what does the president do and his campaign do if trump is convicted? right now the president is staying away from commenting at all on the trial? >> that's a smart tactic from the campaign and white house to not comment on the trial because it speaks for itself. what the bottom line is, president trump is no different than any other citizen in the country when it comes to justice being served. that's what we are seeing happen maybe perhaps, and we will see what the jury ultimately finds, but he's being criminally convicted of doing something wrong and because he was the former president doesn't mean he can get away with something that he did that was criminally wrong. >> ladies, thank you very much for offering your insights and perspective. that will do it for us today. i will see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place. josé diaz-balart picks up our coverage right now.

♪ ♪ good morning. it's 11:00 a.m. eastern, and 8:00 a.m. pacific. i am josé diaz-balart. we begin with the latest of day two of the criminal trial against former president donald trump. he's charged with 34 felony counts and accused of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to stormy daniels. trump who is the presumptive nominee for the president is coming face-to-face with jurors that will decide his legal fate. we heard from trump this morning before he headed into court. >> i should be right now in pennsylvania, in florida, in many other states, north carolina, georgia, campaigning. the judge should recuse himself.

>> also this morning, prosecutors asked the judge to both fine trump and hold him in contempt for recent social media posts accusing him of violating his gag order. and joining us, msnbc legal contributor, and a civil rights attorney and former prosecutors and msnbc legal analysts and served as a prosecutor in the bill cosby case. yasmin, get us up to speed of what is happening in the courtroom. >> reporter: they are going through the answer and question period in the jury selection, reading their 42 answers to the questions on the jury questionnaire. we have 12 initial jurors that passed the initial phase of the process, and what that means is once they fill a jury box of 18 people, then they move on to the

next phase called voir dire. they get to ask then their own questions, for instance -- in the parameter of what the judge laid out, and they can't say i'm a republican or did you vote for trump or biden, but they do get to ask their own set of sub questions. one of the attorneys could say i don't want one of these potential jurors to be part of the jury, and they don't have to have a reason. they can do that ten separate times, but then they need to also have specific reasons outside of those ten separate times. they will keep doing that, josé, until they reach 12 potential jurors. that's the magic number to fill the box. one more thing, the one question a lot of folks are getting stuck on and why many are getting excused, and so far today we are looking at six being excused as potential jurors. just today alone in the last 90

minutes or so it was can you be impartial based on your personal or religious views, and they are answering now saying they can not be impartial. and one more note of trump's demeanor on the inside, his eyes are closed and he's leaning to the left a little bit and quiet and his arms are crossed as well, and lisa ruben giving us some of those notes from inside the courtroom. and it's a quiet morning and waiting to reach that number 18 to start the voir dire section. >> what do you make of them asking them to fine trump on the gag order issue? >> reporter: yeah, no court is

in session on wednesdays, so they amended that to say it was going to be the 23rd of april at 2:00 p.m. in the afternoon, they are going to talk about a possible violation of the gag order and then the judge will issue his decision on that. that will set the stage, josé, as to how they are going to go when it comes to the gag order. if you remember, he was fined, i believe, twice, with judge engoron, so we will see how it goes. >> what is your thoughts about them waiting to address the gag order? >> it's reasonable, josé, and it's part of the process. what the prosecution has asked is for judge merchan to hold donald trump in contempt of court. in order to be held in contempt

of court you have to violate an order or do something in front of the judge that is contestimony chew wus. the prosecution could say, your honor, issue an order for a rule to show cause, which means have the judge issue an order telling donald trump he has to appear at a hearing, an evidentiary hearing set at a later date to be able to show cause, to be able to prove -- to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court. it's part of the process, and during the hearing on april 23rd, the prosecution will present the evidence of donald trump violating the gag order and donald trump can refute it or not, and in the end the judge will issue the ruling. the key is what yasmin says, how much does judge want to set the

tone, and a lot of people are scoffing that $1,000 isn't a lot, but let's be clear, it can start at $1,000 and it could include incarceration, and we don't go zero to 60, there's a process, and this is how the process works. you want the process to work properly so nothing hapgs on appellant review to say that the judge did something wrong. >> for somebody that has worked on a high profile trial, how difficult is it that somebody can look at the jury and be objective when the defendant has been so much in the headlines and in part of, i guess, people's everyday discussions? >> it's difficult but not impossible. extensive media coverage and public opinions can always influence potential jurors, right? it instills in them the

preconceived notions, and jurors are just like you and i. some of them will not be able to sit through the facts and make the decision, the facts they hear on tv and the facts they hear on the witness stand and some are going to be able to, and that's why the jury selection is a process. it's a process where the judge has to maintain order and allow the attorneys to actually go through and ask questions, questions that really counter or allow them to identify those preconceived notions. you know, asking them about their media exposure, which we see in this case. we also had to ask the questions of the cosby potential jurors. their existing opinions and the ability to set aside the biases and the ability to comprehend the legal principles alongside with their life principles but only considering the information from the witness stand.

>> thinking back on your experience, for example, the cosby case, is it not human nature to simply have an opinion based on a preconceived concept of what that person is or who that person is? >> absolutely. but again, the jury process is not asking them to put all of their preconceived notions to the side, it's asking them to put it to the side just while making this decision, so everything the potential jurors -- or the sitting jury, which they will ultimately decide on, everything they know about trump they have to put it to the side and only make their factual findings based on the evidence that comes in during trial and can make their finding as to guilt or innocence based on the facts they found and the law the judge ininstructs them

on. everybody comes with the preconceived notions, but are they able to impartially view the evidence in the trial, and that's the key there. >> just looking over from our producers in the courthouse, some of the potential jurors answering the questions are essentially saying we are regularly part of the conversation that goes on in many american households, one saying that they have read "the art of the deal," and another saying they watched cnn and msnbc, lawrence o'donnell, and tell us a little bit about some of those answers that we have been seeing to the questionnaire? >> reporter: so this is, i think, why the process gets so complicated, josé, right? because you get further and further down the road and then certain answers are given that are problematic. this is seat number 15, and as i

mentioned, they have to get to the magic 18 number before they can move on to the next portion which is voir dire. one of the potential jurors giving the answer is i read "art of the deal" and are part of the republican party and have family members that do fundraising for the gop, and they followed trump on twitter when, in fact, he was president. if you think about kind of the complications that that poses to the people, to the prosecution in this individual being a member of the jury, and obviously you would imagine that todd blanche or the former president as the defendant would want somebody like potential juror number -- number 15, being a member of the jury. he's not been excused and lived in lower manhattan for a long

time and is from boston. he has not yet been excused, but i imagine that is somebody who the prosecution, who the people will focus in on during the voir dire section to draw out more of their potential problematic presence on a jury that will eventually be seated in the trial, josé. >> you wrote it's not hyperbolic to say jury selection is the most important part of the trial. what are the stakes in the process? >> because if you don't seat the right jury, and i used right in quotes in my piece, josé, then you lost the battle. you want the type of juror that yasmin just talked about, and the reason i was nodding along, it's an art form. as a trial lawyer, what we do is you develop a conversation when you move on to the individualized questioning that happens in front of the other prospective jurors, and say i am

the d.a., josé, and i will dig deeper with the jury that i know will be, quote, pro trump. why? because i can look at the body language and the nodding of the heads and the vocal agreement, i can say jury number 112, do you agree with what jury 15 just said? then i traded a pro cause challenge, and it's a pretty amazing thing. you have a grid in front of you, and i am old school. it's a grid you draw out by hand and you have the names internally, and publicly it's not available, right, and you have all the information coming from the jury questionnaire being answered out loud, and you have to move and navigate your way through the answers so you don't have to waste time going through 96 plus or 100 something. josé that is really important, too. we know thousands of subpoenas were released -- excuse me,

sent, to get people to show up yesterday, and think about how many don't show up? you have not a lot showing up, that should show up, and the ones that show up are there to do their civic duty or want to get on this jury for this high profile trial, and you have to weed those out, and it's a science and art form and luck and magic and experience. you have to count on your experience as a trial lawyer to read instinctively tell you in the way they are moving and answering. >> all the benefits of old school, doing things by hand. thank you all so much for being with us this morning. up next, steve kornacki is at the big board to break down what the demographics of new york can bring to that jury

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19 past the hour. we are following news on capitol hill, and a second member of congress has showed support for

ousting speaker johnson. moments ago speaker johnson responded to this. >> i am not resigning. it is, in my view, an absurd notion that somebody would bring a vacate notion. it's not helpful to the cause. it's not helpful to the country. it does not help the house republicans advance our agenda in the best interest of the american people here. i will tell you i am not concerned about this. i am going to do my job. >> joining us from capitol hill, jake sherman, founder of punchbowl news and msnbc political contributor. there seems to be a lot of absurdity. what is the latest on this? >> let's take for a second how unusual it is for a speaker of the house to have to come out and say he's not resigning. when you have to say you are not resigning that's probably not a great sign. tom massey, as you noted, has

become the second member to say he would support a motion to vacate, and there are procedural hurdles, and if somebody triggered the motion, which we should note, marjorie taylor greene has not asked for a vote yet, and before that motion there could be a motion to table which they could set aside that motion with the house of representatives, and it's over the aid package that johnson tried to push through this week. he put this off for a long time and now you can see why he put it off. >> jake, explain to us a little bit the structure that exists so -- there has to be a motion triggered to vacate, and then there will be other motions to nullify that motion? where does this end up?

what is that process as far as time wise? >> marjorie taylor greene, or any member of congress can go to the floor at any point and trigger this motion to vacate. that would set off a 48-hour clock if the leadership wanted 48 hours, they are afforded 48 hours, two legislative days, effectively, to delay the vote. there's one motion here and it's a motion to table. somebody that supports johnson can motion to table and that would set aside the motion, and that would be considered at a simple majority of those voting, and it would be around 218, 214, and it depends on the attendance, and if that passes, that motion to table, johnson survives, and that would have to happen almost certainly with democratic votes. let's put it this way, josé. mike johnson is in a very perilous situation. this is a very high-wire act as ukraine aid is related to the taiwan aid and he's doing so

with the republican house conference that is not totally behind him. >> what about the aid to israel and what about the aid to ukraine and taiwan? the speaker said he's will be to do piece by piece on this. >> yes, we expect four votes on this that would create a single package that would send aid, and that will probably -- not definitely, but probably will happen by friday evening if they get the text of the bill out today. it's based on our reporting at punchbowl news, it's our theory this will come to the floor this week and they will try to do it this week. there's a lot of hurdles and we detailed them in the news this morning, just the process of getting democrats onboard and it's far from a certainty at this point.

>> while this is happening, the house is preparing to vote or sending the articles of impeachment for alejandro mayorkas to the senate? >> yeah, we expect senate democrats to dispense the articles and in a stroke of fortune or misfortune, however you want to look at it, he's testifying about the budget, and he deals with a whole host of priorities around the globe and he needs congress to fund the agency to stay open, and so that's scheduled for october 1st of this year. >> thank you, my friend. steve kornacki is at the big board to break down what the demographics of a new york

county could tell us about the jury selection in a trump case. we will talk to one of the pulitzer prize winning reporters that broke the hush-money payment story in 2016. you're watching "josé diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. d. tamra, izzy, and emma... no one puts more love into logistics than these three. you need them. they need a retirement plan. work with principal so we can help you with a plan that's right for your team. let our expertise round out yours. 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. ava: i was just feeling sick. and it was the worst day. mom was crying. i was sad.

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voir dire. 29 past the hour. happening now in a new york court, jurors are being questioned, and the court is in the process of finding the 12

jurors and six alternates in one of the most high profile cases in america's history. steve kornacki, good morning. what does the data tell us about the pool of potential jurors for this trial? >> we always talk about manhattan, and this is the manhattan district attorney, and folks outside that area, one of the five boroughs in new york city, and they are interchangeable. new york city as a whole, that's what you are looking at here, five boroughs in new york city. donald trump got 66% and donald trump got 2%, but that

differenters by borough. you start here. this is staten island. this is the outlier and this is red. donald trump actually won staten island. this is by far the smallest of the five boroughs, and there's a succession to try and get it removed from this, and you look at brooklyn, biden got 77%, and the bronx, 83% for biden, and then manhattan, nearly 87 for biden, so among the five boroughs, manhattan is the bluest of the five boroughs. then the question sort of becomes why is manhattan so blue, and even in the blue city

why does it stand out for being this democratic, and it has to do with the demographics. manhattan is 45% white. citywide, the entire city of new york, it's 31% white, so manhattan is relative to new york city and it's whiter, and as for new york city as a whole, it's whiter. and these are some of the big differences here. this is a huge one here. white and college educated, that's 40% of the population in manhattan. citywide, that's only 21%. then you get to income, median household income is $100,000, and you put the characteristics that make manhattan different from the rest of the city, and it's whiter and has more white

voters can college degrees and it's wealthier. we look at trends that define american politics, and especially in the trump age, and one of the most democratic groups you will find, white voters with college degrees and higher levels of education for attainment. we talk about the areas getting bluer and bluer, very enthusiastic to vote, and that makes manhattan the bluest of the five boroughs. >> thank you so much. appreciate that look. joining us, vaughn hillyard, and a white collar criminal defense attorney, and a investigative reporter that first reported on the hush-money deal, and he's co-author of "the fixer." what is the latest from inside the courtroom? >> reporter: right now we

believe we are at 16 individuals, potential jurors that have gone through the entire 42-questionnaire and have not been dismissed. this is a monumental number. the defense counsel and prosecutors can begin to ask separate questions outside of the 42 questions from the questionnaire to get a better read on whether an individual should be seated on the jury and whether they fit the profile they feel comfortable in this individual meeting the qualifications to be one of either the 12 jurors or six alternates here. we are at 16 individuals, and it takes 18 to get to that next process. when i say 16, that doesn't mean they are seated, it just essentially moves them to the next moment in the process here. a marked point of interest here

in the last hour and a half, josé, was the number of individuals that raised their hand yesterday when initially asked if they could be fair and impartial, and moving on to day two, in which they went to the process of answering the questionnaire. well, there has been now four individuals so far today that despite raising their hands yesterday saying they could be fair, for some reason overnight they determined today that they could not actually be fair. one individual just a moment ago said quote, i believe nobody is above the law and so i guess that's a strong opinion. i am not 100% sure i could be fair. and another potential jury woke up today and came into the courtroom and said he had family members in the state of texas that are republican and that would cause him to be poe tensionally fair and impartial. we are making progress, but it's slow and go. we should hit the 18 number in a

matter of minutes potentially, josé. >> meanwhile, michael, you worked on the team that broke the story that sets the stage for the first criminal trial ever facing a former president. what goes through your mind today? >> it's pretty amazing to see what we worked on six years ago when we first revealed the stormy daniels hush-money payment when i was at the "wall street journal" to be the first criminal trial of a former president. we didn't know this would happen and so much time has passed and so much has happened. it's just an amazing thing to have been part of that. >> when you started seeing these details unravel through your hard work, what was the most difficult part of getting to the details of this? >> well, this started actually before the 2016 election when we got a tip that there was a lawyer who was paying off women for trump, and that's when we

broke the story of karen mcdougal, and it took years to know what happened, is she was paid by trump's fixer, michael cohen, also before the election, and we broke that in 2018, and just documenting that it took a while and it was painstaking work. >> caroline, just thinking how could all of these details, the aspects of, you know, what is behind this, how could that influence how trump's legal team handles this case? >> yeah, such an important question, josé. you know, while michael's reporting is amazing and very thorough and, you know, was bombshell at the time, i think it's important to note legally as you step back from this case and this is the reason you are

seeing some of the evidentiary rulings play out this way, is that is really not the heart of the piece. we are referring to it as a hush-money case. alvin bragg has been pointed in making sure this case is not about sex for money or hush-money, and hush-money in and of itself is not illegal. remember, these are misdemeanor charges of falsifying business records as its core, at their heart, and alvin bragg bumped up authorize misdemeanor charges to felony charges because the falsification was done during another crime, and he has not charged that crime, and the other crime is a campaign finance law violation, and that's the payment of money to stormy daniels, and we are calling that hush-money, and

that was an illegal campaign contribution above the legal limit and he was trying to hide the contribution through the falsification. that's a convoluted legal theory, and it's novel in the way bragg has charged it and it has raised the eyebrows of some legal scholars and commentators. the john edwards case, you recall that, and it's not the rock solid campaign violation itself, and then the second part of the crime he needs to prove is sort of interesting. >> it could be minutes before we got that magic 18 number, vaughn, and what is the latest? >> reporter: that was more like seconds. we hit the 18 jurors that have passed through the questionnaire

and not been dismissed. now this moves us to the voir dire process. i have not been through the process myself either legally or as a juror, so i will leave it to the experts to tell you what this process will look like. i will tell you from the courtroom 18 jurors are facing questions now from the district attorney's office, and the d.a. is able to in a rapid fire sense ask the 18 individuals questions here that gets to the heart of their qualifications. this is not a moment for the lawyers, this is not an opportunity for them to convince them of potential evidence or sway them on the case. the judge can curtail questions or efforts to potentially taint

what could be actual jurors that are included in the actual jury pool here. this is a process where the d.a.'s office has the opportunity to ask follow-up questions of the 18. very well, it could be determined that none of these 18 individuals end up getting seated based on their follow-up answers and responses, and then we continue to go through the batch of the 96 individuals, and then we look for another batch of 18 individuals. we could walk away with one, two, three, four, five, six of them, based off this process of whether the defense and the prosecution agree on the individuals. this is the first batch of 18 that have gone through the 42-questionnaire session, and they have not been dismissed because of their own scheduling

or said they could not be impartial or fair. >> well, as somebody that has gone through that, tell us what the process is, and the prosecution will ask questions and the defense will do that later, and what are some of the pitfalls and both sides will have to be careful about? >> it's a painstaking process, josé. we have not gotten far and we are already in day two. it's about jury selection. it's a misnomer, and it's more of a jury deselection. the thing i would be most concerned about here on both sides, really, is the ability for a stealth juror to fly under the radar, and we want them to self report and accurately describe their inability to serve, not only for the mundane reasons but for the prejudice and bias that they can't look

past. the qualification aspect is not that you have had no thoughts about donald trump, but whatever thoughts you have you can put them aside and listen to the law and keep an open mind in that regard. a lot of people just don't want to serve on juries, so i would be paying attention to the eager beavers, because they may be the ones that really want to get on the jury for ulterior motives, and perhaps they have already decided they will or will not vote to convict former president trump regardless of what evidence is presented. >> vaughn hillyard, caroline and michael, thank you very much. still to come, a tale of two campaigns. president biden heads to his hometown today while trump sits in a criminal courtroom for day

two of his criminal trial. how that is playing out with voters. but then officials are looking how israel will respond to the barrage of missiles from iran. you're watching "josé diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. é diaz-balart reports" on msnbc. ly to fight them, liver problems, and inflammatory bowel disease, have occurred. tell your doctor if these happen or worsen, or if you've had a vaccine or plan to. (♪♪) start to get yourself back, with bimzelx. ask your dermatologist about bimzelx today. this is our future, ma. godaddy airo. creates a logo, website, even social posts... in minutes! -how? -a.i. (impressed) ay i like it! who wants to come see the future?! get your business online in minutes with godaddy airo

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this morning israel leaders are discussing how to response to the attacks of iran's drones. that assessment was based on conversations before iran launched those more than 300 drones and missiles on saturday night. u.s. officials stress they have not been briefed on israel's final decision. joining us now is retired admiral, former supreme allied commander of nato. always a pleasure to see you. before we get into what israel may or may not be doing, your thoughts on the nature of saturday night's attack. more than 300 missiles and

drones launched at one time from different locations? >> massive, and 350 is the number i have seen most frequently cited. what's really extraordinary is the combination of israel, the united states, britain, france, jordan, saudi arabia, all of those team players in the air defense coalition were able to knock down literally every one of these missiles, both ballistic and cruise, as well as 170 drones in the package. it's a remarkable feed of air defense, josé. >> yeah, it was not simply iran saying i will throw a few things out there and see how they react, but this was pretty massive. i am wondering, admiral, what does israel do after saturday night? >> let me take you inside what i

suspect is being briefed to the war cabinet of israel. the israeli military will be giving them effectively four options. one will be to do nothing. they will discard that. another one going up the ladder of escalation, josé, would be to strike iranian targets but outside the homeland like an iranian warship, for example, and then a strike against targets inside iran, but pure military targets, probably a factory where the drones are made, for example, and at the very high end, israel could choose -- i don't think they will but they could choose to launch an equal strike of iran,

and i think it will fall in the middle of the two options i mentioned. >> the smallest reaction will, quote, definitely be met with a severe, extensive and painful response. what are we looking at here, admiral? >> i think the good news is that we're probably 80% sure that israel will give them a missile response, but i think this thing kind of slows down, an chooses iran. iran could then choose to go big back at israel. the way they would do that is unleash hezbollah, a terrorist organization in lebanon, which has 100,000 missiles at its

disposal. that's the nightmare scenario that the biden administration and quite obviously the netanyahu administration want to avoid. >> admiral, always a pleasure to see you. thank you very much for your time, as always. >> thank you, jose. today you can see my colleague andrea mitchell's full interview with linda thomas-greenfield. she talked about what is going on in the middle east and the israeli reaction to this attack on saturday night and a lot more. that's coming up in the next hour on "andrea mitchell reports" right here on msnbc. i want to go back to vaughn hillyard outside the courthouse. you have a potential juror that was just dismissed. >> reporter: right. i want to introduce everybody to our new friend, kara. you are the first individual i talked to. you are from the east village neighborhood. we are talking about a bunch of new yorkers coming together.

you literally just left the courtroom. you were in seat? >> seat 13. >> reporter: you were dismissed because? >> i work in cybersecurity. it would be hard for me to be here for the hours needed for as long as this trial is going to be. >> reporter: did you have a sense you were coming for the trump trial when you got your summons and you knew what was happening? >> i didn't. but when i got my summons, i had texted my mom, i have jury duty coming up. she said, oh, i think mid april is when the jurors for the trump trial are getting called. i was like, wow, that would be fascinating. then i get here yesterday and there's a massive line and trump protesters and counterprotesters. it's like, well, i'm either on that trial or one down the hall from that trial. then our holding room had

something like 250 people in it. >> reporter: you were part of the first batch of 96? >> yes. >> reporter: you were in the courtroom the entire time yesterday during the jury selection process. >> i wasn't -- i was in the first group of jurors they brought into the courtroom. we weren't in the courtroom all the time. >> reporter: you were one of the lucky ones seated in seat 13, that initial batch to answer questions. you did answer the 42 questions. you were asked the question about what you thought of donald trump. i know they were yes or no questions. whether you could be fair and impartial to donald trump. you responded? >> i responded i can be fair and impartial. the question was, do you have any prior beliefs or opinions, i believe it was worded, about the defendant that would prohibit you from being fair and impartial? and i said i would be able to be fair and impartial. >> reporter: two questions off the top of my mind.

you were seated there. how far away from donald trump? >> quite close. gosh, estimate, you know, maybe 30 feet, 20 feet. >> reporter: what was that like answering questions, including some about donald trump, as he is sitting 30 feet from you? >> it was odd. it was such an interesting experience, because it's -- i had never seen him in person before. you see someone blown up so larger than life on the media for so many years. to see them in person is very jarring. you get the sense that it's like, this is just another guy. also, he sees me talking about him, which is bizarre. >> reporter: did you make eye contact? >> yes. >> reporter: at what point? >> i believe right before i started to read off the

questionnaire and right after i finished, before i got up to go. >> reporter: did it add another level of nervousness or tension that you felt with him sitting there? >> i think so. it made the whole thing feel more real in a way, because i guess when you are on any jury, you have elements of that person's future in your hands. whether it was trump or whether it was some stranger off the street in manhattan who i had never heard of before, if you commit to sitting on the jury, you can change that person's life forever. >> reporter: you felt that? >> yeah. >> reporter: jose has a question we want to follow up with. >> i was wondering, the extraordinary responsibility, the civic responsibility that we all have living in this country of maybe participating in a jury, it's probably the only system like this in the world.

there she was sitting just feet away from someone who, as she said, is so famous and yet in the final days, it's just about one human being. did she ever take that kind of responsibility and awesome privilege that we have and did it make a difference by being there? >> reporter: as a potential juror, you had a huge potential responsibility knowing that the fate of one man rests in your hands there. did you feel the gravity of that? >> yes. very much so. especially considering that historical nature of the trial. i think it was a fascinating contrast between feeling that gravity of not only as someone's fate in our hands here, but the fate of parts off you are country's legal system going forward is kind of in our hands, because this is unprecedented.

>> reporter: did you have conversations with other potential jurors about this? what did those conversations look like? >> weirdly, no. everyone has been very quiet so far. even yesterday, when people kind of seemed to start to realize that we were there for the trump trial, there was a sense that everyone was worried about what the protocols were and worried about whether we should talk about it or were allowed to talk about it or might get sent home for talking about it. everyone was kind of -- at one point i heard one juror say to another, do you think this means we are on the jury after they dismissed a few more people? apart from that, everyone was heads down and silent. >> reporter: what's your mom's name? >> sharon. >> reporter: you can talk to sharon now. kara, dismissed this morning.

>> what a fascinating conversation, vaughn hillyard, thanks very much. thank kara for being with us. thank you both. joining us now, as we continue to have this conversation, michael steele, former chairman of the republican national committee and an msnbc political analyst. he is the host of the michael steele podcast. always contributing in so many ways. it's always great to see you, my friend. >> nice to see you, my friend. >> we are 6 1/2 months from the presidential election. trump starting his first criminal trial, day two today. what kind of impact do you think this will have or could already be having on voters? >> that's an interesting question. i was thinking about that over the last 24 hours. one of the things that occurs to me is, this idea of the -- when something is far away, the idea of it is sort of a myth. it could be this.

we don't know if it will have this impact and how people will respond to it. now that it's here, i think it lands differently for folks. i think it lands a lot differently for voters. he is in -- he is actually there in court at the table. there are jurors being selected. it's now real. the mythmythification starts tot down. you still have the trappings of the presidency around him, which i believe should be removed. but okay, we'll play. that longer is enough. the images of him at trial, even though they are still images, i think changes the way voters are perceiving this. i think what we just heard from juror number 13 there is the

fact that people in that room are now impacted by this. it's real. it's solemn. it's important. they want to get it right. i think that's something that six months ago when you were so far removed from this, people were more flippant, now it's more sobering. it's interesting to see how this plays out for voters as we get into the meat of the trial. >> it's true, michael, you can see she felt the importance of that role. that's a beauiful thing about the american system. the only one in the world where you could have a jury like this. thank you so much. >> you got it. that wraps up the hour for me. i'm jose diaz-balart. you can reach me on social media @jdbalart. thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell picks up with more news right now.