk about the rest of all of it in just a few minutes. coming up fulton county d.a. fani willis took to the stand to argue in the election interference case. but first trump has dropped the hot potato in the supreme court's lap. what do they do now? don't go anywhere. do they do n? don't go anywhere.

at any moment now we could conceivably get a ruling from the supreme court on whether or not donald trump is immune for criminal prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. the clock started tonight after trump filed his final brief to the court responding to special counsel jack smith, who

yesterday urged the nine justices to reject trump's repeated attempts to delay this trial. in his filing this evening trump accuses the special counsel of playing politics saying there is no mystery about the special counsel's motivation, the special counsel seeks to bring president trump to trial and secure a conviction before the november election in which president trump is the leading candidate against president biden. back with me is msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin. i found i am not a lawyer, which i say really ad nauseam, but this was plainly very much not a legal document. >> parts of it are a legal document, but the very first point and obviously the thing you get to first has absolutely nothing to do with the law. it's just trump's election interference posts disguised as a legal filing. >> on truth social. >> correct. and dressed up with citations and the like. he's essentially saying not only

is the special counsel hyper-partisan, oftual there's no evidence. the special counsel was appointed to avoid the appearance of partisanship, but that somehow the special counsel's interest in having this case tried before the election is itself evidence the special counsel has a thumb on the scale for the incumbent president. >> right. >> that's kind of ridiculous to me on its face. the special counsel wants american voters to have all the information before they vote, and he understands he's up against the clock because the very prospect of bringing this person to trial could evaporate if he is re-elected. >> it's also a tell, too, isn't it? trump is effectively saying if this goes to trial, there's going to be a conviction that's going to help biden. i mean it's just -- the logic is revealing, i think. also they make the case, you know, it's not the american public that has a vested interest in seeing the conclusion of this trial and a verdict. the american public has an interest in seeing donald trump campaign. and so anything that would stop that from happening is somehow

counter to the interests of the american people. >> well, look, there are two parties here both sticking to the claim as to what is in the interest of of the american public. and i guess the question is who do you trust to best represent the interest of the american public? the candidate who wants to see himself elected or the person who is representing the united states government in the interest of justice? i would stake my claim with him. >> i do wonder if you have, for people out there including myself white knuckling it through the next couple of days what should be looking for from the supreme court granting a stay, cert, saying nothing at all. what's your expectation? >> my expectation is we'll hear something from the supreme court in the next few days. and monday is a federal holiday, so you can count that as your weekend in all likelihood. if the supreme court doesn't grant the stay trump is asking for, then all bets are off.

judge chutkan goes back to pretrial proceedings. even at that point they were to grant a review, it would not impede hoar for returning a case on all the motion practices and things that need to happen or setting that jury questionnaire in motion which was supposed to happen in february. if, on the other hand, we are waiting a few days, there's a school of thought that what we're waiting for is that there are folks who will dissent from whatever is going to happen. the court is giving those people time to write. those could be dissents from a grand cert, dissents from a stay. the more likely it is it will go in donald trump's favor i believe. >> okay, ticktock. the longer it takes, the better it is for trump. on its face it is, but in the long-term as well. >> that's absolutely true.

>> immediately useful information from our favorite -- i should say our favorite, but you're the best, lisa rubin. we have a lot more to get to tonight, so, so much more including the hours long hearing in fulton county, georgia, about whether the district attorney should be removed in that case, it was a bombshell hearing. but what does it mean for the former president? that's next. s it mean for the former president that's next.

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did the former president of the united states conspire with 18 other people to overturn a legitimate election? that is the question at the heart of the election conspiracy case in fulton county, georgia. but today's hearing in fulton county was about none of that. instead we got what you might call the most consequential sideshow in the history of sideshows. right now several of trump's codefendants in the georgia election conspiracy case are trying to get fulton county d.a. fani willis thrown off this case by accusing her of having an inappropriate romantic relationship with a special prosecutor on her staff named nathan wade. they accuse d.a. willis of hiring mr. wade in order to enrich herself with lavish

vacations and other gifts mr. wade bought for ms. willis. in a legal filing two weeks ago d.a. willis admitted to having a relationship with mr. wade, saying it began only after she hired mr. wade to work on this case in 2022. now, today's hearing began with an explosive allegation from a former friend of d.a. willis who claimed willis has lied about when the relationship began. >> you have no doubt that their romantic relationship was in effect from 2019 to the last time you spoke with her? >> no doubt. >> did you observe them do things that are common among people having a romantic relationship? >> yes. >> such as? can you give us an example? >> hugging, kissing, just affection. >> that was a balk shell of the morning. fani willis and nathan wade potentially lied to the court in their filings about when their

relationship began. the rest of the hearing mostly revolved around the question did fani willis benefit financially from her relationship with nathan wade? mr. wade was next to take the stand, and he told the court in no uncertain terms that fani willis was not the kind of date that let you pick up the tab. >> if you've ever spent any time with ms. willis you understand she's a very independent, proud woman. >> i object. not -- >> overruled. mr. wade. >> so she's going to insist that she carry her own weight. >> after mr. wade's testimony we got our second big surprise of the day just as a lawyer for one of the defendants was making the case d.a. willis needed to come in and testify herself. >> we need her in here to go over all of this and to explain exactly what happened. and we would ask the court that the -- that the court allow ms. willis to be called and

interrogated on these matters. >> d.a. willis showed up to take the stand. throughout her testimony the d.a. went out of her way to establish she is in fact very independent, and she is not afraid of getting angry or taking on adversaries or calling out what she believes are outright lies. >> let's be clear because you lied and i'm going to tell you what you lied in. right here, i think you lied right here. no, no, no, this is the truth. and it is a lie. you've been intrusive into people's personal lives. you're confused. you think i'm on trial. these people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. i'm not on trial no matter how hard you try to put me on trial. >> throughout her testimony d.a. willis portrayed herself as a strong independent omand the relationship between her and mr. wade was one of equals. that is posture that cut to it heart of the allegations against

her. >> nobody gives me anything. i am sure that the source of the money is always the work, sweat, and tears of me. there was never money that he gave me. that wasn't the nature of our relationship. we would have brutal arguments about the fact that i am your equal, i need anything from a man. a man is not a plan. a man is companion. and so there was tension always in our relationship, which is why i would give him his money back. i don't need anybody to foot my bills. the only man who's ever foot my bills completely is my daddy. >> that was fani willis' defense today. she was not taking money from mr. wade, and she was not benefitting financially from their relationship because that is not the kind of person fani willis is. the question now is how will the judge hear, understand those arguments, and what does her testimony mean for the future of this case against donald trump and the 14 others still facing

charges? melissa murray is back with me to talk about all of that coming up next. me to talk about all of that coming up next. i still love to surf, snowboard, and, of course, skate. so, i take qunol magnesium to support my muscle and bone health. qunol's extra strength, high absorption magnesium helps me get the full benefits of magnesium. qunol, the brand i trust.

it's ridiculous to me that you lied on monday and yet here we are still are. let's be clear because you lied and let me tell you which one you lied in. right here, i think you lied right here. no, no, this is the truth. and it is a lie. it is a lie. >> during a contentious hearing

in atlanta, fwa, today fulton county district attorney fani willis spent more than two hours sparring with defense lawyers of donald trump over what she calls lies, smears and innuendos about her relationship with prosecutor nathan wade. wade is the special prosecutor willis hired to manage fulton county's sprawling election interference case against former president trump and his associates. back with me now to discuss is nyu law professor melissa murray. melissa, thank you for sticking around. there are levels of this, right? we talked about, you know, coming into this block willis really asserted herself as an independent woman, someone who's incredibly strong, obviously a vocal advocate on her behalf, not someone who'd be wanting a free ride from a man. she also went out of her way explaining she paid nathan wade back for a lot of these quote-unquote lavish trips.

i want to play a bit of sound in termles of her general argument on that front. >> so he is the one that would book the travel, but we need to be clear when we're talking about just because he booked it, doesn't mean -- like i don't consider him having taken me anyplace. >> he paid for those. >> he did not, though. the reason i consider he did not is i gave him his money pack, for the cruise and for aruba, i gave him money before we ever went on that trap. >> you gave him cas before you ever went on your trip? >> the reason we're playing this is the allegation is she somehow profited from those trips. is it enough to satisfy the judge in this case? >> it all depends how this appears to scott mcafee, but it doesn't strike me as odd that a professional woman is in a relationship with someone who

also is in the profession, and they reimburse each other for expenses, for things they do jointly. you know, this isn't foreign to me, i've done this in the past. and i imagine it would not be entirely foreign to the judge this is something that happens. what might be unusual to individuals is the fact she professes to have paid for all of this in cash, and that might strike some individuals as odd, like how much cash do you have on hand? and again, didn't strike me as entirely odd. there's a very long history within the black community of the stress to financial institutions, an nyu gramwit and professor at uc irvine and written a terrific book that talks about how certain minority communities don't have a relationship with financial institutions and are more likely to have large quantities of cash on hand for expenditures like this. again, it might not resonate with someone like scott mcafee although other aspects of her story would. >> to those other aspects, i do

want to know what you think about generally the posture she adopted today, which was combative, strong, assertive. you know, if the contention here this woman is looking for, again, a free ride from a man she hired to sort of get over on the system, i would think that was a fairly effective rhetorical tool if nothing else. >> the defiance, the sort of independence, like i don't need someone to pay my way, i pay my way, in fact a lot of the difficulties in our romantic relationship came from the fact i was independent, and he was looking for a different kind of woman. they may have played out, but let's just also put out there this is a prosecutor in a major case against a major public figure and we are talking about her dating strategy and whether a former, current, whatever romantic partner believed she was too independent to be in a relationship. like that's not where you want to be in this case. >> right. especially a case of this magnitude. and on that end there were

moments where she was directly kind of sparring with the judge, who is going to be the same judge in her case. >> i mean there's a comfort there. like they have worked in the same office before so perhaps this is an aspect of the familiarity, and this is a relatively small legal community and many of these individuals are key players who interacted with each other before. but, yeah, this was a lot of drama and not necessarily a lot of clarification. >> do you think it matters -- there was a lot of back and forth when this relationship started. her ex-friend said the relationship started years before both wade and willis signed an affidavit saying it did. does that matter? i mean it's independent of the charges here, but if there's lying on an affidavit how significant is it whether or not she's taken off this case? >> an affidavit is sworn testimony. it is a writing under oath that is submitted to the court. so if it is the case that what was represented in that affidavit was not true, in fact the relationship started much earlier, as her former friend

testified, then she's lied to the court, effectively, and that does, i think, become grounds for her disqualification. this is a he said, she said, very real house wives of atlanta moment, who knows, but everything kind of hinges on this question of disqualification because if she and wade are disqualified, then this trial is kind of up in the air, which is exactly what donald trump wants. >> yes, it is. that is why this all matters. fani willis and nathan wade can go off into the golden sunset together, but insofar as it affects the actual, you know, holding people accountable and a large number of whom are very involved in the american political system, it all matters. melissa murray, thank you so much, my friend. it's great to see you. coming up, a war of words. new details about how behind the scenes biden's lawyers fought with the doj over disparaging remarks about biden's age prior

to the publication of special counsel robert hur's report. that's next. l counsel robert hur's report. that's next.

i could tell you that his insinuations or the suggestions in the report about the president's interview just simply don't correspond with my recollection of how that interview went. and i frankly don't understand why they're in the report. >> president biden's personal lawyer publicly criticized the report from special counsel robert hur after its release last week, but tonight we are learning that biden's legal team privately made their displeasure known to attorney general merrick garland before that report was ever released. in a newly released letter biden's lawyers write we object to the multiple denigrating statements which violate long-standing practice and

policy. the deputy attorney general responded writing the identified language is neither gratuitous nor unduly presidential. special counsel hur will soon get a chance to tell his side of the story. nbc news confirmed this evening hur will testify publicly before the house judiciary committee on march 12th. joining me now are jennifer pumiry, co-host of msnbc's how to win podcast and jen psaki. it's a double threat of jen tonight. ladies, thank you both for being here. i'm going to have to refer to you. >> everyone in the obama white house called us psaki and palmieri. >> are you surprised being a white house expert as you both are, but about the level of

combativeness that is on display between the white house and the doj and the fact that the doj essentially it seems did not heed any of the white house's complaints? >> i'm not that surprised. it spilled out a bit, obviously, in the last week. but there have been reported frustrations at moments that have been reported about the president's frustration about the pace of movement on say voting rights and other -- other priorities for him. i would say for this the view, it seems, from not just the white house but a number of legal experts i've talked to, you've talked to is that, well, merrick garland, the attorney general, was never going to kind of not appoint a special counsel. he decided to do that although they were frustrated with that initial step or scrap the report or not release the whole report. there were steps in the process including getting updates to see what the scope of what they were doing was. and also there was language in there that in the view clearly

of people in the white house and also not just by them but other legal experts outside. it kind of went way past what his scope was and what she should have done. and there were things as we all know when we got the report all of us were trying to read through it or scan through it, and it was unclear if he was saying or concluding that he wittingly kept the classified documents. you don't know until after page 200-plus he didn't keep them, right? and obviously this language is what has been taken out and used by republicans as sort of a political dagger. so i'm not surprised that it's been a bit of vitriol. i am a little surprised it spilled into public, but sometimes that happens with situations like this of such public interest. >> yeah, the question whether the president willingly retained the documents is litigated -- the conclusion is clear, but the summary makes it sound more nefarious than obviously even hur determined. but, jen, to the question of

sort of the shall we say talking out of school about president biden, you know, the white house compares what's in this report to what james comey did to hillary clinton. and it is a searing comparison, and it's something that it feels like merrick garland when he was sworn into office was going to go out of his way to prevent from happening again. are you surprised that this kind of report came out of this kind of justice department? >> i'm surprised that the assistant attorney general's response, which, you know -- we all have because we work at msnbc we have a lot of legal expert friends and just the characterization that -- that hur made about -- about the president's state of mind and acuity and all that, which is just so -- it's even worse than what comey did, right, in terms of he criticized secretary clinton's actions.

and this is a whole other level. so it is -- i think that -- you know, merrick garland has not -- has generally sided on -- come down on the side of protecting what he sees as the independence of the department of justice even if that -- even if that in this case as a lot of legal experts think hur is going in the wrong direction. garland's not going to step in to stop that. but what the assistant attorney general is arguing is pretty surprising. >> i do wonder, jen, it sort of seems like hur is going to the hill, republicans have their knives out on this. they really want the transcript if not the audio of the interview releasedmism it seems to me a forgone conclusion this is going to come out. do you think we're going to be

combing through hours of transcript in the near future, and if so how does the white house handle that, jen psaki? >> it sure feels like it, alex. we'll see what happens. and you know what they say about relationships, it's complicated because on the one hand if everybody in the country who was paying attention to this was as nerdy and had as much time and it was their job to do it like all of us and were actually going to comb through it, which we all will, it might serve the white house well. but the reality is that's probably not going to happen because people don't have time. small pieces of this will be pulled out. it's hard to make the assessment whether this is good or not because none of us have seen it, right, but that's the challenge. the way people consume information today, the likelihood these two lines, this additional line, the audio of different pieces that would validate what hur was saying, even though the context may be a longer line of questioning, may be that he had just come back

from a call about the attack on israel, so that's the challenge for the white house. i do think, though, republicans who are out there spouting they want hur to come testify, they've got to be careful about what they're asking for, too, because most of this report is not good for trump, right? i mean it clears joe biden. there are parts of this that politically as we all know are over the top and are terrible for the biden team, but there's also a very clear comparison from robert hur, somebody who is a trump appointee, right, that is making clear how trump handled this in such a poor, uncooperative way. and you have to speak to that on the hill as well. so i think this is also him going to the hill is not a clear win for republicans like they maybe think it is either. >> a double-edged sword, but i do think, jen palmieri, there is some utility getting it out first? we learned that from the bill

barr years and even this report. you know, does the white house need to lean on this? >> time and place of your choosing, right? we will respond to the time and place of our choosing. if the assistant attorney general's letter is getting out, the report is getting out. that is going to happen and specifically if the hill gets it. that hur hearing hard to say. that is not going to be a good day for hur or for the republicans because the facts, you know, the actual facts are on biden's side. house democrats are very effective in these committee settings at sort of deconstructing. same thing happened when jim comey went up to testify on capitol hill on his report.

he got crucified. i think the same thing will happen here. and the white house can figure out do they do that, put it out the day before the hearing, near the hearing, coordinate that with house democrats. and for them to -- you know, the way -- with integrity this time, but the way bill barr did when he presented the mueller report. bob bahher, these are the things you need to know and package in a way that is putting the facts in the right context. >> jen palmieri and jen psaki, thank you for your time tonight. that does it for our show this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. you've been intrusive into people's personal lives. you're confused. you think i'm on trial. these people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. i'm not on trial no matter how

hard you try to put me o