league, just as they did every wednesday night. son that john and his wife, cassandra, moved back to maine to continue that legacy. >> a look over at the liens over here, that is where you flag practice was. i came in on a lot of wednesday nights with my own kids myself, so i try to remember the good things. >> we spent a lot of hours in this bowling alley, years and years here with them, so i kind of feel close to them by being here. >> i hope my presence encourages others and hopefully we can move forward. >> reporter: pressing on the only way they know how, lewiston strong. nbc news, lewiston, maine. >> we wish justin and samantha the best of luck in reopening the bowling alley and pray that everyone in lewiston is healing and moving forward in peace. and on that note, i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i will see you at the end of tomorrow. see you at the end of tomorrow. >> the president of the united states just wrote a personal check for the payment of hush e money as part of a criminal scheme to file a kind pan

finance loss. >> he says to me something to the effect of, don't worry, michael. your january and february reimbursement checks are coming. >> the witness we could see, including a few surprises. the dystopic origins of arizona's new abortion law as republican panic sets in. >> the only issue they think they have is on abortion, and now all i say is, the states are handling it. for mac the death of o.j. simpson. >> we the above find the defendant, or james simpson, not guilty of the murder -- when all in starts right now. good evening from new york.

donald trump's first criminal trial for allegedly paying hush money to an adult film star to cover up their relationship is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. in manhattan this coming monday morning. i say scheduled because, it's taken some years to get to this point, hasn't it? the money was paid to stormy daniels back in the fall of 2016, before the election. eight years later, trout might actually be held accountable for his misdemeanors. as an old social media meme, i'd like to see old donnie trump wiggle his way out of this jam. and then of course, he wiggles out of it nonetheless. that meme itself is just eight years old. eight years later, he is still wriggling, though not with as wr much success as you stoop. three times this week, his lawyers asked the court to delay the start of his trial. on wednesday, yet another judge said no.

today, a clear sign this might e actually be happening, nbc news obtained a list of possible trial witnesses that is -- the list includes stormy daniels, who alleges she slept with trump during 2006 when milani was home with their newborns son, baron. ann says she was paid off to stay money about the affair just weeks before the 2016 election. >> my friend was like, you might actually have a problem. i don't want to scare you, but based on the things you told me, now you are the whole republican party's problem. and they like to make their e problems go away. >> we could also hear from karen mcdougal, the former playboy playmate that also alleges an affair with donald trump and alleges she was also paid off in that same period in 2016. >> why do you think it was that after donald trump was a republican nominee that they came back?

>> they wanted to squash the story. >> both of the payoffs were negotiated by celebrity lawyer keith david in. he says he's already turned s over 1500s of pages of evidencei to leaders, and he can also testify. as could dylan howard, the former editor in chief of the national enquirer. and more importantly, really, his boss, american media ceo ui diren packer . he reportedly acted as trump's eyes and ears for negative stories, including allegations by daniels and make two-goal. they paid mcdougal a six-figure sum for the rights to hurst tori so they could finally bury the so-called catch and kill tactic. there's also hope hicks participated in phone calls around the payoff. she could testify along with several other trump organization and white house officials. the star witness may be trumps one time fixture, michael cohen. he's a lawyer who has already pleaded guilty and done jail

time for his role in this case for what he did. he says he was the guy who set up the whole hush money up operation at trumps request using his own money. he's champing at the bit to testify against trump. >> he should be worried about me, he should be worried about the manhattan district attorney. the district attorney of new york prosecutors. he should be worried about the documentary evidence. he should be worried about all of the witnesses that are going to be coming in to that trial, simply because, as others have also appropriately put it, this is a very simple case. >> if you're wondering what the evidence michael cohen is talking about, well, we know. actually, he laid it out in simple terms under oath before the house oversight committee back in 2019. >> picture the scene. in february of 2017, one month into his president he, i

visited president trump in the oval office for the first time, and it's truly awe-inspiring. he is showing me all around and pointing to different paintings, and he says to me something to the effect of, don't worry, michael. your january and february reimbursement checks are coming. they were fedex from new york. and it takes a while for that to get through the white house system, as he promised, i received the first check for the reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter. but the president of the united states thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws. >> as he said, it is a simple case. he wanted to bury negative stories and sought the help of consiglio very, who is now ready to testify against him.

we will see if it finally begins on monday. she is currently representing michael cohen in the hush money trial. diane key so is a retired judge and foreign prosecutor in the d.a.s office, and they both join me now. diane, let me start with you. you served as a judge, 25 years in the same bench that judge merchan runs now. >> that's correct. >> there's always a sense of something is going to happen. there's always some rabbit being pulled out of a hat. ed from where you stand, as someone with a long asked variance overseeing criminal trials and the sort of t increasingly ridiculous, you know, hail marys of his appeals, do you think this is going to happen monday? >> i think the case is going to go forward to trial on monday. i think all the rabbits are out of the hat at that point. i think the jury selection will begin, a group of citizens of new york county will be brought into that room, and the questioning will begin. >> there's nothing quite like

this, the first time an ex- president has been tried. fi this is in a category of its own. but i wonder if you have insight into managing both the jury selection process with a well-known case, which presents complications, and with a particularly vexatious and litigious individual before the bench with the resources to do the kind of badgering lawyering that donald trump is known for? >> mr. trump is in a category all on his own, but i did , preside over the and adelphi fraud case, and that was a huge media event in which there were wall-to-wall cameras every single day. and it puts a lot of pressure on a judge. on >> i imagine it must. >> your concern is, you don't want to have any demeanor than it would be if there were four people sitting in that room. and your concern is also that you want to get it right, and you want to be fair and

impartial. and that's kind of -- that's a lot on your plate when you're r in that situation. >> you can speak about the specifics of this case. you are representing him here. today, we got the witness list. i think it's about what we would expect from the witnesses. one of the things that ulstrike me about this -- it doesn't strike me that the fact are that contested right here. >> you are asking me this. but i will say, you know, generally speaking, when the witness list comes out in advance of a trial, the defense then has an opportunity to see -- although they already know, a because they've gotten all the discovery materials. they know what they are up against. they already have formulated their defense. i don't think i would imagine k for the defense, in any event, as a go to trial, there aren't many surprises.

again, i won't talk about here, but -- you know, you're talking about delay tactics, and generally, defense lawyers have a lot of tools in their kit. how to delay, even as jury selection and trial begins. so in any case, you would have a number and a class e felony. the defense and the prosecution each will have 10 challenges for cause, and then they have any number of preemptory's. for the jurors. >> they have any number of priorities for no reason? >> no, i said the exact opposite. >> they have 10 for no reason, and some for cause. >> correct. and for causes, any judge will allow both the defense and the prosecution to ask questions. so it's just a question -- i'm sure you know, diane. judges have different ne temperaments and tolerance for

how much they will allow, and i don't know if you gave a particular amount of time, and we will see -- >> how would you imagine the ou timeline works here once you have jury selection? >> normally, you give each siteu a limit, or it would go on forever. in terms of how much time they can have to ask questions to potential jurors. you have to. you be there forever. i would say, generally, okay, each side gives 15 minutes, but i always used to say -- if you are getting to 14 minutes and you have some really important questions, just ask me, and i will be liberal about extending the time. >> what would you imagine would be a reasonable timeline for this process that's going to play out starting on monday, barring some appellate intervention? >> that's hard to say. i would say at least 15, 20 minutes each side. >> i mean days. >> i think everybody is

underestimating this. i think this is going to take a long time. >> what does long mean though? >> it can take weeks. remember, in federal court, the judge handles the questioning of the jurors, and that tends to limit it. >> it can change radically. >> state court for lawyers, and with the judge overseeing it, so -- but one thing that judge marchand is doing, which i dig is very smart, he's already indicated that anybody who really doesn't want to serve, who says i can't be fair and 't impartial, he's going to say, there is the door. he's not going to try and -- >> compel. which is a little different than normal. having done jury duty actually in brooklyn, not in manhattan, you know, they don't want to let you go, because a lot of people are like, i got a lot of stuff going on. normally, the general default is that you're being compelled to be there unless you have a very good reason.

>> every trial i've ever seen, the judge takes great pains to e keep jurors in their seats. he will sometimes a most cross- examine them and say, you can be fair, right? to stay on the panel. because there's also a domino effect. once a judge has a number of jurors out, other people are raising their hands saying, i don't know if i can be impartial here. certainly in the federal system, judges tend to be fairly strict early on. >> we have jury starch and go two or three weeks. given the witness list, given the complexity of the case, how are you conceiving this here ahead of your expectation and how long the trial is? ho >> a month. on five weeks. >> that's not that long. >> once trial gets rolling, it gets rolling. the witnesses will be ready to go. it will run smoothly. i think that the jury selection is going to be the most difficult part of this case. >> are you confidence that,

given the fact that it's unprecedented, is a whole set of factors that we haven't dealt with. are you basically confident in the system to do it, that all the sort of functional parts of it, the basic jury of peers and jury selection and treating this like any other trial and an adversarial process before this judge, that that essentially a fair trial can be achieved and justice can be done? >> absolutely, without any doubt. this is what we are made for. now is the time to see it. >> i would imagine you have also navigated cases of higher and lower degrees of public intensity. we are talking about the o.j. simpson trial later, which was itself televised, which i think added a whole different wrinkle, which is probably for the best that it's not happening here. as a judge, i'm sure you feel that way. >> know. i always allowed cameras in the courtroom. i was a journalist before i went to law school. >> that is fascinating. >> i allow cameras in the

court. >> what is your sense to that same question about the ability of the system to function under the weight of what is coming and being brought to bear? >> the system holds up. you know, when you have a judge that strives to be fair and judge things down the middle, you have a sophisticated defense, you have a sophisticated prosecution, and you have a fair voir dire, it generally -- the system holds. >> there's got to be a test. we will see if it happens on this monday. thank you ppvery much. coming up, did you know the man responsible for arizona's abortion law was a known, and i quote here, pursuer of nubile young females? the unbelievable, truly unbelievable story of the predatory lawmaker whose abortion ban just came back to the future. that is next. is next.

it has been almost two years since the supreme court erased the constitutional right to an abortion. that decision turned down the clock nearly half a century. in fact, history itself is the reason why the majority of the court gave for taking away american women's reproductive freedom. in the majority opinion, conservative justice samuel alito writes, quote, the constitution makes no reference to abortion. no such right is implicitly

protected, including the due process clause of the 14th amendment. that provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the const to tuition, but any such right must be deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition. the right to abortion does not fall within this category until the latter part of the 20th century, such a right was entirely unknown in american law. basically, according to samuel alito and the logic of dobbs, abortion and other rights cannot be constitutional right because it is not found deep in the tradition and history of our nation. now, a lot of people responded to that decision by saying that basing our 21st-century constitutional rights and the implications of the plaintext and the jurisprudence that follows from it, on what we were aware not doing hundreds of years ago is it self a completely ludicrous methodology. dangerous and reactionary. and of course, the reality is that the history and tradition

of this country is patriarchy and white supremacy. and so the methodology adopted by that man, samuel alito, on the right, with the support supreme court effectively ruled as if we are going to let the past dictate the present. in this really binding way. specifically, the white men who held power in the distant past. the man who made up the tradition of our history. this isn't some weird fluke. if the logic of dobbs at play where that states supreme court just revived a near-total abortion ban from 1864 from when lincoln was president. this is the code of laws adopted by the very first arizona territorial legislature 160 years ago. yes, territorial because arizona would not become a eight for more than 50 more years. name for judge and principal author william thompson howell,

the menu see there on the left, the howell code foreman iced the laws governing all the territory. population, less than 2000. excusable homicide by misadventure, which could include a man working with an axe killed a bystander or a parent is moderately correcting his child and happens to occasion death. it contains multiple sections relating to duals, for example, setting a punishment of one to three years and imprisonment for any person who should willingly or unknowingly be at the present of any fighting of a duel. the howell code also defines the crime of rape as, listen closely here -- a person of the age 14 years and upward will shall have carnal knowledge of any female child under the age of 10 years. either with or without her consent. so 10 was the cut off for consent. and it also addresses abortion, ruling it is a crime to administer any medicinal

substances or use or cause to be used any instruments with the intention to procure a miscarriage of any woman. that part is now going to be the law of the land in arizona once again. of course, this was not only william thompson howell's doing. the entire arizona territorial government, including crucially, the man running the state legislature, the territory legislature, the speaker of the house. a man by the name of william claude jones. in 1990 biographical article describes jones as a prevaricate or, a poet, a politician, a pursuer of nubile females, a member of a royal privy council, a speaker spanish, and probably the man. but really, i think the most silly way to describe him is as a serial child --. in the 1850s, jones won a federal appointment as united as attorney for new mexico territory and company what is now arizona, leaving his wife

and two children in missouri. a few years later, his wife obtained a divorce, and he married a very young mexican girl. new mexico's delegates in washington declare the bride was 12 years old and that jones had, quote, abducted her. the delegate asked the president of the united states fire jones for the moral lapse, that would be the kidnapping of a 12-year-old. jones attempted to evade the charge and wrote him his resignation. that marriage to the 12-year- old abducted lasted just two years. then in 1864, he made his way to arizona and was elected senator of arizona, the one where he shepherded the passage of this law. three days after the end of the legislative session, where the howell code was improved -- a big day for jones. he married woman named caroline e stevens, woman being a little questionable. she was 15 years old. he was approximately 50.

less than six months later, he left his child bride, pictured here with her second husband who never saw or heard from him again. jones probably left for california followed by hawaii. he won election to the kingdom hawaii. a 14-year-old girl named meme, reportedly a princess from a noble family, was pregnant with his child at the time of the election. they went on to have several children before she died at age 28. jones married his fifth and final wife just four years later, and mary, age unknown. he filed for divorce, charging mary with flagrant acts of adultery, and he died within six months. william claude jones spent his life wielding his power over women and over girls and their bodies, with complete tyrannical domination. he faced no consequences, except he once lost a job for the 12-year-old abducted. and that is exactly the kind of history and tradition that samuel alito and the supreme court have brought back to the

21st century. it is not an accident or ahistorical gotcha. it is the very logic of this court. it is the point of their decision and dobbs. it is the point of the arizona supreme court's ruling this week. in the year 2024, william claude jones once again gets to control the body of women and girls in the state of arizona. . energy that gets you to the next level. cirkul is what you hope for when life tosses lemons your way. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com. “look at all those snacks!” “i did just pay 60% less for my ticket with the gametime app.” “it's the best place to get last-minute deals on tickets.” “i guess i'm just a better fan than you.” “(crowd cheering) i've got to get the gametime app.” “download the gametime app and use promo code viva to get $20 off your first purchase.”

>> people forget, fighting roe

v wade was, right from the beginning, all about bringing the issue back to the date pursuant to the 10th amendment and states rights. it wasn't about anything else. that's what it was. we brought it back to the states, and i lots of things are happening and lots of good things are happening. now, all i say is, the states are handing it and it's totally kill that issue. we are going to make our country great again. everybody is going to be happy. >> totally kill that issue. have you noticed how killed the issue is? trump is convinced he can talk his way out of this abortion jam by spouting talking points as if they are magic words state rights and everybody's want to be happy and we settled and we killed it. every time they talk about this issue, they are simply establishing in people's minds the truth that it really was donald trump who made the overturning of roe v wade inevitable, and that everything that flows from him is his doing. kerry lake, a candidate for

senate in arizona, two years ago, in public on camera, she praised the 1864 abortion ban we just talked about that just got reinstated. today she tried to reverse course with a video that simultaneously tries to hide her anti-choice position and praise the man who got rid of roe v wade. >> the issue is less about banning abortion and more about saving babies. i agree with president trump. a full ban on abortion is not where the people are. the issue is less about banning abortion and more about the saving babies. i am so honored to call president trump friend. he did so much to help save babies and protect women, bringing down the unconstitutional roe v wade -- >> 20 me know as senator tammy duckworth, a democrat of illinois. do you think that republicans have changed their minds on this because of the polling? do you think they are trying to obscure their real view of this? which do you think is closer to

the truth? >> they are trying to obscure their real view on this and they have been fighting very hard to ban abortion and bring down roe v wade for all of these years, many of them never realized what it was going to mean for very popular procedures like in vitro fertilization, and what it meant for contraceptive -- contraception, like iuds. and so they are the dog that caught the car, they caught the bumper. and then they realized, holy cow -- this is not what we want. this is why we have floridians living under a six week abortion ban. but in alabama, a fertilized egg is still a human being. in louisiana, you can't discard fertilized eggs, so what does that mean for ivf? so they are scrambling and will say whatever they need to to cover themselves because they find themselves in really a nonviable position. >> something happened yesterday that reminded me of something that happened with you and the

u.s. senate. after the supreme court finds that the 1864 law controls, and there's a lot of outrage. democrats in the republican statehouse in both houses say let's just right now override this. let's say this law, they are stopped by republicans. something very similar happened with ivf after the alabama decision. people were freaked out about the possibility of ivf being banned. it was temporarily banned in alabama, and you came to the senate or to say, hey, we have a bill to protect ivf, and what happened then? >> well, they objected. i asked for unanimous consent to my act, and they objected. you know what they said they objected by? they said it was because my bill would end up with the potential of creating human animal hybrid kind nara babies. >> that's right. >> you know? and let me make it clear --

this is all on the republicans. in alabama, by the way, they haven't restored ivf. all they said in alabama was, a fertilized egg as a human being. we just won't prosecute you. so it still potentially manslaughter. we are just choosing not to prosecute you. that's what they did with that law, which doesn't solve the problem where they define a fertilized egg is having more rights than the woman that is going to harry that egg. that is a human being, which is fundamentally at odds with procedures like ivf where you have to discard fertilized eggs that are nonviable, otherwise you can plant a fertilized egg and a can cause a miscarriage. >> to that point, one of the reasons we are seeing this is the central ideological tenants, the real belief is that life begins at conception. again, we've been around listening to this. i'm not making this up. i've heard it 1 million times in my life. if you believe that, as many people genuinely do -- many

people were in the anti- abortion movement, and then you can't let embryos be discarded. you can't let people secure abortions at 10 weeks or 12 weeks. you can't do it. it's murder, and they really believe that. and now they seem trapped between a generally held belief by a lot of people in the fact that the politics of it are unworkable. >> it's unworkable. so what you are seeing is already happening across the country, which is you have this patchwork of laws and legislation, some 160 years old. but you also have healthcare professionals leaving those states. coming to states where they will come to protect the women's reproductive health care. this is also about men not being able to be fathers. in the military, we have high in fertility rates among men. i started working on this issue in part also because all of our veterans from afghanistan who stepped on landmines and could

no longer father their own children need ivf. now we are telling our military men and women, sorry, you can't -- if you live in one of these states, you can have children, you can't start a family after you defended our nation. so it is a patchwork. the states are going to lose healthcare providers. and the women in the states are going to find themselves without -- it's about not having ob/gyn's were willing to practice because they are afraid they're going to be charged with manslaughter for just doing their job. >> there are criminal penalties and that 1864 law that will become the law of the land. a little unclear what the timeline is, but that will be in the state of arizona. senator tammy duckworth. thank you. still to come on the eve of donald trump's hush money trial, a look back 30 years to the last trial of the century. joy reed joins me with a lasting effect on the o.j. simpson trial coming ahead. ah

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it was easy, and inexpensive. o.j. simpson has died at the age of 76. the nfl running backs career was of course overshadowed by his infamous murder trial, which will likely three. despite overwhelming evidence indicating that simpson was guilty of the brutal double homicide, including a long history of abusing his ex-wife, nicole brown simpson, he was acquitted of charges that he murdered her as well as her acquaintance, ron gold. though he was labor found

civilly liable. anyone who lived through this moment in history has it fairly locked in their memory. even for folks who did not experience the trial firsthand, are so many moments to this day remain indelible in the public conscious. perhaps most of all, the low- speed car chase on the day he was supposed to turn himself in as a suspect in the double murder. an event of such massive public -- interrupting game five of the tied nba finals to show it. >> i'm bob kostis. it is our professional obligation to cover the ball game tonight. we will do that and what we hope is an appropriate fashion. we are, of course, mindful of the o.j. simpson situation and we will apprise you of any new developments. >> they did more than apprise them of any new developments. what happened was that. producers put the basketball game in the tiny box so they could take the bronco chase on the full screen. equally as indelible as the

chase was the moment when empson at the request of prosecution tried on one of the gloves found at the crime scene during the televised trial. it was covered in his blood, only to theatrically mime that it did not fit him. that scene was widely seen as a beginning of the end for the prosecution, culminating with this iconic line the johnny cochran delivered during closing arguments. >> o.j. simpson, in a knit cap from two blocks away, is still o.j. simpson. it is no disguise. it is no disguise, it makes no sense, it doesn't fit. if it doesn't fit, you must acquit. >> the case generated such unprecedented public interest and sat right at the intersection of american history and culture, race and violence and gender and class and celebrity and the criminal justice system. and these themes shape the story where, depending on where you, the role of david and goliath would switch places.

was simpson the goliath because he could afford the absolute best legal representation in the country? a wealthy man with a history of violence and abuse against nicole brown simpson before her murder? or was he the underdog, because it was a black man caught in the crosshairs of the unquestionably racist and corrupt los angeles police department? just a few years before the acquittal of the cops caught on videotape beating him. that inherent perspective title conflict spawned a massive goal in public opinion. americans watch the coverage of the trial wall-to-wall. 150 million people watched the verdict and came to extremely different conclusions. >> we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant, or indulging in some, not guilty in violation of penal code section 187-a, a felony upon nicole brown simpson, a human being, as charged in count one of the information. we find the defendant or

indulging simpson not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code section 187-a, a federal any among lyle goldman, a charged in count two of the information. >> the lapd is really going to have to sit down and, you know, piece it together and find out who actually did it. >> it was pretty evident that he did kill these two people. >> it is finally official. murder is legal in the state of california. >> it's not over. i think we just begun to see the consequences of a trial like this. >> this was all a really a question of trust. a lot of people, understandably, for both lived experience and historical fact, sibley did not trust the criminal justice system. do not trust the lapd. they did not trust the evidence prosecutors presented. it had the country split. two diametrically opposed interpretations of reality based on which institutions one

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dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. >> we the jury in the above entitled action by the defendant, or indulging simpson, not guilty at the time of the murder according to section 187-a, a human being, as charged. as charged.

superior court of the state of california, ct. of los angeles in the matter peoples of california versus or indulging empson, we the jury find the defendant, or indulging simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal code section 187-a, a felony upon ronald lyle goldman, as charged in count two of the information. >> it was one of the most culturally significant moments in recent american history. decades. millions of americans watch live on television. we watched live in my high school class. as o.j. simpson was found not guilty in the double murder of his ex- wife and her friend. the trial shaped generations of americans, american youth culture, media, and the repercussions are still reverberating many ways in the wake of o.j. simpson's death today at the age of 76. join now by joy reed here at

msnbc. i mean, there's a certain generational effect, because i think it such an intense thing to revisit that moment. what were your first thoughts that flooded back today? >> you know, when that verdict happened, i was home with my daughter. i was actually on maternity leave. i was 25 years old and i was home, so i watched the trial like a juror. it was the first thing that i have ever followed this methodically and sort of obsessively since the iran hostage crisis. that was a previous thing that i really followed. and obviously, the two years before that or three years before that, the riots in l.a. was another thing we followed. this was sort of the beginning of that thing that we do where we just follow on cable news this thing that becomes a soap opera. but it also kind of was -- it was the most kind of clear context for the racial divide in america that you could have

possibly had. >> that physical reaction, i remember the exact reaction happening in our will. exactly along those lines with precisely that immediate, clearing the room. >> if you are white, you reacted one way, and after he got back to work, i remember having arguments with people about this case. it literally was a caustic racial moment. but people don't understand it, because white and back people, is honestly live together in this country and experienced each other, really in some ways don't understand each other. the reason black people cheered was not because they were cheering the idea of getting away with murder. they were cheering the idea that a black man could face criminal justice system and have -- and come at it with equal resources. unheard of. o.j. simpson walked into that courtroom with something no black person ever had. >> the best lawyers in america. >> the best lawyers in america who out lawyered the

prosecutors. just the idea that he might have harmed his wife, he would have been lynched. >> i want to read this to you. have you seen this brock obama thing? this is a spicy hot take, but i think it's pretty profound. trump is for a lot of white people what o'jays acquittal was for black people. we know it's wrong, but it feels good. and the reason i think there's something profound there -- the reason i think it's profound is this: the facts can be presented to you, whatever they are, but it all depends on whether you trust the institutions that produce the facts. and if you don't trust the lapd for completely rational reasons, the lapd can say, is that the rights, and you just say, i don't believe you because you are the lapd. and if you don't trust, if you are in that world and you think, i just don't trust the institutions you are saying -- the facts, when you talk about them, are all mediated by some set of institutions.

if you don't trust them, those facts -- >> the reason is an excellent hot take is you want that individual to win -- it's not something about them that makes them your guy. it is who is coming for them that is the enemy. and so there was -- for a lot of black folks, think about the context around oj. we didn't even know about the i'm not black, i'm oj. we did know he had rejected the civil rights movement until that movie came out. we didn't know about that back then. what we knew is that this is a black man was investigated by a clearly racist cop. the word n-word came from the oj trial. >> that's right, mark fuhrman, of course, who was the lapd detective who was one of the people who was deployed there. >> that's right. and he was racist. it read like a screenplay or something, like gorillas in the mist. we saw that. we saw the brilliant johnny cochran. if the glove don't fit, you

must acquit. and he out lawyered these prosecutors. you saw forensic evidence. this launched csi and all this forensic evidence. his lawyers were better. the case they made was stronger. and it wasn't about oj. it was about the system that he defeated. >> and also, as we are on the eve of this iteration of the century, the trial of the century, for sure. cameras were in the courtroom, which of course, is a huge part of it. so much of this was spectacle. the cameras in the courtroom was spectacle. >> it was all spectacle, which is light was the tedious of tv moments. in the tv pantheon. were about to get the second trial of the century. they are not there, but it's interesting to think about how culture has and hasn't changed between when that happened and now. >> and donald trump is -- >> is going to try the same thing.

>> is going to try to get acquitted based on the cultural -- >> the people you hate and don't trust are coming after me. >> for him, it's a black prosecutor. he's in the new york -- >> in the big city you despise. >> full of the undocumented and all the people you hate, and they are coming for me and coming for you. it's literally the flipside of oj. oj was at those wedding, but donald trump, the problem he is going to have is that he is not going to have the greatest lawyers in history. >> it is not -- it is not the dream team. that really was sort of the finest defense team that had ever lived and been put together. although sometimes, those appeals of pure resentment can work. >> will see. we will see. thank you. >> that is all in on this

thursday night. good evening, alex. >> it's just amazing that we are re-evaluating what that case was about in hindsight, really, the big contours as you laid out so articulately in your earlier intro, and what we are barreling towards. >> although i will say, i forgot -- i mean, i knew that it was televised. the fact that he was televised was so crucial to that dominance over culture. >> i remember where i was. i remember distinctly that i was sitting in lucas lesher's living room as that bronco was running -- we were watching it all on national television. >> thank you, my friend. frien. television. earlier today a source with direct knowledge of the situation gave nbc news the biggest peek yet into what we should expect from trump's new york hush money trial next week, a potential witness list. let me back up. four days before election night