atkins stohr is a boston global columnist and msnbc political analyst, and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin joins us here on set. blayne, several hours in court today. get us up to speed on what happened. >> reporter: well, let's talk first about what we heard in the courtroom today, and then i'll talk about the overall significance of today's hearing. what we heard in the courtroom is exactly what you laid out, chris, a first amendment argument by the former president through his attorney steve sadow basically saying that everything that was being alleged in this indictment was free speech. at one point calling into question at least the election of 2020 for the president quote, thanks the height of political speech. what the state is arguing is, okay, but all of these amounts to underlying acts that make up the overall criminal charge, so you can't do them if their in furtherance of a criminal conspiracy, which is what the state is alleging here. now, of course we heard all of this. it took about an hour and a half or so, and this is just the latest attempt by the former presid