with his win for elton john live, farewell from dodgers stadiums. so john joins mel groups, john legend, and violet evs. even president biden posted a congratulations today, calling him, quote, a singer incinerator of our time for all-time. we are still like to point out that while ron desantis championed and anti drug bills, was losing to trump in iowa live's played, once very famous drag queen was -- had already extended his winning streak for the most awarded host for a reality competition program, rupaul's drag race, when the emmy for best reality competition again. and he used his acceptance speech to champion drag queens story hours in the face a far-right wing attacks. here is just some of what he had to say last night. >> we have released into the wild hundreds of drag queens.

and they are beautiful. they're beautiful. on behalf of all of them, we thank you. and listen, if a drag queen wants to read you a story at a library, listen to her, because knowledge is power. and if someone tries to restrict your access to power, they are trying to scare you. so listen to a drag queen. we love you. thank you. >> knowledge is power. listen to a drag queen. the incomparable rupaul takes off the air tonight. and on that note, i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late. i'll see you at the end of tomorrow. we if you don't for joining me this hour. donald trump handily winning

the iowa caucus last night. not that much of a surprise. but this, this was. >> i don't know if you know, but they did polls tonight on the election of 2020. do you believe it was honest or not? 82% said -- 82% said it was not. >> now, before we go on further here, i should clarify that much like the size of his inauguration crowd or is square footage in his new york city apartment, donald trump is inflating the numbers again. the real number is 66%. nbc news conducted entrance polls of voters as they headed into the iowa caucus sites, and 62% of the iowa caucus goers polled said they did not believe that joe biden legitimately won the 2020 election. not trump's fantasy 82%. 82% is actually the proportion of registered republican voters across the nation who agree with donald trump's language

about immigrants poisoning the blood of the country. maybe mr. trump was talking about that delightful statistic. but still, 66% is shockingly high. higher than you might expect after three years of litigating the 2020 election, in courts and in congress, after multiple indictments and plea deals that were struck by trump's codefendants. but that entrance poll shows that the big lie won't die. and not just in iowa. in new hampshire today, donald trump made a pit stop in new york city to attend a jury selection for the child that is set to decide what damages trump owes writer e. jean carroll. they have already found trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming. at jury selection today, to potential jurors that something unusual enough that trump reportedly turned around to see who they were. those two potential jurors said

they believed that the 2020 election was stolen. now, neither of those individuals were ultimately selected for the jury. but that moment unfolded in new york city, in a part of this country that is traditionally understood to be deep, deep blue. and yet, there were still election deniers. to anyone with even a passing understanding of what has been happening in our country the past four years, the big lie is on its face, preposterous. but we are seeing over and over again that the big lie endures. it is taking root in republican voters across the country, and that makes the big lie a major x-factor in the 2024 election. but we also learned about one other x-factor in iowa tonight. this also came from internal polling conducted by nbc news. 31% of iowa's republican caucus goers believe that if trump is convicted of a crime, he will not be fit to be president.

okay, so i have a lot of follow-up questions to that. does that sentiment the pent in which case trump is convicted in because he is facing quite a few? and how do these two factors interact. will trump's bouncing back and forth on the campaign trail to the courtroom solidify his support or tank it? joining me is claire mccaskill, former u.s. senator for the great state of missouri and co-host of the nbc podcast, how to win in 2024. and stuart stevens, former chief strategist for mitt romney's 2012 presidential campaign and a senior adviser at the lincoln project. thank you both for being with me this evening. stuart. let me start with you in terms of the numbers from republican voters. if you don't believe that the 2020 election was stolen, and you also believe that a criminal conviction would be disqualifying for donald trump, what are you still doing in the republican party at this point?

>> that is a great question. there are a lot of people in denial about what the republican party had become. i think there is something very interesting about this because if you take these numbers and say that trump's base is those who don't believe that the election that joe biden won a free and fair election, that's a relatively incredibly large but still, if that is trump's base, you do the math, but that puts his base closer into the low 30s. this was an incredibly low turnout in iowa last night, just over 100,000 people. the student body of texas a&m is 75,000. i think it's difficult to draw too many conclusions from it. except, one thing stuck out to me, alex. that is that trump did a very good on the ground organizing

job. he had a precinct captain in every precinct of iowa. that's really hard to do. there are a whole lot of precincts, and i understand, in new hampshire, he's done a good job organizing there. i think that what we're looking at is a trump campaign that's being run by professionals. i know these people. you may not like their candidate, but they are not good at what they do. i think you put together a much more formidable campaign. >> i think that, claire, that the ground game is one piece of it, but trump did not visit 99 counties like ron desantis it. he did not go to the bat on a the debates. he's a national figure with a remarkably enduring grassroots support at the state level. i wonder when you look at these numbers for him in iowa,

potentially in new hampshire nationally, is there anything that joe biden can or should do to cleave off the 30% that stewart is talking about, or that i was talking about, the reality that not everybody in the gop is for trump as strongly as perhaps trump would like to believe or we are led to believe after a moment like iowa last night? >> so, here is the deal. if you look at iowa, it was a 50/50 vote. 50% voted for what was essentially an incumbent for the republican party, and 50% voted for somebody else. that is not a great night. 100,000 people showed up, not a great turnout. this vast enthusiasm that he talks about, i don't know. 50% of 100,000 people? i don't think that this is something that the rest of the country should look at and go, oh, my gosh, it's a ground swell, what momentum. i do think that biden has to take it to him. i think he has to do what david plouffe said on chris hayes's show. he has to say, listen, i know

you guys are not thrilled. you have two old white men running for president, and a lot of you are not thrilled about either one of us, but look at the choice you have. look at what is on one side, integrity, normal, stable, getting results for you. and what is on the other side? chaos and a litany of lies from sun up to sun down. those people who have never been with trump since the insurrection, they know that what he did, the insurrection, the republicans, they know and many are college educated. they know that he's lying about what happened in the election. those are the folks that joe biden has to get along with the majority of independent voters that would never be caught near an independent caucus. >> so you agree, claire, it's about learning at the age, the whiteness, the paleness, and say, look, this is the best that you can get, and it's measurably better than what the alternative is?

>> yeah, i just think joe biden needs to be candid and relate. he so good at relating to people. he really is a normal guy. he really is a guy from a working class background. he's never had a gold toilet in his entire life. he's never been a guy that's been well off until he made money of books and so forth, giving speeches and all of that, once vice president. nothing to do with hunter biden, by the way. but he was always one of the least wealthy people in the senate, for decades and decades. this is not a guy. this is a working class guy who understands working class people. he needs to get at the, he needs to go after all the union rank and file. he needs to make sure to solidify the base. he needs to have an aggressive campaign and, most importantly, he has to do this. you know what, joe biden can deliver a win, and i don't care how well organized the trump campaign is, you know who will beat donald trump, donald trump. >> okay, on that note, stewart

stevens, i want to dig a little deeper into the conviction, the potential conviction and what that does for trump support. i am of two minds. on one hand, it seems like it obviously would be disqualifying among a certain subset of the electorate and therefore it's a bad thing for trump. but it does appear that the more he rallies and rails against prosecutors, the stronger his base of support can be. is that base of support saturated already? will those numbers increase or do you think it is decidedly a bad thing for trump to face trial and be seen in the witness bar or in the trial setting a courtroom for the much rest of the 2024 campaign? >> i think it's a bad thing for trump. you know, like the senator, i think the majority of americans here will look at this and find something very unsettling about having a presidential candidate,

the former president in the dock, and if he is convicted, think about it. what part of american life do we say that is a good thing? is that a thing teachers say are coaches say, boy scout or girl scout leaders? he's been able to create this universe that if he believes that the election was stolen, that means that he should be president, and if he believes that, that means that the deep state out there, this mythical thing, the only way they can stop him from returning to what he should rightfully have is put him in jail. that's sort of a unified theory of the world. it's like, if you know about the pyramids, a lot of those things make sense, but they didn't. i think that there is a limit to how many people are going to buy into that universe. i personally think that this will become a two-person race quickly. trump all lock it up on super tuesday, and i think post convention, biden will move ahead. i think biden will win by a

much more comfortable margin than he did last time. >> i do want to ask, though and i do think that is the realistic view or realistic, optimistic view of the american electorate, claire, but i still find it shocking. when you think about where donald trump was two years ago, in the aftermath of january six, a person whose political future was roundly dismissed or thought to be over, and where he is now, granted, 50% of iowa caucus goers didn't vote for him, but 50% did, and 65%, 66% of caucus goers in the 2020 election thought it was stolen. that is a shocking. that still remains shocking to me, the durability of the big lie. does it surprise you or do you think that that part of the republican party's loss? >> listen, this is a guy who never understands about expanding in space. this is never somebody who

wanted to unite the country, even for people did not vote for him. this is always someone who played to his base and only to his base. that's one of the reasons why he's lost a lot. here is the deal, i think him getting indicted solidified his base. if you look at his polling, it jumped after he got indicted in new york, i am paying a porn star, and it kept solidifying as he got more and more charges. his base within the republican party. but more than one thing can be true at once. that's a lot different than independent swing voters in suburban areas. it's a lot different than college educated women who are thinking a lot about what this man did to their freedom. and i really do think that sewer is right. i think that he may have this calcified bubble of people who think that, you know, this was a big fraud, and the government is after him, and its deep state, and they are ignoring the facts. but most americans understand that if you're in the courtroom in america, it's about the

facts and how it looks in front of a jury of your peers. i think it will look different for swing voters, yes, who will decide presidential elections. it's not the base of both parties, it's the people capable of voting for either party. >> that is a point that we should never, never lose sight of. temporal since when states in the handful of swing states in the country will actually decide the fate of american liberal democracy. claire mccaskill and stuart stevens, thank you both for your wisdom tonight, i appreciate it. >> thank you. >> we have a lot more to get to tonight, including some goodbyes to republican presidential candidates asa hutchison, vivek ramaswamy and also maybe sort of goodbye to the man who has not yet quite figured out that he is basically out, ron desantis. plus, how donald trump's maga

movement has upended not only republican politics but evangelical christianity itself. we'll have more on that with journalist tim alberta coming up next.

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in carlisle, iowa, a caucus goers spoke in support of donald trump. she said, i know that he is picked by god for this hour. there are things that he has done in his past, but we all have pasts. it means, what he has done is, past but he was picked by god. and a statement like, that there is compelling data to back up how much white christians, especially evangelicals, love trump. entrance polling from last night shows that 54% of the respondents were white evangelical christians, and 53% of them voted for trump. now, compare that to 2016, when 62% of respondents identified as white evangelicals but only 21% voted for donald trump. in the eight years between

those two iowa caucuses, that is trump has not only more than doubled his support from evangelicals, he's also redefined what it means to be one. author tim alberta describes that phenomenon this way. more than any figure in american history, the 45th president transformed evangelical from spiritual signifier into political punchline, exposing the selective morality, the ethical inconsistency and rank hypocrisy that had for so long lurked in the subconscious of a movement. to be fair, the collapse predated trump. he did not alter the cultural insecurities of the church, but he did identify them and pray upon them in ways that should have accelerated the unraveling of institutional christianity in the united states. joining me now is tim alberta, staff writer at the atlantic, also the author of the kingdom, the power and the glory, american evangelicals in an age of extremism.

tim, i wish i had had you at my side last night as we try to understand or exactly hadn't happened in iowa, especially with evangelicals. your writing on this is so essential and so to the point that we all tried to me, which is the way that the trump has corrupted the evangelical movement. i wonder in your estimation, what it means to be an evangelical in this country at this moment. >> you know, it's funny, alex, there is this anecdote where a few decades ago, where somebody wrote in a book that somebody, an evangelical was somebody who liked billy graham, and followed billy graham. somebody asked graham about that, and they asked him what it meant to be an evangelical

and they said, you know, that's funny. i would like to know the answer to that myself. at the risk of being two or productive here, we are beginning to flirt with this territory where definitionally speaking, evangelicalism has far more to do at least with the perception of the greater public with political engagement, partisan political identification than it does with any particular theology or any religious conviction. if you take it a step further, look at the exit polling, look at the social science around this, if you look at the fact, alex, that during donald trump's presidency, more and more of donald trump supporters were self identifying as evangelicals, even though they were simultaneously attending church less and less often, i think one might reach the uncomfortable conclusion that perhaps the best definition now of what it means to be an evangelical is to be a conservative white republican trump supporter. that is a tragedy on a number of different levels, but i

think most profoundly, it is a tragedy for the gospel of jesus christ. >> right, the gospel is no longer part of the equation, what is replaced by it? that leads to my next question, which is, do you think maga-ism has become a place holder for religion? >> well, yes, if you think about what it means to be religious, if you think about what it means to have an identity rooted in unshakable faith, i don't want to be reductive here, and i don't want to paint with too broad a brush. again, the evangelical community is large. it's huge and complicated. there are a lot of factors here to explore. but what we see time and again, 53% in iowa, and this is now, we're reaching a place where, we are being confronted with some uncomfortable realities about what it means to be part

of the evangelical movement and, frankly, where the line blurs between religious identity and political identity, and is there a merging at the two? and, frankly, i think there is always a danger in politics, whatever side of the political aisle you are on, of sort of turning political conviction into religious conviction or worshipping at a certain alter that is not an alterto god but is an alter to political idolatry or political identity. that is a danger that has always been there. i think it is uniquely dangerous in this moment, and to be clear, as i write in the book, we have examples from the not so distant past, a sort of political religion or a civil religion supplanting, competing with actual religion, and i don't think we are all that far

removed from that in this country now, looking at what happened last night. >> yeah, it's clear that trump wants to capitalize on this religious fervor that may undergrowth people's support of him. he's out there taking out ads that god made trump a video. where they literally called trump a shepherd to mankind. he is not shying away from this. you know, i have been to a number of trump rallies, tim, as a journalist. i think the thing that people miss about trumpism and maga -ism is the sense of belonging that is so fundamental to the entire maga movement. in addition to being xenophobic racist events, they are also much like revivals, there's a lot of camaraderie, a shared sense of belonging. it seems to me that that answers a fundamental loneliness that may be part of the american experience, not to get too theoretical about it, but i think that dovetails with some of the religious inclinations here.

>> no, alex, listen, you're hitting the nail on the head. when you think about the shared identity, the common, you described it as a sense of belonging, and i think that is right. when you think about why people gather in a religious setting, it is because they are part of one body, and as a part of the body, they are sort of transcending the world around them, and they are coming together to worship a god that is bigger than them, in the evangelical christian tradition. that is to worship jesus and draw closer to jesus and become

more and more crucial. that is the essence of that particular religious experience, and it's not an exaggeration when you go to the trump rallies they talk with folks like the one that you just quoted from the article, and they are describing it in similar terms, that is a transcendent religious experience that is rooted in notions of shared identity, and they are very much coming there to pursue a sort of salvation. it may not be a biblical salvation, but it's a salvation rooted in this same sense of something that they can't find anywhere else, that they're coming back for a time and time again. if during barack obama's presidency, or while he ran for president, if you had heard him talking with or promoting a video saying that he was a shepherd to all of mankind, the evangelical movement would have been up in arms. this is heretical. this is blasphemous, and yet donald trump seems to get a pass, time and time again for doing these things that no other politician, republican or democrat, frankly, would get a pass for doing. and we should ask ourselves why,

if the answer does not start to flirt with this terrain of civil religion or political religion, then i don't think we're being honest with ourselves. if we are being honest with ourselves, if we are willing to engage with the topic around what happens when trumpism becomes civil religion in this country for millions and millions of people, what that might imply moving forward, then we are doing a disservice to our holistic democracy? >> tim, i really think you are one of the most well informed thinkers and writers on the topic. i am deeply appreciative of your time and writing, thanks again. >> thanks, alex. >> coming up, do you remember vivek ramaswamy's infamous pee tape? really, it exists. now that is out of the race, we'll have a refresher on the also-ran's greatest hits. that is coming up, stay with us. >> a loving parent.

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love the courtroom. if you're elected president will you promise to pardon me? i'm really sorry. will you just promise me? i can endorse you. i'm endorsing him for president. give him a round of applause. you owe me. >> that is what the last few

days in iowa have been like for a presidential candidate asa hutchison. minutes after that, governor hutchinson fully lost control of that event as he was mobbed by even more provocateurs, including a man in a giant carrots suit imploring people to go vegan. that's what happens when asa hutchison is on the campaign trail. all of this probably would have made for a bigger iowa campaign news had anyone remembered that asa hutchison was actually running for president. even some of asa hutchison's supporters in iowa had forgotten about him. just a week before the caucuses, governor hutchison told the washington post, i knocked on a door today in an iowa voters said they loved me. then they said who are you going to support? and i said i'm still running. moments like that are probably part of the reason asa hutchinson announced today that he is suspending his campaign. that news comes less than 24 hours after the exit of another

candidate, vivek ramaswamy, who announced last night he was dropping out and endorsing donald trump. unlike hutcheson, ramaswamy's campaign was at the very least memorable. it was hard to ignore a guy who campaigned as an anti-woke crusader despite going to grad school on a soros family funded diversity scholarship, a man who wanted to end birthright citizenship for an documented immigrants despite being the child of emigrants himself. ramaswamy's most memorable campaign moments mostly came on the debate stage, where you could literally feel the contempt the other candidates had for him through the television set. but he had some choice moments off the debate stage as well, like the time he forget to mute himself while peeing during a live audience session with elon musk. or the time he got a cease and desist letter from eminem for this thing. >> ♪ ♪ ♪

>> does he own it? with the exit of mr. ramaswamy and governor hutchinson, there are just three major candidates. there is one candidate among them who feels like the odds-on favorite to drop out next. >> a real quick before we get started. governor desantis i won a percent to you this participation trophy. probably not gonna win the election, right? but we're proud of you for trying. there you go. he's special, he's unique, and he's our little snowflake. >> see the way security just pulls him off the stage? that was the same group of pranksters who took over governor hutchison's campaign just days before, which might be a sign. remember, it was only a year

ago that polls were showing a tightly contested race between ron desantis and donald trump. but in that year desantis's campaign has basically imploded. that is due, in part, to trump's relentless attacks against him but also due to desantis's inescapable awkwardness. this is elaine godfrey in the atlantic. the governor lacks personal warmth and much capacity for small talk. he is seemingly unable to stand naturally. his hands are always slightly raised, as though he's wearing too many layers, like randy in a christmas story. desantis has an unsettling habit of licking his lips when he speaks, and his smile never quite reaches his eyes, which seem full of terror. a distant second place finish in iowa, desantis's future is very much a question mark. at this point, it feels like this thing is coming down to just two candidates. i'll talk about where donald

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everyone to start talking about the granite state. as new hampshire gets ready to host the first republican primary next week. while there are three candidates formally left in this race, polls suggest it's a matchup between nikki haley and donald trump. that doesn't mean you are likely to see the two people in

the same room at the same time, though. abctv news tonight canceled its new hampshire debate after governor haley said she would not show up unless donald trump did as well. so now it's up to new hampshire voters to decide. here's what some of them told my colleague. >> who do you want to vote for? >> i want to vote for nikki haley. >> why? >> partly because i don't want trump to win. >> if i did choose, it would be nikki haley. >> why? >> because it's time we had a woman in office and i like her beliefs. >> we think nikki haley has more of a shot at beating joe biden because she's gonna pull some of those moderates out. >> i like nikki haley. >> why? >> i think she's got fresh ideas. i'm not sure if trump can win. >> there are some problems with nikki haley, but i do trust her as kind of a better alternative. >> joining me now, sam stein, deputy managing editor for

politics at politico. sam, my buddy, it is good to see you. thank you for making the time. >> of course. >> what's your read on haley's decision not to do this debate on thursday? >> it's predictable. you've probably watched the last round with her and ron desantis. i don't know how many times we were reminded of the website ron desantis lies. com. >> who's gonna remind us? >> i was a little bit worried about that. i don't know, hopefully it's ingrained in my memory. the point here is that that debate didn't do much, for her or for desantis. just a kind of volleying opposition for two hours, indicating the other is a despicable human being. why she should do now is not, she needs to create a two person race with donald trump. that's why when she finished third in iowa she said we just created a two person race, even though she finished third. but she wants that contrast in putting herself on the stage with the other candidate, not named trump still in the race

doesn't do it. >> what's ironic is if donald trump wanted to attend the debate it's arguable whether or be a good thing for nikki haley. she has almost categorically refused to take on donald trump in any meaningful way, which begs the question, why run against donald trump unless you're actually running against donald trump? i should feel like a two person race is the worst thing for the nikki haley candidacy in a practically speaking way. >> new hampshire is unique. new hampshire does have this core of independent minded republicans. in fact, up until october if you're democrat you say you could register to vote in the republican primary, and i'm sure thousands of them did, to vote for chris christie, they could be up for grabs with nikki haley. in new hampshire specifically i think i wouldn't be surprised if she were to go harder at trump on some of his vulnerabilities. much harder than she has so far. to your point, she hasn't really.

eventually we'll get to the point where we do have retrospective about whether it was a smart or foolish idea for the other candidates in the race to assume, to not go after trump on the legal issues, on some of the vulnerabilities, hoping that he would wiither or that it would be one or two person race alongside with him. haley made that bet like just like asa hutchison and christy. she said look i got this far and they didn't, but at some point you do have to go against the front-runner. the question now is, if she doesn't successfully in new hampshire, can she do it anywhere else? i don't know if she can. >> it does beg the question of how artful a politician nikki haley. is she artful insofar as she's gotten this far without actually deeply criticizing donald trump and retaining some version of good standing within the republican party and appealing to moderates. she's trying to be everything to everyone. but mark leibovich writes in the atlantic that the more you

listen to nikki haley the mushier her message gets. i need not remind you of her comments not being fought over the issue of slavery on fox & friends this morning she said america has never been a racist country. i am surprised, sam, that in the head to head matchups between haley and biden, she continues to beat biden by a very healthy margin given the real fundamental reality of her campaign, setting aside all the trump stuff. >> some of that just maybe biden's current state of weakness. his approval rating is just abysmal, frankly. historically bad. doesn't mean it can't get better but he's not doing well in relation to all the candidates. he's doing worse against haley in these polls. i would say i think she's maybe -- there's obviously some skill

level to her. she is a daughter of indian american immigrants in south carolina. in that state it takes skill to get elected as governor. especially since she wasn't a favorite candidate in that race. she has the ability to morph to political times in the moments. she was a tea partier. then she was a trumper. before that she is a trump critic, then in the trump cabinet. she left and said she was not, she was critical of january six, then she wasn't going to primary trump, decided to primary trump. and now became a--. that window has shifted. a republican moderate today is different than a republican moderate ten years ago. but some of that just has to do with her ability to go with the

tides in the political moment. what does that mean if she were to make it through somehow to the general election? i think that makes her formidable to a degree but it also creates these vulnerabilities. you can see a campaign against her where it's like, what are her actual capabilities? how could she serve with trump? how close does she associate herself with that maga brand, and why didn't she criticize trump for his legal issues during the general election. those are potent arguments against. her but i think she has skills as a politician. >> nikki haley, the person trump said is a globalist because she likes globes. i don't know whether that counts as a criticism or a compliment. sam stein, my friend, thank you for your wisdom, as always. when we come back, a significant number of iowa caucus goers said they wouldn't support donald trump if he is convicted of a crime, but of trump's lawyers get their way, voters will never have the chance to put that to the test. we'll have more on trump's legal dramas, just ahead. >>ushed by a baby grand piano.

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interest poll, iowa caucus goers were asked if trump is convicted, is he fit to be president? 65%, jesper 31% said no. now whether or not that question will be put to the test is very much up in the air. donald trump's comically busy chemical gallagher has a number of potential court dates. still awaiting rulings that may affect the court date of his federal interference case in d.c., in the mar-a-lago case in florida may be the simplest case to trial before the election, but some recent developments there have us all wondering what the judge is doing, exactly, and what it all means for trump's scheduled may 20th trial date. tonight, trump's attorneys found 68-page, 68 pages that has the potential to cause delay if judge cannon agrees with them in the filing. it was just put up an hour ago. they accuse special counsel jack smith's office of colluding with the biden white

house, and on that basis, they are seeking a whole bunch of material, saying the special counsel's office is seeking to avert its eyes from exculpatory discoverable evidence in the hands of senior officials at the white house, doj, and fbi and provided guidance and assistance as done this lawless mission proceeded. the court should conduct fact-finding on any disputed facts related to the scope of the prosecution team, and our order resolving the parties dispute on that issue, and order the special counsel's office to produce the request of discovery. joining me now, joyce vance, former u.s. attorney from the northern district of alabama. choice, thanks for being here. i literally just got this motion a minute ago, so i haven't had a chance to review it, but it sounds like trump's lawyers want to greatly expand the number of people and the agencies that are deemed prosecution team in terms of the special counsel's office. is that right? >> that's right.

this is sort of a fantastical narrative of trump's the victim, done wrong by a weaponized executive branch that's out to get him. and so for starters, what they are saying, in this is an argument that the debate back and forth about in discovery, but he's saying that the prosecution limited the scope of their search for material they had to turn over to trump far too narrowly. they want, for instance, the special counsel's office to go back to people in the justice department and the fbi. and perhaps that's warranted. this is an 11th circuit case, and the law in the 11th circuit says the prosecutors have to talk to any agents who they worked closely with. that's the essence of the requirement. but then parts of this, other parts, or just completely out of bounds. they want the special counsel to go and work with intelligence community, to turn over everything in the intelligence communities possession that touches on anything to do with this.

so i think the safe thing to say here is that we should wait for jack smith's response, which will undoubtedly be pretty harsh, given what the defense is requesting here. >> this seems like a bit of theater to delay this case. would you say that's accurate? the idea that somehow the prosecutorial team extends to the entire intelligence community, and the white house, how seriously does judge cannon take something like this? >> that's the problem here. because judge cannon has never hesitated to put your thumb on the scales of justice for trump. she has delayed this case to the point where it is really less and less clear that it is still even possible to try this case and get a verdict before the election. now she is presented with the opportunity to delay things even further. and there are also questions about classified discovery. this could be where that may trial date goes off the rails. >> it also sounds like in this

filing, that president trump is going to dispute at trial the contention from the special counsel's office that mar-a-lago was not secure and that there was a risk that materials stored at those penalties could be compromised. i will enough to remember when we saw pictures of top secret classified government documents being stored in a bathroom. it doesn't seem like a stretch to say the storage of these documents at mar-a-lago was not secure. but somehow trump's team intends to argue that. >> it's not and it's not a defense. trump wasn't entitled to possess classified material, game over. it doesn't matter if he kept it in his bathroom, his ball room, or if he had built himself a skiff unscented there. he simply was not entitled to have this in his possession. perhaps more importantly the obstruction of the investigation that was the effort to reclaim it. those are criminal acts. enough story. >> it sounds like you're not very bullish on this trial

getting underway before this summer even potentially the election visit. does it seem to you like the best hope for a federal case where federal trial is the washington d.c. election interference case? >> so that all defense depends on the judge, on aileen cannon. the mar-a-lago case, the classified documents case, is not as complicated, in many ways, is the january 6th case, even though there are mont multiple defendants. discovery could be completed in a couple of weeks. the case could be set for trial if we could go on that may date. but it depends on whether aileen cannon wanted to or not. >> joyce vance, always good to talk with you, especially as we have this big breaking legal news. thank you for your time, joyce. that is social for tonight. now it is time for the last word with my friend and colleague lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening alex. >> i just got my hands on this filing while you've been working here. we're very much on the fly going into live coverage of it.

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