eating together, is what makes us human. the dishes we cook and deliver are not just ingredients or calories. a plate of food is a plate of hope. a message that someone somewhere cares for you. >> our hearts are with the families of the victims. a message of hope and resilience to take us off the air tonight. and remember, you can catch the katie phang show saturdays at 12:00 eastern on msnbc. for all of our colleagues across the networks of msnbc, thank you for staying up late. see you this weekend. the ex-president of the united states. two american courtrooms. facing criminal trial in one. >> i'm going to go in now and sit in front of a case. >> reporter: and making a desperate case to avoid justice in the other.

>> we will hear argument this morning in case 23-939. trump versus the united states. >> reporter: tonight, new testimony of the alleged criminal conspiracy to help elect donald trump. >> trump turned to the business at hand and asked david pecker how is our girl. >> as his argument for absolute immunity finally goes before the supreme court. >> this court has never recognized absolute criminal immunity for any public official. >> a private attorney to spearhead his challenges to the election results. >> what was up with the pardon for president nixon? if everybody thought that presidents couldn't be prosecuted what was that about? >> if it fails completely it is because we have destroyed our democracy on our own, isn't it? >> tonight, rachel maddow, nicole wallace, joy reed, chris liz. lawrence o'donnell, lisa ruben all here as msnbc's special

coverage of trump on trial begins now. >> who has the time? who has the time? you are telling me that simultaneously, we have nearly three hours of oral argument at the united states supreme court about the former president claiming he is totally immune from prosecution from any crime he did as president. and at the exact same time, he is being criminally prosecuted in the a new york courtroom. the first star witness against him had his first full day of testimony. who has the time? literally, there isn't time to pay attention to all of this. let alone everything else that is happening, too. because of that, we are here to help. i'm rachel maddow here with my colleagues. katie was at the arguments for

the supreme court. thanks for hustling back to talk to us about it. we know you at home are a real person with a real life and may not have been able to follow today's proceedings. heck, it's our jobs to cover these things and it was hard for all of us to cover this. we knew it was coming and prepped for it. delegated. listened to things at one-and-a- half speed. we skipped lunch and dinner but we have it for you and us. this is our prime time recap of today's events. now there's a lot to get to. so, we'll jump right in and we'll start tonight with the supreme court. former president donald trump claims that he is immune from prosecution from all and any crimes he committed while serving as president. it is a climb so audacious it was widely perceived to be a shocking hail mary when his defense first proposed it. the federal court that first

heard this claim just overhand smashed it. ruling against him comprehensively in words that were designed to be set to music. quote, this court cannot conclude that our constitution cloaks former presidents with absolute immunity for any federal crimes they committed in office. neither the people who adocumented the constitution nor those who have safeguarded it across generations have ever understood it to do so. defendants four year service as commander-in-chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens. no man in this country, not even the former president is so high that he is above the law. that was the ruling by the first federal judge, judge tanya who considered this audacious claim that as

president he was immune from any crimes he committed serving in the presidency. when trump appealed that ruling, the appeals proceedings went poorly. one of the three appellate judges who heard the appeal asked trump's lawyer in court a shocking hypothetical about whether he could order the assassination of a political rival and really not be charged for it. trump's counsel said indeed that was their position. so, all of the federal judges who reviewed trump's audacious immunity claim. all of them have seemed shocked by it and their decision at the trial court level and the appellate court level, it really seemed like it would be

the last word. but with this supreme courtings never say never. the united states supreme court sat on this issue for weeks and then finally announced they wanted to take this case themselves. they announced they would take it today. what is probably the latest possible day on which they could have scheduled these arguments. to the extent that trump's best defense tactic is delay. the supreme court has already been an excellent accomplice in that defense. even with that backdrop, the arguments today were legitimately i think stunning. trump's council was grilled for about an hour. the council for prosecutor jack smith and the justice department was grilled for nearly twice that amount of time. but almost immediately, at the start of proceedings, under questioning from justice sonya sotomeyer. we got confirmation that the crazy hypothetical about trump

being able to assassinate his political enemies and never be charged, we got confirmation right at the start that was not a fluke. president trump in fact maintains and his lawyers maintain that he really is immune from prosecution specifically for killing his political rivals. >> i'm going to give you a chance to say if you stay by it, if the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity? >> it would depend on the hypothetical we could see that could well be an official. >> it could, and why. >> that could be an official act. really? he might officially as part of his presidential duties want to kill his domestic political rival. and if it is an official act, trump's lawyer says he is

immune from prosecution for that. in other words, yes, we think he should be able to do that. anything else you want to clarify he should be able to do? it turns out quite a bit. it is not just assassinating his individual domestic political opponents. it is worse than that. over to you justice kagan. >> if a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune? >> that sounds like similar to the bribery example. likely not immune. now if it is structured as an official act, he would have to be impeached or convicted first. >> what does that mean if it is structured as an official act? >> i don't know in the hypothetical if that would be an official act. you would probably need more details to apply that analysis or the fitzgerald analysis we have been talking about. >> how about if a president orders the military to stage a coup? >> i think as the chief justice pointed out earlier where there

is a whole series of sort of guidelines against that so to speak. the ucmj prohibits the military from following a plainly unlawful act. that might well be an official and and he would have to be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted. >> well, he is gone. let's say this president who ordered the military to stage a coup. he is no longer president. he wasn't impeached. he couldn't be impeached. but, he ordered the military to stage a coup and you are saying he is immune? >> it would depend on the circumstancing. >> what does that mean depend on the circumstances? he was the president. he is the commander-in-chief. he talks to his generals all the time. and he told the generals i don't feel like leaving office. i want to stage a coup. is that immune?

>> if it is an official act, there needs to be impeachment and conviction beforehand because the framers viewed, that kind of. >> if it is an official act, is it an official act? >> if it is an official act. >> is it an official act? >> on the way you described that hypothetical, it could well be. i just don't know. again. it is a fact specific context. >> that answer sounds to me as though it is like yeah, it is an official act. but that sure sounds bad doesn't it? >> it certainly sounds very bad. that is why the framers have a whole series of structural checks that have successfully for the last 234 years prevented that very kind of extreme hypothetical. >> has that extreme hypothetical always been prevented? but yes, your honor, that certainly quote sounds very bad. you can see where he is going at the end of this. when he calls that an extreme hypothetical? this is an important part, i believe, of how today's proceedings went. trump's lawyer and most of the

conservative justices today carried on with these proceedings at the supreme court as if it is just a wild hypothetical. just a crazy pipe dream. like a martian scenario that a president might try a coup. might try to use force to stay in power after he was voted out. who could ever imagine something like that? trump's lawyer today called that unlikely. he specifically called it and i quote, very, very unlikely as a scenario today. >> that is the wisdom of the framers. what they viewed as the risk that needed to be guarded against was not the notion that the president might escape a criminal prosecution for something sort of very, very unlikely. they view it much more likely and much more destructive to the republic the risk of factional strife. >> the framers did not put an immunity clause in the constitution. they knew how there. there were immunity clauses in some state constitutions. they knew how to give legislative immunity. they didn't provide immunity to the president.

and you know, not so surprising, they were reacting against a monarch who claimed to be above the law. wasn't the whole point that the president was not a monarch? >> the whole point of america. why we are a country. justice kagan with trump counsel john sauer. what he is saying there is the idea of anyone actually trying a coup to stay in power, that's crazy. that is crazy. that is so extreme, we don't have to worry about a hypothetical like that. it is really partisan strife. it is really conflict between political parties. that's the biggest risk to the country. not this crazy idea of a potential coup. justice kagan responding by saying yeah, okay, also, but maybe tyranny. maybe a tyrant unbound by law running the country with immunity. maybe that would be bad for us too, maybe that is why we were actually formed as a constitutional republic.

as a general matter, it is folly to extrapolate from oral arguments and say you know how the ruling will come down based on the comments by the justices when the case was heard. with that caveat though, it seemed clear today that the most conservative justices were inclined to side with trump, not just on a technicality but possibly on the substance. justice clarence thomas suggesting today that presidents are always committing crimes. shout-out to operation mongoose. justice brett kavanaugh and samuel alito saying prosecutors, judges, grand juries right at home in a trump social media feed about how there is not really a rule of law in this country and what looks like our supposed legal system is really just corrupt people out to get donald trump. the conservative justices today were absolutely and consistently unwilling to

discuss trump's alleged crimes as laid out in the indictment that led to this case. to the point that it became almost a comedic gymnastic effort at avoidance between justice alito and the lawyer for special counsel jack smith. >> if the court has concerns about the robustness of it, i would suggest looking at the charges in this case. >> well i'm going to talk about this in the abstract. >> conspiracies to defraud the united states with respect to one of the most important functions, namely the certification of the next president. >> well i don't want to dispute that particular application of that, of 371 conspiracy to defraud the united states. >> it is difficult to think of a more critical function than the certification of who won the election. >> as i said, i'm not discussing that particular facts of this case. >> stop, stop with the facts.

stop! do not tell me about the things that whoever your client is did. or the things in the indictment of whoever your client is that led to this case. i want to speak in the abstract as if the particular facts of this case are actually just an unimaginable extreme hypothetical that i don't need to engage with. the not consensus but i think wide proceedings is the conservatives of the court will succeed to further and fatally delay. rather than reject his claims of immunity from prosecution like all the federal judges who have considered this matter before them have done. they will instead carve out some newly specified class of actions that are immune from prosecution if you are

president. and they will invent a test for deciding what counts as that kind of action by a president. then they will send trump's indictment. trump's federal january 6th case back through a whole new cycle in the lower federal courts to run his attempted overthrow of the government through the court's newly invented legal test that they are going to make for him in this case. which, yes, will take forever. because in the meantime, of course, he will get a chance to get back into the white house in order to shut the whole thing down. and in the meantime, the american people will be asked to go and vote on whether he should take that seat again in the white house without knowing what federal prosecutors have found and believe is criminal about his conduct when he tried to overthrow the government to stay in office the last time. we'll have more ahead on that thing i just described. on why it seems like the justices are going to send this case back to the lower courts. how it is they sort of showed

their cards on that today. but before we go too much further, let's just talk about this. let's talk about how it went. chris hayes? >> rachel i got a lot. >> we got a lot of time. we got a special. so start at the top. >> i found it, i guess sort of viscerally, one of those handful of moments have felt like genuine vertigo. like, am i losing my mind here? what is going wrong? donald trump's framing of this prosecution, what is extraordinary about it is the fact of the prosecution. where the lower courts and the rest of us, what is extraordinary is the actions he took to warrant the prosecution. what is unprecedented here are the actions at issue, the first attempt to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power since the cannons fired at fort sumpter.

the conservatives in the court and the framing of the question adopted the motion that what is knew here and extraordinary needs to be justification is the prosecution itself. and in so doing, what they did was as you said quite well, adopted the most cynical sort of authoritarian and relative view of all this that trump himself adopts. which is any prosecutor can prosecute anyone with anything. and we saw this in the colorado case as well. this assumption that everyone below this court. these austere gentlemen, everyone below them are impeccable hacks. what if a red state court gets them off the ballot? a democrat gets prosecuted by a republican. we are the only ones who see clearly. we don't trust all the other process happening beneath us. the district court and the appellate court and the grand jury and the prosecutor and the

department of justice and the attorney general. all of that, no. we get to say. never considering they are the political hacks. the people who are actually engaging in regular order here are all these lower bodies that produce this to this situation and in so doing what felt like a philosophical endorsement. this is just power politics by another name. none of this adheres. the reason this hasn't happened before, is there has never been as partisan a prosecutor as jack smith. that is what is unprecedented here? it is not because of what he did. and so, to walk into the third branch of government and these people with all this power, the creative minds who brought you 12-year-old giving birth to her rapist child, to listen to these folks, and find them in

the highest halls of power adopting the most authoritarian and cynical vision of this was a genuinely shocking experience. lawrence o'donnell, i want to go to you next. katie was in courtroom and heard the arguments. we will make you guys go last and back cleanup. but i am feeling like i have as much anxiety about this as you do, chris. i want to go to you, lawrence. you are the one who tells us we are overreacting. i want you to throw cold water on my feelings. >> so, there is no cause for alarm in any of this. >> god bless you my child. >> as long as joe biden is reelected. [ laughter ] because if that was a given fact, if he was running with, say, the 18-point lead in the polls bill clinton had in his reelection campaign, there would be a lot less nervousness about this. because we would know eventually this process will work. and if they send it back to the

judge, the judge can actually have an evidence hearing. and there would then be some actual underoath testimony about this. and eventually, you would get through all this prosecution. i think joe biden will be reelected so i'm not terribly concerned about what they will do in terms of slowing this thing down. but the fundamentals of what you saw and what we discovered clearly today is that there is a group on the supreme court who believe that their duty is to protect the constitution and the law and there is a possibly larger group who believe their duty is to protect the president. not all presidents. the president named trump. and that that intensity launches those fever dreams

that we heard from alito and gorsuch about every president now will make sure that their predecessor is prosecuted. they were adopting the trump notion by the way, that this is a biden prosecution. and, then the next administration will obviously prosecute the previous president. to do that, they had to completely ignore the 230 years of history that preceded the donald trump president suicide. these are guys who pretend they are amateur historians. not a single justice there bought the trump argument. the trump argument is not for selective immunity. it is for absolute immunity. and every one of them basically

found a way of saying that is ridiculous. and the alito way included that thing that you showed where he kept saying i'm not talking about these facts. now, the good side of that coin is these facts are so bad i can't talk about them. that's is good side of that coin. >> i think thomas may be the exception. i think thomas may think all presidents are criminals and so all presidents need absolute immunity. because everyone is like me. >> that's the great mystery. he didn't recuse himself or maybe his definition of recusal is i will talk the least. clarence thomas spoke only three times. he did not ask, he didn't ask a paragraph worth of questions. the only thing he raised was an issue that wasn't even before the court. the legitimacy of the appointment of jack smith. that is not even before the court. and thomas asked about that. he remain it is most mysterious on the court today. we don't know what he thought. >> i think his jenny was

showing. when you work for a president, you know these are just guys and girls and these particular guys consume all of this. and what was clear today, they will direct quote segments from all of these programs. alito gives speeches in front of conservatives and i'm sure conservatives in the audience who don't watch our programs are like what is he talking about. they are bound to trump in their feelings of being persecuted. they found common cause with the feeling of persecution. what is amazing to me as a nonlawyer is a federal judge carter out in california was like the further we get, the murmur key it gets but in the

immediate aftermath, trump clearly committed the crimes and federal judges said more likely than not he committed felonies. him and that eastman guy. the further we get, the the more the people of the highest levels, the court held. the cord court held. after that, we have to get rid of that notion and we have to get rid of the notion there is some complicated legal theory. they feel him. they feel persecuted just like he does. >> i thought it was a very dark day for the supreme court. i don't think the conservative justices comported themselves well. and to the extent these arguments have a back and forth, i'm not sure the other side for rule of law moved it back enough. and i think this will matter in history. the reason legally, not politics, legally, that experts would say that was unlikely to go against trump is there wasn't any precedent for

booting him off the ballot. now we are gathered today. there is zero precedent for this kind of blanket immunity and there is anti-precedent. nixon and clinton. bipartisan examples there. different party presidents. against all of that, the test is okay. trump might not benefit as much. but did the rules hold? based on the questioning and i agree with your caveat, the rules did not hold for most of the conservative justices. justice roberts has a slow grade scandal going. he has the money and the corruption on one side. but he is also chief justice overseeing an increasing partisan maga court and he can't stand idlely by. one more thing. there can be potential official acts that would be harder to

prosecute. none of these are those. the fact that could happen when you are dealing with war or order a drone strike. >> or the unreviewable pardon authority. >> you make an order and it does take an american life. and you say actually, we are not going to do that. this is not that and i'm reminded of the classic aaron sorkin line. from the social network. if you invented facebook, you would have invented facebook. if these were official acts they would be official acts. the reason as you pointed out in the excellent opening that none of the conservative justices wanted to go anywhere near their job, to review the law and find the facts. they didn't want to go near the facts that it isn't an official act to get people to storm the capitol and try to assassinate the vice president of the united states who works for you and the speaker of the house in the line of succession. it is not an official act when you are down by three states and it is all been certified to put in elector fraud. these aren't anywhere near official acts and i would defend any president including

the former president's right to not have wartime attacks reviewed in domestic court. that is not happening. and i don't think they need to spin their wheels pretending that is happening. the facts are in front of them they willfully ignored in a way i will close by saying, because i did wait my turn, rachel. what depressed me the most is not about the upcoming election it was seeing multiple justices out themselves as insurrection minimizers today. and it was a sad day. >> yeah. >> just quickly, because i was there. so many of us don't get the privilege and i still want to use the word. the privilege of going inside the united states supreme court. it is a public place. we can go in. but when you are there, you are struck by how regal and stately, how formal and beautiful the building is, and the institutions and norms that are supposed to be protected

over time. what we saw today that bothered me the most is the debasing of the lawyers. because i always go back to the lawyers because i have always believed that somebody like trump can't do what he does but for the lawyers. and i think we have seen a series of them that have either been indicted or gotten into trouble in various ways because they have assisted. they have been coconspirators. to see someone like john sauer get up and say what he did today and when you look at this multipage transcript i can pull and tell you the words assassinate and coup come out on. those were hypotheticals embraced by a lawyer today. is beyond sobering. it is depressing. the idea you have the erosion of the court. the erosion of the rule of law that we are supposed to be able

to look at people with respect. i feel like we go so far, if trump doesn't have dictators and autocrats don't have people that enable them. they won't be able to get to the supreme court or get on the steps of the hallowed halls of this place. and the constitution and the preamble says what we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union do establish this constitution. but perfection should not be the enemy of good. but there was no good faith today in some of these justices and they are trying to create the perfect place or perfect environment for somebody like donald trump. >> the perfect sized hole to put right through what we all understand. all right, we have much more of our recap of what happened. the united states supreme court, the new york courtroom where donald trump is on criminal trial. much more of our recap ahead. stay with us. recap ahead. stay with us.

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so, you can say private acts don't get immunity. >> we do. >> and in the special counsel's brief on page 46 and 47, he early mornings us even if we assume, if we were to decide or assume there was some sort of immunity for official acts there were private acts for the case to go back and the trial to begin immediately. and i want to know if you agree or disagree about the characterization of these acts as private. petitioner turned to a private attorney, willing to spread false claims of election fraud to spearhead his challenges to the election result. >> we dispute the allegation, but that sounds private. >> conspired with another private attorney. >> that also sounds private. >> three private actors, two ordinary reason attorneys including those mentioned above and a political consultant implemented a plan to about instruct the certification

proceeding and petitioner and coconspirator directed that effort. >> i believe that is private. >> so those acts you would not dispute. they are private and you walledn't raise a claim? >> as characterized those were private acts. not official acts. that is conservative justice amy coney barrett. she is getting donald trump's lawyer to agree that a whole bunch of things that trump was indicted for in the january 6th federal case, a whole bunch of those things are things that could not possibly be construed to be the official actions of a president. now, justice barrett emerged from the arguments today as potentially the swing vote on this overall issue. maybe, which is crazy. given how right wing she is. but of all the conservative justices, she seemed like the one who was maybe trying to work out some kind of workable answer. like she might be persuadeable

by either camp. justice roberts was hard to read. justice barrett gave more indication she might be really thinking about where she will come down. justice barrett later suggested to the other side's lawyer, to the lawyer for special counsel jack smith that maybe if there is a whole bunch of stuff that trump did that everybody admits was just his private acts when he was committing these alleged crimes, maybe all trump's purportedly official actions could be kicked out of the indictment and you could try him on the private stuff. try him for the asserted action his side admits. couldn't you guys just cut the january 6th indictment in half? >> the special council has expressed some concern for speed wanting to move forward. the normal process, what mr. sauer asked would be if we decided there was some official acts of immunity. and let that be sorted out

below. it is another option for the special counsel to proceed based on the private conduct and drop the official conduct. >> is it an option to proceed just on some of the stuff trump did. not all of the stuff he did. now, the lawyer for special counsel jack smith said in response to justice barrett that really they would rather try him on everything, thank you very much. but he did also sort of concede if they had to follow this approach she was suggesting there might be ways to try him on the purportedly private acts. trump's lawyer said oh no, no, no, no, no, the whole case would have to be thrown out. there would have to be a long, long, long, very long, very long deliberate sequence of litigation and hearings and tests and proceedings before anything like that could get anywhere near trial. many further proceedings.

how about we schedule that for the 45th of december 150 years from now? [ laughter ] for justices like samuel alito and brett kavanaugh and justice neil gorsuch, it seemed clear they are on board with the desire for that kind of max mallist delay. what we might call the wait, wait, don't ever tell me approach. listen here. as justice ketanji brown jackson get's trump's lawyer a little bit on the ropes here. he is finding it difficult to answer her questions about the seemingly extreme consequences of this extreme new immunity regime that he is proposing. she's really got him on the ropes but listen on the end as justice neil gorsuch swoops in to save trump's lawyer. to give him a better idea. to suggest that maybe a delay would be a good idea to get everybody out of this. and onto step two. >> when you were giving your

opening statements, you were talking about, you suggested the lack of immunity and the possibility of prosecution in the presidential context is like an innovation. and i understood it to be the status quo. i understood that every president from the beginning of time essentially has understood that there was a threat of prosecution. and they have continued to function and do their jobs and do all the things that presidents do. so it seem to me that you are asking now for a change in what the law is related to immunity. >> i would quote from what benjamin franklin said at the constitutional convention. history provides one example only of a chief magistrate who was subject to public justice, criminal prosecutions, and everybody cried out against that. >> since benjamin franklin, everybody has fought includeing the presidents who have held the office, that they were taking this office subject to potential criminal prosecution. no? >> i see the opposite. i see all the evidence going

the other way. discussed the broad immunity principle. >> so what was up with the pardon for president nixon? if everybody thought that presidents couldn't be prosecuted, what was that about? >> he was under investigation for private and public conduct at the time. official acts and private conduct. >> counsel, on that score, there does seem to be some common ground between you and your colleague on the other side. that no man is above the law and the president can be prosecuted after he leaves office for his private conduct. is that right? >> we agree with that. >> and then, the question becomes as we have been exploring here today, a little bit about how to segregate private from official conduct that may or may not enjoy some immunity. and i'm sure we will spend a lot of time exploring that. >> i would really like to spend as much time as possible

exploring that. we could start a several years long process. many years long. justice neil gorsuch swoops in there. hey now, let's finish up off this talk about presidents and former presidents knowing they can go to prison. why the rush? let's talk about having more hearings. let's talk about new tests for what types of presidential behavior count as presidential behavior. new tests we will maybe invent. that will be a big long discussion. let's talk about further proceedings. yes. further proceedings. that we would like to see. >> and that left open in that case the possibility of furred proceedings and trial. >> exactly right. and that would be a very natural course for this court to take. this court should reverse the holding of the dc circuit that there is no such thing as official acts. >> but you agree further proceedings would be required. >> that is correct. >> definitely, many, many

further proceedings. our colleague joy read has joined us. i felt that was a tell when justice gorsuch came in there and said this isn't going well. don't talk about presidents knowing they can be prosecuted but how we can do new legal proceedings here. >> and also, they noted, they always jumped in and interrupted when ever any of the women justices tried to start talking about the actual case. >> let's not dwell on the thing in front of us. let's ask if a president could pardon himself. and they had all of these other things to do. listen to this today was strangely liberating for me honestly. i am deeply cynical about this court majority and have never believed them to be anything other than politicians. they are just politicians that don't admit they are politicians and they are here to serve donald trump's interests and they have always been that. to drive us into the 19th century and put us in an era

they thought was better than the horrible 20th century that ruined america. it is liberating to no longer have to pretend they are something else. i have been asking our wonderful legal analysts what do you think they will do. those who practice before courts like this, who are lawyers said no. there is no chance that this court is going to find absolute immunity. i was like really? you don't think to? they didn't. i always did. jamie raskin said on my show, they should simply move their offices into the republican national committee. there is no longer a question. they didn't even fake it like they did with dobbs to pretend there was some constitutional principle. they didn't try to cite some constitutional principle. they are no longer faking it. they are being very obvious now. we are here to protect not the

president, not the presidency, but this former president donald trump. we are here to work for him. and we will come up with some legalese sounding gorsuch trying to sound like an intellectual. what we are doing, we are going to protect this president because we want to retire under a republican and be replaced by 30-year-old versions of ourselves and we will do that. and who going to check me, boo? you can't stop us so we're just going to do it. so to me it is liberating to no longer have to pretend they are anything other than what they are. >> can i respond to that briefly? what you are saying make sos much sense. because it is like the zoolander scene. i feel like i'm taking crazy pills. if what you said if someone watching at home said this is what it is. that's what it was today. all i will say is it is getting worse. you're right. and that is what was depressing today. >> the worst trump cases are geting to that. >> i will say not in their defense. but the reason why it is

getting worse is the trump folks also and similar lawyers also were asking them to make up voter fraud and other off the wall arguments after then president-elect biden was declared the winner. they didn't do that. so on the one hand, there is that recent history including trump appointees and what you just said, it is getting worse. it is this bananas and what you think you are seeing is what you are seeing. >> by the way, this all comes as the amazing split screen that we saw today. is that in the state of arizona, everyone below trump is subject to the criminal justice system. everyone who like michael cohen in the new york case did the crimes not for themselves. they acquired nothing but shame and high legal bills. and they are all from rudy giuliani to the white house chief of staff. you name it. all of them includeing the 11

fake electors in arizona are subject to the criminal justice system. everyone who did crimes for trump must face the criminal justice system. everyone according to the supreme court, but trump. >> but those are official acts for president trump. >> this is monarchism. the idea that the founders of this country decided to exit a monarchy and create a different monarchy here is insane. >> we have much more of our recap of today's action in the united states supreme court. and new york's trump courtroom as well. a lot to get to. stay with us. o. stay with us.

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his novel theory would immunize former presidents from criminal liability for bribery, treason, sedition, murder, and here, conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power. such presidential immunity has no foundation in the constitution. the framers knew too well the dangers of a king who could do no wrong. >> welcome back it to our recap of today's proceedings in united states supreme court any criminal court, downtown were donald trump faces criminal charges related to a hush money payment designed to influence the 2016 election. that was the start of opening remarks to the justices today, representing special counsel, jack smith. that list, bribery, treason,

sedition, murder, and here, conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power. he is saying, this is the entire ball game, this is not something you can slice in half and come up with any tidy way of handling that keeps you in politics. >> if you studied the 2025 projects, the platform for a second trump term, there is no separation at the policy level between trump, the private person who would act, and trump, the wannabe president in official act. they are together, efficiently and publicly. when he ran the first time, it felt investigative journalist to unearth what he wanted to do. it was a scoop and a lead that led to the story we all know about and covered part of his promise for people to do knowingly illegal things at the border. it's all in the document that you can search on the official acts and private acts are the second term agenda.

what they do does not just matter in terms of the first ever transfer of power, having a person who masterminded this, it matters, should he prevail in november. it matters to everybody in the country and i think that the idea that there will be no trial is clear to me, not because of any sort of distrust that i have from the members of the court but the judge and liz cheney. they said this court stinks on this issue, conservative conservatives. you don't get farther right than that, and they said, this smells. >> can i ask you a question? as the one person in the stable who has worked for a president, can you please walk us through what it would do to a presidents mentality in office, if they had supreme -- >> it's not about that, it's never been that you need the laws to rein in a president -- >> they know. >> we rely on the norms too

much and that's on us. >> but now we know. >> you were in the courtroom today, let me ask you, does it make it worse to have all of these hypotheticals on the record? to have the hypotheticals out there because, yes, president can assassinate anyone, can you launch a coup, sell nuclear secrets for personal gain? his legal team has been asked all of these hypotheticals. does it make it worse to have these hypotheticals spelled out during the course of this litigation? >> you think you would never have to get to the point to have those extreme hypotheticals but i don't think it makes us worse, a ground is in the reality that we are not living in a world that we thought existed anymore. it is gone. that has been destroyed. we are now beyond earth, right, we are in this rule of law that does not exist on the planet we are on which is why we were talking about that during the break. ketanji brown jackson had the best analysis at the end of all

of this. why can't we just answer the question the way it has been posed? if we just say, no, you don't get that in no -- that immunity, then we don't have to do this, i'm putting this in this bucket, private in this bucket, and never the twain shall meet. this bizarre, one legged stool, justice roberts analysis, that rubric does not work. it's fatally flawed and leads to delay and bad precedent and bad law, which is why if you just answer the question, no, you do not get immunity for that. >> you do not need a new test. >> you don't have to worry about new trials and district court rulings and more appeals and more delay. then you get to amy coney barrett's point point you can get back to where it needs to be and you don't have to exercise out the official part of it, you don't have to exercise that out. you can presented to the jury with instructions, that happens every day. >> liberal justices were trying

to say there is a way to do this. here is a way we can. >> she tried, because she was a public defender. >> she is trying to stop this. >> definitely. >> we been on the air for nearly an hour, i'm not even a quarter of the way of what i want to talk about, even just with the supreme court. it's been a big day. we are back with more of a recap, coming up. >> as you indicated, this case has huge implications for the presidency, for the future of the presidency, for the future of our country, in my view. vie what? we need to hide you. okay. let's, but let's kiss a little first. hello, ghostbusters. it's doug. we help people customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. we got a bit of a situation. [ metal groans] sure, i can hold.

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that's wall-to-wall wifi with xfinity. these are not the kinds of activities that i think any of us would think a president needs to engage in, in order to fulfill his article two duties. particularly, in a case like this one. as applied to this case, the president has no functions with respect to the certification of

the winner of the presidential election. the states conduct the elections. they send electors to certify who won those elections, verify votes, and then congress in a joint session certifies the vote. the president does not have an official role in that proceeding , so it's difficult for me to understand how there could be a serious constitutional question about, saying you cannot use fraud to defeat that function, you cannot obstruct it through deception, you cannot deprive millions of voters of their right to have their vote counted from the candidate they chose. >> thank you. >> welcome back to our prime time recap of today's supreme court proceedings on whether president trump is immune from prosecution for actions he took as president. it's also our prime time recap of the first full day of testimony from the blockbuster lead witness in the criminal trial of that same former

president, which is going on right now in new york. we still have new york to get to , but on that point, from the supreme court, that discussion, from the lawyer for the special counsel's office that has brought the federal prosecution against him for trying to stay in office after he lost the election, he is engaging with the question of what counts as an official act by president, versus what is an unofficial act by a president? the reason he was engaging with that is because the conservative justices, today, kept putting that forward, as the most important thing to be derived from today's argument. the next thing they wanted to do, the next step they wanted to take in this case, not incidentally, a time-consuming, start over step, that would have the practical effect of making absolutely sure that there is no chance donald trump stands trial before the election.

that is what the trump side wants, that seems to be what hard-line conservatives in the supreme court want, as well, but while this conservative justices today were demanding that lawyers for both sides dance on the head of this particularlypain, they did use these proceedings to try to spell out what is bluntly wrong with that, what seems crazy, to normal people, about the most broad strokes of what trump is trying to do. >> there is no criminal, no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from doing whatever he wants? >> the structural checks that are identified that go back to martin against mod, like impeachment, oversight by congress, public oversight. fitzgerald addresses this in the civil context. >> i'm not sure that that is much of a backstop and i guess,

what i am more worried about, you seem to worried about the president being jailed, i think we would have a significant opposite problem if the president was not checked. someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world come up with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office, knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. i'm trying to understand with the disincentive is for turning the oval office into the seat of criminal activity in this country. >> i don't think there's any allegation of that in this case . benjamin franklin said, we view the prosecution of the chief executive as unconstitutional and what george washington said is that we are worried about factional strife. >> let me put this worry on the table, if the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn't there be a

significant risk if the future president is emboldened to commit crimes with abandon, while in office? right now, the fact that we are having this debate because olc has said that presidents might be prosecuted. presidents, from the beginning of time, understood that is a possibility. that might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that i am envisioning. but, once we say no criminal liability, mr. president, you can do whatever you want, i am worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he is in office. >> right. let me put this worry on the table. she says, just as ketanji brown jackson is speaking plainly, taking a step back to see the larger picture. you keep saying how terrible it would be if the president was

put on trial for his crimes and we talk about how terrible his crimes would be, and how terrible it would be for the presidency and for the country going forward, if all future presidents knew they could commit any crime they want, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. chris hayes, i was worried. you were nodding. >> i the same experience, yes, yes, exactly, and it's partly because trump's lawyer, and trump himself, all seem to agree on the "dirty harry" model of the presidency, you got to be tough, but maybe you got to break some legs and shoot some bad guys, what are you going to do, bring your lawyers? that was a consistent theme today. they kept saying, bold and divisive action. ketanji brown jackson brought up another highlight, like, there are a lot of people with tough jobs. governors, people that run the pentagon.

they all might face criminal prosecution and somehow manage to do their jobs and actually, isn't it good that if they do something and they go to their lawyer and know they can get thrown in jail, isn't that a good check? someone who reported in illinois, where four of 11 governors went to prison, it was good that you might end up in jail if, for instance, you sold commercial drivers licenses for bribes as a former governor data secretary of state. those were official acts. but yeah, the sword of damocles hanging over your head is probably a useful restraint when wielding great power. >> the first clip you played, the idea that the official stuff has to be expunged, we need separation between the private and the official, i think it's clearly a delay tactic. it does have me worried that this is the most likely outcome, that it's remanded back to district court and new tests arise of what part is

official and what is private the i worry about the integrity of the case the prosecution has put forward, and they articulated that, today, too. the prosecution basically says that this is an integrated conspiracy, right? it has different components and it is donald trump working with private lawyers to achieve the goals of fraud. once you start to unwind that, arbitrarily, i guess, if the district court must into separating private and official conduct, assuming any of it is official, i worry what that means for the case at large. >> it slows down, for sure. >> if lawrence is right and is a likely possibility that joe biden wins and this ends up going to trial, you have to think about, what actually is the meaningful impact of this? >> and don't we have to, at some point answer the question that was asked? that's what ketanji brown jackson is saying, shouldn't we answer the question, does a

president have blanket immunity? they were going all around trying not to answer it but we need the answer. to your point, now that we've given the theoretical's of a coup, killing your opponent, bribery, treason, murder, now that it's on the table were trump can hear and see and find it, don't we need to know just in case he becomes president whether he can kill people? he now knows that in theory, he's got people in the court that think you can. >> the argument today was, we will carve out an area of private acts only and those ones, those ones can be prosecuted, eventually, someday, but it's an elaborate test. >> you have to do impeachment and conviction before you can get to criminal prosecution. >> which has never happened in the history of the united states. >> and they are creating a higher, if not impossible bar.

>> you're not a lawyer, but you sound like one, because that's what happens in the supreme court. there is a question presented and it sounds like, to what extent does a former president have presidential immunity for criminal prosecutions for conduct, alleged to involve official acts? now, that word, "alleged," is doing a lot of work. the question was already written . we thought, it's the first clue. if you can allege your way, meaning it's not really an official acts, you allege it, anyone can allege anything but if you watch the news or follow along, i'm sure you heard. what we are doing is testing the evidence. there is overwhelming evidence, which is why jack smith got this far and won this case at the district level and why he won in the d.c. circuit unanimously. the evidence has been established, to some degree, it doesn't mean trump is guilty, but we are past that point. if anyone can allege their way

around, this question, the test the conservancy -- >> how do you separated? giving out pardons is an official act the president is liable to. if he sells the pardon and takes a bride for the pardon, is it official? >> the bribe is private but the pardon is not. that's the thing, you cannot, you have to take all of this together, holistic view of the integrated forms. >> what are you going to do? >> joining us now is california congresswoman, who served on the january 6th investigation. congresswoman, it's a great to have you with us. thank you. >> glad to be on. >> you've heard some of the discussion among us today, in terms of what we thought from the arguments. you can always extrapolate from oral arguments to know how the court will rule, but what was your reaction? >> i am very concerned. the job of the justices is to decide the case that is before

them. they went off on tangents and what if's, and hypotheticals. that is not the case, that is not the case before them. i mean, this is been on from the get go, they should have never taken the case, the circuit decision was tight, and right. okay, they took it. they delayed it. then, they went off on tangents and it looks like they are trying to delay this, by not actually deciding the case that is before them. so, i am really concerned, you know? all of us are lawyers in this country and are also officers of the court. we are told in school that the judiciary is to be respected, and impartial, and frankly, up until january 6th, the judicial branch held. even the trump judges made rulings based on facts of the law, and i think that a lot of us had confidence in the judicial branch, but, boy, that

faith was really shaken today. >> congresswoman, in terms of the way things proceeded in court, today, i think a lot of americans are not lawyers and are reading headlines, tomorrow, maybe tonight, they are going to see analyses, and that is analysis, for a broad audience in a case like this, that often focuses on the most easy-to-understand part of it, the most easy-to-understand part of it is the hypotheticals. could president trump order the assassination of arrival? could president trump order the military to carry out a coup? could president trump sell america's nuclear secrets to another country for his personal profit? does hypotheticals are understandable by a broad audience. i think it is, i guess, how do you think that will land with the american people? i am worried this is going to unsettle people in a new, deep way. >> i think it will unsettle people, but what ought to be unsettling is that the court is, apparently, quite obviously,

trying to prevent the trial of donald trump. they do that through going off on tangents, hypotheticals that are not before them. the ex-president lawyers conceded that in unity only attaches with official acts, so they can take the case before them and see what the appellate court did, beasley, overthrowing the election is not an official act. it does not need to be in further litigation. all of these other hypotheticals, it's not before the court. it might be interesting to people, maybe someday there will be a case about a rogue president killing arrival, but that's not the case, today. i just think that they looked like partisans, not not -- not neutral justices. >> in terms of that trial, you're calling from the genuine

six investigation, liz cheney, had an op-ed in the new york times where she explained that, from all of the incredible revelations we got in the january 6th investigation, the testimony we saw, there was testimony the committee was not able to give. white house chief of staff, mark meadows, there was the white house counsel office, assertions of privilege, the vice president, the vice president's counsel, assertions of privileges. i single is out, because those are people who did testify to the grand jury, for the federal january 6th indictment brought by jack smith which will now be delayed. she is effectively suggesting that as a defendant, trump and his counsel know that testimony is and they must find it terrifying, if they want to make sure that the american people do not hear, before november. >> well, you know, that is speculation, obviously. trump knows what happened. it is true, we were stonewalled by some of those individuals,

mark meadows, and others. i am sure that the prosecutor has more information than we were able to get. we know enough, from our investigation, to know that it was not a pretty picture, that the former president was at the center of a wide-ranging plot to overturn the election. when he failed in the various methods that he tried, the last effort was to use a mob to try to stop the certification of the election. that went on while the process is going on. yes, they probably have more information, but certainly, we had enough information on the committee to refer mr. trump for prosecution. >> congresswoman, from california, thank you for joining us . it is invaluable to have you here. >> thank you. our recap continues, with

donald trump's criminal trial, in new york. there were some revelations between the prosecution and the defense, and we have a recap of that. >> a stable democratic society needs the good faith of its public officials, correct? >> absolutely. >> and that good faith assumes that they will follow the law? >> correct. >> -- all of the mechanisms that could potentially fail. in the end, if it fails completely, it is because we have destroyed our democracy on our own, correct? >> it is, justice sotomayor, and i also think that there are additional checks in the system. of course, the constitutional framers designed separated powers, in order to limit abuses did i think one of the ways in which abuses are limited is accountability under the criminal law for criminal violations. but, the ultimate check is the goodwill and faith

in democracy. crimes that are alleged in this case, that are the antithesis of democracy, that subvert it -- >> and an encouragement to believe words that have been somewhat put into suspicion, here come a that no man is above the law, either in his official or private acts. >> i think that is an assumption of the constitution. symptoms can sometimes take you out of the moment. now there's skyrizi, so you can show up with clearer skin... ...and show it off. ♪ nothing is everything ♪ with skyrizi, you could take each step with 90% clearer skin. and if you have psoriatic arthritis, skyrizi can help you get moving with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses.

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after several hours of questioning across three days this week, prosecutors today wrapped up their direct examination of their first big witness against donald trump, david pecker, former ceo for the company that used to run the national enquirer. prosecutors have been using david testimony to make the case that he and then candidate donald trump hatched what they described as any legal plan, a scheme, to effectively use the

national enquirer as a tool of trump's campaign for president . they would do three things, print positive stories about donald trump, negative stories about his campaign rivals, and they would find as yet untold negative stories about trump that had not been published yet and they would pay to prevent them from being published. according to prosecutors, that's all in line with the alleged payment of the heart of this case, from donald trump to adult film star, stormy daniels, to keep her quiet about an affair she says they had an trump denies. there was a fantastic moment in the opening statement on monday, when the trump lawyer tried to vaguely cast his eye at the stormy daniels payment and described it as "trump looking for opportunities related to the apprentice." there was nothing going on, he was looking for opportunities related to his television show. anyway.

prosecutors say the "catch and kill" scheme payments amounted to illegal contributions to donald trump's campaign. david pecker told the jury how he eventually received a letter from the federal election commission, which was beginning to investigate. he was very worried about this and says he called michael cohen, trump's attorney, and he said, don't worry about it. even though it's this time of night, we do not yet have the official court transcripts, still, but we do have a bunch of reporters who were in the courtroom and were able to take detailed notes, which is what i am about to read for you, now. the prosecutor, "did you receive a letter from the federal election commission? yes. did you speak to michael cohen? never. when i received criminal record, i called michael cohen. i said, i received this letter, what do we do? michael cullen said, jeff sessions is the attorney general and donald trump has him in his pocket. i said, i'm very worried."

attorneys general are not supposed to fit in the presidents pocket even if the president wears notoriously wide pants. still, david pecker testified that trump asked about one of the people whose silence they paid for and he said trump asked in january, 2017, before inauguration, "how's our girl doing?" meaning, how is karen mcdougal. he said that things were fine, she was then quiet. they asked about her again that summer, when he invited david pecker to the white house. he says trump asked, "how is karen doing?" david pecker said he said "i said she's quiet, everything's going good." david pecker said he finally had to put his foot down on any additional payments for trump, because trump was not paying him back like he said he would, first for a doorman, from a trump property who made a wild claim about a supposing

trump love child, and then for karen mcdougal. again, david pecker expected to be paid back by trump for that payment, trump did not pay back . this is from reporters notes from the trial today. he told his editor, "we already paid $30,000 to the doorman. if we pay $150,000 to karen mcdougal? i am not a bank. we are not paying out any further disbursements." he testified he ultimately suggested that trump himself should be the one to pay for the third catch and kill payment that went to stormy daniels, and that gets us to the most important part, with why trump was so concerned with keeping these negative stories quiet. this is important, because paying someone hush money did not say a distasteful thing about you is not a crime. prosecutors are alleging the hush money payment, in this case, were used to influence

the election, they were any legal contribution to trump's campaign, and they say trump covered up those payments by creating false records to make them look like legal fees. again, from our reporters notes, today. " did you ever have any intention of printing karen mcdougal story about her affair with mr. trump? no, we did not. with your principal purpose to suppress her stories as not to influence the election? yes, it was." "were you aware that expenditures influence the election made at the request of a candidate are unlawful? yes. and why did you not wanted to be published by any other organization? we did not want the story to embarrass mr. trump or embarrassed or hurt the campaign." >> it was not for the purpose of the magazine's bottom line, it was for the campaign. it was a contribution to the campaign.

today, david pecker explicitly said those payments were made to protect donald trump's campaign for presidency. again, "did trump say anything that made you think his concern was for family or campaign? i think it was for the campaign. in the conversations with michael cohen, with respect to both of the stories and conversations i had directly with mr. trump, his family was not mentioned. i made the assumption, the comment, the concern was the campaign. prior to the election, if a negative story was coming out with respect to donald trump and we spoke about it, he was always concerned about his family, what the family might feel or say about it. once the election and after the campaign, he was concerned with the doorman story with respect to if the story came out, what was not true about analytic -- an illegitimate child, it was about the impact on the campaign in the election. did that apply to karen mcdougal as well?

yes. did he ever say he was currently -- concerned about his family? no." lisa rubin was in the courtroom, today. we don't have a proper transcript yet so we are piecing this together. the way that we cut and paste that together, is that true to what it felt like in courtroom proceedings today? >> it was to what it felt like but there were also a number of other explosive moments and to my mind, the biggest thing was david admission that he understood the payment to karen mcdougal was an unlawful campaign contribution and he understood that in real time, not after the fact. how? his own entanglement with arnold schwarzenegger, who was then going to be running for governor of california. he had a catch and kill scheme of his own with arnold schwarzenegger,

who had been on the cover of two magazines that david pecker was acquiring, 70 or 80 times. the owner of this magazines said before we close these deals, you have to talk to arnold. arnold said, i'm a big deal with these magazines and i would like to serve as an editor at large for you and i would like to continue my association with the magazines, but in exchange, you will come to me with new information about me and you will help me suppress stories, because i am ravening -- running for governor of california. david pecker agreed and did it 30 or 40 times with respect to allegations of affairs, sexual harassment, and even helped to put up one of the women who accused arnold schwarzenegger of fathering an illegitimate child with him, in hawaii, so he was away from california during the campaign. when arnold schwarzenegger was found out by the l.a. times and asks, did this actually happen? he said, ask david pecker. david pecker engaged in one of those agreements with this woman

, and that is how david pecker said he came to understand it was unlawful, because authorities came knocking and they investigated him. >> they got in trouble. >> not with the fec, because a gubernatorial candidate is not subject to federal campaign finance law, but that's how david pecker accumulated the body of knowledge that caused him to say, when he was concerned about this, this might be a problem, i was sensitive to it, and then, when michael cohen and he were arranging for repayment for the mcdougall settlement, a lawyer at american media was consulted and without revealing the substance of the conversation, david pecker essentially conveyed , i checked with the lawyer and the lawyer said this is not kosher, right? even though he was not a bank, was worried with stormy daniels and the effect on his biggest distributor of the magazine, when all was said and done, his biggest concern was, i don't want to be in legal trouble but i want to protect my company,

myself, and third, donald trump. >> let me ask you, he did explicitly say in court that he consulted with a campaign- finance lawyer or elections lawyer who was saying, around this time, letting him know about this. it's not that he was just realizing based on the fact that there was a state investigation in california, he consulted a lawyer about the illegality. >> he consulted two, and outside election law specialist and the general counsel of his company who would have had to pass judgment on it and that was the person who said, this is not happening. >> when he says, he basically tells michael cohen, don't give me a check, don't give me a trump organization check, i don't want it on the books, i want nothing to do with it, because he knows having it on the books opens them up to vulnerability, legally speaking. >> i felt this revelation about the norm is, for this reason. these people are so, they

operate in a weird world. my wife worked at the obama white house which is the opposite, everything was so lawyered and everyone is checking with the lawyers, this is a different world. part of me felt like, these are flyby the seat-of-the-pants operators. it's possible they did not realize they were committing a crime, it doesn't mean they weren't, but it seems possible he didn't know. this is shocking that there's a lawyer over here like hey -- >> it's definitely a crime. >> that seems like a really big deal. >> i thought the d.a. got one more win, with those details. they established that david pecker still likes donald trump and that is a good thing, because you have michael cohen and other people who very clearly have to be viewed with at least some questions about the personal animus that will come up on cross.

here, the jury was treated to a simple fact. this was transactional, he says nothing personal, just a business and that makes him a stronger witness against trump. >> yes. after the direct examination of david pecker concluding, the cross-examination start , so the trump lawyers got to start asking david pecker hostile questions, effectively, and i had interesting stuff. we will look at that, right after this. stay with us. without over or under investing. so you can feel confident in your financial choices voya, well planned, mr. clean magic eraser powers through tough messes. so it makes it look like i spent hours cleaning, and you know i didn't. it makes my running shoe look like new! it's amazing. it's so good. it makes it look like i have magical powers. magic eraser and sheets make cleaning look easy. (tony hawk) skating for over 45 years has taken a toll on my body. it makes it look like i have magical powers. i take qunol turmeric because it helps with healthy joints and inflammation support. why qunol? it has superior absorption compared to regular turmeric.

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welcome back to our prime time recap of what was a very

intense day in two different courtrooms, one at the supreme court in washington and another at a criminal court in manhattan. this afternoon, the defense for donald trump got their first chance to cross-examine a prosecution witness, david pecker, former head of american media which published the national enquirer. now, broad strokes, in some ways, the job of the defense is easier than the prosecution. all the defense has to do is convince one juror there is not a case against trump. reasonable doubt in the mind of one juror is a victory for trump. the prosecution spent this week trying to establish the narrative that david pecker used his role at ami to conspire to unlawfully affect the outcome of the 2016 presidential election to favor donald trump. that is the underlying illegal conduct, which turns these counts of falsifying business records into a felony, instead of a misdemeanor. the defense attorney today used his time in court attempting to undercut the narrative, trying

to put reasonable doubt into the mind of at least one juror. on cross-examination, he got david pecker to say that trump was not the only figure for whom the national enquirer was shelling out money to buy negative stories for , by and barry. i have to tell you, the court still has not released the transcript of today's afternoon session. we had reporters in the courtroom, though, and here are the notes they gave us. "under your watch, you only published about half the stories you purchased, is that right? that's about right. you purchased the rights to a story, and the agreement is the source does not disclose it to others, a basic nda? correct. there were also instances where ami purchased the story in order to use it as leverage against a celebrity, is that correct? that's correct. there were also instances where ami would purchase a story to get a celebrity to interested -- participate in an interview

or use their like this? yes. standard operating procedure at ami between 1999 in 2020, right? yes. ami has used hundreds of thousands of sources agreements for these purposes, correct? yes. " then, they went on to get david pecker to talk about specific instances of suppressing stories about specific public figures. they talked about tiger woods, mark wahlberg, then good tutorial candidate, arnold schwarzenegger, and chicago mayoral candidate, rahm emanuel. they also elicited from david pecker that he had been squashing stories for trump himself long before the trump presidential campaign. that was because trump drove magazine sales and made money for ami. again, this is from nbc reporters and their courtroom notes. "1998 was the first time you gave president trump a heads up about a negative story relating

to marla maples and you tried to stop the story from running? yes. that's almost 17 years prior to the 2015 meeting. yes. 17 years of getting president trump a heads up to stories, long before 2015, because that was good for business? yes. president trump was giving you content for the national enquirer? yes. they also tried to put distance between donald trump's lawyer and fixer, michael cohen, and the trump campaign. again, whether or not this was done to benefit the campaign is one of the crux is of the matter. again, this is from nbc reporters courtroom notes. " : was mr. trump's personal lawyer and that was his only job? correct. between 2015 and 2016,: was clear that he was not working for the campaign, he was a personal attorney? yes. that is in addition to trump's

defense attorney trying to make it seem to the jury that david pecker has a faulty memory, implying he has facts fed him by prosecutors, suggesting he might have lied under oath at one point, when he did not mention multiple times that, who picks, hope hicks was present at one key meeting. this, again, is the defense. the defense gets to resume cross-examination tomorrow morning, when courts reconvenes at 9:30. i have to say, the revelations from david pecker on direct examination feels so understandable and straightforward and sort of, right to the point in terms of what the case is. i understand that the defense is trying to buddy up his case and i cannot tell that they are making any focused point that will be an important counter narrative. you were there, today, in the courtroom, is that fair?

>> i think the defense made headway in trying to establish two things. one, this was not david first rodeo and two, david pecker was always serving himself. the primary purpose of this payment had nothing to do with benefiting donald trump's campaign, trump, for david pecker, it was good business and had always been, but to your point, that does undermine the fact that it's still a federal election law violation. and acknowledged that he knew , at the time. >> let me interject, because isn't there a difference between what david pecker used to do for donald trump , for 17 years, in terms of burying stories and trying to keep them happy and get him to contribute, all that, and once trump's campaign started in 2015 and 2016, that is when david pecker started paying to shut people up for the first time. prosecution said, in their opening statement, on monday, that that was only what, when

trump had his campaign going, that was the first time they paid anyone for information about trump. it's a qualitatively different process. >> i agree, and the payments were abnormal, even by their own standards. david pecker testified that it was their standard practice to empower the reporters and editors to pay people up to $10,000. anything in excess of that had to be done with david approval and with the approval of dylan howard, chief content officer. to that point, not only were they doing it for trump for the first time, first payment was $30,000 to the doorman, second, $150,000, and most important way, the thing cross did not succeed in deflated, trump was involved the whole time. what was the best thing david pecker did? he testified about multiple conversations with trump himself, in person or by phone. trump was involved in the karen mcdougal story from start to finish, even holding a dinner at the white house in august or july of 2017 where he says,

this is your dinner, invite as many business associates as you want and is a picture of dylan howard in the oval office, as well as a picture of them walking the perimeter of the rose garden. david pecker and trump. that the conversation during which and said trump said to him, yet again, how is karen? >> is the implication of "house or girl," and "how's karen?" is she holding to agreement? >> is she and is she happy with what you've offered. talked on direct about the fact that karen mcdougal thought this was a serious arrangement. she was trying to forward her career and wanted to do red carpet interviews, she wanted to write columns in some of the fitness magazines, so at one point, david pecker has her come to new york and they have a meeting where he hears her out about her various complaints about her contractual arrangement with american media. why? he wants to come in his words, keep her in the family. hold her close. >> it's sad and sordid.

i did think, as i was reading our notes on the internal slack , because we don't have the transcript, that the john edwards case is like, the closest parallel we have particularly because that ended up in acquittal, because that was this question of whether he was suppressing an explosive and embarrassing personal affair for campaign purposes or personal purposes. the strongest ground they had to defend is on that point. the idea that like, everyone is lying and making it up seems like nonsense. the arrangement didn't happen, it nonsense. that donald trump is not involved, nonsense. the place where they have the strongest argument to make is that this was about personal matters. >> one piece that i think is strong is that all of the other celebrity "catch and kill" scheme issues, this is the only one, and correct me if i'm

wrong, where they covered up the way that it was reported internally, where they went to incredible, elaborate lengths to make it look like it's something it's not and hide it from their own accountants and make it look like it's a president, under the president title, rather than where they would normally put his deals, so it's unique and i almost feel like, highlighting arnold schwarzenegger and these other deals, they were not structured this way and were not concealed this way. in a way, it actually makes the prosecutions point. >> even if they were concealed in that way, that would not undermine the fact that this is still a crime that the manhattan d.a. -- >> and david pecker admitted to. >> i don't think we know if american media did discuss those other payments. it's not relevant and probably not in the discovery of the case. >> i was going to say, to your point, it is so damning, the excerpt you read from our reporters that donald trump

didn't mention his family once. it rips apart the idea that this was for personal protection and the fact that, who has been in court with donald trump in solidarity? which family members? no one. none of them. if this really is that defense, it's paperthin when you don't have anyone with you. >> today in criminal court in new york, things started with the hearing on the so-called gag order, what trump is allowed to say about witnesses, jurors, and what the court is going to do about it, if and when he continues to keep breaking those roles. that hearing happened this morning and it did not necessarily end the way you might expect. we will take a quick break. our recap of today's crazy day, is after this. for your chronic migraine - 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more - can be overwhelming. so, ask your doctor about botox®. botox® prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine before they even start. it's the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine

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welcome back to our prime time recap of today's legal proceedings , in washington, d.c. and united the supreme court and in new york criminal court. alongside the trump criminal trial, like a subplot that has been the question of whether the judge in this case will find former president trump in contempt of court for violating a gag order , from the court, a court order, a binding court order that supposedly forbids him from attacking potential witnesses, jurors, and most officers of the court. this question is taking a

surprisingly long time to answer. before today, prosecutors are put in front of the judge -- put in front of the judge, 10 comments made by trump and his campaign which they say violated the terms of the gag order. prosecutors brought in four more comments today the truck made that they say violate gag order, which happened while trump was on his way to court even. interestingly, there was no ruling on the alleged violations that have already been presented to the judge before today. the judge looked at the new ones presented today and said he will hold a hearing on those late next week. nbc news says that hearing will happen thursday, and there will be a hearing, but it does seem like it's far away. why is this taking such a long time to resolve? >> the judge wants to be very careful and knows that everything is subject to appeal and is making good progress. they won't tell you this in law school, but if your case is going forward and there aren't shenanigans, yes this is a

distraction, i think the judge may take his time because the case is going well. the other point i want to share, this question is sometimes posed, i'm returning to that, we are a lot of hypotheticals about what would happen if you put a former president in trial, and the good news today, why is this different, here is what would happen. you have court proceedings and the jury will be fair in the prosecution and the defense will deal with it, and america is not falling apart because this is the first week of actual arguments of witnesses, so it can be done. >> even when he calls for supporters to come out in great numbers, he called for chaos, and you know, we are following along. >> there is one who banged the pan, he was loud. >> if you are alone, bring something. i'm telling you.

>> a large foam finger. i don't know. >> lisa, it feels to those of us who are not lawyers, that the gag order thing has been litigated in all of his cases but on a timeframe that seems like it's ineffective in terms of stopping him from doing the things the gag order is supposed to stop him from doing. >> let me play devils advocate for a second. i think the power is that the gag order violation order is not out, and because he's got two options under the statute, he can find him up to $1000 per violation or throw him in jail for 30 days. so long as his choice between the two is outstanding, that is keeping trump in line. it's the stick he has. it's a trick that luke appling used in the e jean carroll trial. he knew that trump wanted him to throw him in jail and he did not do so. he held it out as a possibility, and while trump was not particularly well behaved in that trial, i have

no doubt that kaplan holding out the possibility of ejecting him kept trump further in line than he otherwise would have been paid >> why would that system of incentives change if he said okay, i wanted thousand dollars for each of these violations, and any additional violations, they either will be increased financial penalties or jail time, depending on how bad and often? back so, the judge who oversaw the civil fraud trial, that was the methodology used and i don't think trump took it there is because when you were talking about money that, despite trump's penchant for exaggerating how much is worth, $10,000 is not a lot of money to donald trump. $12,000, $13,000, it's not a lot so long as judge merchan doesn't have other options , even if he says the next time you do it, jail is possible, he's artie said that. >> is he constrained by statute or by what the appellate court would say for making an amount

of money that would be more meaningful? >> i think he is. i looked at the criminal statute in new york and it's clear that those options are, as i outlined it. does that mean he could not find trump in violation of another statute that has not been briefed before him? no, but he has said, i am not going to summarily find contempt. these are things you have to bring before me. he's made it clear. these are not summary proceedings. unless he actually does in front of me, i'm not going to do it on my own volition. >> we could keep going, but we shouldn't. that's it for now. tonight, donald trump's high-stakes legal battles collide. the supreme court weighs his claim of presidential immunity for prosecution for prodding -- plotting to overturn the 2020 election. a key witness testifies in his first criminal trial about the alleged the national enquirer to help his campaign. and, with trump