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tv   Inside With Jen Psaki  MSNBC  April 15, 2024 5:00pm-6:00pm PDT

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a lot of politics are about the past and news is what is happening right now, but elections can be about the future. while we are hearing a lot of political debate about these two candidates or opinions about them or their age, it may be a significant chunk of the electorate is more focused on the future, what country we want in 10 or 20 years, and that's very different and potentially surprising compared to what our debates sound like. signing off, from our special coverage they don't go anywhere, rachel is coming up at 9:00 and right now, we have "inside."
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before today, this country had never watched a former president stand trial on criminal charges. we did not know what that would look or feel like, but today, we found out. in addition to the spectacle, or was some spectacle, not as much is there could have been, a lot happened in day one of donald trump's trial . we are going to break it down over the next hour and we had the perfect people to do it with. we have the former u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york, preet bharara, he has been in these courtrooms and understands the decisions being made, things we've all heard a lot about. norm eisen investigated donald trump in his first indictment and literally wrote the book. dan goldman was prosecutor in new york and worked with the manhattan d.a. and trumps defensive -- defense attorney, but i wanted to start with the scene that unfolded in
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lower manhattan. that was both extraordinary and kind of ordinary at the same time. on one hand, the former president of united states faced the start of his criminal trial, which was historic. who knew we would get here? we were skeptical at times. it was almost surreal. helicopters tracked his movement as his motorcade left trump tower and cameras rolled while donald trump used his entrance and exit as a way of speaking past the courtroom and straight it to his supporters. that was all kind of different, not extraordinary, and a former president accused of falsifying business records. on the other hand, in many ways, what we saw was very ordinary. a guy facing 34 felony counts of the state court, as any
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defendant in this country is entitled to have. he walked into the same, dark, halls of that new york courthouse like so many accused criminals have done before and sat at the same table, as all of his other defendants, faced the judge, answer direct questions as they were asked, and he will soon face a jury of his peers. in that sense, donald trump was pulled into the same rules and norms that govern the rest of us. according to reporters, trump even closed his eyes for a period of time, maybe thinking or sleeping, but who among us has not done that? at the end of the day, trump may have wanted a circus outside the courtroom, but inside, it was more ordinary than extraordinary. the rule of law, trumped the spectacle. today was billed as jury selection and it was the focus of today and we will talk about that. that is a lot of what we are expecting to see but before we got close to that point, he saw a flurry of activity. the judge began by refusing to recuse himself, and warned trump that he could face jail
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if he misses court without reason. judge merchan made calls about what evidence will and will not be allowed, like the infamous access hollywood tape, or trump brags about groping women, that cannot be played for jurors, but prosecutors can use a transcript and what does that mean? testimony from michael cohen's guilty plea is allowed. prosecutors cannot imply that trump is guilty just because michael cohen was. the judge set a hearing for next week on the gag order against trump after prosecutors argued he violated that today. they are also asking the judge to find him $1000 for three social media post and to take them down another post could put him in jail. jury selection began. yes, because of the ordinary nature of this trial, this court and judge had to deal with a lot of extra motions and had to deal with extra potential
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jurors, but the lesson learned is that they did in fact, deal with all of it. the court system can do this. donald trump walked in, at his first day in criminal court and walked out and tomorrow will be back at 9:30 in the morning. after months, years of disappointments, delay tactics, the wheels of justice turn slowly sometimes, right? today, one of the most effective office gators of justice was brought to trial and will stay there until a verdict is reached . we are starting with preet bharara, great to be with you. you've been in these courtrooms and know what it's like to have this strategy. >> from time to time. >> let's start with your big take away from today. >> it's important to take a moment, as you did, to consider what an extraordinary situation this is. after all the delays, the whining, the motions, with
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three of four cases delayed, some because of the supreme court and some because of an ethics question in georgia, you have an actual criminal case that is proceeding you might say you have finally, eventually, the peaceful transition to accountability which is not a small thing. you have a defendant, with secret service agents to protect him in tow, in a manhattan courtroom, in state courts, facing the music and finding it, reportedly, so monday, or maybe he is tired, that he closes his eyes and apparently fell asleep. that is a big deal, because people are concerned accountability is not forthcoming. it is, here. he was the former president of the united states, commander-in- chief, and is aspiring to that again. he could not hide, in some oligarchs cabin, he does not have an army.
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the fact that he can be brought to justice in the united states of america, notwithstanding his former standing and potential future standing, i think so something good and right about the rule of law. >> right, the slow business of justice they started today. i went through some of this and a lot of us are trying to figure out what to make of it because there is a lot of discussion about what evidence was admissible and what was not. i want to go through some of that to see how it struck you. the access hollywood tape, they cannot play it but they can use the transcript. why? >> good question. i have the same question. it's a little peculiar. you have to realize, in all cases, but certainly indicates the world is watching and scrutinizing, it will be especially scrutinized by an appellate court if there is a conviction, is the judge wants to tread carefully and be sure his rulings are sound and within his discretion and has never been found to abuse his discretion. one could argue, not poorly, that the entire access hollywood business should not
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have come in -- >> at all. >>'s team in the argument, for the idea that they were so freaked out by the tape that came out that they wanted to quell disclosure of this relationship and made the payoff. i think the judge could decide not to let that in, for fear of that being something that is reversible on appeal. but i do not understand and i think many people don't is, what is the prejudicial difference between allowing in the transcript and every single word that was uttered versus the tape? because the tape itself, it's not a videotape of donald trump, it's an audiotape. they have one without the other and i'm not sure that that makes sense. >> i feel better that there is not clarity of answer. >> he was giving one, for the record of defense. when a record shows that a
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judge seems to be going down the middle and finding in their discretion, for the prosecution, sometimes, for the defense, sometimes, that sets a record on appeal of showing this person was not mindedly trying to screw over the defense or prosecution. it's a reasonable record. >> the other piece, the michael cohen of it all, which feels like that could be a theme of the next several weeks, where some testimony, a guilty plea was allowed but they can't imply he's guilty just because michael cohen was and to a layperson and a nonlawyer, thinking michael cohen went to jail for this that trump actually participated in, how is that not the case and how is that not admissible in court? >> it's admissible for other reasons but just because someone else, in conspiracy, pled guilty to something, you don't want that to be attributed to the person on
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trial. you must separately prove in a separate proceeding with separate trial evidence and separate witnesses that the person on trial is guilty. it does have, arguably, some spillover effect because jurors, it cannot be argued to the jury but jurors will say wait a minute, you have a nucleus of information about which this other person was convicted and found guilty in some other court, which means a crime was committed and they might think this might apply to trump but i think that the instruction is that they cannot consider that for that purpose and the judge rightly determined under the law that you cannot consider it for that purpose. it is a double edged sword because on one hand, it's helpful to prosecutors because some guy was convicted of a crime that maybe proves there was a crime, on the other hand, the witness was convicted of a crime and among crimes he was convicted of, was lying, and who do you believe now? a line witness? who was convicted? it's a question.
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>> donald trump had the hush money paid, as an average nonlawyer, that's how i read it. to jury selection, which is a big part of it today, you have been a big part of jury selection in the past and there is strategy involved. a couple things happened that stuck out. half the first panel was dismissed after they said they could not be fair and impartial, they could have lied and maybe were being honest but that's a good thing, there's a jury questionnaire that was lengthy and asked questions about media consumption but did anything stick out to you about the questionnaire or number of people who recused themselves today? >> it's a down the middle questionnaire. most of the questions were agreed-upon by consensus by prosecution and defense. there is a subset of questions and i think the judge made a good determination on how those questions should be phrased. you don't usually see scores of people in the first round say they can't be fair and he said
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something that i think is worthy of comment. presumably, there are dozens of people in the jury pool who do not like donald trump, do not want him to be president, and could i decided, i will fake my way to the jury and say i will be fair and be part of the process to convict him because maybe it will hurt him and they did not. the fact that you have a significant number of people who decided, i will not be part of something that is not appropriate, i am just going to absent myself, i think is a good sign of the potential fairness of the trial. >> that is a very interesting take. there was a ruling, there will be, on the gag order and it is a big question of $1000 for each tweet. they won't put him in jail, that is unlikely, will not prevent him from attacking people that he should not be attacking, like the judge, the judge's family? what do you think?
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>> the gag order is a sideshow . some of the tees, donald trump, it's a big deal. for the judge to put him in trump -- in jail for a few days, he comes to the edge, tiptoes over it, the main show is the evidence presented in trial and i think that it's a difficult thing to be a juror in this case. if donald trump steps over the line with respect to jurors, which i don't think you will do, he is not that . he has a conflagration, this parrying, making fun of people around the judges circle or the court, which he is allowed to do. i think he can get away with that. >> thank you for joining us. they will be back tomorrow. i really appreciate your insight. coming up, what was it like in the courtroom in downtown
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manhattan today? norm eisen was there, he has investigated donald trump in the past and wrote the book on this criminal case. he joins me in just 60 seconds. call leaffilter today. and never clean out clogged gutters again. leaffilter's technology keeps debris out of your gutters for good. guaranteed. call 833.leaf.filter today, or visit leaffilter.com. my life is full of questions... mom, is yellow a light or a dark? how do i clean an aioli stain? thankfully, tide's the answer to almost all of them. why do we even buy napkins? use tide. can cold water clean white socks? it can with tide. do i need to pretreat guacamole? not with tide. this is chocolate, right? -just use... -tide...yeah. no matter who's doing it, on what cycle, or in what temperature, tide works. so i can focus on all the other questions. do crabs have eyebrows? ahh... for all of life's laundry questions, it's got to be tide.
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of the criminal cases donald trump is facing, the new york election interference case is the first to to overcome donald trump's relentless, relentless delay tactics, and reach trial which started today, and there are still a lot of people who have tried to write this off as the most political or convoluted of the criminal cases that the former president is facing. as my next guest writes in his next book, just out, "those criticisms are misplaced. d.a. bragg has built a robust case only narrowly tailored theory of prosecution, falsifying business records to conceal criminal conduct that he damaging information during the 2016 presidential campaign,"
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proving that trump falsified business records is the crux of the prosecution. a some what we heard in court, it's just as important for the d.a. to layout intent and the narrative of what donald trump and his campaign did to influence the election. prosecutors argued for permission to exhibit -- exhibitions on the national enquirer, saying its influence of the scheme, holding back bad stories. that's influence. judge merchan will allow those exhibits, saying "this is necessary to complete the narrative of what took place." joining me now is norm eisen, the author of this book you should buy, he investigated donald trump as a special counsel to the house judiciary committee during donald trump's first impeachment. he was at the courthouse today and literally wrote the book on this case , "trying trump: a guide to his first election interference criminal trial" . okay, i don't know if more people know more about this,
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maybe d.a. bragg. let me just start by asking you to layout the arc of what happened in 2016 as a way to explain motive and intent. this is part of what we heard today and it was important, to me, as a reminder of all the details. >> one of the stunning things about being in court today was to see that theory of the case on full display, in both the morning session, when the d.a. laid out a chronology of election interference, as i say in the title of the book, and in the afternoon session, when the first words of substance that the judge said to the prospective jurors were, this is a case about criminal allegations of election influence in 2016. both halves were really expressing the narrative that you asked about. it starts in 2015, actually, with a meeting at trump tower of
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david packer, publisher of the national enquirer, michael cohen -- >> we have his number two guy on later. >> i have to interview him in the green room for the sequel to my book. you have him, donald trump, and michael cohen and this is where prosecutors started this morning, on an agreement to influence the 2016 election through catch and kill, and you seldom get a contract to do election interference. that is what prosecutors allege happened at that meeting and then they took a step by's death -- took a step by step through the proof. it's not just about that elicit payments, the benefit to stormy daniels, there's a similar payment to the doorman, to karen mcdougal, there is the escalating amount of anxiety in the trump campaign, despite all of this, the access hollywood
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tape came out. he is worried, the prosecutors argued, on his standing with women. then, the payoff, october 2016, the allegedly illegal campaign contribution that constituted election interference. it kept criminal information that the american people had a right to know, from them, and in so doing, affected or altered the outcome of the election. >> we will never know. as someone in media who worked on campaigns for so long, paying for stories that are negative about the candidate, that they don't come out to the public, even if not fully proven, some of them were not come entirely, but some were. you were in the courtroom today. there were no cameras in the courtroom so we solve reporting from it, give me a sense of the scene. did anything surprise you? what was the general feeling?
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>> i thought it was a striking day for the idea of america. here, you have one of the most famous, maybe the most famous person in the country, perhaps the world. >> beyonce might argue. >> one of the most powerful, wealthy, has spent tens of millions of dollars to delay this moment and in spite of all of that, he is forced to appear behind the judges, behind the judges see that says, "in god we trust," behind him. it was a moment of, trust in the american system, that one of the jurors said, it was so striking, he was being asked these questions, the judge asks the jurors, they stand up and
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answer, and he said, i believe no one is above the law, a current resident, former president, or the janitor. i thought that summarized with the day was about, but no one is below the law either and donald trump is getting his rights. it was a slow day and took much longer, the judge complained, if we go this slowly will not -- we will not get wednesday off. you saw the genius of the american system but some of the challenges of bringing these cases to justice. >> they come back tomorrow, it's part of a legal process, what are you watching for? jury selection, of course. >> the tug-of-war, which is going to start developing as both sides have half an hour to question each juror, so that is going to be a effort of donald
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trump and his team, led by todd blanche, to knock out the typical manhattan juror and try to embrace a jury pool that looks like donald trump floaters. they will not get that in manhattan. they want just one, one angry juror who will not follow the law, who will not follow the evidence, but this is a shrewd judge and a good prosecution. it's the longest list of questions i've ever seen, and the judge is a sure judge of character, the checks and balances are there to pick a jury that will adjudicate the facts and the law and if that happens, donald trump is in trouble. >> norm eisen, you have the
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book to read. 11. coming up, dan goldman, a prosecutor new york who worked with todd blanche and alvin brad. i'll get his reaction today one of donald trump's first criminal trial after a quick break. break. we're gonna take it back. we're gonna take it back. with scotts turf builder triple action! it gets three jobs done at once - kills weeds. prevents crabgrass. and keeps your lawn growing strong. glorious! -agggghhhhhh! -aaagghhhh. no no no. get a bag of scotts triple action today, it's guaranteed. feed your lawn. feed it. [music playing] speaker: it all starts here, by uniting the world in passion, commitment, and care. we turn the impossible into possible. celebrate every triumph. the last day of chemo, one child's life being saved.
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as donald trump's first criminal trial began in new york city, a cannot help but think about this lit screen the
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country is watching play out in real time in an election year. you have donald trump, former commander in chief, on the defense side in a manhattan courtroom. on the right, the current commander-in-chief, president biden in the situation room, overseeing the response to an iranian attack against israel. that is the split screen. over the next six weeks, the contrast between the candidate will be stark. you don't know how americans will digest it. it will be quite a difference between the guy in the courtroom and the guy governing the country. joining me now is democratic congressman, dan goldman, of new york. he was an assistant u.s. attorney and a former colleague of alvin brad and todd blanche, donald trump's attorney and that would be quite a dinner party i would like to attend with you. one thing that struck me about today is a perception that this trial, there has been, is
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somehow politically helpful to donald trump, is advantageous to him. i was impressed by the storytelling and all of the details that were discussed, some i had forgotten about. in a recent poll, 64% of voters say the charges in the hush money trial are some somewhat serious and we will see, we do not know how it will impact voters but if you were talking to a voter, you are an elected official politician and a from -- a former prosecutor, what would you say about why this matters to them? >> it's about democracy and whether or not our elections will be free and fair and decided, ultimately, by the people based on the rule of law and election law. what donald trump is alleged to have done it payoff not one, but two potential different women to silence them from coming out with damaging information in the weeks before the election. you will recall there was that famous access hollywood tape which, receive significant
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attention and donald trump received blowback four. it was clear that if there was one more thing that came out about his poor behavior, so to speak, misconduct, with women or otherwise, that would have a damaging effect. in order to avoid that, he paid off adult film actress, stormy daniels, to keep her quiet , but did that in in illegal scheme to cover it up so that no one would know that he did that and he did that to avoid campaign finance laws. you'll see a summary of all of these things, but this goes to the core, heartland, of what our elections are about, which is that trent parents he and following the rule of law is essential to our democracy having free and fair elections. >> absolutely. there is a through line among some of these cases which often, people forget.
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you worked with manhattan d.a., alvin bragg, and todd blanche, what should people, people like to project onto these prosecutors or defense attorneys. what should people know or understand about them, their style, their strengths, as they watch the trial unfold? >> the great thing about being a prosecutor is i had no idea what their political leanings may have been when we were prosecutors together. we did not discuss that. that is not a prosecutors job. they are true professionals. d.a. alban bragg will treat this case with the respect that the justice system deserves and will only speak through his prosecutors in court and court documents. you will not see press conferences. he will not politicize this. he will let the facts and the evidence speak as to whether they are applied sufficiently to the law, and todd blanche is
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also a professional. he's been a defense lawyer for a while and was an excellent prosecutor and i think that you will see much better defense lawyering from todd blanche then you might have seen in the civil case that donald trump had a couple months ago. >> i wanted to ask about jury selection. we learned a lot, i was fascinated by the process today. who knew? did anything stick out about the number of people who pulled themselves out of it or the length of the questionnaire? anything surprising? >> it's interesting when people self select their own bias. i have sat for jury duty as a former prosecutor and had a judge asked me, saying are you sure you can be fair and impartial? i found that insulting, of course i can be, just because i'm a prosecutor does not mean i cannot look at the evidence like anybody else. i wonder who is actually pulling themselves out to
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because of bias, is it bias against trump, for trump? it's hard to tell. i am glad that there will be an exhaustive process because they think the sanctity of the jury pool is going to be vital in this trial. this is going to be a model for many americans as to how criminal trials work. how our country's rule of law operate, and how no person, whether the former president or anyone else is above the law. donald trump will be treated as any other defendant will be. his partisanship and campaigning and politicization out of the courtroom will not be allowed in the courtroom the only thing that will come in is the evidence, according to the rule of law, and jurors will ultimately decide whether or not the evidence proved beyond reasonable doubt that donald trump committed these crimes. that is what our system is based on and so now that the trial is beginning, as someone who did a number of trials, i am excited for the american
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people to see how this process should work and why it should apply to donald trump and everyone else in this country no matter their stature or power. >> you walked on the same hallway and sat in the same chairs as other defendants. thank you for joining us. coming up, a deep dive into donald trump's relationship with david parker in the national enquirer. then, i will talk to the former executive editor of the national enquirer who saw the infamous scheme of close and just wrote about in a remarkable piece for the new york times. our exclusive interview with locklin cartwright is coming up in a few minutes. inutes. farxiga can cause serious side effects, including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, urinary tract, or genital yeast infections, and low blood sugar. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur.
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of all the criminal cases facing donald trump, and there are many, the one that started today in manhattan is kind of the biggest, salacious details about an extramarital affair and hush money, you might expect to read that in a tabloid and in fact, one particular tabloid features prominently in the story prosecutors want to tell. it's a story they are now willing to tell. media reporter, lachlan cartwright, was the number two man in the newsroom in the lead up to the 2016 election, a pivotal time in this story. in a new piece for the new york times, he describes the experience in vivid detail. he says he pursued the story of
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the doorman, a former employee at trump tower, who heard a rumor that trump fathered a love child with a colleague. they didn't find the story credible, but that didn't deter the process. cartwright says that the doorman was paid $30,000 for the exclusive rights to his story, not to publish it, to kill it, and locked in a safe or it never saw the light of day and that is when cartwright said he first heard the term, "catch and kill." they would pay a source to tell them and only them, and then they would make sure the story was never told elsewhere. according to lachlan cartwright, the national enquirer did that multiple times on donald trump behalf, including silencing a playmate who said they had an affair. there is little doubt that she was offered that money right after trump became an official party nominee for president. >> why do you think it was, it
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was after donald trump that they came back? >> they wanted to squash the story. >> through it all, lachlan cartwright says the inquirer was in constant contact with michael cohen, who had done jail time for the payoff to adult film actress, stormy daniels, which trump is now on trial four. this morning, judge merchan ruled that prosecutors can tell karen mcdougal's story even though the trial is about the payments to stormy daniels. they may also call the national enquirer's ceo and former top editor as witnesses after they both testified to the grand jury. they can establish that trump was willing to pay handsomely to bury stories, even those unrelated to the charges in this case that might have negatively impacted his run for president. the judge also ruled that jurors won't hear some big details, like the fact that
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donald trump's wife was pregnant when he had an alleged affair with karen mcdougal, so that prompted me to remind the public of that. we don't know who will be on the jury or how they will rule, we do not know. this trial and all of the details around it are another reminder of exactly the kind of person donald trump is . so, how does lachlan cartwright, former editor, who had a front row seat, feel about this now? i will ask him when he joins me, next. me, next. so i started my own studio. getting a brick and mortar in new york is not easy. chase ink has supported us from studio one to studio three. when you start small, you need some big help. and chase ink was that for me. earn up to 5% cash back on business essentials with the chase ink business cash card from chase for business. make more of what's yours. oh, why leaffilter? it's well designed, efficient, i appreciate that. leaffilter's technology keeps debris
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the details that came out of donald trump's first criminal trial will be shocking to plenty of americans, but probably not to my next guest. lachlan cartwright help to run the national enquirer newsroom and in a new piece for the new york times, he described what it was like to read the indictment against donald trump. he says "it was the 13 page statement of facts that brought me to tears. on page three, prosecutors outlined "the catch and kill
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scheme to suppress negative information," and it revealed to me i been managing a newsroom with improvised explosive devices planted everywhere." lachlan cartwright joins me now, now a special correspondent for the hollywood reporter. this is fascinating. i also listened to your piece on "the daily" and heard you talk through it. a lot of people don't know that this happens, but i want to start with what i just read. you have been paying close attention and you know the details very well. you are going to be in the courtroom, i believe, and as someone intimately aware of the contours, what do you hope people understand? >> fundamentally, this is about election interference. people are focusing on a payoff to adult film actress, stormy daniels, but fundamentally, this is a case about election interference. we go back to a meeting that took place in august of 2015
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with a person i used to work for, david with michael cohen, and he says, "i will be the eyes and ears of the campaign, my organization purchased negative stories off the market and we will run negative stories on your rivals." i did not know that in real time when i was executive editor. when we were orchestrating operations like what happened with the doorman, trying to stand off with this tip about donald trump having a love child and the order came to stand down, and he was paid $30,000 and the story never saw the light of day, ultimately, this organization, you been around politics long enough to know that it is not unusual for a media organization to do favors for a political candidate or campaign. this is the first time in american democracy that i am aware of, that a media organization turns itself, twists into a criminal enterprise to help get a candidate elected and that is what went on, here. that is fundamentally what this
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case is about. >> that is such an important part of the story because it's not just about this one particular case, it's about the media organization, pushing negative stories about a number of people who are donald trump's rivals, stories of his 2016 rivals, ted cruz, ben carson, hillary clinton. we remember these covers, many of us do. talk about how basically, you've touched on it a little bit, this entire organization was set up to protect a single candidate. >> i have come from tabloids in the uk, i worked for the murdoch family for many years, i am used to tabloid journalism and this was not that. it emerged into basically, where we went from reporting on celebrities or mass shootings, true crime, the bread and butter, as our celebrity divorces, and suddenly we are
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running stories that hillary clinton has three months to live. >> member that. >> we line up pseudo-experts to analyze pictures of her looking frail and the art department is making images to make her look in poor health, and it was every week, as one of donald trump's rivals was up in the polls, whether it was ted cruz or someone else, we would be running a negative story. say what you will about the national enquirer, the reach of this publication? it's on supermarket shelves in every walmart in every airport, and that was being weapon iced to help get donald trump elected and that is what alvin bragg is talking about in this indictment. i think that is what people pass over when we talk about falsified business records. fundamentally, this was an agreement to influence the election and it worked. >> again, it's important, when
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you work for campaigns, earned media, as they say, magazine covers on a grocery store shelf, that is gold to people. the visuals of what they are seeing. we learned of the judge will allow the national enquirer covers to be admissible in court. we showed a few, including the one about hillary clinton dying. are there some you think are important for people to see or are there some that you think would particularly make the point? >> it's the pattern. look for what this publication was publishing when i first joined in 2014, when it was tom cruise , that mix of celebrity content , and it's a look at how this publication then became, as a said, a propaganda tour for the trump organization, with hillary clinton dying every other week, ted cruz's father
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involved with lee harvey oswald. every other politician, suddenly there's a negative story. i get that obsession but it is looking at how this publication was weapon iced into becoming a propaganda tour . i think that pattern is incredibly important. >> one of the things that is striking to me about all of this is that you have decided to put yourself out there. you had an nda, which -- >> which you are publicly breaking. >> there can be threats and violence, which you have experienced. talk to me a little about that and how you considered that when you decided to be as public as you have been, telling a very personal story. >> i wanted to tell the story for some years, for a couple reasons. it is a smoking gun and a story of national importance and secondly, i, as someone who has
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been pursued, over the years, because of my help to media organizations as a source, which is part of the new york times piece when i revealed i was the source, getting out in real-time, with the wall street journal, helping to get the karen mcdougal story out to the public domain, i also wrote this story for anyone that is in a tight spot, that is being, having the screws turned on them, to know that at some point, they can get to the other side of it and that is what i was able to do. it took several years to get to the other side. david has written me a number of tensely labeled threats, threatening lawsuit, i'll be a court, and i've gotten out of the other side and folks are testifying about these matters, and so yeah, i wanted to tell
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the story for some years. i am glad that i had this opportunity. >> i'm so grateful you are here and i think it's important to note, it is incredibly courageous to tell a story like this because of the reasons, not just the nda, because of the threats, it's important for people to understand what has happened over the years and how there was an effort to suppress information from the american public. i encourage everyone to read it, listen to it, do both, thank you for joining us. >> thank you. coming up, a preview of my exclusive interview with singer and activist, john legend. you will hear his thoughts as an advocate for criminal justice reform, on donald trump's claim that he is a victim of two tiered justice . . . where are you going? i'm going to get inspire. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com. ♪(voya)♪ there are some things
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at a time when we are hearing, over and over from donald trump , and will hear again from his allies that he is somehow the victim of a two tiered system of justice, it's important to be clear. there is one system for the powerful and wealthy, people like donald trump, and another system for everyone else. don't take my word for it. i sat down with someone who has spent the last several years fighting for the people who are actually victims of an unfair justice system big john legend. listen to his response when asked about donald trump's claim that he is the victim of a two-tier justice system bit >> he is part of a two tiered system of justice not the way he thinks he is.
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he is getting way more concessions than the average criminal defendant would get. he is getting delays, he's got access to all kinds of lawyers that are filing this and filing that, delaying every trial, and most people don't have access to that kind of lawyering, do not have access to the concessions the justice system will provide if you can afford it. >> if you can afford it. you can catch the rest of my conversation with john legend sunday at 12:00 right here on msnbc. the rachel maddow show, she will tell us how we got here and what it means, what's broken about the system and we will all be watching. that starts right now. >> it's a lot to live up to. what it all means is never thing you want when you are on television. like rachel is terrible, nose nothing but history, and no one will believe her. >> th

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