it's a state prosecution. the former president, if he becomes a president again, cannot pardon himself for this potential conviction. there are many reasons why this case is different for better or for worse. it's the one that is going first and people have different feelings about that. i don't think it's the most important but you know, it is what it is. >> i'll leave it there, ladies, as we wrap up our coverage and hand off to our colleagues. thank you so much. >> that wraps up the hour for us. thank you for the privilege of your time. stay with us all day long. special coverage tonight, ari and dean break down the latest in this case. that begins at 6:00 p.m. eastern. but first, andrea mitchell, chris jansen and katy tur pick

things up right now. >> good day, i'm andrea mitchell in new york along with katy tur and chris jansing for our special coverage of trump on trial. new york versustrump. we'll be with you for the next four hours. for the first time in more than america's 240-year history, a former president of the united states who has a soled shot of becoming president again, is standing trial on felony criminal charges. this one dates back to the 2016 campaign. mr. trump is accused of falsifying records which detailed money paid to an adult film start to buy her silence and cover up a potential sex scandal. >> make no mistake, this is a seismic moment in american history writ large and most immediately for the election.

now just 203 days away. only a handful of former heads of state of mature stable democracies have ever been prosecuted. not even nixon stood before a judge as a criminal defendant. before entering the courtroom this morning, mr. trump attempted to once again characterize the charges he's facing now as politically motivated. >> this is political persecution. this is a persecution like never before. nobody's ever seen anything like it. and again, it's a case that should have never been brought. it's an assault on america. >> court is back in session right now after a quick break last hour. there is still a lunch break coming and we'll watch if donald trump comes back to the cameras. but as we speak, beyond those door, potential jurors are waiting to be questioned. they are still waiting, believe it or not. judge merchan has been working through procedural concerns so election and the trial hasn't

even started yet. once it does, lawyers will whittle down a pool of thousands to just 12 jurors and their six alternates, working in groups of 18, each potential juror ticking through their answers to a 42-point questionnaire. this could take weeks, folks. 6,000 new yorkers have been summoned for this week's jury duty. 1500 today alone. >> so let's get right to it. joining us from outside the courthouse, jasmine and here at the table is former assistant manhattan district attorney, catherine christian. and msnbc contributor, chuck rosenberg. walk us through the points judge merchan has been making, addressing. there's any indication how long this was going to go on while potential jurors are waiting.

>> reporter: excuse all the kind of noise around me. it's getting rather, i'll use the word festive, around here, to say the least. that's why i'm using this mike. a couple of things i want to walk through that's been happening throughout the day. again, i want to reiterate we are two and a half hours into this thing and we still have not begun jury selection. so first, judge merchan went over the scheduling. we know for instance this trial is going to take about four to six weeks or so. it seems although jury selection seems to be taking longer than we had expected. there was questions as to whether or not they were take to take off for the passover holiday. judge merchan saying that some of the defense asked for the first two days and last two days of passover to be off. he ruled on the 22nd and 23rd along with the 30rd, that will cease course at 2:00 p.m. unless jurors selected also have a

passover conflict in which he will revisit that. they talk about the admission of some of the evidence and testimony and previewing some of the testimony we're going to hear from possible witnesses here. the access hollywood tape, this is a big one. the transcript of the access hollywood tape will in fact be admissible. the actual tape though will not be able to be played. deposition from the e. jean carroll case in which the former president talks about, mentions the access hollywood tape, that will not be admissible. those two things by the way are seen by some as a win for the defense. let's talk about the scope of testimony. karen mcdougle, also the door man from trump tower. steinglass, one of the attorneys for the state, said they won't get into the salacious details of the relationship. yes, melania was pregnant with trump's child at the time, but

they will not at this point get into these details unless it comes up in cross. michael cohen, this is a big one, right. we know michael cohen is seen as the star witness and the defense has already started to begin to discredit him. they talked about the admission of wanting to admit some of the tweets that were put out by donald trump of michael cohen when his apartment was raided. it seems as though merchan is not ready to make a ruling on that because he says he has laid out a roadmap for this trial and will make a ruling on it when that comes to fruition. also, they talked specifically about the intimidation that some of these tweets show of donald trump. and what i mean by that is as if the former president was trying to intimidate witnesses. that is why steinglass wants to admit this evidence in trial. one other thing and this kind of

sets the stage for what this trial is going to look like, guys, which is how they're going to deal with the gag order. so steinglass brought up evidence that donald trump has already violated the gag order with putting out tweets over the last couple of days. if we remember back to judge angoran's trial, in one week's time, donald trump violated that two times and was fined $15,000. so the sense is whether or not judge merchan will rule on whether or not donald trump violated that gag order and if he will fine him for that. that will really set the stage for what we can expect in this trial going forward with this gag order. because we full well know if donald trump has to be in trial every single day for the next four to six weeks, he will certainly be speaking out when he leaves that courtroom every single day. >> you talked about the scene down there being festive. i drove by the area yesterday

along with the news trucks that were lined up, it seemed like there was a movie shoot going on. there was that much commotion down there. there were lights and scaffolding and i just want you to bring us to what it's like down there because we're sitting in the studio. we get a sense of what's happening in the courtroom, but i don't think anyone has any real indication of what it's like in lower manhattan now physically as donald trump is waiting his first criminal trial. >> reporter: you know i love to set a scene. but real quick though, judge merchan is going over jury instructions right now, so just when we talk about timing, it seems like we're getting there. to the point where they can begin jury selection. the whole morning being spent on these motions an now we're getting to the point of jury selection. let's set the scene. it reminds me of when we were here for the arraignment in

april of last year. i am here in front of 100 center street. that's the courtroom behind me. donald trump comes down this street right over here, hogan place. halfway down the block, that is where he enters the courtroom. we won't see donald trump coming out of that courtroom until 4:00 p.m. or so. when court is out. there is a cordened off area i'm facing now that you can't see. that is where you have protests. that is where people are allowed to and able to protest. there are a lot of trump supporters in that area along with folks that believe trump should in fact be on trial here in downtown manhattan today. there are also supporters that were coming down, i shouldn't say supporters, protesters coming down the street today that had stopped traffic for some time. there has been this somewhat festive and it's one of the reasons i brought this hand mike in when andrea came to me

earlier, truck that has come around quite often who is here in favor of donald trump as well. so there's that atmosphere going on. very similar to what we saw during the arraignment. whether or not it's going to increase is the question. we know and we've seen the tweets from the former president saying come down, it's going to be wild. it is a historic day. and people understand really the historic nature of this day. you can tell really by the folks that are showing up. >> chris, i just got a text from vaughn hillyard what's also down there. he said at the same time this is going on, all this chaos, this circus surrounding the trial, a robert denero film is filming. the scaffolding and attention for donald trump and they're actually filming a movie. he was trying to -- >> a critic of donald trump.

he was at the state dinner with the japanese prime minister last week. >> welcome to new york, right. there can always be three or four major things going on at once. having said that, for all the activity going on outside, inside, if you're sitting in that waiting room as a juror, frankly as somebody who's many times served on a potential jury pool, twice in manhattan, the best advice i ever got was bring a book because it is a lot of waiting. in my experience, chuck, as time goes on, you can see people getting bored. staring off into space. looking at their watches or phones. then you go into the courtroom and the energy goes up. the electricity goes up. the interest level goes up. they're going to walk into a courtroom where donald trump, one of the most famous people on the planet, right, is going to be. tell us what you're going to be looking for. what you think the energy is going to be like in that

courtroom versus any other trial that's ever been held there. >> all trials eventually settle into a rhythm, regardless of what the defendant is. this is going to be a long trial and you can't have that level of energy, electricity, every day. nobody can do that. >> but for today for the jury selection. >> but for today when they walk in, if they end up walking in today, who knows. we'll see. mr. trump will be there and i think perhaps the gravity of the situation will hit them. one thing i don't like, this may be because i only practiced in federal court and i'm not as well attuned to the new york state courts. i hate the notion of keeping jurors waiting. all these decisions that the judge is making on evidence, you know, in my view, could have been made last week or next week. or at some other hearing where you don't have 1500 people sitting around ready to go. so i think you're right, chris. there will be an electricity when they first walk in the room and perhaps the gravity of the

moment hits them, but i hate the idea of making ordinary citizens wait. on this process. >> and then you get told as you probably know, andrea, or at least in my experience, this is what the case generally is about. this is what you might have to face. some people will already know that this could be weeks after weeks after weeks. they may be going through in their heads, do i want to do this or not. >> and this is a very different experience, also, because chuck, as you've been pointing out and catherine in preparation for this, this questions and questionnaire is so much more detailed and there have been objections by the trump team to request some of the questions and i think judge merchan has indicated not to be very sympathetic. but these questions indicate not whether you like or don't like donald trump. this isn't a relevant issue.

you can be fair whether you like or don't like donald trump, but the questions involve whether you've been to a trump rally, whether you've contributed to his campaign. whether you've been active as a political participant. >> specifically to that, andrea. we prosecuted the 9/11 conspiracy in the eastern district of virginia in alexandria, just a few miles from the pentagon. and we weren't looking for people who had never heard of 9/11. i don't think anyone who walked into the courtroom as a potential juror supported al qaeda. we just need people who can be fair. i hear over and over again that manhattan is heavily democratic and mr. trump can't get a fair trial there. that is utter nonsense. an outlier can always sneak in. there could be a mistrial. but at the end of the day, can you find a dozen people in new york city to be fair? absolutely. >> but catherine, how do you weed out people who want to be

on a jury because they are celebrity seekers? they want to be part of history. maybe they want to do a book or something afterwards. go on tiktok. >> the stealth juror. >> yeah. >> it's going to be experience. both sides have experienced lawyers and what i would also do, i look. you talk about paying attention. who's not paying attention? who's always on their phone? who, you know, has some ridiculous t-shirts on. >> are they allowed to be on their phone? >> welcome to state court. they're not supposed to. so you look for that. and what's going to come out of their mouth. i can't say you can't really hide, but there will be one sentence. that's why you often try cases with other attorneys who will hear and see something that you didn't and will slip a note to you. so it's not that hard. if you're listening and paying attention as the lawyer. >> catherine, chuck, stay with us. coming up next, we're going to dig into the politics surrounding this trial involving the republican front-runner.

one of mike pence's closest advisers. our special coverage of former president trump's criminal trial, the first in history. we'll be right back. first in s. we'll be right back. with chewy, it's never been easier to get their favorite toy delivered. (♪♪) again. come on, let go. (♪♪) and again. (♪♪) and again. (♪♪) good luck. get whatever they love delivered right on time. save 35% on your first autoship order. with chewy. what is cirkul? cirkul is the fuel you need to take flight. cirkul is the 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.

at st. jude, the mission is something that everyone can truly get behind. i would love to be able to end childhood cancer. i learned that no patient ever has a bill from st. jude, not for travel, for medical expenses. our little st. jude pin there on the fridge. we're just regular people donating. yeah, and i think it's cool to be able to make a difference in someone's life in a way that is meaningful.

business. it's not a nine-to-five proposition. it's all day and into the night. it's all the things that keep this world turning. the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. see why comcast business powers more small businesses than anyone else. get started for $49.99 a month plus ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. don't wait- call today. hi, i'm greg. i live in bloomington, illinois. i'm not an actor. i'm just a regular person. some people say, "why should i take prevagen? i don't have a problem with my memory." memory loss is, is not something that occurs overnight. i started noticing subtle lapses in memory. i want people to know that prevagen has worked for me. it's helped my memory.

it's helped my cognitive qualities. give it a try. i want it to help you just like it has helped me. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. welcome back. we are waiting for the first criminal trial of a former president to get underway. jurors are waiting behind the scenes. they have not yet started to go through the jury selection process. i want to bring you inside the courtroom for a moment because donald trump is being read what is called his parker warning. the judge telling him he has to appear for court. judge merchan saying you have to

right to be present during the trial and to assist your attorneys, do you understand. donald trump says yes. merchan say ifs you disrupt the proceedings, we can proceed with the trial in your absence, do you understand. donald trump says i do. if you do not show up, there will be an arrest, merchan says, underscoring donald trump doesn't have a choice here. he's got to show up unless the court bars him from showing up. while this process, this jury selection process we're waiting for, is going, excuse me, it can stretch for a number of weeks. the former president is also fund raising off the criminal charges. he claims he's being politically persecuted as he try to win back the presidency. more than two-thirds of registered voters said the hush money charges facing donald trump are quote somewhat serious according to a reuters poll. around a third say the charges lacked seriousness. joining me now, former chief of

staff to vice president mike pence. mark short. really good to have you. so donald trump wants to use these trials because he's got to be there any way. you can see him talking to the assembled cameras when he goes in and out of court. how does the campaign use this to their advantage and do they really see it as an advantage to have the leader of their party on criminal trial? >> well, thanks for having me. i think there's no doubt it did play to his advantage through the primary season. for a lot of republican voters, they did view many of these prosecutions as politically charged and felt like the president they had identified with for four years, fond of the policies, was under political attack. i'm not so sure that plays out the same way now that he is the presumptive nominee and you move forward into the general election campaign. the nation's very polarized and there's not many undecided voters left. it's probably more diminishing

for the president to be seen in a courtroom than to be rallying outside one. again, no doubt i think it benefitted him in the primary. i don't think that it's going to benefit him moving forward. >> obviously base voters are base voters. when you go into the general election, do they expect a lot of independent voters, on the fence voters, paying attention to this trial? or do they believe they'll be paying attention to the verdict of this trial? >> i think you have to play the cards dealt. i think the president has an enormous ability to get media attention and he'll use this court to do that. at the same time i think for most voters in battleground states, i think they're going to be more concerned about what are your policy solutions to high grocery or energy prices. what are you going to fix the border? what would be your policy in the middle east or eastern europe? i'm not so sure how much this really impacts those swing voters. i think for many voters, this is already baked in and despite how

sordid an affair it is, i think there's probably greater legal liability for the president on the federal charges than i think a case previous district attorneys passed on twice. it's eight years old of a campaign finance charge and your star witness for the prosecution happens to be somebody who's convicted of lying to congress. so i think at the end of the day, i don't think this really is going to benefit him much. to what extent it hurts him where we are, i don't know, except it limits his ability to talk about pocketbook issues for voters in battleground states. >> it's chris jansen. this may be the only trial that makes it before the election. so for folks who in 2020 who had voted for him in 2016 decided no, i'm not going to do the, the exhaustion factor.

just the overall feeling that donald trump was too immersed in too many things that made them uncomfortable. does it make a difference whether or not he is convicted here in the sense of people may say you know, i don't want to have a convicted felon as president of the united states. is there a point at which for the very small number of critical voters who will decide this election, this will be a game changer one way or another, mark. >> i think it's a great question. i remember in the fall of 2020 having an analysis from a group of swing voters in wisconsin who had voted for trump in '16, were not reliable republican voters. they said look, he took on the border like i wanted. he reduced taxes. i got a better trade deal. i'm a dairy farmer. went down issues one by one. then you're voting for him again, right? no, i'm exhausted. can't take the drama anymore. i think that's a liability here and i do think it could be a detriment to donald trump's campaign if they see him in the

courtroom and this becomes again more and more the daily notion. but again, i think most voters in our country are locked in and there's a very small number of swing voters left. >> mark, andrea here. one of the decisions this morning by the judge was that the access hollywood tape transcript could be admitted in evidence but not the audio. not the video. so you won't see, the jurors will not see donald trump say those things. take us behind the scenes at that point in the campaign when the vice president, you were on that campaign, when vice president pence, running mate, with his, you know, obviously his evangelical background, his beautiful marriage and all of the rest. how did he take that at the time? >> well, andrea, if you recall, there were those in the campaign who i think were anxious for vice president pence to be out front and sort of providing a

testimony to donald trump's character. as i recall, the vice president's team was clear in saying that no, the president has to make amends for this and apologize first. now, the video he did end up looking like a hostage video but nonetheless, there was pretty much a sense this is not something somebody else can attest to. donald trump has to make the apology first here. >> i'm happy andrea brought up the tape because part of what the prosecution is going to be arguing, the big thing here, this is a campaign violation. donald trump had this woman paid off to keep her silenced because of the moment of the campaign was in. the access hollywood tape came out on october 7th. the agreement to pay daniels was on october 8th according to michael cohen. can you just explain how dire it felt within the campaign in that moment and how, how the campaign was worried about suburban women

voters. >> i think you go back even in the summer, people forget despite a contentious battle with ted cruz, he gave a speech where he refused to support donald trump. our party was already divided at that point and there was a sense that hillary clinton's campaign was well funded and more controversy wasn't helpful. but i still think that many of us underestimated the appeal that donald trump had for many middle class and midwestern voters in the rest belt when you look add what happened in pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan. there were other issues that clearly voters cared about more at the time when it got to election day. >> true, but in the moment, the campaign didn't know what was going to win out and they were very worried about hemorrhaging voters they needed. also worried about hemorrhaging republicans. as you remember, republicans in pass were backing away from donald trump. posting selfie videos saying they couldn't support him.

paul ryan was telling members of the caucus to follow their conscious. don't worry about going out to support donald trump. campaign advisers were fleeing in droves. i mean, you won in the end, but you weren't so sure you were going to get there after this tape. >> absolutely. no one's going to argue the tape was helpful. you're right. there was a lot of division in the party, but nonetheless, i think there were issues that overrode that. will that be the way people view this trial? i don't know yet. but probably so. much of this is baked in to the electorate. >> in the terms of the trial itself, what the prosecution is arguing is that this was election interference so yeah, the voters decided it didn't matter but the prosecution's going to argue this was the reason that that payment was made. >> it's going to be litigated all over again in the trial. >> mark short, great to have you on the program. thank you. i want to bring in nbc's vaughn hillyard who is outside the courthouse in lower manhattan.

i understand that the prosecutors want donald trump fined for some social media posts. one of the questions going into this was always going to be how tightly controlled could the judge keep donald trump? this may be the first answer to that question. what can you tell us about what just happened? >> reporter: exactly. donald trump already has a gag order that precludes him from going on the attack against any of the witnesses expected to be called as part of this proceeding and preventing him from attacking them in a way that could impact potentially the jury pool in the way that those witnesses are viewed outside of the courtroom. and that is where here just in the last ten minutes, there has been deliberation between the prosecution, which is directly seeking judge merchan with a motion to have repercussions against donald trump for three specific social media posts over the course of the last week. they are requesting that the judge order donald trump to

remove them from his truth social account, be fined $1,000 each for each of those three posts as well as be warned by the judge that he could be thrown into jail if he violates the gag order again. just in the last minute, have gone into their lunch break and merchan made it clear he will deliberate this over this lunch break. they expect them to come back at 1:30 and he will make this ruling this afternoon as expectation on the prosecutors' request for those consequences but also the extent to which donald trump has been found to have violated that gag order. those three posts we're talking about, if we could just lay them out. number one was a post from this last wednesday in which donald trump did not refer to michael cohen and daniels by name, but referred to them, quote, as two sleaze bags who have with their lies and misrepresentations cost our country dearly.

in a second post, donald trump posted an old denial by daniels a years old denial of her relationship or alleged affair with donald trump. in the third one, had to do with the post this saturday by donald trump in which he called michael cohen a liar. again, about an hour from now, we expect them to return to the courtroom and judge merchan to potentially rule on whether donald trump has violated his gag orders and potentially even warn him that he could be put into jail if the prosecutors get what they want if he were to violate his gag order again. >> thank you very much for that. let's discuss. chuck, catherine, your legal opinions about how tough a line this is and what you expect the judge to do. >> i would say it's put up or shut up time for the judge because if he doesn't at a minimum admonish him and tell him to remove the post, in one, he named michael cohen.

called him a lair. you can say well, he is, because he is a conviction. no, that's directly to his credibility. he's a witness. and trump was told not to do that. so he should be admonished, fined, and told to remove the post. and if he's not, then the gag order is meaningless. >> we know he's going to think about it over lunch, but he has to have anticipated this. >> i'm sure the judge knew beforehand this was on and i'm sure the defense attorneys were prepared. >> does he know what his limits are going to be? will there become a point where these $1,000 fines become meaningless? >> add vaughn said the prosecutor said he should be warned he'll be jailed. so you're right. 1,000, 1,000. the judge now has an opportunity to show who is the judge. >> would he actually go as far as jailing donald trump? >> you know, i don't understand why he can't. all you have to do is, it's easy for me to say that, you get the

head of the secret service in there and say if i have to incarcerate former president trump, will you will able to keep him safe? >> what about the political impact of that? this is a man who has raised money, millions and millions of dollars, plus poll numbers on being playing the victim ever since this indictment came down. >> ever single time there has been a court case, they've raised money off it. every time he's appeared outside a court, they have raised money off it. >> don't jail him the first time or second time, but what does this say about regular people? >> would you say donald trump is being treated differently? >> of course he is, and we'll find after lunch, but i think he wants to see how far he can go with the judge at the beginning. >> is he being treated more favorably? >> he has four open indictments. most defendants would be in jail

in one of those jurisdictions just because of that. so he clearly is being treated specially on all of his cases. >> so what is the line, chuck? judge rosenberg. >> catherine is right. the judge needs to establish his control over this proceeding. over the court and over this defendant. >> send a message early. >> send a message that's fair and thoughtful and that he would send to a defendant in any other case. we keep talking about the fact that nobody is above the law. mr. trump is not above the law. neither is he below the law. he should be treated like anyone else. logistically, that's hard because not everyone else has secret service detail for instance or four pending indictments. but if you're going to run a trial and the only person who runs a trial is a judge, then you have to, and this sounds

trite and cliche, lay down the law. it's time to do it. >> one of the things that's at stake here we keep talking about history, andrea, is we were founded on the idea that all people are equal. that if you're rich, if you're famous, the law treats you the same way and so this is an important test for the judge. >> absolutely. >> and the message as chuck says. >> of course through american history, that was never the case because it would be different if you were a white landowner or if you were a woman or anyone of color. a slave in particular. so we'll get back to that in a moment. catherine and chuck, please stay with us and next, making history. we'll mark just how unprecedented this moment really is for the nation and how it might impact our democracy. you're watching special coverage of former president trump's criminal trial. stay with us. of former presiden criminal trial stay with us hello, ghostbusters. it's doug... ... of doug and limu. we help people customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. anyway, we got a bit of a situation here.

♪♪ uh-huh. uh-huh. ♪♪ [ metal groans] sure, i can hold. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty liberty liberty liberty ♪ ghostbusters: frozen empire. in theaters now. 170 million americans find community on tiktok. i'm patriotic, kenny. my scooter broke down. i went into a depression. i posted it to show that kenny's not always happy. within 24 hours, people had donated over $5,000. oh, you're kidding. set up the patriotic kenny foundation to give mobility scooters to veterans. none of this would've happened without tiktok. keep tiktok. for your most brilliant smile, crest has you covered. ♪♪ (laughing) nice smile, brad. nice! thanks? crest 3d white. 100% more stain removal.

crest. you ready? ugh! nope! try my old spice. you can use it on your pits, chest and even your... toes? that's not your toes. oh that's fresh! ♪♪ ♪ (old spice mnemonic) ♪ (vo) in three seconds, this couple will share a perfect moment. (woman) is that? oh wow! but we got to sell our houses! (vo) well, almost perfect. don't worry. just sell directly to opendoor. (woman) yes! (vo) close in a matter of days. when life's doors open, we'll handle the house.

some migraine attacks catch you off guard, but for me a stressful day can trigger migraine attacks too. that's why my go to is nurtec odt. it's the only migraine medication that can treat and prevent my attacks all in one.

don't take if allergic to nurtec. allergic reactions can occur even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion and stomach pain. now i'm in control. with nurtec odt i can treat a migraine attack and prevent one. talk to your doctor about nurtec today. we've been noting that this is the first time in american history that a former president is on trial and donald trump is also challenging that very premise is his upcoming supreme court case, arguing that he should have immunity, that it is unconstitutional for him to be on trial at all. but this is not only a test of the american legal system, it's also a test of constitutional democracy. joining me now is michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian, and john meacham, rogers distinguished professor at vanderbilt university.

john is also author of the book and there was light, abraham lincoln and the american struggle. michael, what do you see is at stake in terms of history in the way this trial is conducted and the way it turns out? >> well, let's have a very brief and i promise brief visit, to our founders in 1787 writing the constitution. i think they felt that they had created a political system that would choose people as presidents who were not too likely to have been, to be accused of criminal conduct. i think that's safe. so if they came back in 2024, the first thing they would say i think is our system did not work, what happened. but you were talking a little earlier, andrea, and also the others were as well, have we seen anything like this in history. and actually, we have. in 1972, richard nixon was

president. june of 1972 on that famous tape. probably obstructed justice. and did so to keep damaging information out of the minds, the knowledge of the public, so that he could be sure to win election as president in 1972. that has a parallel here. nixon, when he quit 1974 because of this, thought he was going to jail and i think we should say that if gerald ford had not pardoned him, nixon probably would have been put on criminal trial and most legal experts think he would have been convicted and sent to jail. so the point is this has happened before but what should we say if people just say there's something wrong with our system. this is a set up for donald trump. you know, the problem is not with him. it's with the system. that's something people did not say about nixon in 1974.

>> i think you think ford should not have pardoned him, that it robbed our country of a verdict on nixon. you and i both new gerald ford. i've talked to him about this very thing. >> we both did. >> he said he was proudest of all this things he had ever received, he told me he was proudest of getting the profile in courage award from mckinley library for the pardon because it did end that episode and cut short the legal process. it got america back to where it needed to be in terms of not being torn apart by watergate. >> all that is true, but something else i think is more importantly true and that is we recognize it now more than people did i think 20 years ago when the kennedy library gave that prize. and what we recognize is that we are living in an era, especially in the last seven years or so,

in which presidents can think they're above the law. they can even ask the supreme court for presidential immunity but not allow them to go send s.e.a.l. team six to go kill their enemies. my question about the ford pardon would be how much did gerald ford, out of the the kindliest motives, but by letting nixon off, nixon never had to pay for it. two, three years later, nixon was telling david frost, and i quote, well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. he had not learned his lesson, nor had later presidents. >> there are many parts of the stakes here. obviously the judgment of history of donald trump as a president and past president. what his legacy would be. but there's also the more immediate impact which is the trajectory of history and whether this election can be impacted by what happens in the course of this trial.

what do you see, john, as the more immediate stakes? >> the immediate stake is whether or not the constitution as we have understood it as amended, is going to remain a vibrant and governing document. and i wish that were overstatement but taken as a whole, the trump phenomenon is about lawlessness. it's about putting himself at the center of every american drama. it's about overturning elections that he doesn't like, which is again, a self-evident fact. one of the issues we have, politically, as this goes forward, is almost half the country seems to believe that, or is at least reachable to accept the argument, that this

is something all politically motivated as opposed to being been exercise of the rule of law. you even saw this weekend, the governor of new hampshire said, he agreed that our friend george stephanopoulos said this. he agreed trump had tried to overturn the election, but he's going to vote for him anyway, because he's a republican. that's a triumph of reflexive partisanship of a dangerous kind of partisanship, to go again as michael said, briefly back to the founders. they worried about party spirit. party spirit becoming the governing force. partisanship is fine. we've always, free societies have always been invited into different parties as jefferson said. it's when it becomes the governing force, the absolutely most important thing. and i think what the country's going to be watching going the

next months not only in this case, but in other courtrooms and particularly the supreme court, is a test of whether or not the constitution is more important or donald trump is more important. >> john, are we hopelessly divided as a country? i know you're a student of history. you've gone back and you've reflected on all of the trials we've been through as a nation and there have been some seriously ugly times. are we hopelessly divided? >> not hopelessly. i'd strike the adverb. we are ferociously divided, but this is a human undertaking. democracy is a human undertaking. the root of the word is about the people. and i think this is fundamentally a moral choice we have to make. do we, are we able, are just enough of us able to defer our immediate policy desires, our immediate partisan appetites, to

say the system itself, seeing politics as an arena of contention where we try to arrive at a consensus for a given period of time and if we lose a round, we just fight the next one. is that viable? and just enough of us, since 1865, have at critical moments, said yes, that system is worth it. will that continue? i don't know. but i do know it's up to us, which is thrilling and terrifying. it's thrilling because it's up to us. terrifying because, oh, jesus, it's up to us? no one's going to come fix this for us. there's not going to be this act of god that's going to somehow secure american democracy, create a consensus where we can in fact pursue happiness. we have to decide and the people who either support donald trump

unquestioningly or who have enabled this for their own partisan reasons, have to really look in the mirror and decide is this really the hill they want to die on. >> yeah. >> is donald trump worth the constitution. >> we are a couple of years out from our 250-year anniversary, ignoring that small few years in the middle there when we almost fell apart. we will find out if we are a nation united because as we know, a house divided cannot stand. michael beschloss, john meacham, i appreciate you both. back to the courthouse. we bring in suzanne craig alongside lisa rubin. you guys were both in the courthouse. tell us what it was like to see donald trump as he is in the hearing portion of this pretrial scenario that we find ourselves in. what was he like? was he staying awake the whole

time, for instance? >> reporter: well, it's a great question. at one point when i was watching it, i thought i've now watched three court proceedings where i've seen him and i thought at one point, i've never seen him more alert. he was watching the government lawyer arguing, conferring with his lawyers. then around noon, everything changed. and he looked like he was nodding off and at one point in a pretty true tell that he was falling asleep, his head nodded down and then he sort of jolted back up at one point. that was sort of, after several hours we has been in court, so i would say he's oscillated between being quite alert and asleep. >> what do you think is the most part -- >> for my part -- >> i was going to ask what the most observation you made. >> i think the most important observation is how prepared the d.a.'s office is here. the morning, they took us

through a number of clarifications that they wanted to pretrial rulings judge merchan made about the admissibility of certain evidence. in doing, they sort of previewed their case for us, chris. they had thought about things that even those of us who consider ourselves followers of the minutia of this case. e-mail chains. it occurred to me that this case is going to be a lot more document heavy as i've said for a long time, but it's going to be a lot more document heavy than i think most of us even. those of us who follow this case through all its understand. >> there was a lot of procedural motions this morning. i think both sides notched some victories. it was heavy and sort of a preview of what we'll see in terms of the documents. some things will and won't be allowed in. for example, during donald

trump's relationships with stormy daniels, right now the fact that melania trump was pregnant during that period won't be allowed in. it's not to say it won't come in fw there's a way to bring it up in evidence. there was a lot of rulings like that, the prosecutors scored a victory on, for example, the "national enquirer," they're allowed to explore further than we maybe would have thought donald trump's relationship with the "national enquirer" and how he used it to both plant and to kill stories. >> lisa rubin, when all this is happening, you've got 1,500 people of the 6,000 jurors who have been called this week in new york as possible jurors waiting. now they're on a lunch break. as your colleague, chuck rosenberg, was saying earlier, he hates to see judges keep

people waiting, keep potential jurors or jurors waiting. these are busy people. they have their own lives. what's going through their minds as they're waiting for the beginnings of the voir dire to take place? >> i think most of them must be thinking what's taking so long. not to despair, andrea, this is not something that's far from judge merchan's mind. right before we broke for the lunch break, he said he would show the order to show cause with respect to trump's alleged violations of the gag order during the lunch break. he was mind. of the fact that there are 50 jurors on their lunch break and waiting to enter. when we come back from the lunch break at 1:30, 1:45 said he expected to see the first of those prospective jurors enter the jury room. >> susanne, this is going to be a very heavy case in terms of

documents. what do you think the experience of these jurors is going to be? the case is so sorted in some of its aspects. a lot of it has to do with checks and when checks were passed and what kind of accounting procedures are legal in new york state and what are not. >> andrea, that's a good question. in the back of my mind when i'm thinking about this, i've covered a lot of trials in my time including some involving trump, a lot not involving the former president. i think this case is engaging compared to all the ones i've seen and read about. it's easy to understand in terps of the fact pattern. there was money paid, false documents created and done allegedly in the final hours of a campaign. i think that they're going to be able to grasp it. the witnesses are likely people they have seen on tv, they're going to know who they are. i think it will be a trial that will be easy to grasp for the

juors and i expect them to be alert. often you see jurors in a trial falling asleep. that may happen here. but i suspect they'll be pretty rapt to the facts. >> donald trump falling asleep doesn't speak to him as an engaged, energetic candidate in comparison to joe biden. so watch out for that. i want to touch on what andrea was saying, and whether this is going to be a document heavy, dull trial or exciting one. steinglass himself, what's he been like? i think they lost our adia. we'll try to get reconnected with them. i'll bring that to the table. catherine and chuck, this is a case that involves a porn star, it involves hush money payment,

an election year and moment like none we've ever seen. the "access hollywood" tape won't be admissible, but i believe the transcript will. what does that mean for the prosecution? are you going to see them really walk through a narrative, a story? will this be -- should it be engaging? >> first of all, it involves a former president of the united states who also happens to be donald trump. i think you would start off in your opening statement talking about june 2015, donald trump announced he was running for office, and then two months later he and michael cohen and david pecker met at trump tower and discussed how to suppress negative information from the public so it wouldn't hurt his campaign. so it's going to started like that. >> we have the headlines from the "national enquirer." >> and then it is, 34 counts. each count is a document. it's a check. it's a ledger entry. it's an invoice.

that's the counts. calling it election interference in many ways is muddying it up. it's a falsifying business record case. in new york it's illegal to falsify business records. >> you need the election interference aspect because that's what gets it to a felony. >> yes. intent to defraud and intent to conceal another crime. they're saying the other crime is new york state election fraud, federal campaign finance fraud and also tax fraud. what i mean by that, calling it election, you have to get the jurors to focus in on, it may seem trite, but when you put a false entry in your business records with an intent to defraud, that's a crime. you don't want the jury to say, they promised this, but i only got that. you want to let them know, yes, you're going to hear one document after another. then you're going to hear stormy

daniels and karen mcdougal and michael cohen -- >> maybe donald trump himself. >> allegedly. most defendants don't testify, but he may. that's what's going to make it more exciting than the usual white collar document, document, document case. >> i still want to understand how this becomes a felony. i'd love to hear from our counselors at the table. >> that's part of the compensation. the reason cy vance looked at this twice and decided not to bring this, and it wasn't until alvin bragg that it became a case, was the concern that it would be difficult to show is there there. is it? >> maybe. it is at essence, at root a fraudulent document case. catherine is exactly right. you have to show that the documents were intentionally made to be fraudulent. if you can do all that, and i imagine they can, because i don't think that's the hardest part of the case, then you would show in addition, chris, that the defendant, mr. trump,

intended to commit or conceal some other crime. you don't have to prove that other crime, but you have to show that he intended to conceal or commit it. that other crime, as catherine said, was state and federal election fraud and tax fraud. that's what takes the underlying fraudulent documents case which is a misdemeanor and makes it a felony. by the way, i don't know it's going to be exciting, nor do i think it should be. i think the best prosecutors are methodical and linear and chronological. there's a story to tell. they'll get on that trail and tell the story. >> all right. we're going to take a short break, short break and we'll be right back with more of our special coverage of trump on trial. new york versus donald trump. w p why would i use kayak to compare hundreds of travel sites at once? i like to do things myself. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. kayak... aaaaaaaahhhh

kayak. search one and done. here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com.

oh... stuffed up again? so congested! you need sinex saline from vicks. just sinex, breathe, ahhhh! what is — wow! sinex. breathe. ahhhhhh! you've got xfinity wifi at home. take it on the go with xfinity mobile. customers now get exclusive access to wifi speed up to a gig in millions of locations. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free. that's like getting two unlimited lines for twenty dollars a month each for a year. so, ditch the other guys and switch today. buy one line of unlimited, get one free for a year with xfinity mobile! plus, save even more and get an eligible 5g phone on us! visit xfinitymobile.com today.

welcome back to our special coverage of donald trump's criminal trial here in new york city. i'm chris jansing along with my colleagues katy tur and andrea mitchell. by now we had expected we would be at the opening stages of jury selection. that hasn't happened. in fact, it has president even started. we're in a lunch break for the next half hour or so. there are about 500 jurors who have been called to the courthouse still waiting behind closed doors to undergo questioning. there are more jurors called, as

you know, but some of them actually have other cases that they might be a part of. >> and as they wait, and they've been waiting a while, we saw the first several hours of today's proceedings consumed by a debate over evidence, the judge making decisions about what's in and what's out that did include discussion of some of the mored tory details of donald trump's past as we've been talking about the infamous "access hollywood" tape along with his relationship of playboy playmate karen mcdougal. they also started to dig into the more unanswered questions. how far the judge is willing to go to rein in donald trump's attacks on witnesses like michael cone and stormy daniels. his truth socials, his appearances outside of the courtroom and what he says. >> throughout the hearings, donald trump sat at the defense

table, the same spot we expect for the length of the trial. mr. trump called the trial a, quote, political persecution. we're keeping an eye out. we'll let you know if he says anything else before court resumes. >> i want to bring in msnbc's lisa rubin outside the courthouse. catherine christian is back here and ari melber, host of "the beat" has joined us. lisa, what are we expecting when court resumes? are we going to see questions going to prospective jurors? >> reporter: we are. chris, to your question right now, one of the things we expected is going to happen is not going to unfold the way we expected. originally judge merchan was expected to ask those entering the courtroom to raise their hand if they're unable to serve for any reason and those people were automatically going to be excused. on friday afternoon, todd blanche, one of president trump's lawyers raised the objection that, if he does just

that without any clarification of why somebody is unable to serve, he would essentially be prejudicing former president trump's appellate rights. if you're unable to serve because you're care giving for a newborn or an elderly relative, that's like a reason neutral inability to serve, but then there are also people who are unable to serve because they self--identify as not being able to be fair and impartial. so when we come back, we'll see that question asked in two. are you unable to serve? are there any other reasons why you can't be fair and impartial here? former president trump's folks are hoping that through that they may also get some ammunition to support an appeal about the venue for this trial. remember, they have asked for both a change of venue as well as an adjournment of the trial on the grounds that former president trump cannot get a fair shake here in manhattan

where he's being tried now. >> ari melber, let's talk about getting a fair jury. can donald trump get a fair jury in manhattan? it's overwhelmingly democratic, but there are republicans in this city. there are donald trump supporters in this city. >> look, the challenge you see in any case of a high-profile nature is always about whether people are overly prejudiced of what happened. we don't ever say that means you don't get a trial. el chapo was notorious, al capone is notorious. some people are notorious for different reasons and they're not convicted. i don't mean to say they're the same, but that people heard a lot of things. this process is supposed to weed out people who -- >> how plugged in on everyday new yorkers, everyday people? how into the weeds are they? some of the news stories we're

reporting on daily. >> it's a great question and it goes to a positive of all this. sometimes chuck and others earlier talk about voters who might know less or follow less. they're busy living their lives. sometimes low information voters. that's who you want on a trial like this. you don't want someone who followed this meticulously and knows that karen mcdougal shared a lawyer with stormy daniels. if you know that kind of stuff, you might know too much in the view of these lawyers. the lawyers are going to go through this process. this has happened many times throughout history. they'll execute through all this trying to find people not overly prejudiced by either their strong views they might have or so much information that they could no longer be open-minded. >> one of the assistant d.a.s says we're not expecting to find people who don't already have an opinion of donald trump. >> sure. >> but the question is do you have an opinion about this case? >> we all know because we cover

this. there are people who feel so strongly about any candidate, trump or others, that they say they can't imagine them doing wrong or they think they've already done wrong. those aren't people you want fairly on a jury. again, we are professionals here, and a lot of folks watching are into this. if you're a citizen living your life, you get called in, this is an intimidating scenario. you're told to tell the truth. there are officers of the court there. the. more than ever because of the nature of the trial. my observation when we get to this ro pro ses, a lot of people will be honest. if they're pure resistance or pure maga, they'll be removed. >> that speaks to whether they'll walk in and have a sense of a higher calling. i have to be fair and impartial. can the judge say something in his jury instructions to help get that message through, to make them step outside of themselves and realize what they're doing on this jury serves a bigger purpose? >> he will do it.

most judges do that on every case because there are always people who are like, i don't want to be here, sitting here all day. this is your civic duty. obviously there are people who are caregivers, have a loved one that has an illness and that's all they'll be thinking of. they will be excused. it was good to split the difference between people who, i'm a maga person or i think trump is an existential threat to democracy, get them off. but also get people off who don't get leave from their job. >> whose mind is elsewhere. >> exactly. >> let's talk about what we'll hear at 1:30 when judge merchan returns from the lunch break. we'll hear a ruling on whether or not the gag order has been violated and he's going to impose a fine as the d.a. has requested because of truth social posts even this weekend including calling michael cohen a liar, a witness a liar.

>> this ruling that we might get very soon will matter more for what it says than what it does. in other cases people who violate these sort of things might be held in contempt which means they spend a night or more in jail. i don't think based on what we're seeing that we expect that. what it says, and chuck referred to this in the last hour. there are rules and they will be enforced. the pressure and fines can be ratcheted up. i know we live in a culture where people are cynical or tired of it all. it was this contempt fine process that made donald trump sit for his deposition in the attorney general case. he initially defied. the fines added up and began to stack. in that civil contempt proceeding, he then cooperated. >> lisa, what are some of the things that would automatically disqualify someone? are there easy people that will go away. what about putting somebody on the jury who may have indicated

they weren't crazy about doing this, but maybe it's not a disqualifying reason? >> reporter: chris, there may be people here who are not crazy about being here, but unless they can say they're unable to serve in the first instance for some of the reasons that catherine was talking about, illness or chronic illness is another one, i don't think they'll be let go simply because they're grouchy about being here. oftentimes grouchy jurors turn out to be some of your best jurors. that's not the issue. there are questions that might in and of themselves be disqualifying. the one i come back to, have you ever been a member or are you members of the three percenters or the oath keepers? to the extent they find someone like that, they might exercise a per 'em tory challenge, ten challenges they can give to strike a juror for any reason. i want to come back to what you were just discussing about the

contempt application. the particular procedure that the d.a.'s office is using matters. they're asking the judge to sign an order to show cause i have two teen and tween-age kids. that's like telling your kid, show me why you shouldn't be grounded right now. todd blanche will have an opportunity to submit a brief saying why their client shouldn't be held in contempt. the sanctions is $1,000 for each of three truth social posts, an order to take those down and a warning -- and this is probable the most ominous part -- that if he does it again, the ratcheting up of consequences will occur. in new york for criminal contempt, one of those can be up to 30 days in jail. merchan has written in an order he won't fail to use that if the circumstances dictate as much. >> we're waiting anxiously to hear what he arrives.

when court resumes, we're 19 minutes away, attorneys on both sides will try to winnow a pool of 6,000 jurors down to 18, that would be 12 jurors and six alternates. that's a process they're expecting to take days, potentially a couple of weeks. donald trump has insisted as he's said that he can't get a fair trial in part because he lost manhattan overwhelmingly in the last couple elections. but the process involving that lengthy questionnaire, extesive questioning by attorneys on both sides is specifically designed to make sure he can get a fair trial. >> remember, as chuck rosenberg and other lawyers have told us, the judge is not looking for people who don't know anything about the case. try to find someone who doesn't know anything or have an opinion about donald trump, the goal is to find jurors who can set aside any preconceived notions and deliver a fair and unbiased verdict. i want to bring in jay lee miles

with 40 years of experience working on numerous high-profile trials, michael jackson and robert blake to name a few. she's executive vice president of decision quest. jamie, thank you for being with us today. talk to me about what you as a prosecutor or you as a defense lawyer will be looking for in a potential juror. >> thanks very much for having me. this is fascinating. obviously this is an historic trial. from my perspective and experience, what i'd be concerned about is knowing that at least a third to a half of the venire, the jury panels pretty much made up their mind as to guilt or innocence. however, in my experience when you get to trial and you're now facing a judge, that number dwindles dramatically. maybe only 5% or 10% will actually disclose that they have a bias that they cannot set

aside. one, they want to say the socially desirable thing. it's all about confirmation bias. so this is a very interesting process because my understanding is that they're going to be asked questions in a very transparent way. the jurors in the courtroom will be asked questions orally so everyone can hear them. that's going to be very, very interesting since both sides are looking for agendas, stealth jurors, et cetera. >> as a jury consultant, i'd love if you could explain to us what you do in that courtroom. this is one scenario where it's okay to profile. you'll get answers to those questions. what else are you looking for as the individual jurors are selected? >> you all have touched on so many of the topics already. number one, from a prosecutor's perspective, they've got to be

concerned about this being low level felonies. they're looking for jurors who believe in the justice system, believe the current laws as they exist should be applied and that no one is above the law, not even a former president. they make a case about a fair prosecution of crimes that are serious and that should have consequences. whereas, if i'm on the defense side, i'm very interested in a different slant or approach to the political motivation as to why someone might be on this case. it's not so much about fair prosecution. it's the unfair persecution and distrust in the justice system which unfortunately has really been growing over the last several years, and election interference and looking for people who feel they, too, have been wrongfully excused -- excuse me -- accused. >> are you doing more as well, beyond the words they give in their answers?

are you looking for body movements, reading their body language? are you judging them based on the way they're holding themselves or whether they blink too much, that sort of thing. is there really an art to this? >> there is. the longer you're in the business, the more art you realize there is to doing your job. my first 20 years i probably focused more on the science. my last 20 years has been much more the art of it. you learn what signals to look for, what body language, the non-verbal communication, as you've already pointed out. people will be reacting. potential jurors will be reacting to what other jurors are saying in response to questions by either side as well as by the judge. keep in mind this is always about deselection. in other high profile cases, i have to say it's surprising how many jurors have sent notes to the court to let them know about comments they've heard in the

jury assembly room from other jurors looking to get on for the wrong reasons. >> tattletaling on each other. >> sometimes it happens. >> i wonder when you have the famous folks on trial, the robert blakes, the michael jacksons, how much you watch for the jurors watching them. can opinions already start to form about a defendant just by seeing how they behave, if they're engaged, if they're talking, any kind of movement that you note from a jury trying to assess the defendant? >> it's interesting. it's almost a flip answer to that. what i'm looking for are jurors looking at the defendant, if i'm on the defense side. i'm interested in who can, who wants to, who is studying the defendant, watching their expressions. i think most people who know anything about this trial are

expecting donald trump to display some emotions and make some faces. so i would imagine jurors, especially if they're not wearing masks, you'd be able to see reactions to some of those facial expressions and be looking for the same kinds of, are they in sync, or are they judging? >> ari melber, with someone like donald trump, how intimidating or fascinating or interesting is it to these potential jurors that it is donald trump who is sitting there? >> i think that's a great question. the first ever criminal trial of a former president begins today. that's a factor where we don't have literal precedent on it. this is what i would say. compared to what? compared to your average, boring criminal trial with someone you've never heard of, something you're not that interested in, yes, it's going to hit different. but compared to the murderers and gang members and mafiosos

who have been in and out of new york courtrooms, this is a courtroom that has featured plenty of heavy triems. compared to that, no, it's not the most serious challenge. john gotti was ultimately busted for witness tampering where they would both do the pro and the con. they would try to butter people up illegally and also tried to create an atmosphere of fiscal threat for someone on trial for gang activity, rkt tearing and murder. our system can handle it, these new york jurors can handle it. not unaccustomed to hearing tough talk. yes it's donald trump and yes, we all get that. no, i don't think on the scale of the most serious and violent prosecutions that this courtroom has seen, i don't think this is the most complicated defendant. it will wear off after a few days. it sounds funny to say. if they're picked for the trial and you're in week three, you're looking at the witness box, paying attention like you're supposed to.

again, it's been impressed upon you for the system to do your job and not play around. in my experience, most jurors get with the program. >> if you lie to get on a jury, you can face prosecution yourself. it's a very big deal. we're still in lunch break. j. lee meihls, thank you for joining us. i want to pick your brain more. i want to know what specific movements you look out for. the art of it is endlessly fascinating. >> ari melber, thank you as well. catherine, you're going to stay with us. for more legal analysis, check out our special primetime coverage led by ari melber tonight at 6:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. up next, president biden speaking about what comes next following iran's attack on israel over the weekend. his comments, plus the latest from israel following a meeting with benjamin netanyahu's war cabinet. that's next. stay with us. binet. that's next. stay with us nurtec odt, i found relief.

the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. (vo) if you have graves' disease... talk to a healthcare provider ...and blurry vision, you need clear answers.

people with graves' could also get thyroid eye disease, or t-e-d, which may need a different doctor. find a t-e-d eye specialist at isitted.com. that grimy film on your teeth? dr. g? (♪♪) it's actually the buildup of plaque bacteria which can cause cavities. most toothpastes quit working in minutes. but crest pro-health's antibacterial fluoride protects all day. it stops cavities before they start... crest. here's to getting better with age. here's to beating these two every thursday. help fuel today with boost high protein, complete nutrition you need... ...without the stuff you don't. so, here's to now. boost. hi, i'm michael, i've lost 62 pounds on golo and i have kept it off. so, here's to now. most of the weight that i gained was strictly in my belly which is a sign of insulin resistance. but since golo, that weight has completely gone away, as you can tell. thanks to golo and release, i've got my life and my health back. business. it's not a nine-to-five proposition. it's all day and into the night.

it's all the things that keep this world turning. the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. and check in. they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. see why comcast business powers more small businesses than anyone else. get started for $49.99 a month plus ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. don't wait- call today.

the israeli war cabinet is meeting behind closed doors today discussing how israel will respond to the weekend attack from iranment we're learning israel's response may be imminent according to an israeli official. moments ago in the oval office president biden addressed u.s. support for israel. >> as you know, iran launched unprecedented aerial attack against israel and we unmounted unprecedented military effort to defend israel. together with our partners, we defeated that attack. the united states is committed to israel's security. we're committed to a cease-fire that will bring the hostages home and preventing conflict from spreading beyond what it already has. we're also committed to the security of our personnel and partners in the region, including iraq. >> nbc's raf sanchez is reporting from tel aviv. with us, peter baker, "new york times" chief white house correspondent and nbc news

political correspondent. there's not a good history of prime minister netanyahu taking advice from president biden. president biden made clear to them saturday night in the call at 9:00 our time, after the end of the barrage of missiles and drones that they should take the win, that 99% had been thwarted and had not reached israeli territory. you and i were on a conference call with officials saying that the president made it clear that the u.s. will defend israel but will not join in any retaliation, any offensive operations against iran. >> reporter: the president's priority since october 7th has been to avoid a wider regional war. he wants to contain the crisis to gaza. that's hard enough. he doesn't want it to blow out the entire region. he worries, of course, a continual back and forth between iran and israel could do that.

he, in fact, made the advice he made to the prime minister saying we did such a great job defending the attack. we proved your enemies cannot take you down. that ought to be victory enough. let's move on. you're right. that may not be advice the prime minister takes. it's understandable the pressure he must be under to find a way to retaliate. 30 rockets, missiles and drones fired at israeli territory for the first time from iranian territory. it's quite an attack. even though they were successful in knocking it down, the white house does acknowledge and make the argument that scope of an attack was intended to do damage, not to just be a face-saving gesture. in that sense netanyahu feels pressure to respond. he also, obviously, would prefer to be talking about iran than gaza. on that page he and the president have been closer aligned. ten days ago, 11 days ago, the president threatened the prime minister with consequences if he

doesn't alter the course in gaza. that's not something netanyahu waunts to talk about. >> peter baker, thank you. raf, what are ministers saying about the possibility of retaliation? >> reporter: chris, the israeli war cabinet meeting wrapped up here in tel aviv not long ago. an israeli official tells me that israel's response to that iranian attack may now be imminent. they say the consensus among those keep israeli decision makers inside the war cabinet is that any response needs to come swiftly after the attack, that israel cannot afford to wait weeks and weeks before responding, that it needs to be seen to responding to an attack of this scale quickly. this official says a number of diplomatic and military options were considered during that several hours long meeting of the war cabinet and they say any

response will be coordinated with the americans. as you have been saying, this is not the answer president biden has been looking for. he's been urging prime minister netanyahu to take the win, not to retaliate. it does appear now that there is a consensus, not just from the prime minister but also from more centrist members of the war cabinet, that an attack of this scale, 350 or so missiles and drones cannot go unanswered, and that the response will come soon according to this official. earlier today we saw the chief of staff of the israeli military, israel's top general, visiting that air base down in the southern desert where several of those iranian ballistic missiles did break through causing at least some minimal damage according to the israeli military. that general saying that there will be a response. guys, i'm looking out over one of the main streets here in tel aviv. i can tell you it's actually

fairly quiet, fairly calm at the moment. earlier today the israeli military lifted some of the restrictions that were in place over the weekend for the civilian population, so schools are opening up once again. israel understands that, if it responds, iran may respond again, and it is very possible that we will start to see restrictions going back into place here in israel. >> obviously a lot of concern within the country and without -- without the country that benjamin netanyahu is not necessarily acting in the best interests of the country, but in the best interests of his own political survival and the desires of his right wing cabinet. i know you cover this a lot and have a lot of context and information about it. >> what's extraordinary is that the president of the united states is sitting with the leader from iraq, and one of the batteries that took down one of the incoming -- i'm sorry.

one of the missiles. >> missiles and drones. >> near irbil in iraq. you had jordan, saudi arabia and iraq, which has such a complicated relationship with iran to say the least. if there is retaliation now and it is to the iranian territory rather than something that was symbolic, i compromises a lot of these regional partners. >> iran doesn't have a lot of friends in the region either. we have to keep that in mind as well. do the israelis take the win, as the president would say, or do they escalate and does it become a tit-for-tat. we'll be right back. raf sanchez, thank you very much. in just a moment the trial of donald trump or at least the beginnings of the trial of donald trump will resume. lunch break is about to end. what we know about his defense team and what the former president is acting like as a client. we'll ask one of his former impeachment lawyers right after this. impeachment lawyers right

this at three in the morning. any time of the day. what people don't know is that not all dirt is the same. you need dirt with the right kind of nutrients. look at this new organic soil from miracle-gro. everybody should have it. it worked great for us. this is as good as gold in any garden. if people only knew that it really is about the dirt. you're a dirt nerd. huge dirt nerd. i'm proud of it! [ryan laughs]

donald trump just walked back into the courtroom that's where the former president is putting his fate into the hands of two veteran new york attorneys, todd blanche and susan nichols will be defending the former president working to keep him out of prison. "the washington post" say, quote, people familiar with their work describe them as reputable lawyers who have experience to effectively defend

trump in new york court if their famously combative and fickle client allows them to do their jobs. robert ray is part of donald trump's legal team during his first impeachment trial. thank you for being with us. >> thank you for having me. >> just during this break, they went to break over donald trump violating the gag order. the prosecution wants to fine him $1,000 for three separate posts. he's just posted again about alvin bragg during this break. we all said, really? you didn't flinch at all. why? >> to answer your first question about having highly experienced lawyers and allowing them to do their jobs, i feel for whatever it's worth that the former president, the then president allowed me to represent them before the senate. that's a big part of it. i was very grateful to him for that opportunity. he provided me with a wide berth to allow me to do what i needed

to do to effectively represent him which is what you hope a client will allow you to do. as far as what's going on right now and the pretrial skirmishes, yes, i think you can expect the d.a.'s office to start to lay down markers as they are starting to do about what will be inbounds and what will be out of bounds. there is a certain amount of latitude that is afforded before a trial actually starts to allow donald trump the full exercise of his first amendment rights. but once we get into the trial actually starting and you can decide when that is. when the jury is sworn, you can expect the judge to crack down significantly and to have a very low tolerance level for extra judicial statements that are made out into the media when a jury is starting to sit. right now -- be careful about overreacting too much about what is going on. this is the pretrial skirmish

phase. >> if you're todd blanche or susan nichols and advising donald trump, obviously part of this, it seems, is playing to his base, playing to politics. he's in a campaign. this is who he is. this is what he says. this is what he does. he's painting this as the judicial system coming after him. if you're looking at him, are you giving him boundaries, are you saying you can keep doing this and keep doing that. you're probably going to get a fine here, probably get a warning here. is there a ray of options that the legal team is giving him for him to -- >> if you're a good lawyer, the answer is yes. you're trying to calibrate for your client, you know, being on one side of the line versus really being in trouble. i think they've probably advised him, just what i told you, which is you're going to be afforded a certain amount of latitude given the fact there's an ongoing campaign about what you can do

and what you can say leading up to the trial. and that calibration i think the lawyers are telling the former president will change once the jury is sworn. >> will they warn him that he can go to prison? >> sure, sure. >> will he listen? >> and nobody knows one way or another. i think with regard to high-profile clients, as a lawyer you have to be careful about being too sure you're right. donald trump has a fair amount of experience dealing with this, more than most of the lawyers that will advise him. he's the client. ultimately the client makes the call. all you can do is provide your best legal advice to the client. you hope the client accepts your advice. sometimes you'll even tell a client, i'm not too sure i'm right about this. this is what i think. you're asking me, paying me to render you advise. i know todd blanche very well. he's a very fine lawyer. that's the kind of advice i'm sure he's giving the former president. >> he's somebody for a lot of folks seemed unlikely, a registered democrat, somebody

who had a job at a prestigious manhattan law firm. he's a partner at a law firm. >> right. people don't realize at what price that comes. he had to leave that firm to go out on his own. and on the one hand you can say this is sort of the representation of a lifetime. on the other end, the legal community and given the dynamics in the constituentity of new york and the realities of things, people don't understand the price you pay. >> what is the price you pay? >> the price you pay is everybody is entitled to a legal defense, including the former president of the united states. when the legal community tries to suggest a representation like this is out of bounds, it has consequences to your reputation. >> how big of a gamble is it that donald trump will let him do his job? because different from when you were involved, different than anything donald trump has faced, his civil cases, the stakes here, the consequences potentially for the election are

so much different. >> sure, they are. i think donald trump makes judgments all the time about whether or not the advice he's being given is actually good advice, which is what every client has the right to do. he may be right about some of those judgments. he may be wrong. i think the battlefield is littered with a bunch of attorneys where it's not worked out. >> that's true. >> let's say that. i think there are some that are better than others. i consider todd to be one of those lawyers -- the former president has chosen a very fine trial lawyer which is what he needs right now. >> robert, right now what would you be telling him about going on truth social and during a lunch break posting about the prosecutor or over the weekend about one of the star witnesses against the rules of a gag order? >> is it worth it? >> look, again, he wasn't the one that charged this case that ends up being a trial in the

middle of a presidential campaign. i'm telling you the answer -- >> it wouldn't have been if there weren't so many delays, most coming from the defense side. >> it doesn't matter. >> april 4th a year ago. >> it doesn't matter. it has landed in the middle of a presidential campaign. donald trump's first campaign is campaigning for office. you might want to think the first priority should be what is happening in the courtroom. i'm here to tell you, that's not his first priority. >> his priority is to run for and be elected president of the united states. he has a lawyer whose job it is to make sure he survives this criminal trial. >> that's what i was trying to get at with the first question, that obviously donald trump is going to do this. he's got a political reason to do this. what are the parameters that the lawyers will give him. as you said, they will change as the trial goes on. they'll certainly change once the trial begins. focusing on the attorneys for a second is really interesting. todd branch is a guy who is from

long island. he put himself through law school after he was, i believe, clerking at sdny. he's a grandfather even though he's a young man. he rose from a, working class background, put himself through law school and left this very prestigious law firm to take a gamble, to take a bet on donald trump. when you're talking about the legal community deciding that some people are worthy of representation and some people are not, when it's generally accepted that no matter what you do, you deserve a decent lawyer as a person in this country. lawyers have represented all sorts of people. >> and controversial causes, that the system depends on adequate legal representation. these fights are supposed to happen ultimately inside the

courtroom, and to win or lose, the fact is you're upholding the best traditions of the legal profession. that is worthy of respect. unfortunately in the real world it's not quite that simple. >> sounds like you've experienced this. >> of course. rattling off, i'm a grandfather, too. i did not go to an ivy league law school. i have been part of prestigious law firms. i know the choices that get made about whether or not you stay or remain based upon the clients you have or don't have. there are tough decisions that have to be made. i'd make them the same all over again, but to suggest that they don't come without real life consequences is to put your head in the sand and ignore the realities of life. on balance, i've had a wonderful career and i love what i do, and i've loved the fact i've had opportunities to represent clients, including former president trump. >> robert ray, we could talk to you for a long time. thank you so much.

>> thank you for having me. a pleasure. before, during and after his time in the courthouse this morning, donald trump took to his social media app to go after manhattan d.a. alvin bragg. he also blasted, quote, rad cat left democrats who he says are forcing me to sit in courthouses and spend money that could be used for campaigning. his team is doubling down on efforts to use the trial as a fund-raising opportunity. the trump campaign website today reminding supporters that he's in court right now and making an explicit request. before i step out of the courtroom, i'm calling on 1 million maga patriots to chip in. i want to bring in michael steele, msnbc political analyst. nbc's vaughn hillyard, and catherine christian are back with us. vaughn, let's talk about what's happening in court and maybe how it feeds donald trump's

fund-raising. >> reporter: in just the last few moments, judge merchan, upon returning from the lunch break, he's made it clear that he's not making the determination on whether donald trump violated the gag order. just before they went into their lunch break this afternoon, the prosecution presented to the judge three specific social media posts by donald trump in which they make the case that donald trump violated the gag order by attacking witnesses including michael cohen and stormy daniels. now, upon return into the courtroom, donald trump just walked back in as well, judge merchan ordered april 24th, not this wednesday, but next wednesday at 2:15 p.m. eastern time back at this courthouse a separate hearing to determine whether donald trump violated the gag order. you do the math, that's nine days. so he continues to post. essentially there could be very

well a larger body of evidence over the next nine days presented. the prosecution made it clear they were requesting the judge to not only fine donald trump $1,000 for each of those three posts but also ordering him to remove the posts, but requesting that if donald trump were to violate the gag order again, he would be put into jail. the jury selection process is going to continue in the meanwhile. wednesdays were supposed to be the off date for these teams, where they go in for the trial monday, tuesday, thursday, friday. now the judge ordering a separate hearing to look at potential consequences for donald trump, potential violation of the gag order for this upcoming wednesday. >> catherine was just sort of nodding her head in dismay because she had said earlier that this was the moment for the judge to set down the rules and show who is in charge in that courtroom, and that he should come out tough with the decision that he said he would be making from the bench at 1:30, which he

clearly is not. >> i don't know why there's a week adjournment. this wednesday the court is not in session. i don't know why the judge can make a decision -- he should actually make it today, but why he can't make it by next wednesday. this keeps a whole lot of time for donald trump -- unless that's the judge's plan, to let him keep violating the order. it's perplexing to me that the judge would push this over a week for him to make a decision. >> what's the argument you would make, catherine. what would you have said to say, listen, we need this decided now. >> i would say if i'm the prosecutor, time is of the essence. he's going to keep going after witnesses. first is michael cohen, we can expect it will be stormy daniels. it's perplexing to me that the judge is going to take this long to make a decision. >> i wonder about that, charles. is it just an acknowledgment of the political reality that we're

in, that donald trump is a particular defendant who has particular desires and is campaigning for president right now, and is this maybe just judge merchan going above and beyond to try to give him the space in order to make it appear he's not being politically persecuted? >> i think two things can be true statement, katy. you have to consider you're dealing with donald trump the defendant as well as donald trump the candidate. judge merchan has to tread very carefully because he doesn't want to do something that could somehow create reversible error or something that he could be appealed upon. at the same time, donald trump, and i've been saying this for a very long time, is very much so putting pressure on the refs to make a decision. to catherine's point, at this point, this is the time the judge actually needs to do something. he's baiting every judge he's in

front of to say you're not going to penalize me, because you're too afraid of what you'll have to deal with if you do. if you think about what it is to actually try and put the former president of the united states of america into custody of any sort, it's a logistical nightmare. if you're also responsible for conducting the trial -- in this case we had alvin bragg's office saying sanctions should be $1,000 a day. what if he continues to do it? if he's putting pressure on the refs, if you will, to now put him in custody? now it becomes a huge logistical nightmare and the trial is a more circus-like atmosphere. he's very cognizant of what he's doing. at the same time judge merchan understands, i can't act too quickly or too hastily because i will create a space that's going to allow them to move for an

appeal. >> appeal is the issue he's trying to protect him sglefl he has to protect himself, protect the integrity of the trial and be mindful of the interest of the prosecution. to catherine's point earlier, if i were the one arguing -- in addition to what you said, catherine, i would go on to say at this point because of who he's attacking and the way he's attacking them and the things he's saying, he's creating a situation which is actually prejudicial to my case. it is making it more and more difficult for me to present a case to a jury base unbiased because you're allowing him to discredit witnesses before they take the stand. if you continue to do that, it is causing a degree of that i w able to overcome. those are the types of arguments that i think in this case, in addition to everything that you just said, that may be persuasive to a judge and make him act much more quickly. >> in the meantime, michael, there is an argument to be made

that the other thing that is facing judge merchan here is that he wants to be fair and also have the appearance of fairness even if that's more fair than it might be for any other defendant because, as you well know, michael, donald trump has been extraordinarily successful at messaging witch hunt, this isn't fair. >> i'm trying to wrap my head around the fairness thing. i'm just tired of watching the manipulation, the utter manipulation of our judicial system, and its efforts to be fair to a man who they know is manipulating them. i think his former attorney said it best, donald trump's priority is his campaign. it is not this trial. this is a backdrop, this is a stage. and he whines and he moans and he complains about, you know, being a victim, but he knows.

he knows that all of that is fodder for the political masses, for his base that eats it like chum in the water and for those of us who are not so inclined to his level of crazy to tie ourselves in knots with frustration, of how he manipulates and how he allows the system to be manipulated. i get the fairness argument. i agree with catherine, especially. there's no reason to wait a week. there's no reason to compile more evidence because, since all of these trials began, you have more than enough evidence to know what this man's behavior is and is going to be, and yet not one judge is ready to put his behind in jail or to find him heavily in the moment to make sure he gets the clear message, we run this, not you.

you are in our custody. you are in our system. now, the other side of this, i hope everybody appreciates, is donald trump is taking notes. and should this man become president, trust me, all the people that he has as doj, haul their behinds in front of judges and so forth, they're not going to see the same level of fairness and time and be able to manipulate the system. there will be enormous pressure on doj and particularly some of the judges that we've seen even in this situation, you know, having a soft touch with trump have a harder touch when he's in charge. i'm right now very frustrated with watching and hearing a lot of this because, again, he's getting away with it, and donald trump's bottom line is i will continue to do what i do until you stop me.

and no one has been able to stop him. >> michael, let me ask you to put yourself back in the world of political party leader, though, and watching this from afar, if you saw donald trump behind bars, you know, cuffed or, you know, walked out of that courtroom, his numbers would go sky high, his fundraising would go off the charts. does he have an unlimited amount of people to put money into his pockets and fund his trials? >> let's do it and find out. why are we concerned how much money he makes off a perk walk. if the justice system is doing its justice correctly and

fairly, yeah, those of us in the political space know, yeah, that's a political problem for him, and it's a political opportunity for his opponents. that's the politics of this. but our system shouldn't be beholden, andrea, to concerns about whether or not donald trump raises money and his numbers go up if the system is doing what it's supposed to do. and if he is convicted, then, in my view, all of the entrapments of being a former president should be stripped away. there is no concern about security in a jail cell because then he's a convicted felon, he's not a former president, and so this is the knot that we find ourselves in. yes, this is the first time we have been in this space, and the politics is roiling around it, but we need to understand, the politics should not be dictating a judicial outcome. this judge and the judicial outcome system should be dictating the proper outcome and then the politics will deal with it as politics deals with everything else.

>> let me dive back into the courtroom. they are right now arguing over donald trump's team's failure to produce reciprocal discovery under new york law. the prosecution is arguing that they need those document, they need that material. they keep asking for t and the prosecution or the defense has not given it over. the defense is saying we've got so much documentation to go through ourselves. we don't have the manpower to do it that quickly. merchan has ruled that the defense has 24 hours to hand the material over to the prosecution, and this is where it gets interesting. donald trump is now personally getting involved here. he's pushing todd blanche's lawyer to fight harder about these documents and this compliance saying that they need more time. what do you make of donald trump getting into this, catherine, getting up and telling his or getting into his lawyer's face and telling him that he needs fo

-- to fight hander. >> it's going to be a long trial, in terms o. reciprocal discovery, prosecutors really have more of the burden in new york. the defense are supposed to also turn things over, but the consequence for them not doing it are not as secure as for prosecutors. so this will not be a major issue. >> donald trump has been more active with the defense team. his lawyers, since they have been back from lunch, according to our reporters who are watching, chatting with blanch and boeb, our reporters have not seeing him get into conversations like this today. merchan is now talking about waiting for the jurors. while we wait for the jurors,

and he goes on to discuss something else. it seems like we are still waiting, ladies and gentlemen. >> i'm sorry, i think of tom sandoval. >> it's people v sandoval, if prosecutors are going to prosecute a defendant, before jury selection they have to let the defense and the court know what prior bad acts they tend to cross examine about. you can cross examine about this, that, but you can't about those things. that's typically done before jury selection. >> it's being discussed now in terms of it taking place tomorrow morning, and that's very significant. it's going to impact number one, perhaps the order of witnesses you call because it's how you lay your case out, as well as the extent of the information

that you actually ask abou. this is a significant thing. i'm so glad you brought that up. it has a real impact in terms of how you plan around this trial. >> vaughn hillyard, michael steele, catherine christian, you're going to stay with us. much more of former president trump's historical criminal trial right here right after this break. ical criminal trial right here right after this break wealth-changing question -- are you keeping as much of your investment gains as possible? high taxes can erode returns quickly, so you need a tax-optimized portfolio. at creative planning, our money managers and specialists work together to make sure your portfolio and wealth are managed in a tax-efficient manner. it's what you keep that really matters.

why not give your wealth a second look? book your free meeting today at creativeplanning.com. creative planning -- a richer way to wealth.

welcome back, i'm chris jansing, along with katy tur. after waiting all morning long and several hours into the afternoon, we are moments away from the first round of potential jurors being questioned. our folks who are there say they

are lining the courtroom waiting for the potential jurors to come in. they will go through the same security process all the reporters went through, which means a couple of sets of magnetometers. lawyers will face the extraordinary task of seating an impartial jury, one with little or no preconceived notions not about the former president but about this case. in a process expected to take a week or two, a pool of thousands of potential jurors will be narrowed down to a core of 12, six alternates as well. >> it is the first time a former u.s. president is standing criminal trial and on top of that, mr. trump is in the thick of the campaign to win back the white house, charged with 34

felony counts of falsifying business records ahead of the 2016 presidential election. msnbc's yasmin vossoughian is at the manhattan courthouse, and back with us, catherine christian, and chuck rosenberg, also with us, joyce vance, former u.s. attorney. yasmin, you're there, it looks like the jury process is now finally beginning. >> reporter: yeah, let's walk through some of it, katy, and bring folks up to date on where we are. so when it comes to that gag order, a lot of folks are wondering when they're going to rule on the gag order, april 24th, next wednesday, 2:15 p.m. in which they're going to discuss the gag order. judge merchan wanted to get to the jury selection process. i want to read you just merchan talking to blanche about the 24-hour rule when it comes to

presenting exhibits from the defense. you have 24 hours, listen to the tone of judge merchan. you have 24 hours to file exhibits you'll be using in the case, frivolous or not the defense filed numerous motions on issues that the court had already decided. you have 24 hours, anything not to the people by then will be precluded. period. now we are getting to the jury selection process. finally. right? they got to widdle this group down to 12 jurors. chris jansing as we opened up the last hour talked about the security process they have to go through. now we know why this thing is going to take so long. we have already kind of surpassed, what, five, six hours since this trial got started early this morning. now they're going to have to go through the entire security process, and who knows how many jurors they're going to be choosing from. we know 1,500 jurors, for instance, showed up today. they're going to have to widdle that down to 12 jurors. let me take you through the

process, guys, and some of the questions they're going to be potentially asking. the public will not know the name, supporter of the former president there. the public will not know the name of the potential jurors and/or the jurors who will be chosen to sit in on thing. the lawyers will know. the former president will not know. merchan will ask these potential jurors if there are any scheduling conflicts, reasons in which they cannot show up. if they raise their hand and say they have scheduling conflicts, those jurors, in fact, or potential jurors will be excused. the defense and the prosecution both have to provide for the most part, specific reasons to the judge as to why they want to exclude certain jurors. they do have a number of times in which they can just go ahead and excuse a juror for no reason. just a certain number of times. otherwise they're going to have to have specific reasons as to why they want to excuse those jurors. by the way, if you remember back to the last time there was a

jury involves in the e. jean carroll defamation case, donald trump was acutely involved in choosing the potential jurors, conversing with his legal team, sussing out the jurors, making eye contact, looking them up and down. we're going to look for that as well. we have heard that happening in the courtroom, as they had this dispute over the 24-hour period in which the defense had to present exhibits. one more thing is that judge merchan mentioned how he's worried about taking any one juror into chambers to talk further about a certain situation. the reason being is judge merchan is worried about intimidation. i'm sure your attorneys can talk about this on the panel. think about who this potential juror would be sitting in a room with, the former president of the united states, his attorneys, the people, right, so

you got the prosecution, and secret service, by the way, so seven potential people just from the defense, and this is something that judge juan merchan brought up, as we are leading up to this jury selection process, guys. >> and, chuck, pick up on that. how intimidating is this for a potential juror? you're an average citizen. you have been waiting all morning. you finally get a chance to answer some of these questions that are being asked, and you're facing this array, including donald j. trump. >> i don't know that there's a one size fits all answer. some jurors will be very intimidated. some will be nervous, some will be enthralled. i think it will run the gamut. what you want to find at the end of the day is not people who are intimidated or enthralled. you want to find people who can be fair. this process, though it's more cumbersome than ones i'm used to, roughly mimics ones i'm used to it. here at the end of the day, looking for people who can be

fair. so i understand it's the right call. someone says they can't serve, he's going to release themment i don't know -- release them. i don't know that that's a huge conception. if someone said they can't serve, the judge would question them further, and 98% of the time, day released them anyway. >> let me ask you, catherine, about what's going on in the courtroom as they're waiting for jurors to come through security to get in there and pick up on what yasmin said about how animated and involved donald trump can get. just in the last couple of minutes, trump and todd blanche, his main lawyer have been conversing intently with trump waving his right hand and leaning over and whispering in blanche's ear, trump spread his hands out and continued to make lots of hand gestures as they wait for the jurors, and then trump and blanche continuing to converse, blanche waves him off and they could hear him saying,

no, no, trump seems to be pointing directly at the prosecution table as he speaks with blanche. i assume, as a defense lawyer you want a level of engagement from your client. do you want this level of engagement from your client? >> no, and obviously we're not there, but if his lawyer is saying to him, no, no, i'm wondering, no, no, leave me alone or no, no, that's wrong. and you don't want, and i'm sure the judge is watching this. you don't when the jury is there, the client, the defendant doing that. the judge will then stop the proceedings, have the jury leave the room, and then will have to admonish the defendant. and hopefully the judge will admonish the defendant the way he would every other defendant and forget that this person is the former president of the united states, so it's going to be a problem if trump continues to do that when the jury has been selected. >> we ask this a lot. is this the ideal client for any

attorney. would you want your client to be doing that? these attorneys know what they're getting into. they know who their client is. because a long history in the courtroom is a long history and a lot of evidence about what he'll listen to and won't listen to. todd blanche, susan necheles had to have a clear idea of what donald trump would be like as a defendant? >> there's little or no doubt that trump lacks the self-control to behave throughout this trial. i don't think that comes as any surprise to any of his lawyers. they're obviously willing to deal with that for the prospect of representing a former president. the reality that this judge faces is that whether it's on a gag order violation, whether it's misbehavior during jury selection, whether trump can't restrain himself during the

trial, there will inevitably come a point in this case that the judge will have to intervene. to the point that chuck was making a moment ago about voir dire, about jury selection and whether or not the judge will short circuit the process a little bit by excusing jurors who say that they have a conflict a lot of what we're seeing right now doesn't have an impact perhaps on the trial itself but trump's lawyers are beginning to build a case for appeal. so whether they're looking at the jury selection process and thinking about making an argument down the road that somehow jurors who would have been good for them were excluded by the way the judge conducted this jury selection process, and they'll argue that on appeal if their client is convicted. or whether they're going to attack the way the judge ultimately holds trump accountable, if he acts out in court. all of this goes into defense strategy and thinking about their ultimate goal, which is to prevent their client from going

to prison at the end of the case. >> worth mentioning again, chuck, the enormity of what we're seeing, the history being made right now. the first ever former president going into the first criminal trial that we have ever seen, and you can only imagine the pressure that's on prosecutors, the pressure that's on the defense teams. donald trump may feel some pressure. what we haven't talked about are the jurors. merchan is off the bench right now. they're waiting for the first group, 96 potential jurors are going in. they're going to make their way into the courtroom pews. can you just talk a little bit about the burden that these 12 jurors and six alternates are going to carry through this process? and i wonder how much of that is going through their minds as these questions begin. >> great questions. so i think all jurors in all cases carry a burden. but to your point, chris, this is -- >> the world is watching. >> the world is watching, and

here's an overused word, which is actually applicable here, this is unique, and that won't be lost on the jurors. judge merchan did something that i think is wise. while the lawyers will know the names of the jurors, the names of the jurors aren't being made public. and that's got to help. i think any juror, whether you're a fan of mr. trump or you don't think very highly of mr. trump understand that there's perhaps some risk involved here. and so judge merchan was smart to address that early, and to protect those names from becoming public. that doesn't mean a leak couldn't happen, but i think he's setting it up the right way. will the jurors being feeling the pressure. if you have a jury of 12 men and women that are fair and get this right. they're paying close attention and they're going to feel it. >> chuck, how difficult would it

be for judge merchan to hold him to the rules of the gag order? how challenging would that be for this judge at this point in the trial? >> i agree with something catherine said earlier. you can't treat mr. trump differently. he's not above the law. he's not below the law. if he's going to issue a gag order, and he's going to violate the gag order, then you have to hold him in contempt, punish him in some way. you can't have empty orders being issued by the judge. >> do you think he should be waiting nine days before or however many days until wednesday the 24th, before he argues this? >> i don't. because bad things can happen in the interim. again, and catherine's probably sick of hearing me saying this, but joyce perhaps is not, i bring my federal sensibilities

to this case, where i think something like this would be addressed with dispatch, and to your point, if you are violating a gag order and potentially putting witnesses at risk, i think that's something you do yesterday, not nine days from now. >> joyce, i'm also interested in talking about how this trial got underway in the first place. we first learned about this payment scheme many years ago, and the indictment named michael cohen as the person who paid, and individual 1 was the person who paid back michael cohen. we know that individual 1 was donald trump. this was a federal indictment. why didn't the feds bring charges against individual 1? do we have any clear idea about that yet? >> you know, we don't know for certain, katy. the feds aren't talking, nor should they be. it's a case they cleared defined to prosecute. the southern district of new york didn't try this case

because they weren't able to get all the testimony and evidence needed to put it on. their problem might have looked something like this. michael cohen who's a key witness in this case was not someone the southern district could use as a cooperating witness because they have different rules for most prosecutors' offices that require a witness and a defendant, in order to become a cooperating witness, they have to reveal all of the criminal conduct that they know of. often in the southern district of new york, they will make those cooperating codefendants plead to old cases. there's notorious examples in mafia cases. here cohen apparently wasn't willing to testify against family members, perhaps. that could be the fly in the ointment and at the end of the day, when they evaluated their evidence, they would have said without cohen, they couldn't make the case. that was apparently something that was not communicated to the

district attorney in manhattan. when they realized that was afoot, this indictment was the result. there's nothing wrong with that, by the way, so long as the indictment is brought within the statute of limitations, prosecutors are entitled to do this. trump will try to make hay if the judge will let him out of the fact that the southern district of new york didn't prosecute him. but really, there's very limited relevance to any of this evidence. the facts are very simple, the district attorney here chose to indict donald trump, a grand jury believed there was probable cause, here we are. >> yasmin vossoughian, we're coming up against a pretty hard wall. i hear you have news about the jury questionnaire. >> reporter: i just wanted to kind of remind folks what we're looking at with 96 jurors about to enter the room, when it comes to the juror questionnaire. early in the day, there was a moment in which they brought question 29b, have you ever attended a rally or campaign

event for donald trump, wanting that struck from the questionnaire, but judge merchan said, listen, we have dealt with this question. that's not an issue. at that point, they said this jury questionnaire is what we're moving forward with. to remind folks what these potential jurors will hear, where do you get your news from, "new york times," usa today, msnbc, cnn, so forth, have you or a close friend worked for a trump presidential campaign, the trump administration. i think the next question is interesting because i remember during the jury selection process in the e. jean carroll defamation case, this question was asked, which was do you currently follow donald trump on any social media site, when we're talking about intimidation of these potential jurors, there was a moment in that last selection process in which donald trump turned around to look at the juror that said, yes, in fact, i do follow the former president of the united states on social media. so, again, you can imagine how

it would feel for someone who could potentially be sitting on this jury, and facing down the former president of the united states. taking that all into mind as we look ahead to this jury selection process. >> yasmin vossoughian, thank you very much. catherine and chuck, you're sticking around, joyce vance, thank you as well. still ahead, what's the significance of the hush money case against donald trump being the first of four criminal cases brought against him. our legal experts are standing by. by

choosing a treatment 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 treatment. so far, more than 5 million botox® treatments have been given to over eight hundred and fifty thousand chronic migraine patients. effects of botox® may spread hours to weeks after injection causing serious symptoms. alert your doctor right away, as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. don't receive botox® if there's a skin infection. tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. in a survey, 92% of current users said they wish they'd talked to their doctor and started botox® sooner. so, ask your doctor if botox® is right for you. learn how abbvie could help you save on botox®. you're probably not easily persuaded to switch

mobile providers for your business. but what if we told you it's possible that comcast business mobile can save you up to 75% a year on your wireless bill versus the big three carriers? you can get two unlimited lines for just $30 each a month. all on the most reliable 5g mobile network—nationwide. wireless that works for you. for a limited time, ask how to save up to $830 off an eligible 5g phone when you switch to comcast business mobile. don't wait! call, click or visit an xfinity store today.

nothing dims my light like a migraine. with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using. most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer.

the first trial of former president donald trump brought by manhattan d.a. alvin bragg is being described as made for the screen. trump's allies say that's a good thing. florida congressman matt gaetz said that to nbc news, quote, i love that bragg is going first. calling this case compared to other trial, the most frivolous factually, and tortured legally. joining us is chuck rosenberg, and host of the bullwork podcast, tim miller. catherine, to you, you know the ins and outs of financial crime, he campaigned on the idea that he could take on donald trump. was this the right way to go? we know that cy vance, his predecessor decided not to prosecute. >> it's not a frivolous case.

especially if you're trying a case that's not a homicide or a threat. this case is serious to the people of new york and serious to the defendant. i can't say with a straight face that this is as serious as the classified documents indictment, but it's a serious case. >> i wonder what you make of what matt gaetz and others in trump world said, they think this is a major win for trump, the hush money case is the first to go to trial, that i guess, if nothing else, if the perception is right that it's the least serious, certainly in terms of consequences, potential consequences, arguably, it is. or are they trying to make the best of a terrible situation? >> maybe a little of both, and i guess it is the best case scenario, if your presidential nominee has been indicted in four different jurisdictions that the least brave of the four cases, the least serious of the charges is the one that goes first. i guess that's better, it's

better to be in trial for this than to be in trial for insurrection or for stealing classified documents. then it's probably better to not be on trial at all, i think it's pretty safe to say. 34 felony counts and, so i think they're trying to make the best of a bad political situation. you said today, for example, maggie haberman reporting that he keeps dropping his head down and his mouth goes slack. the candidate for president could be doing something else today besides dozing off in a courtroom while he's under trial, and they're trying to decide what jurors will decide his fate, and i think that as compared to being able to run a normal campaign, this is certainly hurting former president trump. >> politics obviously seeps into everything, tim, and donald trump can go after the d.a., he can go after the judge, and he can go after them politically speaking as well because of just the politics involved in getting elected for a judgeship, getting elected to be d.a.

does that work to his advantage? >> i mean, again, all of this is a little bit of a mixed bag. trump is always better when he's attacking, right, so, you know, this allows him to do the buddy fights thing that a lot of his base likes. i defer to the legal experts on that side of things. it's not great to attack the judge's child, and it's also not exactly like a 2016 campaign that you covered so closely, katy. obviously there was some trump narcissism elements to that of course. a lot of the things he was fighting about is how democrats, the party was hurting regular people, and this year it's all about how trump feels like how these forces are hurting him personally. and i do think that he's lost the plot in a lot of ways on a message that resonated with, you know, not a majority of the country, since he lost the popular vote, but with enough people to win with hillary clinton. >> let me go back into the

document, which is, again, to let you know that we have people who are there on site. this obviously is not televised. we can't hear it, but they can report in realtime what is happening. chuck rosenberg, judge merchan is back on the bench, he says, i'm told we have 96 jurors ready to come in, and they're handing out copies of sheets of testimony, 200 jurors actually physically here today it says. in any case, what happens now? it looks like finally, what we have been waiting for since just after breakfast this morning. >> this is the beginning of the beginning of jury selection. the first group of potential jurors are apparently in the courtroom. now they will begin to be questioned more specifically about their questionnaires, their backgrounds, their education, where they get their news, things like that. over time as this group is

whittled down to 12 jurors, and half a dozen alternates or so, there's going to be a series of challenges brought against their ability to serve. both sides can challenge juries for cause. meaning, you're simply not qualified here. you have a predisposition or you want too badly to be on this jury. you're a trump supporter or you're a trump hater. and a number will be struck for cause, and both sides get ten preemptory challenges, meaning that they can throw off a jury for any reason at all. don't like the way you came dressed to court today, chris. don't like your glasses. don't like that you work for msnbc. whatever it may be. >> the third one may be the most likely, to get knocked off. >> can i ask granular detail about how this works. how many batches come in, and how long does it take to question an individual juror? how long is like the average of

the lawyers getting in, going back and forth and saying keep or strike? >> i would ask catherine that because we didn't do individual questioning. >> federal court. so this is different because there's a 42 question questionnaire. what the judge is going to do is put 18 people, we call it, in the box. and each one is going to be handed this questionnaire and they're going to be seated, so, one, two, three, four, five, and the way these instructions read is that the juror is supposed to read the question to himself or herself and then answer the questions. what i'm hoping the judge will do is say, prospective juror number one, without telling us your address, where do you live. why? because there's some people who can't read, who can't read well, who didn't bring their reading glasses. you're now going to be embarrassing them as they go like this. i find other judges with questionnaire, they read it, and

it will make the question go fast. but it will be 42 questions. >> the batches where they put them into the boxes -- >> each one has to answer all 42 questions. >> say you get to question 3 and the answer is not great. can that juror be dismissed earlier than all 42 questions being asked? >> the lawyers don't ask questions until after the judge goes through. >> can the judge decide i don't think you'll be right for this. >> if you have someone who happens, no hablo ingles. >> or if i say i'm katy tur and i'm an msnbc anchor. on a case like this, the judge is going to say thank you very much, good-bye, otherwise we'll be here forever. so that's what judge will do. if it's so clear someone is just like, don't want to be here. anyone who self-identifies is going to be good-bye. and the judge has a lot of discretion to do that. so the defense may be saying we

want to do this appeal. we want to do it this way. the judge in the letter to the defense attorney cited all of the appellate cases that allow the judge to run jury selection the way the judge wants to run it. as long as it's legal and fair. >> can he start with a big picture question, and again, this is based on my experience, the potential trial that i was going to serve on was an assault trial. has anyone among you been the victim of an assault or close to someone who is the victim of an assault. the people who raise their hand, he said to them, then, does that influence your ability to be fair and impartial against someone who is accused of assault. are there those big picture questions? >> preliminary, all of that. sex cases, does anyone have a problem with this being a sex case. the person maybe be a sexual assault victim. he will do that preliminary, and then start with the granular 42

question questionnaire, which has a bunch of sub parts. >> i want to bring in vaughn hillyard, outside the courthouse, and senior policy adviser and communications director for the new york attorney general from 2016 to 2019. amy spittlenick, a former colleague of district attorney braggs because you've worked with him. let me ask you what he's like as a person, as a prosecutor? there are, as you know, a lot of folks who questioned whether or not he brought this case simply because he ran on it, but would he have brought it if he didn't have a high degree of confidence he could win? >> look, there's no one who's more committed to the rule of law and following the facts wherever they lead is alvin bragg. he is smart, he is methodical, and an incredibly cautious attorney. he never would have brought a case if he didn't think it was rooted entirely in facts. he is not a political person. this is the first time he's ever

run for office. and so the fact that it is alvin bragg, of all possible prosecutors who could have brought this case, actually, i think, makes it an even stronger case. >> the jurors are coming in, according to our reporters who are watching the courtroom. the monitor is off because, again, the jurors, their identities are going to be kept private so they can remain safe. i think reading into the background of alvin bragg, what he was like in law school, harvard, middle school, he was the guy that would bring opposing groups together. he would organize events, basketball games, whatever, he was a conciliator. so many close to him were surprised that he would get into politics, that he would be the one running for office because he never put forward that type of energy. did it surprise you? >> i don't think it surprised me. i think it was the natural place for him to continue his passion,

which is serving people of new york and making sure that everyone, no matter who they are, is held to account. and so we worked together in the attorney general's office during one of the most challenging moments in the office, when state ags were on the front lines of protecting the civil rights, human rights, fundamental right of people across the country. alvin was at the center of so many of those cases, from environmental rollbacks, housing, the muslim ban, in addition to, for example, the trump foundation case. this is not the first time a former president is being held accountable in court for fraud. and so he over and over and over again throughout the course of our time working together, demonstrated a level headedness, a commitment to the rule of law, the facts in these cases that when the opportunity to run for manhattan d.a. came up, i think many of us were surprised to see

him run for office, but in terms of the specific office and his ability to step into a role where he could actually pursue the rule of law, seek the accountability that he has been committed to, it makes total sense. >> catherine, we at one point know under cy vance, it was decided not to prosecute the case. how surprised are you about this decision? >> i'm not surprised. different d.a., a book written by someone d.a. vance had brought in to help investigate donald trump. and different d.a., different decision. and he spent more time, i'm talking about d.a. bragg, investigating this. >> is this a novel theory, though? >> it is a novel theory. i was telling chuck earlier that, you know, i saw a lot of falsifying business records indictments, but they always had

grand larceny on it or tax fraud on it. they always had another crime on the indictment, and that was the crime that the defendant intended to commit or conceal. >> 35 minutes past the hour, and the clerk is saying, prospective jurors, please stand and raise your right hand, do you solemnly swear, let's go to the courthouse. vaughn hillyard is standing by. what's happening, vaughn? >> reporter: it's a version of hunger games in lower manhattan. this is a moment here where new yorkers are coming into this courtroom and could potentially be serving anywhere from the next six to eight weeks on making the determination on whether the former president of the united states is guilty of multiple felony charges but also potentially the future president of the united states. we're looking at the fact that an individual could be sentenced to prison time in the heart of the summer around the republican national convention here. really putting the prospects of this race in clear focus. one thing i wanted to mention,

while the jury selection process here begins, though, is the mention just a bit about about the sandoval hearing. catherine was beginning to explain it, and tomorrow morning, when folks wake up for day two of the trial, at 9:30 a.m., a sandoval hearing will commence. what is the sandoval hearing. this came at the request of the district attorney's office to present evidence from previous trials, including, for instance, the e. jean carroll trial, and for instance, the civil fraud trial in which they would be able to bring forward to the jury, the fact that donald trump's credibility should be questioned because he had been found to have not only defamed somebody but lied in multiple instances, lied in order to further his business ventures, and so what tomorrow morning will ultimately detail is the defense of donald trump from todd blanche who stated in the letter on march 10th, that they believe these other

determinations, 13 other determinations that the d.a.'s office would like to bring forward to the jury should be precluded from being brought forward as evidence. that hearing tomorrow morning should be major here while this jury selection process begins, and we're looking at potentially day two of jury selection being slightly stunted for that other hearing. >> chuck, how do the prosecutors make the case that this isn't just about keeping an affair, you know, private from your wife and from the public? >> sure. if you're talking about in the court of public opinion, i'm not sure they make the case, and i'm not sure it matters. some people will believe it's only about that, and some people will understand it's about much more than that. in the courtroom, i think it's easy. if you have a fair jury, and you're putting in your evidence in a thoughtful, methodical, linear fashion, as prosecutors should be doing, nonhyperbolic, it will become pretty clear it's about false documents and false

documents with the intent of concealing other crimes. >> and judge merchan has kept out a lot of the other relationships and the fact that his wife was pregnant. >> so for those who want to denigrate the case, they'll say it's just about keeping an affair quiet. that's not true. it's about much more than that. >> and the fact that it is about much more than that, merchan, the judge, reading his introduction to jurors, he says it's going to take 30 minutes. he introduced himself. he's introducing the lawyers, and now he has become to read the 34 counts of falsifying business records. so only about 28 minutes more for the judge's instruction or introduction to the jury. vaughn hillyard, amy spitalnick, thank you both very much. coming up, the witnesses, who's in, who's out, everything you need to know about the potential key players and what they bring to the table. they br.

and we'll come to you to fix it. >> tech vo: this customer was enjoying her morning walk. we texted her when we were on our way. and she could track us and see exactly when we'd arrive. >> woman: i have a few more minutes. let's go! >> tech vo: we came to her with service that fit her schedule. >> woman: you must be pascal. >> tech: nice to meet you. >> tech vo: we got right to work, with a replacement she could trust. we come to you for free! schedule now for free mobile service at safelite.com. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ feeling sluggish or weighed down? could be a sign that your digestive system isn't at its best. but a little metamucil everyday can help. metamucil's psyllium fiber gels to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down... so you can lighten every day the metamucil way. only purple's gel flex grid passes the raw egg test. no other mattress cradles your body and simultaneously supports your spine. memory foam doesn't come close. get your best sleep guaranteed right now! save up to $400. visit purple.com or a store near you. - ugh. - cabin crew cross check.

that yellow's not gonna fly. - buckle up! - whoa! ♪ reality checkup ♪ there's toothpaste white, and there's crest 3dwhitestrips white. whitens like a $400 professional treatment. [pilot] prepare for non-stop smiles. crest. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. here you go. is there anyway to get a better price on this? have you checked singlecare? before i pick up my prescription at the pharmacy, i always check the singlecare price. it's quick, easy, and totally free to use. singlecare can literally beat my insurance copay. go to singlecare.com and start saving today.

hi, i'm kim, and i lost 67 pounds on golo. beat my insurance copay.

when i was diagnosed with breast cancer, food became my comfort. i didn't think i looked pretty anymore, so i let myself go. i've seen the golo commercials for a while. what stuck out to me most was there was no celebrity endorser. the testimonials were from real people. what cancer took from me, golo gave back. (uplifting music) a former playboy play mate of the year, an adult film actress, donald trump's former right-hand man. those are just a few of the cast of potential witnesses the prosecution could call to the stand to build this case in front of a jury being selected as we speak. so, what piece of the puzzle could each of their testimony fill in? i want to bring in former brooklyn prosecutor and msnbc legal analyst, charles coleman,

great to have you here. let's start with stormy daniels, she is the woman at the center of this. she has said she is ready. >> you don't have a case if you don't have stormy daniels. she is arguably the most important person that they're going to hear from. when you're thinking about the jury. and as a prosecutor, your job is to tell a story. and you have to sell a story to the jury that's being picked right now as we speak. stormy daniels is an example of a witness, in fact, being central to the case, but also helping to give context to the actual story. i expect to hear from her earlier than late, in terms of the prosecution and their case in chief. primarily because with respect to the documents, those things are going to bore you. they're not going to engage the jury. you will see the prosecution put them on. stormy daniels is going to immediately give you a flavor for what the case is about. it's going to draw the jury in. it's going to actually be a little sensational if we're being honest about it.

you're talking about the president and the play mate, and this is the play mate. but ultimately, without her, you don't have a carry, and so she's going to lay the foundation for what donald trump actually did. >> so $130,000 in hush money. then if you go to karen mcdougal, another case of a woman who claims she had nearly a year-long affair with the former president also says she got a payoff. >> i actually if i was prosecuting the case start with mcdougal. she's going to help tell the story. she's going to give the jury a sense of what is actually happening but it's not necessarily your star witness so you still have a lead up and a build up, which is what you would wait to have stormy daniels testify for. she's also someone who is going to basically help corroborate not only ms. daniels' story but the overall theme that the prosecution is attempting to advance in front of the jury to say, look, this is what donald trump and his group of folks

were doing. it was a catch and kill situation, and this is why she's an important witness, to establish this pattern and corroborate the testimony of the other witnesses as well. then you have michael cohen, the man being called the star witness, the guy who says he's going to lay out exactly what happened, what was going on behind the scenes. the defense will say he's a liar. somebody who's experienced in court will say it's hard to find a criminal case where there isn't someone who maybe has a past that isn't lily white, but here we go. michael cohen, is he positive or negative if you're prosecutor alvin bragg. >> if you're a prosecutor, michael was negative, became positive, and became negative again. when you start out with michael cohen, he has a lot of credibility issues, you know he's gone to jail for lying, which is something you can't necessarily get worse in terms of someone you want your jury to

believe. he began to rehabilitate himself. you have documents that you can use to corroborate what he's saying, in terms of establishing that he's telling the truth and his testimony is viable. but, he has been on a media tour that has sort of damaged that as well because he's come across in many respects like he has an ax to grind. that's something i expect the defense is going to lean into quite heavily in terms of the things he said in television interviews and on podcasts. he went from being negative to positive to negative again. it's something that i think the prosecution can overcome if they use the corroborating evidence that they have to support his testimony. >> the evidence shows the "national enquirer" regularly did catch and kill. there were relationships between this man, david pecker, celebrities, people like donald trump who he is apparently going to acknowledge he wanted to squash this story as one former employee said, he knows where the bodies are buried. >> he does, and this is why he's

an important witness. the question will be, can the prosecution, to whatever extent they're able to, elicit why, particularly in the case of stormy daniels. that is a part of alvin bragg's case. it's not necessarily essentially to his burden of proof. the charges do not require that alvin bragg establish the purpose of the catch and kill in this instance was connected to access hollywood. it's the story they're selling but it's not required by law. yes, you're absolutely right. this is someone who's going to really get into the details for the prosecution in terms of exactly what was the purpose for this. the question will become, in this instance, as it relates to stephanie clifford, aka, stormy daniels, was it about the "access hollywood" case and avoiding the fallout for the election. >> great to have you here in the studio. >> thanks, chris, thanks,

charles. >> catherine, you formally prosecuted crimes, how does this compare, and how would you be proceeding in playing out the evidence. >> putting aside the porn star and playboy model, what's novel about this case is usually you don't see the charge falsifying business records as a stand alone charge, meaning there's usually grand larceny or tax fraud. that's the other crime they intended to commit or conceal. that's different in here. other than that, it's pretty standard. you have each count for each false entry. there were 34 false entries, a check, a ledger, entry or an invoice. the jury has to look at and evaluate when they go back to deliberations, every single count. it's possible they could say not guilty on the checks but guilty on the ledger and the invoices. >> how much of this is going to rely on michael cohen saying that he told donald trump what this was for, and donald trump agreed to pay him back. i mean, i don't believe the prosecution has it in writing

anywhere that donald trump knew specifically what this was for. michael cohen is testifying that donald trump knew, and when you look at the paperwork, it says services rendered. the paybacks to michael cohen. is it going to matter there's not a paper document or digital document that confirms that donald trump knew what the hush money was for. >> you almost never have the agreement reduced to writing. >> i hereby declare that i'm a part of the conspiracy. >> hey, katy, let's you and i go defraud the irs, and you both sign it. i'm being nice as a prosecutor if you did, but you don't. so how important a witness is michael cohen? he's important. he comes with a ton of baggage, but, look, first of all, prosecutors are used to dealing with witnesses who come with a ton of baggage. second. what they will do is draw the line, every bad thing about michael cohen, will be induced by the prosecutors.

they're going to tell the jury so that the jury is hearing it from the government and not the defense on cross. that's a tried and true technique. and then, to your point, yes, absolutely, katy, some of the intent evidence will come from cohen. this case doesn't simply turn on michael cohen, there's a lot more to it. >> aren't there corroborating witnesses? we have hope hicks and others who may have, in fact, seen what's going on in the oval office? >> there has to be because in 30 years, i had witnesses with a lot of baggage and criminal records, but not one had a conviction for lying, not one had a federal judge just three weeks ago call him a liar. not one went on a tour showing his bias and hostility against the main defendant, so the prosecutors need witnesses to corroborate him and documents to corroborate him. >> david pecker, keith davidson, hope hicks, potentially others, compared this to the season finale of "seinfeld" we're going

to see all of these players come back. or "curb your enthusiasm," the other major story we're following with massive global implications. what we're hearing inside the white house about iran's missile attack and where it might go from here. that's next. from here. that's next. oh, yeah, man. take it from your inner child. what you really need in life is some freakin' torque. what? the dodge hornet r/t... the totally torqued-out crossover. ethan! how's my favorite client? great! i started using schwab investing themes, so now i can easily invest in trends... like wearable tech. trends? all that research. sounds exhausting! nope. schwab's technology does the work. so if i spot an opportunity, in robotics or pets,

i can buy those stocks ina few clicks. can't be that easy. it is with schwab! schwaaab! schwab investing themes. 40 customizable themes. up to 25 stocks in justa few clicks. we all need fiber for our digestive health, but less than 10% of us get enough each day. good thing metamucil gummies are an easy way to get prebiotic, plant-based fiber. with the same amount of fiber as 2 cups of broccoli. metamucil gummies the easy way to get your daily fiber. (man) mm, hey, honey. metamucil gummies looks like my to-do list grew. "paint the bathroom, give baxter a bath, get life insurance," hm. i have a few minutes. i can do that now.

oh, that fast? remember that colonial penn ad? i called and i got information. they sent the simple form i need to apply. all i do is fill it out and send it back. well, that sounds too easy! (man) give a little information, check a few boxes, sign my name, done. they don't ask about your health? (man) no health questions. -physical exam? -don't need one. it's colonial penn guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance. if you're between the ages of 50 and 85, your acceptance is guaranteed in most states, even if you're not in the best health. options start at $9.95 a month, 35 cents a day. once insured, your rate will never increase. a lifetime rate lock guarantees it. keep in mind, this is lifetime protection. as long as you pay your premiums, it's yours to keep. call for more information and the simple form you need to apply today. there's no obligation, and you'll receive a free beneficiary planner just for calling.

how will israel respond to the unprecedented retaliatory attack from iran against israeli territory. that's the question before israel's war cabinet as it met behind closed doors today. a growing chorus of world leaders are urging restraint, including the u.n. secretary general, who urged both sides to step back from all out war. those appeals for restraint coming from activists in the u.s. pro-palestinian protesters shutting down the golden gate bridge in san francisco today, demanding a cease fire in gaza. nbc's allie raffa is in washington. what about the president's

appeal saturday night to prime minister netanyahu? was that falling on deaf ears? >> reporter: yeah, andrea, well, it's a great question, especially when you think of the backdrop that israel's deliberations come against. we know that u.s. officials have asked their israeli counter parts not only for a heads up before starting any sort of retaliation against iran for the strike over the weekend, but also a say in what decision is eventually made. and now as we hear that the israeli war cabinet's meeting has wrapped up, and they have come to a decision, that question of whether the united states has received that information is even more consequential, and that is something that the national security spokesperson john kirby was asked about in today's white house press briefing a short time ago. listen here. >> you said there will be a response to the attack in iran, so does the u.s. have any indication of what those next steps are from israel? >> we will let the israelis

speak to that. >> does the u.s. expect to be consulted in advance? >> i won't get into our diplomatic conversations or expectations. the israeli government will determine for themselves if there's going to be a response and what that response is going to look like. >> reporter: the white house in the meantime, while we wait to see if that information has been received, doing really what it sees as the most it can do, which is to both publicly and privately urge the israelis to exercise restraint and deescalation, trying to do what it's been doing since this conflict began on october 7th, in trying to prevent this from widening into a deeper conflict, trying to prevent the u.s. from being dragged deeper into it. >> allie raffa, thank you very much, and coming up after a quick break, we're going to get into this jury selection. we've got a new document from what's happening inside the courtroom including a verdict of what judge merchan is specifically instructing these

potential jurors. and who he's asking them if they know or have an opinion of. this is a lot longer than donald trump. do not go anywhere. ump. do not go anywhere (vo) if you have graves' disease, your eye symptoms could mean something more. that gritty feeling can't be brushed away. even a little blurry vision can distort things. and something serious may be behind those itchy eyes. up to 50% of people with graves' could develop a different condition called thyroid eye disease, which should be treated by a different doctor. see an expert. find a t-e-d eye specialist at isitted.com 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. ♪ liberty liberty liberty liberty ♪ in theaters now. ♪♪ imagine a future where plastic is not wasted... but instead remade over and over...

into the things that keep our food fresher, our families safer, and our planet cleaner. to help us get there, america's plastic makers are investing billions of dollars to create innovative products and new recycling technologies for sustainable change. because when you push for smarter solutions, big things can happen. my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. nothing dims my light like a migraine. with nurtec odt, i found relief. the only migraine medication that helps treat and prevent, all in one. to those with migraine, i see you. for the acute treatment of migraine with or without aura and the preventive treatment of episodic migraine in adults. don't take if allergic to nurtec odt. allergic reactions can occur, even days after using.

most common side effects were nausea, indigestion, and stomach pain. it's time we all shine. talk to a healthcare provider about nurtec odt from pfizer. if you've ever grilled, you know you can count on propane to make everything great. but did you know propane also powers school buses that produce lower emissions that lead to higher test scores? or that propane can cut your energy costs at home? it powers big jobs and small ones too. from hospitals to hospitality, people rely on propane-an energy source that's affordable, plentiful,

and environmentally friendly for everyone. get the facts at propane.com/now. good to be back with you for another hour on this historic day. i'm katy tur along with my colleagues andrea mitchell and chris jansing, it is 3:00 p.m. here in new york where jury selection for the first ever criminal trial of the former president is finally getting underway. right now, judge merchan is instructing a group of 96 potential jurors about the process, as donald trump listens. in fact, our reporters watching say the former president has spent a lot of the now opening of this trial so far sitting with his eyes closed. our reporters say at one point when he opened them to look at the judge, they appeared red and bloodshot. >> it look a little longer to get to this point today, as

lawyers on both sides have been fighting over what evidence can and cannot be presented over the next few weeks, once the jury is seated. so far, we have heard arguments about the alleged catch and kill scheme, involving the "national enquirer," the tabloid to bury bad stories about donald trump during his 2016 run. prosecutors requested the infamous access hollywood tape to be played and the admission of tweeted posted by donald trump, after michael cohen's home was raided by federal agents in 2018. we'll walk through what evidence is in, what's out, and what's still up for discussion with our legal experts in just a moment. plus, what sets up the slate of potential witnesses expected to take the stand, once proceedings kick off. >> donald trump is in the courtroom, as you heard. he will be there every day for the duration of this trial. so far, he's shown little visible reaction to the legal

back and forth unfolding today. although he and his lawyer have had some exchanges, including a few laughs, but basically more restraint than he did during his manhattan civil trial. however, we will be watching to see if that changes once the judge rules, as promised, on a motion against the former president for allegedly violating his gag order. merchan just announcing he will hear arguments on that matter next week. >> there's a whole lot to talk about. joining us outside the manhattan courthouse, vaughn hillyard. here on set, former senior member of the robert mueller probe and coauthor of "the trump indictments" andrew weissmann, and former u.s. attorney, chuck rosenberg, also an msnbc contributor, so vaughn, a lot going on inside the courtroom right now. judge merchan has been reading jury instructions. it's going to take him roughly 30 minutes, it appears, and it goes to show you that if every

time they've got to bring in a new batch of 96 jurors, and judge merchan has to go through the 30-minute opening and explanation of what their duty is and what donald trump is accused of, this could take a while. >> right. one of our reporter colleagues inside of there, was just outlining a plethora of names, for example, that judge merchan read aloud to the potential 96 jurors, of if you know any of these folks, let us know. that would lead to them being precluded from sitting on this jury here. so every single time a new bath of 96 of potential jurors come in, this 30-minute process is going to have to play out. notably at the top, judge merchan, the defendant in this case is donald trump, who is seated to my right. the defendant donald trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. quotes from judge merchan,

essentially introducing this case to these potential new york jurors. and it's notable here throughout this process as we watch this play out, the fact that the mentioning of whether they feel like they can be fair arbiters in this case was the first question out of the gate, and that's the question being asked right now, and already multiple jurors have raised their hand. and what is unique about this jury selection process here is that folks who say that they are not able to serve on this jury regardless of the reason are going to be allowed to be dismissed, which was actually much up for deliberation earlier today. that is why, to a certain extent, you're seeing potentially thousands of jurors going through this process because of one's ability. these are individuals who waited for the course of hours to get the chance to walk into the courtroom here could be precluded and it's going to be a difficult task to identify the 12 jurors and six alternates.

>> it's going to be a surreal moment for the jurors. a moment ago, we were talking about all the people that would be potentially inside this courtroom, potential witnesses, all the names. i said that it sounded like the finale of "seinfeld" with all the big players coming back. i read that earlier in the "new york times," i thought it was funny. let me read you some of the names that judge merchan is asking the jurors if they have ever heard anything about, donald trump, michael cohen, kellyanne conway, stormy daniels, rudy giuliani, hope hicks, dillon howard, jared kushner, jeff conway, david pecker ivanka, rans reince priebus. melania trump. that's not even the full list. i can tell you i have been covering donald trump for almost ten years now, i got 98% of

those, and there are still some names i don't recognize. andrew weissmann, you have fresh eyes on this, fresh ears of what we have been talking about. this witness list, i think, is pretty all encompassing and interesting. what should we expect if hope hicks gets on the stand? what should we expect if allen weisselberg who's, i believe in prison right now, gets on the stand or dan scavino, donald trump's social media manager and very close ally within his campaign. would we expect any of them to give testimony that might damage the president? >> two things, one, just because their name is on the list that is read by the judge to the prospective jurors does not mean in any way that they are all going to be witnesses. when you give a list like this to the prospective jurors, what you're trying to find out is do you know any of these people because their name might come up, not necessarily because

they'll be a witness. does anyone, a prospective juror, have a personal relationship, know these people, have any preconceived views of these people. you have to remember this is an all encompassing list. now, to your question, it is possible that within that huge group, there will be a subset that would testify. i don't think allen weisselberg is likely to -- i'm going to fight the hypothetical on that. i do think when you have internal people to the trump campaign, internal people to the trump organization, there are a number of ways that could be relevant. one, it could be relevant to the paperwork. remember, this crime is about false business records. exactly how they're false, who had them, how are they created, ho did they know what to write on the pieces of paper is going to be really important for the prosecution to prove. those sort of internal witnesses whose names are not terribly

known or for any good reason could become important in terms of establishing those facts. >> let's remember on the original document, the agreement for stormy daniels' story, the names they use, the aliases they used for stormy daniels were peggy peterson, and donald trump, david dennison. there was definitely some agreement about how these people would be described among someone within the trump organization or michael cohen, and also with david pecker. >> all of that will become important as we start to see this case come together, but this that room right now, already judge merchan has said, please raise your hand, if you don't know if you can be fair and impartial, and at least by this initial account, potential juror 211, 225, have all said they cannot be. as he's going through this 30

minutes with these folks, also telling them, by the way, we are going to try to keep the schedule. it is going to be six weeks long, which may make some people sit back and take notice, talk about what goes on in a room like this in a situation like this, very high profile case, and is it normal for the judge to talk for 30 minutes to every group of jurors? >> in a high profile case, this is standard at the state and federal level where you have an exacting jury selection process. the thing that is most unusual about this case is that unlike most new yorkers and i suspect most americans who don't wake up and say, i can't wait to be on a jury, the problem here is you're worried on both sides about somebody sneaking on who really wants to be on this jury. and isn't necessarily going to be candid in giving their

answers, which is a violation of their oath. that's a real problem in a high profile case. when i have done that, on the government side, you're looking for as hard as possible. remember, it only takes one juror to hang the jury, to have a judgment of no judgment. >> so what do you look for to try to avoid that person? >> so that's why there are all of these questions. 40 questions asking like, what do you read, and what do you know, you look for some inconsistencies, where somebody may be giving answers that don't seem to square with each other or seem to be a complete blank slate where they seem to be intentionally antodine, and you want them to explore view, if they said they haven't read much of anything, the judge pushes them, and you try to get that,

and that's where you use what's call a preemp ri challenge. >> we have a few members of the press who are in the courtroom itself. more than half of the prospective jurors in the first panel of 96 have been excused after saying they could not be fair or impartial. at least 50 were let go for that reason. does that surprise you at all? >> not at all. >> why not, andrew? >> a lot of people don't want to be on jury service, and a lot of people don't want to be on jury service in a high profile case. >> that's an easy way to get out? >> it's unusual here, usually there's some follow up, but let's just be real. if somebody says they cannot be

fair and impartial, a judge is not going to seat them. usually it takes a little bit more. sometimes a judge will embarrass somebody, and say tell me why not. are you saying that you cannot judge somebody based on the facts and the law as i give it. but in this situation we have so many people that are going to be saying that, and you have a time pressure. i understand why the judge is just saying, look, if you can't be fair and impartial you're off. this is the fast part. the people who can't say i can't be fair and impartial, there will be a long process of interviewing the pool of truly potential jurors. >> with the preemptory challenges and other challenges. they're taking those left from 50 and putting them in the jury box and that will begin the series of questions. i want to circle back to what we were talking about all day here, which was the way judge merchan was handling the whole issue of

a gag order. >> right. >> and the fact that donald trump violated the gag order, arguably again this weekend by going after michael cohen, calling him a liar, and then during the lunch break, was posting about the prosecutor, about bragg himself. so at this point, judge merchan is still saying he's going to wait until next week to talk about this, to hear arguments about this, and he had initially said this morning he was going to decide during the lunch break, and from the bench. why is he not showing more control over the case. is he so worried about an appeal? >> a few things. one, certainly michael cohen is within the purview of the gag order because he is clearly a witness. just remember, bragg himself and the judge himself are not within the score of the order, a lot of us have talked about sort of that aspect of it. but my understanding is the judge has initially said, i'm going to issue an order,

showcase, and i want the sides to brief this issue and hear it on wednesday. i think he's now moved that up until tomorrow. so he may be doing this quite quickly. regardless of whether it's tomorrow, next week, one of the things that's required and this may be upsetting to a lot of listeners, this is what due process requires. you can't say, i'm sending you to jail with violating a gag order -- >> could he be fined on the thousand dollars? >> he's been warned. he can, but you need to make a factual finding and you want to give the defense time to be heard. what is your explanation, what is your defense to this? it may seem very cut and dried, but they are entitled before something happens. i would imagine, if the judge finds a violation, this will be the moment before jail. meaning he can say this is the fine and just so you know, that's it. this is the one bite at the

apple. and so you want to make sure from a due process point of view everyone has had an opportunity to be heard and to make their defenses, and that actually, for holding up on appeal, you really don't want to send somebody to jail or have a fine and then have an appellate court says, you know, you should have given them process. >> other than the two cases we have gotten a judgment on, the e. jean carroll case and fraud civil case, giant judgments against donald trump, this one has, actually, e. jean carroll had a jury, but this one also has a jury, and we have seen according to our reporters who are watching, donald trump closed his eyes. appeared to be either resting his eyes and thinking or maybe potentially sleeping, we don't know. and that's happening now while the jurors are in there. what does that say to a jury? >> that is not good. >> why? >> donald trump was quoted saying when joe biden was seen

as closing his eyes, saying who would do that, that's not the actions of somebody who cares about the proceeding and is worried about what's going on, so, you know, this is goose and gander time. you know, this is something that his point to the jury is i'm not guilty. this is a witch hunt. none of this is fair. you would think somebody in that situation would both be incensed and have a real interest in their trial. in fact, you would actually think they would have an interest in the trial going forward because they would want to clear their name. >> do they ever think it has been a long day, we have been there for a while, and the judge is going through the basics that donald trump knows well. is there any empathy given, any generosity given from the jury to the defendant? >> well, you could. i'm not going to say that 100% of the jurors, i don't know what the prospective jurors are thinking, but if you are asking me what my reaction would be to

pm on the first day of the trial the defendant going to sleep, that wouldn't be a terribly -- >> you would say wake up, pay attention, this is serious stuff. >> there is something i wanted to note about the jury selection for people to keep an eye on, which is we're going to get to the part where there's challenges to the jurors, and one of the things that i'm not saying it's going to happen, but i'm sure the government is going to keep tabs on is a supreme court case that says that you can not strike jurors for -- on the basis of race, national origins or suspect classifications under the equal protection clause, and it's united states versus batson. it is unfortunately common place for certain defendants to strike prospective jurors and for there to be litigation, of what are called bats and challenges, which chuck knows very well. it's awful because you're saying

one side or the other is doing this based on race, but we should keep an eye out for that in terms of what jurors are being struck. and what happens is that both the judge and the prosecution will keep a list of all of the prospective jurors. not just the ones selected but who's being struck to see whether there is -- >> a pattern. >> a pattern, and there's a whole orchestrated burden shifting as to what gets done. that's something that people should anticipate as potential problems. >> is that only based on race? are there other classifications they're looking at if there's a pattern? >> it's any race, national origin. >> gender? >> gender, are all things -- >> religion? >> i think it's been extended to religion. i'm sure we're going to get crowd sourced as to my lack of knowledge. i don't know that the supreme court has ruled on that specific, but the logic of it is

that it's all sort of equal protection categories. so to the extent that people think that this particular defendant may, you know, be concerned about gender and race that is something i certainly am looking for. >> gender to the point where you would want a male jury rather than a female jury. >> and a white jury. >> all right. chuck rosenberg, you're going to stick around. you have been here the whole time. andrew weissmann, thank you as well. >> and thank you for the bible. >> we have the trump indictment. >> thank you so much. up next, the tape that started all of this and what it could mean for the prosecution's case. our special coverage continues in just a moment. coverage contis in just a moment elf i was ok with my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. with my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel,

rinvoq is different and may help. rinvoq is a once-daily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness, and swelling in ra and psa. relieve fatigue... and stop further joint damage. and in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor have an increased risk of death. serious allergic reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. done settling? ask your rheumatologist for rinvoq. and take back what's yours. abbvie could help you save. [coughing] copd isn't pretty. i'm out of breath, and often out of the picture. but this is my story. ( ♪♪ ) and with once-daily trelegy, it can still be beautiful.

because with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy keeps my airways open for a full 24 hours and prevents future flare-ups. trelegy also improves lung function, so i can breathe more freely all day and night. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing, chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. ♪ what a wonderful world ♪ [laughing] ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for copd because breathing should be beautiful, all day and night.

norman, bad news... because breathing si never graduatedl, from med school. what? but the good news is... xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal... that's like $20 a month per unlimited line... i don't want to miss that. that's amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc?

. before jury selection began today, lawyers for both sides argued over evidence and what will be admissible in court. one of the big items was the access hollywood tape, as prosecutors want to use it to bring to life what the moment was like in the 2016 campaign. just a month before the election. when michael cohen agreed to pay stormy daniels, $130,000 to keep quiet. they were in crisis mode, prosecutors want to argue. trying to do damage control out of fear of losing a key voting bloc. suburban women. here's my report from the night the "access hollywood" tape broke back on october 7th of 2016. >> i moved on her and i failed. i'll admit it. >> trump eight months into his marriage to his third wife,

melania, was telling billy bush and others how he tried to seduce a married woman. >> nancy, no, this was -- and i moved on her very heavily. i took her out furniture shopping. she wanted to get some furniture. i'll show you who has some nice furniture. i moved on her like a bleep -- [ bleep ] i couldn't get her. she's totally changed her looks. >> moments later, trump appears to notice an actress from the soap opera. >> i've got to use this. i'm automatically attracted to beautiful women. it's like a magnet. when you're a star they let you do it. you can do anything. grab them by the [ bleep ] >> in a statement, trump saying this was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. bill clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course, not even close. i apologize if anyone was offended. >> joining me now is nbc news

capitol hill correspondent, ali vitali, "new york times" reporter, david, you are all here because you were reporting on this moment. david fahrenthold, you were the one to break the "access hollywood" tape and boy did it unleash a fire storm. bring us back to that moment. >> this was a tape we got on that morning, the morning of october 7th, and as you can tell, even at that point, we heard so much from trump. we heard him talking so much. he said so many shocking things. obviously there's something different about this. not only the terrible things he said, but also the sense that you were getting a private side of him. this was something he -- this was how he really acts in private, not when he's putting on a show. to me that was one of the most eye opening things about it. certainly when we published it, it was the highest read story on the "washington post" site at that time. it made a huge change in the campaign, at a time people were saying, nothing can change.

nothing matters, nothing can stop people who love trump. >> there were a lot of allegations around donald trump and the way he behaved around women. there were words he used for one of the women in the beauty pageants, saying she had gained weight. bring us back to the moment in the sense of what the campaign was trying to do to limit the damage from this tape, the confirmation bias that they worried about among particular sets of voters. >> reporter: well, look, this was exactly the moment where they already were defiant in the face of all of those various allegations. you and i remember being in trump tower and on the campaign trail, this wasn't resonating with voters and trump was at times, openly mocking the women who had made allegations of sexual misconduct against him. but when this tape broke, i remember that night, being outside trump tower, and hearing from more than a dozen people within trump world, people who were on the campaign, around the campaign, loyal and steadfast as ever, and this is the moment that truly broke them.

i remember we moved a story, and i was looking back before we did this piece, the segment, one of the republican strategists said to me, it's over, never seen anything like it. never will. that was their reaction to seeing this tape. another person on the trump campaign said this one matters. adding that they had no idea how to spin this story in their favor. and you guys will remember this, too. the entire republican party apparatus condemned him, and effectively tried to leave him on the sidelines. there were conversations we reported on after the fact if they could do something to change their ticket and keep mike pence on it while getting trump off of it, and all of us, i think, remember, that trump was supposed to go the next day after this tape broke to be with paul ryan at an event in wisconsin. paul ryan summarily disinvited him and went to the event and got booed himself for not talking about trump and for disinviting the now former president, at that time just the

republican standard bearer. it was this really, i think, solidifying moment for all of us, that as much as this was a crisis and the trump campaign didn't think they were going to get through it, in the grass roots, there were also ramblings of the fact that maybe he would. >> at the time this tape broke, it was october 7th. the very next day, stormy daniels, there's an agreement for stormy daniels to get paid $130,000, agreed to by michael cohen. what was michael cohen's role in the campaign at the time? >> his role was to sort of do whatever donald trump needed him to do to be a fixer, to make the payments like this, to bully members of the press, to take care of messes, to clean up messes, and that's what he was trying to do. there was the campaign side. there were people who have been brought in to run the president's campaign. they were the ones figuring out what the president would say in a video where he tried to express some contrition, trying to get talking points to surrogates, and trying to control the president somewhat. michael cohen was out there also

at the same time, trying to sweep other problems under the rug and make them go away. i was struck going back and reading some of our coverage that moment and the days after, remembering how many other women came out of the wood work with similar accusations to exactly what donald trump was describing on the "access hollywood" tape. there were a lot of women in the days after david broke that story who came out with their own versions saying this happened to me in an elevator, this happened to me on a plane with donald trump, and you had donald trump out on the campaign trail within a week of the "access hollywood" tape and even with allies on the air saying he cares about women, he shouldn't have talked like this, it was an isolated incident, he was out there on the campaign trail, railing against these women, dismissing the allegations in his own way, denigrating their looks. doing the same kinds of things we have heard him do on the campaign trail. they had limited success in making this problem go away. they put kellyanne conway on

television to try to speak to women voters. she was on tv at the time the last month of the election, and the lot of people credit her with trump ultimately being able to withstand this. michael cohen was there in trump tower behind the scenes, doing whatever had to be done, essentially, to make problems go away. >> and that's of course the subject of this case, a big part of this. katy, first of all, that report brings back to me just how extraordinary your coverage was in 2016. it was the gold standard for all of us of how to cover donald trump. but the other piece of it is that it was not that long afterward, i think, that we were in las vegas for the debate and trump trotted out all of the bill clinton accusers to try to humiliate hillary clinton. >> it was actually washington university in st. louis, and he brought out the accusers, he had that news conference to deflect. >> and they went into the

debate, and he tried to seat them, the presidential debate commission, this is partly what made him so angry, the debate commission wanted to seat all of these women in a room, juanita broaddrick and others, right in front, so that hillary clinton would have to look at them as she was looking at the audience in the debate, and, in fact, the debate commission would not -- we waited there for 30 minutes while they fought this out. >> this was the idea of steve bannon, to bring them out and for donald trump to say, what i said was just words, it was locker room talk. that was their line, what bill clinton is accused of is actions, and he was going to try to make that difference, say to voters, this is not about me. this is about what hillary clinton's husband did. the moment was so crucial because the campaign was worried as allie said about suburban women, as eli said, about suburban women. that's when kellyanne conway

came out. alvin bragg is trying to make this not just a payoff scheme, not just a falsify of document scheme, which is a misdemeanor. he falsified documents to interfere with the 2016 election. to make it so that women voters would not be further turned off by him. to make it so that he had a better chance in november, and that's going to bump it up to a felony if he's able to prove that. and the context around the moment is the day after the "access hollywood" came out. while the tape itself is not admissible in court, it sounds like the transcript will be. is it a major loss for alvin bragg not to have the tape but just to have the transcript? >> no. in many ways it helps for appeal that the judge is trying to -- >> don't you need to hear his voice to bring it home? >> why would it not be

admissible? >> there's something called essentially rule 403, something is relevant, but the judge says it's too prejudicial, you can get the relevant par, which is the actual transcript. this is motive evidence. this is the motive for why the government will say this happened. and so what need to be proved is that the "access hollywood" tape, you know, happened, and then the judge said, you can bring out the transcript to show that it happened, you can also bring out, the judge ruled today, all of what was going on within the campaign, everything that is sort of the freakout, you can establish how worried they were. all of that is background, though, to the real charge, which is that was the state will say the motive for why they engaged in the actual crime here. so it may be, by the way, that what's called opening the door may be, for instance, if the defense were to say, well, that transcript is not what really happened or you didn't hear the

actual voice that the judge will consider and say, now you actually are going to hear the trump. i think the judge is trying to say, i want to run as clean a trial as possible. i don't want to bring in a lot of extraneous material, and you don't need this. i think that the state will be saying as part of why this is election interference that this really was about changing the way the electorate would see him. remember, this is not just, oh, i had, you know, sex with a porn star. you have the "access hollywood" tape, and you have somebody who's trying to appeal to evangelicals that are saying i am a moral person. i am not a hedonist and amoral huckster, you know, trying to present himself to a certain population. remember, there's slifrs of voters. -- slivers of voters, and i

expect you're going to hear a lot of evidence internal to the campaign that would change the way people view him, the idea that he is having this kind of affair while his third wife is, you know, recently was pregnant or recently had -- >> she was allegedly pregnant at the time. >> that is something that if you're trying to appeal to a religious base, a religious anti-abortion base, you can be concerned. that's something that i think you will hear the state put on evidence to contextulize it. >> i think for us, there were moments in just the five, six minutes that we have had here, oh, i forgot about that little piece of it. right, and when you go back and you remember that paul ryan said, you know what, don't come to wisconsin, and by the way, republicans, if you feel you have to distance yourselves from

him, that's okay. that's understandable. >> and then got booed. >> and then got booed. a lot of democrats i talked to, i'd be curious, this is also what keeps them up at night. they look at alvin bragg, they think the case is strong. they understand how you get from a misdemeanor to election interference, but everyone, maybe that's an exaggeration, most people thought after the "access hollywood" tape came out it was over, and they're worried this is going to be met with a collective meh. >> that's kind of not the point. a collective meh is can you convince the 12 jurors that he defied the law, and the public can decide whether they want to put a man in the white house who's been convicted of a felony, and might be spending typically in jail. >> that's right, katy.

so imagine that andrew and i were prosecuting this particular case. we told the judge that we wanted to introduce the "access hollywood" tape, he would say why, and we said just to dirty him up, so we make him look as bad as we possibly can in the eyes of the jury, your honor. the judge would say denied, and we would be forbidden. you have to have some other reason under the rules of evidence to put in something. you can't just put in evidence to make someone look bad if it's extraneous. >> doesn't it speak to motivation. >> exactly. and that's where i was going. >> so there has to be some other reason. if that other reason is motive, a pattern of conduct, intent, absence of mistake. then it becomes relevant. we just want to dirty him, you know, it's not going to fly. but it shows the pattern of

conflict that would work. >> if you ask almost any anyone whether the tape in a transcript is as impactful and truly represents with intonation and speech the voice of the candidate, the defendant, the former president, i think any of us sitting here would think you need to see the tape. >> that's going to be the argument that the state has made, if you're trying to assess the motive that chuck is saying, we want this for motive, the motive is sort of greater that it's on tape. they would freak out saying we are really worried about another shoe dropping because listen to the tape recording. it's so impactful. >> conspiracy theorists would say it's a setup, it's a transcript, it's not him. >> if they say that, they've opened the door and it's coming

in. this shows you that the judge was wrestling with this. the government got much of what it wanted. not all of what it wanted. would i rather have the audio, absolutely, but this would enable me to set the context and tell the full story, and then to explain through other witnesses what was going on in the campaign, and therefore why it was so important to catch and kill the mcdougal story and the stormy daniels story. it's context. >> now, the judge will tell them, don't go back and listen to this, right, which it doesn't mean -- >> the judge is going to say you cannot do any outside research, should you have -- the one thing that's absolutely clear, and that's the hard part of a high profile case, you need to make sure the jurors are only listening to, only basing their verdict on what happens in court. >> going home and watching bravo, and not tv news. >> that's why they created you tube. ali vitali, david fahrenthold, eli stokols.

thank you very much. the supreme court immunity argument is on the way. our special coverage continues after this. rage continues after this with safelite, and we'll come to you to fix it. >> tech vo: this customer was enjoying her morning walk. we texted her when we were on our way. and she could track us and see exactly when we'd arrive. >> woman: i have a few more minutes. let's go! >> tech vo: we came to her with service that fit her schedule. >> woman: you must be pascal. >> tech: nice to meet you. >> tech vo: we got right to work, with a replacement she could trust. we come to you for free! schedule now for free mobile service at safelite.com. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ my frequent heartburn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. i brought in ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein! those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. -ugh. -here, i'll take that. woo hoo! ensure max protein, 30 grams protein, 1 gram sugar, 25 vitamins and minerals.

and a new fiber blend with a prebiotic. (♪♪)

from pep in their step to shine in their coats, when people switch their dog's food to the farmer's dog, the effects can seem like magic. but there's no magic involved. (dog bark) it's just smarter, healthier pet food. it's amazing what real food can do.

in the manhattan courthouse, there is now a short break. let's get you up to speed. 96 jurors were brought in. 50 of them are almost immediately let go because what they said was, i can't be fair and impartial. now 18 potential jurors are sitting in the jury box, and for

the first time, one of them was dismissed by the judge for a single answer she gave. nbc news national correspondent yasmin vossoughian is outside court. what exactly happened here, yasmin? >> reporter: yeah, so i'm trying to get an understanding as to why the one was, in fact, dismissed, as we're kind of doing the math here, chris, because i have been looking at the timing of this whole thing, right, and we talk a lot about how this jury selection is going to take some time. they started at 2:34 p.m. that was when judge merchan brought in the first set of jurors out of the first 18, right, into the jury box. it took about 30 minutes to read the rules restrictions for becoming a member of this jury. and he's going to have to do that, by the way, for every set of jurors that comes through. we have 15 that are waiting and left.

it's 3:45 right now. court is supposed to adjourn at 4:00 p.m. they're in a short recess, and they've got to get to the lucky number 12, obviously with alternates as well, with 1,500 here today as potential jurors in a pool of 6,000 that we're looking at for the week. i'm trying to drill down as to why that one juror was dismissed. we went from 34 to 33. i want to go through some of the questions we're looking at here and some of the answers. >> yasmin, let me jump in. i think we have someone on this end on why the juror was excused. she was asked do you have any strong opinions or firmly held beliefs about former president donald trump or the fact that he is a current candidate for president that would interfere with your ability to be a fair and impartial jury, this is question 34, and she said yes, merchan thought to excuse her,

the d.a.'s office agreed, but interestingly donald trump's folks objected and after a brief side bar, however, which reporters could not hear, she was excused. there was clearly something that trump's team saw in her, i don't know what that is, that made them want to keep her, yasmin. >> reporter: yeah, so i'm seeing that as well now. as we're going through some o. -- of the questions here, all of the jurors have questioned, let's see, one, two, three, four, five, this is why i'm in muse and not math. four jurors so far, and some o. questions that stood out to us, right, where you get your news and information. what we're getting from some of these folks, i'm sure this is something that the former president's attorneys are focusing in on, "new york times," cnn, google, "wall street journal," that was from number one. "new york times" is pretty consistent throughout these four jurors. we're seeing google again.

the other one, and katy, the one you focused in on is that this one juror was excused for, all the other jurors so far have said no to all. and then that question about any affiliation with the qanon movement, proud boys, oath keepers, 3%ers, all of them said no as well. i think we can get a sense of have you or do you follow donald trump on social media, no to those as well. we can kind of get a sense per the timing here and also kind of the line, the red line that merchan himself is drawing when it comes to what jurors will actually go on to serve. >> let me give you a little bit more information about this juror. it was a woman who lived in harlem. she is not a native new yorker. she's from texas. that could be why. she likes to sing and go shopping, go to the club.

she gets media from google, from tiktok, and others, and she said, yes, she has a strong opinion of donald trump. >> she might be what we call a low information voter. >> maybe. i don't know. >> the other thing is she said she could not be impartial, and i think that's, you know, just disqualifying. >> donald trump's team wanted to keep her. >> in any case, yasmin vossoughian, thank you so much for all of that from outside the courthouse. meanwhile, while the country has never seen anything quite like the made for the screen trial that is starting today in new york, in ten days, the supreme court is going to consider the claim that donald trump is immune from prosecution for any and all actions made during the time that he was in office. it's a question looming over federal criminal charges stemming from his attempts to subvert the 2020 election, and a decision that could have wide implications on three other cases he's fielding, including

the classified documents, as well as setting a precedent for all of us in future times. joining us now is chief legal correspondent, and host of "the beat," supports trump's argument that ex-presidents should be immune from acts unless impeached or convicted, quote, the respondent argues that doj's admission that the prosecution of a president is necessarily political applies only to sitting presidents and politicalization vanishes once the president leaves in light of not one, but four hyper-politicized prosecutions pending. in addition to politically motivated civil indications, this argument cannot be taken seriously, and also contradicts

president ford's pardon. president ford pardoned president nixon, because he wanted to avoid a prosecution for an ex-president that would take place after resignation. >> let's remember that the former president's team has lost every round on this piece. the question not of whether he's guilty, but whether he can in fact as a citizen be charged. everyone knows he can, and the ford pardon goes the other way. the whole reason nixon accepted a controversial pardon, because otherwise he could be prosecuted. he worried about going to bed in a prison cell. he mused about that, took the pasch for the reason. this new claim by the former president's lawyer is so weak,

such a bad legal argument, number one, i would say it's embarrassing, though their client may have demanded it, and probably, two, it's counterproductive. i don't think it will appeal to the supreme court. it almost projects a bit of a circus-like, upsidedown alice in wonderland quality. he also claimed that the a former president could -- and never be held accountable. they're likely to backfire in oral argument at the supreme court. >> let's talk about the timing issues, when the supreme court set an expedited schedule. what does that do to an expected timeline for the decision, and how might that timeline affect everything else? >> i think the practical way the supreme court has weighed in has

slowed this all down. they didn't necessarily take the case, but by their standards, which is different from out-of-court normal life standards, i want to have lunch for you on an expedited basis, six or eight weeks, but for them it is a little faster than usual. so, all we can say is they did slow things down. they do claim they'll get through it this term, and if they did it early enough, it is still possible, to frankly less likely, the trial could still start before the election. >> this is the last day for oral arguments for the supreme court. >> clarence thomas was not there. >> it was not explained, but they said he would parts bait by reading the briefs and transcripts. >> it is unusual. >> it is very unusual. it is the last day for their arguments. that means it probably will come at the end of the june.

it is the last case they would have heard. >> we should thank ari -- >> i'll seed the audience at 6:00. thanks for having me. >> they've got the domestic violence again decision at the end of the term almost. >> and they will hear this on the last day. they may decide this on the very last day of this term, which would not be until the end of june. one thing that's notable is we're sitting here on the first day of the first criminal trial, but if the supreme court had not interceded in the d.c. case, remember, that case was scheduled to start march 4th. we may very well be waiting for a jury verdict on the january 6th case but for the supreme court's actions here.

remember, tanya chutkan, the district judge ruled against donald trump on the truly preposterous claim that you can be immune from election interference, the d.c. circuit was unanimous on a very thorough order-to-decision on that. and anyone who may think there's a sliver where a president could claim immunity, for instance, in foreign relations, or in connection with being the commander in chief, or the military, there might be some area where you could carve out. that's the best-case scenario. that has nothing to do with this case. it's hard to see the court as not politicizing this issue. they could dizzy facto give this former president immunity. even if they say presidents are not immune, they would have led for this case not going forward.

>> do you ever remember clarence thomas not sitting for an oral argument? >> i don't. but it's remarkable, there's been so many motions by donald trump to have judges recused, judge chutkan, judge merchan, but no respects with respect to clarence thomas whose wife was present at the ellipse on january 6th. so you're not seeing a consistency, let's put it that way. >> is this it? is today, as chuck said, the beginning of the beginning of this trial, the beginning of the beginning of the only trial we're likely to see? >> when i've been thinking about

what this case means is this could be a trial about does the rule of law have any sort of real meaning in this country anymore? let's assume there's conviction, but no one cares -- i shouldn't say no one, but not a sufficient number care. what you are really saying is you can have a civil verdict of fraud, you can have two civil verdicts of defamation and sexual assault. you can have a criminal conviction of the trump company or a tax fraud, and you can have some felony -- some number of felonies up to 34 felonies in a criminal case against the leading republican candidate. what does it say about the rule of law in this country if that pattern is not sufficient to say that person should not be president. >> thank you so much, we've been

watching through a google document, the first criminal trial of a former president of the united states. jury selection has begin. thank you for being with us. it continues next on "deadline: white house" with wallace. don't go anyway. (vo) you were diagnosed with thyroid eye disease a long time ago. and year after year, you weathered the storm and just lived with the damage that was left behind. but even after all this time your thyroid eye disease could still change. restoration is still possible. learn how you could give your eyes

a fresh start at tedhelp.com. you just have to get in the seat of a john deere 1 series tractor. not because of how easy it is to use. ♪♪♪ or because of our expert dealers. ♪♪ not even because it has implements for every job. you just have to get in the seat, because breaking ground on your dream home, feels pretty great. now through april 30th, get 0% apr for 72 months on select compact tractors. if you've ever grilled, you know you can count on propane to make everything great. but did you know propane also powers school buses that produce lower emissions that lead to higher test scores? or that propane can cut your energy costs at home? it powers big jobs and small ones too. from hospitals to hospitality, people rely on propane-an energy source that's affordable, plentiful, and environmentally friendly for everyone.

get the facts at propane.com/now. her uncle's unhappy. and environmentally fri i'm sensing anone. underlying issue. it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. ♪ hi there, everyone. here we go. it's 4:00 in new york. courtroom 1530 at 100 center street in new york has seen it's fair share of alleged crooks and schemer.