[sneeze] dude you coming? because the only thing dripping should be your style. plop plop fizz fizz with alka-seltzer plus cold & flu relief. also try for fizzy fast cough relief. >> john: a live look at lower manhattan where closing arguments are underway in former president trump's months' long civil fraud lawsuit. one side the supreme court, the other a trump building at 40 wall street where just minutes from now the former president is expected to hold a news conference. we will bring you that live just as soon as it starts. new york attorney general letitia james says the rule of law is on her side but legal experts say the case is without

any precedent. >> jonathan: she's a very political attorney general. none of us could find a single case like this one where james or her office sought these types of damages. >> john: hello, john roberts in washington. nothing happening this afternoon, sandra, if you want to go out for lunch, now is the time to do it. >> sandra: nothing to see here. there is actually a lot going on, and this trial, one of several cases brought against donald trump playing out in an election year, of course. just days away from the iowa caucuses and voters are asking what a second term would look like. >> some of my friends that supported you in 2020 are not this time because they believe a trump presidency will bring four years of chaos. >> i think you had very little chaos. most was caused by the democrats constantly going after me. >> john: and the biden campaign

was quick to respond, painting trump as a dictator as they ramp up their attacks against the former president. >> sandra: jacqui heinrich has more on this. >> jacqui: the biden campaign has made clear they believe the best way to compel voters, support president biden and get them out to the ballot box is to play up trump's efforts to hold on to power following the 2020 election loss and the threat that they say trump poses to democracy. the former president responded to all of that with this. >> they use that narrative because they have nothing else. now the new narrative they have as you know, i'm going to be a dictator, that's the new narrative. because a guy like biden, there's nothing he can run on. everything he's turned out, it's turned out badly. >> jacqui: the biden campaign did not waste a moment, sending out a memo, trump did the dictator thing again, the memo reads, our first president george washington twice gave up

total and absolute power to protect american democracy to find it unrecognizable to the sacred cause of democracy. president biden has not had any public events here at the white house this week or last week although has given some campaign speeches to the road. tomorrow he heads to pennsylvania to talk about bidenomics, a poll shows trump leading biden, but expect to hear trump weave biden into everything, including remarks about the economy. >> when there's a crash, i hope it's going to be during this next 12 months because i don't want to be herbert hoover. the one president i just don't want to be herbert hoover. >> he's acknowledging my economy is doing well. you understand, herbert hoover, the only other president who lost jobs during his term. >> jacqui: a fox poll has trump leading biden nationally, 50 to 46% and reports the biden

campaign is planning travel to nevada and to michigan to court latino and arab american voters upset with biden over the border proposal and support of israel. sandra. >> sandra: jacqui heinrich live at the white house. thank you. john. >> john: sandra, republican primary candidates making their last-minute pitch to voters before iowa caucus-goers make their decisions. voters at last night's town hall had the chance to ask the president what he would get done in a potential second term. >> one of the things would be energy, even though i set records on energy, i was going to be energy dominant, we had the bills down low. we built over 500 miles of wall and i would say we are going to keep expanding. we rebuilt the military. >> john: bring in aaron murphy,

des moines bureau chief, good to be with you. president trump the front-runner, nikki haley moving into the second spot, desantis in third. chris christie bowed out and vivek ramaswamy in fourth place. trump, 53.3%, haley 18, desantis third, 15.5, ramaswamy at 6.5%. 37% of voters say they are hard donald trump supporters, 25% say they are hard never trumps, and then this. 37% of the electorate in the gop side say they are persuadeable. you've been talking to voters out there in iowa. what have they been telling you in terms of what they are going to do on caucus night? >> yeah, that's actually not surprising and even given iowa's stats, an event last night talking to people on the way out and they told me they still have

not made up their minds. i even had -- it's so easy for us, those of us who follow this stuff every day, breathe it in and out and have covered the campaigns since march, that a lot of people don't get as in tune in this as early as we do and i talked to one woman who knows for sure she's going to be caucusing on monday, and said last night i still have not really been paying attention to this, i need to to make up my minds. it shows there are iowans out there still making up their minds and evaluating these candidates and may not until they are on the way to the caucuses monday night. >> john: that is surprising four days left to go and have not made up their minds. two things we do know, they do care about politics and give it a lot of thought and they are a hearty group of voters as well and they have to be because the

wind chill temperature on monday night is going to be about -25 to -30°. i want to point out something historically, when you take a look at past iowa caucus winners on the republican side, none of them have ever cracked that magic 50% threshold. george bush was 41%, donald trump as we pointed out, polling at 53.3%. if he goes above 50 in the iowa caucuses, it would be more than historic. and do you think that would pretty much wrap up the primary process? >> i think that's a great question and i don't know for sure, but i would certainly send a huge signal the likes of which we have never seen out of iowa and he's doing well in new hampshire, too, maybe a little more competitive with nikki haley, but to your point, we have never seen a number like that in iowa, never seen a

performance that strong. if his team is ready to meet the moment and they get all those people out on what you just said it's going to be a really cold night monday night and his numbers are what the polling numbers say, that feels to me like a really high hurdle for any of the other candidates to overcome. >> john: i want to ask you one other quick question here, move ahead to new hampshire on the 23rd. chris christie had 12% of the vote in new hampshire. he's now out. 65% of christie's vote could go to nikki haley. that would be 8% of the total and that would give her 37% of the republican vote, which is only a little more than 6 points behind trump. if she does well in iowa, and then moves on and collects a lot of the christie vote, could we see a horse race in the next contest? >> i think that's the big

question that just got introduced with governor christie getting out, and he did not campaign here in iowa, so his performance here was never going to be strong and obviously won't be now that he's out of the race. but you are exactly right. if it goes the way that it looks like it could in new hampshire, if nikki haley does have some kind of surge, we still have not seen it, a new poll out in iowa today and nikki haley is still at 14%. so still not showing up at the polls but if there is a surprise on caucus night, if she has a moment, that could be the one thing maybe that gets her into new hampshire if she captures the christie voters there, otherwise at this point looks likes it's donald trump's to lose. >> john: a lot to watch and we will be doing it. aaron murphy, thank you for joining us. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> john: and sandra, through channelling my inner karl rove here. >> sandra: a live look new york

city at the federal courthouse. sorry, this is now 40 wall street, is that correct, 40 wall street, a trump-owned building where we are told he is now going to hold his -- this 2:30 announced news conference after his court appearance from right there. a live look as we anticipate. nate foy is live outside the new york state supreme court. >> nate: a lot of developments here just in the past hour or so, sandra. 40 wall street where the news conference is set to begin is one of the properties that former president trump, adult sons and several trump organization executives are accused of overvaluing to receive favorable bank loans and we have talked a lot in the past day and this morning about the back and forth between trump's lawyers and justice arthur engoron when trump wanted to speak in his own defense for part of the closing arguments

and we thought he was not going to be able to, and then that changed at the last minute. trump lawyer asked the judge if trump could speak, the judge asked trump if he would follow the restrictions set in place, trump didn't answer that question but instead immediately started speaking in his own defense saying he is the victim of fraud, that he should be paid damages because of that. he called this a political persecution. at one point while speaking the judge said he had a one-minute warning and trump said, paraphrasing here, but essentially can you listen for more than one minute, he said this is a direct quote, when you say don't go outside of these things, talking about the restrictions, trump said i'm an innocent man, persecuted, i have to go outside the bands. so again, we did unexpectedly hear from former president trump during those closing arguments. we have heard from him several times going in and out of the

courtroom today and we are expecting to hear more coming up in this news conference at 2:30. we'll send it back to you. >> sandra: all right, nate foy live in new york city, you can see the bug the bottom of the screen, we will go to the former president when he begins speaking live. john. >> john: waiting to hear from the former president, a lot of flags there, the news conference to start in the next few minutes. we will take you to 40 wall street live when that begins. plus this. >> typical middle class american household now has more wealth, higher earnings and more purchasing power than before the pandemic. >> sandra: you have to tell that to the american people. the biden administration continues to claim the middle class is doing great. but just today we saw inflation go back up. could the out of town messaging hurt president biden and his presidential run? our economic and will answer that question. they are ready to go.

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>> john: pentagon set to give a briefing as defense secretary lloyd austin remains hospitalized and faces growing calls to resign for not following proper protocols over his secret hospitalization and surgery for prostate cancer, including leaving his boss, the president, in the dark. you'll remember that back on december 22nd lloyd austin went in for what he said was elective surgery, went home after that but then emergency basis came back into walter reed medical center on the 1st of january and was put into the icu. rich edson is following this. he is live at the pentagon and now another investigation into

this, rich? >> rich: there is, john. department of defense inspector general is looking into lloyd austin's undisclosed absence, in a memo to department leadership, the inspector general office writes they are going to examine the roles, processes, procedures, responsibilities and actions related to the secretary of defense's hospitalization in december and january and assess whether the dod policies and procedures are sufficient to ensure timely notifications in the transition of authorities. austin is still in the hospital, for several days president biden will no idea austin was out of commission and did not know for a month the secretary of defense had cancer surgery. republicans on the senate arms services commission are concerned about national security and asking information about his absence. >> when the secretary of defense is in so much pain that he must

be removed from his residence by an ambulance, taken to a hospital, and put in the intensive care unit, that is not a minor occurrence. >> rich: committee chairman told griff jenkins he would like to give austin an opportunity to recover but wants more information on his absence as quickly as possible. the first congressional democrat has also said he's lost trust in austin's leadership. another congressman writes i have a solemn duty to oversee, that duty requires me to call on secretary austin to resign. this is all as there's an escalation in the middle east, we now have confirmation from two u.s. military officials an american tanker was seized by iran earlier today. john. >> john: that is certainly going to add another uncertainty into the mix. rich edson, thank you.

sandra. >> sandra: so we have new inflation numbers out today, and did show inflation, while the administration has been touting a drop inflation, touted going back up in december and still a far cry from the fed 2% target. according to the treasury chief, more wealth than before the pandemic but still not reflected in the polls and another growing disconnect between voters and washington. robert wolf is here, and douglas holtz-eakin. been looking forward to this all day, guys. so, we just heard, ok, she's the head of the economic council for the president. it was interesting, she stepped up to the microphone at the white house a short time ago during the briefing we said oh, yeah, president's economic team. not really familiar to people at home, but here was an exchange with some reporters. listen. >> why do you think the phrasing bidenomics has not caught on.

>> so i think again the president's economic policies are showing great results. >> what's your message to americans who are feeling this every day when they buy and use things? >> if you look at overall purchasing power people can buy as much as they could pre-pandemic, and they have $1,700 extra to spend. >> sandra: what? where did she get that number, robert, douglas, welcome. go, robert. you first. >> i mean, i was not surprised by today's number, you and i spoke the other day and said inflation is going to have a longer tail than the fed expects and i did not think they should be talking, or anyone talking about forecasting rate cuts yet. with respect to, you know, what lail said, wages have gone up, purchasing power is higher, but prices are still high for, you know, these kitchen table issues.

we are better off. >> why douglas why does the white house keep saying the president's policies are working, touting bidenomics. they are not even selling it to the reporters in that room. the middle one, ed lawrence with fbn. ok, quick, peter doocy is putting a question to karine jean-pierre in the briefing room. >> it was very well received and this is something that he's going to continue to do. he went to obviously he was in delaware and then went to south carolina, also gave another impactful speech on our democracy and freedoms and then went to texas to pay respect to a congresswoman who passed away. he's been out there, been able to talk directly to the american people and we think it's important. tomorrow he's going to be in allentown, he's going to talk about small businesses how important especially in allentown it's been, 15 million applications in three years.

that's a record number because it's important to see -- to see how bidenomics is working, he's going to talk about bidenomics. if people are starting small businesses they must have some confidence in the economy. so he's looking forward to being out there tomorrow and talking again to directly to the american people. >> so he did a three-day swing. but for the last three days, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, none of his constituents have seen him doing anything. who decided that the american people are best served by seeing less of the president? >> i would disagree. i would not say they saw less of the president. he was out there, a couple of states in three days. i think that's important to note as well and give the american people the full information here and yesterday we noted this. he met with paul whelan's sister elizabeth, a commitment when it comes to american hostages, bringing them home the president is committed to doing that and we have brought home more than

30 people, 30 americans held hostage across the globe and so the president is committed, he wanted to have a conversation with elizabeth, he did that. met with his national security team as he does regularly. he did that. he had lunch with the vice president yesterday, important partner in everything that he's trying to get done on behalf of the american people, so the president is active, the president is doing what he needs to do to deliver for the american people, he'll continue to do that. >> axios that president biden was advised by the white house counsel to stop give big dollar donors tours of the oval office. while he's been out of view of the public for the last three days, has he given any wealthy campaign donors tours of the oval office? >> so, speaking to that particular point, the stories out there, so as many of your outlets have covered it is typical, it is typical for all presidents, regardless of party, to host supporters at the white house complex which is both as

you know his working office as well as his personal residence as well and president biden and his team take all of this very seriously. we take rules concerning the white house and re-election seriously and so, and we are proud of that. proud of taking those rules seriously. i don't have anything else to add. >> on that meeting the president had with paul whelan's sister, did anything prompt that meeting -- >> sandra: so that was peter doocy's exchange with karine jean-pierre, obviously some big questions over the president's daily activities, sort of falls into the discussion we are having here, robert. i'll ask you this. it was a question put to karine jean-pierre what is the president doing today and karine jean-pierre sort of struggled to answer that question. you could put that so the economy. what is the -- they say day after day the biggest focus is bringing down prices for this president and focusing on the middle class and the lower earners in this country. if that's the biggest focus and the priority, what he's doing

isn't working because prices are up. they remain up and just went back up. >> inflation is down two-thirds from its peak, but yes, prices are up and different things. and they are also down in different things. but the service sector, and douglas knows this better than me, 80% of the economy, we have service sector inflation, and so we are seeing it in rent and seeing it in insurance and seeing it in things. but the flip side is, we have had every month wages outperform inflation since january of 2023. we need to keep that going. but you know, we have to tell our story and i think actually the president has been out. we can have a different debate on that. >> sandra: what people are feeling, price increases under the president, two-year span, food up 34%, electricity, we are in the two-minute warning for former president trump and the news conference at 40 wall street. but what people are feeling. >> yeah, briefly, in 2021,

people worked year around and got behind. inflation was high er than wage. 2022, the same thing. the past six months that's reversed, that's great. they remember the two years. they had to borrow to get through the christmas season at record rates, they are hanging on, but the inflation is not gone and robert is right about it. it's not going to go away quickly. >> sandra: thanks to both of you for joining us and hanging on through the breaking news. appreciate it. douglas, robert, thank you. john. >> john: all right, now a live looking at 40 wall street in downtown manhattan where any moment now former president donald trump is expected to give a news conference following his latest court appearance in this new york state fraud trial. it was closing arguments today. judge engoron had disallowed the former president from making any kind of statement in his closing argument saying he did not want to stray away from the matter at

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remember since he was president. >> sandra: let's listen here to the president's lawyer. >> the organization and every employee of the trump organization which has single handedly changed the new york skyline, including the building we are in today. these are special properties. real estate is an art, not a science. but you know what else is an art, you know what else isn't a science, political motivated individuals. she's using this to paint a canvas that donald trump is a fraudster. >> sandra: of course what's happening here ahead of the president speaking there at his building, 40 wall street, referencing new york attorney general letitia james, seeking $370 million in damages and to bar trump from doing business in the state. alleging that the former president and his adult sons and his company defrauded banks and insurance companies by inflating

the value of trump's assets. the judge said he'll aim to file a written decision on the docket by the end of january. so former president just wrapped his closing arguments, he's now speaking. let's listen. >> the judge is obviously extremely friendly with the group and we'll see what happens. i think maybe they surprise people on a positive side, we'll have to see what happens exactly. but we have proven this case so conclusively, millions and millions of pages, years of litigation and politically motivated. she campaigned on i will get trump, she has serious trump derangement syndrome, james, the corrupt attorney general of new

york. not one witness against us other than one person who is a deranged, he's got a lot of problems, a man who has been convicted of lying, he's a felon, convicted felon, and not a good person, but that's their only witness and he's now crashed and burned. they have no witnesses, and by the way, that witness took back everything that he said. he took back everything he said in court, took it all back. so they have no case, it's a shame that a thing like this is able to happen, businesses leave new york, she went after exxon and they decided to move to texas and hundreds of millions of dollars they pay in taxes. i paid over $300 million of taxes over the last number of years, 300 million and they don't recognize that. they don't recognize anything. so not -- think of it, not one witness, millions of pages of documents, years of this nonsense and now it goes on and

one other factor, we won this case already in the court of appeals. court of appeals voted in favor of us. but this judge has been very, very slow to accept that opinion because that's not the opinion that he wants. but we won in the court of appeals. that's the boss of this judge who has to know that, and it was a story, and 40 wall street, a great building and a chance to see one of the nicest buildings in new york and a convenient place and i don't have to pay any rent because we have it, and it's been a very successful building. but it's a shame to have to have gone through this for years and years and years and now we'll see if we are going to get an honest verdict, we did not have a jury, no rights to a jury, it's a statute that's never been used before for a purpose like this, i just watched a certain broadcast and they said you know, they have been looking, has it ever been used before,

this is the statute that's a consumer fraud statute, never been used before for anything like this before and it's a shame. it's really -- it's a witch hunt in the truest sense of the word, election interference, and just right now, letitia james visited joe biden in the white house numerous times during the trump witch hunt and this just came out about ten minutes ago, i got it. and so it's all -- it's all a conspiracy to try and get biden who can't put two sentences together, try and get him into office. so i just want to let you know that we have our best poll numbers, the best everything. despite this, and maybe because of this, because the people of the united states, all of those people back there, the people of the united states really get it. they get it better than anybody else, yeah, please. >> do you approve what the lawyer said on tuesday you should not be prosecuted or could not be prosecuted if you

ordered seal team 6 to kill -- [indiscernible] >> totally different case. if a president of the united states does not have immunity, he'll be totally ineffective, he won't be able to do anything because it will mean he'll be prosecute, strongly prosecuted perhaps as soon as he leaves office by the opposing party. i'm not just me, i'm talking any president has to have immunity. as an example, biden could come out and get him on the border, on what happened in afghanistan, horrible, most embarrassing moment in the history of this country, and taking cash from countries, get him on the prosecutor not prosecuting his son or the company, whoever it was, burisma in ukraine. you could get him on that, where it was a quid pro quo, if they don't drop the prosecutor we are

not giving them $1 billion of u.s. funds. if you don't have immunity, you know, you won't be making any decision. so you have to have it. and i liken it to the fact that police have to have their control back, they have to have respect. and you can always have a bad apple, always have something happen, but at the same time, you have to stop crime in this country. it's very much like that. it's very similar to that. but you have to have immunity for a president and i think most people are seeing that. i've read a lot of real reports lately and scholarly reports that are saying you have to have a president of this country has to have immunity or they are not going to be able to function in office. >> president trump, just days away from the iowa caucuses. what percentage of your time these days is spent on your campaign, what percentage is spent on your legal issues. >> my legal issues, every one of them, civil and criminal ones

are all set up by joe biden, crooked joe biden. even this, this is all about biden and her meeting. so, even the civil ones, this is civil, they are set up by biden. every single, just about, case that i'm involved in is set up by biden. they are doing it for election interference and in a way i guess you consider it part of the campaign, because if you really look at it, they are doing it. never been done like this in this country. it's like we are a third world country, banana republic. but every one of the things you write about are biden-indictments, and i don't know, you know, i just got a poll -- just had a poll, just came out and we are leading massively in iowa, we are leading very big in new hampshire, we are leading, because the people understand this stuff. these are all set up, every time somebody sees me in court, remember, joe biden and his thugs that surround him did it. they are trying to get a man in

office that can't put two sentences together and doing that. so far we seem to do very well. >> iowa caucuses [indiscernible] >> that's another one sponsored by reed hoffman and some democrat operatives. i never saw this woman in my life, john johnson, her husband, newscaster years ago and she said horrible, horrible things about him since, called him bad names. i have no idea who this woman is. i have absolutely no idea the whole thing is ridiculous that this is even a case. this should never have happened but again, this is sponsored by the democrats. it's another case. all sponsored by, it's a demeaning kinds of a thing and what they want to do, it's called election interference and yeah i'm going to go to it and explain, i don't know who the hell she is. i have no idea, they called me up years ago and they said do

you know about this woman, 25 or 30 years ago. she doesn't even know the date, the time, the month, the season, she has no idea and if you read and watch, take a look at the anderson cooper interview of her. and if you take a look at that, trump is so innocent, but we have been given a very unfair trial there, too. i don't get very fair trials in new york. >> you are going to show up for the federal trial, you showed up here in new york for the civil fraud trial. you just said you are going to show up for the e. jean carroll case. are you going to show up in court -- >> sure, sure, the documents case, just hear where they want to try and exonerate biden and he did not have the presidential records act and i do. what i did, nothing wrong. what he did, a lot of people say substantially wrong. you can't have two tiers of justice in this country. but no, i want to go to all of

my trials. these are all, again, all set up by biden and the democrats. this is -- they are -- this is their new form of cheating. this is like last time, this is their new form of cheating. so far i think it's gone very much against them. yeah, please. >> during the hearing you said that exxon left new york because -- exxon left in 1989. >> no, they took the rest of their divisions out. they left earlier. they were treated very badly in new york. you could have had them in new york, could have been paying a lot of money. >> it was not letitia james. >> no, i think if you take a look, you read the case, study the case, you'll see that they took big divisions out after that. they originally left and then took the rest out. >> you just said you could get president biden on various issues you outlined. >> i didn't say i could get him on anything. i said he is using the weaponization of the doj and fbi to go after his political

opponent and you just can't do that. thank you very much. >> are you concerned about the bomb threat -- [yelling] >> sandra: it appears there is quite a crowd there at 40 quality as the president's son waves good-bye and the president departs the building. quite a moment as we are just days from iowa. he's coming back again. ok, all right, so, john, as expected, he delivered a news conference after he left the courtroom there, and this is -- this is exciting days before the iowa caucuses and by the way, there was a mention there of the

e. jean carroll lawsuit. he lost the immunity appeal in the defamation case, he was ordered to pay $5 million in that lawsuit. important to point out as he says he does not know who that woman was. >> i expected that he was going to take more questions than he did. i remember being with him in singapore after he met with kim jong-un and took questions almost an hour, and i thought he would stay there longer, but what seems to be probably the first formal news conference setting i can remember him having since he left office and maybe a harbinger of things to come, i've been sitting here with sarah bedford, and asked do i miss that on a daily basis and i remember how dynamic it was for four years at the white house when the president would just come out and take questions for 45 minutes, maybe an hour or more and what a contrast to where we are now at the white

house. >> sandra: he did not go on for that long but did take a few, and right after he wrapped the closing arguments in this civil fraud trial at the federal courthouse there, in court, speaking from the defense table for roughly five minutes, john, he said the financial statements are perfect, and he called the case a witch hunt before the judge cut him off, a lot of what you just heard from the former president at 40 wall. >> john: judge engoron made the decision the former president would not be able to speak at his closing arguments but mr. trump took the opportunity and let the judge know what he thought. let's bring out nate foy outside the new york supreme court where everything transpired earlier today. nate. >> nate: you just heard former president trump talk about two things. first, what's behind all these trials that he's dealing with, we have shown you the graphic with all of those trials all day, and he believes it's election interference directed by president biden, and then he also really focused on new york

attorney letitia james saying she has trump derangement syndrome, and then what's in this trial and his viewpoint, he went down the list of all the flaws in the case the attorney general's office has provided saying that his properties are actually undervalued and the case is politically motivated, michael cohen, one of the witnesses used in the trial has severe credibility issues. meanwhile, the state is now making their case in the afternoon session in court and attorney general james put out a statement saying she believes the rule of law is on her side, that she's confident in the case that her office has put forward and she's been attending a lot of the high profile days, specifically the days that trump and his adult sons have testified in this trial. scoring political points for sure but fox news has never found, our legal team has never found a case in new york where

someone has been found guilty of fraud without a victim. back to you. >> john: nate foy for us outside the supreme court. we will follow this and we will be right back. stay with us. just the three of us girls. i never thought twice about feeding her kibble. but about two years ago, i realized she was overweight. she was always out of breath. that's when i decided to introduce the farmer's dog to her diet. it's just so fresh that she literally gets bubbles in her mouth. now she's a lot more active, she's able to join us on our adventures. and we're all able to do things as a family. ♪ get started at betterforthem.com

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>> sandra: well, if all of that

wasn't enough, next up, hunter biden's expected in a los angeles courtroom. that's expected to happen in the next hour or so to answer on federal tax charges a day after crashing that house oversight hearing on whether to hold him in contempt of congress. sarah bedford is a reporter for "the washington examiner." she will join us in just a moment to talk about hunter's legal troubles. first, to our chief correspondent, jonathan hunt live in los angeles. what exactly can we expect to come from this appearance? >> well, we expect it to be in the first place far more sober and serious than the circus we saw play out on capitol hill yesterday. it's due to get underway this hearing in just over an hour's time. hunter biden is already in the building. our cameras caught his convey led by the secret service arriving about 30 minutes ago.

after he left capitol hill yesterday, he flew straight here to l.a. this is, of course, his residence. now, his nemesis at the today's hearing rather than republican congress persons is going to be special prosecutor david weiss. david weiss, of course, is the man that announced the various tax charges against hunter biden last month. now he will face arraignment on those charges here today. of course, it will all be far more controlled than what we saw on the hill yesterday when hunter biden showed up unexpectedly at that committee hearing. the committee, of course, considering whether to charge him with contempt over his refusal to appear to answer congressional subpoena to testify behind closed doors. hunter biden of course says he was happy to speak publicly, but not privately. both sides during that hearing accused the other of being

afraid. listen here. >> what is hunter biden so afraid of? why can't you show up for a congressional deposition? you're here for a political stunt. this is just a p.r. stunt to you. >> the only folks that are afraid to hear from the witness with the american people watching are my friends on the other side of the aisle. >> so in just about an hour this arraignment hearing will get underway. the beginning in effect of proceedings that present in essence the greatest threat to hunter biden's continued freedom. he faces a potential prison sentence of 17 years if he's found guilty on all of those tax charges. sandra? >> sandra: jonathan hunt battling through noise there. check back with you soon. john? >> john: now let's bring in sarah bedford, washington examiner reporter and the steam boat's institute blankly fellow. you've been following the money

with hunter biden. what more could we learn about the money trail, do you think, in these court proceedings? >> in the court proceedings, we're likely to learn quite a bit. you know, the heart of the case is whether hunter biden misrepresented his finances and his sources of income to the irs, particularly in 2018. those felonies around that tax year. so we're likely to learn more about how he was making money and whether he did in fact lie to the irs about his business expenses as prosecutors are alleging. this is a case where the p.r. campaign hunter biden has been on the past several months playing up the more sympathetic, his troubles with addiction could come back to haunt him. to defend against this, his lawyers will have to argue that these were businesses expenses and he wasn't incapable of doing business at the time. >> john: so we have the irs proceedings, the gun charge and the prosecutor is looking in to whether or not he should have registered as a foreign agent

under the fara act. you had a starry out about a guy names john beretta. he did work for burisma a number of years ago. recently retroactively registered as a foreign agent, a spokesperson for the law firm told you this. after discussions regarding faras's scope, a registration has been filed in march and september 2016 and a supplemental statement terminated in the registration as of september 2016. this raises two questions. why was he allowed to do this when other people including paul manafort weren't allowed to do it? if he's doing it, should hunter biden be trying to do it? >> both of those are good questions. paul manafort and rick gaetz offered to finds fara form retroactively. they were charged with a fara

violation. and a third person has been allowed to file late not disclosing your work with a foreign entity is a crime that the justice department during the trump administration started enforcing far more aggressively. so that alone is likely to reinforce these claims that there's a two tiered standard of justice here. what hunter biden did for burisma is not legal work as first presented. the white house at the time said he's a yale-trained lawyer providing legal services to burisma. there's no evidence that he ever provided legal work for burisma. what he was providing according to witnesses like devin archer is access to people in washington. that's textbook foreign lobbying. >> john: that's the definition of a foreign agent, is it not? >> everybody else doing that same kind of work to robbyists to blue star strategies have had to register under fara. so hunter biden will be allowed to register now?

so the recent active suggests the justice department may be interested in this. >> john: and the fallout from capitol hill yesterday. here's what was written. hunter biden brought a strange political scene to the house oversight committee. in the end, hunter's stunt eliminated republican reservations about holding him in contempt. that was going to happen anyways. what is the upshot for joe biden is? >> the justice department has discretion whether to bring charges. the justice department could choose not to prosecute the hunter biden, the person in charge of making that decision, u.s. attorney matthew graves has chosen not to prosecute hunter biden on the tax issues. we earned that from the irs whistle-blower. maybe there's not an appetite. this same u.s. attorney did prosecute other trump administration officials including steve bannon for contempt of congress. you may have more accusations of

a two-tiered system here. >> john: the accusations that bannon and navarro said they wouldn't testify. that will factor in to whatever decision they make. great to see you. thanks for hanging with us. >> thank you. >> john: appreciate it. another busy day. since you're around, we call it thursday. >> sandra: every day something new. that's the news for you. great to be with you, john. this is a live look as we anticipate what will happen next at the courthouse in los angeles. i'm sure the afternoon will be a busy one on the channel. thanks for joining us. i'm sandra smith. >> john: i'm john roberts. don't forget just four days until those all-important iowa caucuses. speaking of iowa, let's go there right now where martha maccallum has "the story." >> martha: hello. thanks very much. john and sandra, good to see you both. good afternoon, everybody. i'm martha