his achilles. >> when i went to move forward, you know, my shoe did not move, but my achilles took the brunt of that kind of forward motion. and that was it. >> reporter: there is less ground to cover in pickleball versus tennis, and much of the game is played close to the net, what is called the kitchen. but it is still dynamic with lots of starting and stopping. >> it's about creating an arc. >> reporter: eric oh was an instructor and founder of new york city pickleball. >> you have to listen to your body and listen to your bodies limitation. >> reporter: how can you avoid injury? doctors suggest warming up before playing and investing in muscles to learn the proper mechanics and taking a break from the sport when soreness lingers. as an increase in injuries is serving up a challenge to america's fastest growing sport. emily guetta, nbc news. so let this be a warming warning to all you pickle ballers out there, especially some of those senior citizen sisters who have recently kicked my butt on the court, better be careful out there.

pickleball is getting dangerous. and on that note, i wish you all a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late with me. i will see you at the end of tomorrow. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ that's duarte needles this hour. really happy to have you here. so much going on in the news right now, so much going on in the news today. i do feel like it's one of those times, one of those news days, when it seems like the world is trying to make us feel like we're not alone. in that nation of panama, for example, they have a rich conservative businessmen, who was a former president. since leaving the presidency recently, he has faced multiple criminal charges. he beat some of those charges but not all of them when he was convicted on money laundering charges recently, he was sentenced to ten years in prison. now, the country's supreme

court recently denied his appeal of that conviction. but then, in a dramatic move, another country, nicaragua, stepped in and offered him amnesty. and this other country, nicaragua, is apparently trying to protect him from going to jail. this former president of panama, who has been convicted, who is due in prison. he is not gone in prison. instead, he is removed that nicaraguan embassy in this country because nicaragua has offered him asylum. he moved in with his desk and his sofa and his dog who is named bruno. and there is bruno. from that exile, from that other country's embassy, while he's hiding out from his ten year visit prison sentence, he's no running for president of panama again. and he is winning, according to the new york times, recent polls show him running in first place. this convicted, fugitive right-

wing businessman, former president, now trying to rally his countryman saying online, quote, you have to be very cowardly to disqualify a presidential candidate who is first in the polls. yes, if i can win votes, who cares that i am a convicted felon. spurring me out of here. that is happening right now in panama, a convict, now a fugitive. he has taken his dog and moved into the foreign embassy of a country that has granted him asylum. and he may win the election from here. so we are not alone. [laughter] in some weird way. that is panama. also pakistan, they've got a former prime minister who was ousted from being prime minister in 2022. he is now in prison, campaigning from prison. his party won this weekend's election in pakistan. his party did not exactly know how to deal with the logistics of him proclaiming victory while he is in prison, so they had a i generate a fake victory

speech in what sounded like his voice, even though it wasn't really his voice because he is in prison so he couldn't actually give a speech. now that figure is trying to form a government with him in jail but his party having won. and all of the headlines about this turn of events in pakistan are predicting some version of the same thing, all headlines using the same word, chaos, chaos, chaos, chaos -- nobody wants to be a country where the election news and the prison news are kind of the same thing. nobody wants to be that. that said, if you elect someone to be president, who's been committing crimes, and or, you elect someone president, and then when they were president, they do some crimes, maybe to try to stay in office once they've been voted out, then honestly you have no choice. congratulations, you have joined the community of nations where sometimes people, you know, run for president from prison, and they sometimes when. and there is no easy way out of that. in brazil, the so-called

tropical trump, right-wing former president jair bolsonaro, he was just named officially as a target in a federal criminal investigation in brazil as to whether he plotted a military coup to try to stay in power. you would remember that bolsonaro lost reelection in 2022, he claimed he was robbed, that the election was rigged, stolen. he made those claims about the election being rigged, even before people started voting in that election. so when he lost, his supporters were of course, primed to protest to disbelieve the result. why does that sound familiar? and then on january 6th, i mean the eighth, after the election, his supporters gathered for a protest at the capitol, which quickly turned into a violent mob attack on the capitol and in the supreme court, as they tried to use a riot, they tried to use mob violence to keep bolsonaro in power rather than the peaceful transition of

power, the new guy who actually beat bolsonaro in the election. well now, it looks like bolsonaro is going to be federally prosecuted in brazil for his effort to overthrow government and stay in power. the courts in brazil have already barred him from standing for election again, anytime in the near future. but now it looks like they're going to charge him. within the past few days, four of his aides were arrested. he was also made to hand over his passport so he cannot leave the country to try to avoid being prosecuted. who knows, though, maybe he will try to get asylum somewhere . maybe he will try to sneak back to south florida again. if you see him in south florida, which is where he went right after he lost reelection, or even if you see him in brazil, if you see him walking his dog towards the nbc of nicaragua, call somebody. it is new. all things considered, it is better to not be a country where a president or a prime minister goes to prison. we had that sort of, the luxury

of not being that for a very long time, right? that closest we got was nixon, right? and everybody was furious when gerald ford gave nixon a pardon, rather than waiting for nixon to probably inevitably get indicted. before nixon could be indicted, he was probably going to get indicted and ford gave him that pardon, and everybody was so mad. maybe if ford had not pardoned nixon, we would have learned our lesson them. we would have learned that the consequences of putting a criminal in the white house are absolutely terrible for the country, terrible for the criminal himself, sure, right? but wait years for the country, that has then and forever thereafter to jam up its politics in which we've doubly with accountability under criminal law. politics news and the president was always have a, from that point forward, to go together. but now, here we are. we have lost the luxury that we

used to have. we are definitely not alone in the world on this score anymore . and so, yes, tonight, on this broadcast, we are going to be talking about former president donald trump's filing that he just made in the u.s. supreme court, claiming to be immune from prosecution for any crimes he might have committed while serving as president. we will be talking about efforts to disqualify the prosecutor who's brought him on the r.i.c.o. charges for his alleged efforts to overturn the election results in the state of georgia. we will be talking about the timing of his criminal trial for alleged illegal hush money payments to a mistress, a trial that might get a start date by the end of this week. we might be talking about the expected civil judgment against him and his business, which make total hundreds of millions of dollars. that judgment is also expected to come by the end of the week. and, and, and, and that's only some of them. that's leaving some of them out. but this is what covering publics is like now in america. here, like so many countries all around the world, covering politics now has to include a lot of prison side of things. and the inherent drama of all of

that courtroom confrontation. it does make covering politics feel different. i mean, sometimes, i think it makes it hard to remember that we are not just running a steeple chase of unprecedented legal challenges, hurdles, and hazards that we've ever dealt before as a country. i mean, yes, we are right now in our generation, in our lifetime, in this here, we are trying to avoid to become a fundamentally different kind of country, right? my having to do all of this. yes, we are caught up in this incredible and frustrating drama of trying to use democratic means to save our democracy from people who are not using democratic means because they want to end democracy and just seize power by force. we are trying to defeat those forces as a country while holding on to our democracy itself and using democratic means to save the democracy we are fighting for. and that is really hard. and there is so much procedural

drama in this whole process that we are in the middle of that it is sometimes easy to forget that through this messed up, fought, upsetting, unprecedented process we are in , we are also picking a candidate, we are also picking a president with all of the high stakes that that means. have you ever heard of the ship a nail building in new york city? that's its nickname, that ship and mail building. it's in new york, marrtown manhattan on madison avenue. from the ground, it kind of looks like a normal new york office building. but then on top, it is we are looking. the top of the building kind of looks like it's visiting from another object, right? the top looks like maybe a piece of furniture, that's where the nickname came from. it's this building version -- business building downstairs, some kind of weird uninviting party

happening upstairs. this building in new york, some people love it, some people hate it. but if you want to see the critics point of view that this really is just a building with a whole other idea for a separate building to operate on top of it. the point of view of people who don't like this and i think this has got a kind of -- a force element to it. i think you can see the critics perspective really clearly if you see it alongside another building that was made by the same architect where he seemed to be pursuing the same kind of idea. to use that other building, the same guy made both of these. and you can see the idea carrying through from one to the other. in both cases, what you have cup, a normal building, maybe kind of unattractive building, with a whole other building just blew con top of it like an afterthought, or like a joke. the one on the left is that chip and male building in new york. the one on the right is at the university of houston, architecture school there sadly,

both designed by the same guy, a man named philip johnson. and houston is a great american city, one of my favorite cities in the country. but houston has lots of philippe johnson buildings around, way more than the quota, way more than houston deserves. if philip johnson buildings are the iconic buildings of the houston skyline and their solace office parks. you know, this is a matter of taste, don't get me wrong there. definitely lots of people who love philippe johnson as an architect. people like martinis, to each his own. noah county for taste. but it does remain one of the great skeletons not quite in the closet of american architecture. that this guy, philip johnson, probably the most famous and well-known and prolific american modernist architect, phil johnson, he was also a raging fascist. philip johnson wrote

admiring reviews of mein kampf. filip johnson went to germany in 1932 to pretend attend a giant rally. he tried to start his own fascist political party in the united states, which he wanted to be an armed action that would become the single party in a one party fascist state. philip johnson tried to form a paramilitary group in addition to the fascist political party. it was modeled on hitler's -- he called his the gray shirts and they met in philip johnson's apartment. philip johnson personally bankrolled fascist intellectuals in the u.s. in the lead up to world war ii. he put them on his personal payroll and paid their living expenses so they could continue their work as fascist intellectuals. philip johnson wrote eugenics based essays about how the white race was dying and needed to be rescued. philip johnson a very famous american architect, he was a

world-class american fascist. and in 1939 when german troops invaded poland and started world war ii, philip johnson was invited along to poland to cover the fun. he was invited by the german gorman. reporters and correspondents for major news organizations who are covering the invasion. that wasn't unusual but it was unusual that philip johnson was invited to be there too. because he really wasn't a journalist, he was an american, pro nazi fascist activist. and he would be architect soon. but he was nevertheless invited along by the germans to cover their magnificent inflation. invasion. and he filed articles about it, pro fascist newsletter that was put up by father charles coughlin. and what philip johnson wrote

about that nazis starting world war ii, what he wrote about it was that poland was asking for it. that poland gave hitler no choice. it might look to the world that hitler and then nazis invaded poland, and thereby started world war ii. but really poland made hitler do it. they cooperated with hitler up to a point but then they stopped cooperating with him the way they wanted, so they had to invade. really, philip johnson further explained that it kind of seemed like hitler should have invaded poland. philip johnson wrote up that invasion as if hitler had done boyland a real favorite because among other things, poland was really full of jews. philippe johnston was not a very reliable observer over what was going on in that invasion that started world war ii, that he was a great stenographer of exactly what hitler and that nazi themselves wanted the world to think about what they did. he did a great job conveying they're absolutely ridiculous

self exculpatory cover story. in no world, in no contemporary journalism and in no history since then did poland start world war ii. in no world did pullen force hitler to invade poland. i mean, not since hitler and the nazis cooked that up as a ridiculous joke in 1939 and committed american fascists, like the guy who make this monstrosity, wrote it down for them, try to spin it around to the american public. not in 85 years has anybody tried to sell that kind of horse hockey fairytale of who started world war ii to the american people. until now, now it's back. thursday night, a new interview with russian president vladimir putin, with a former fox news host, it was posted online and if you heard anything about it, i'm going to guess that you've probably read news articles about it that described the interview as boring.

you might have heard that it started with putin giving a long, inexplicable, and boring history lecture that went on and on and on. it didn't seem to have a point and definitely lost most american audience. true, all is true. except for the part of the history lecture where putin got to 1939. at which point he then claimed in this interview that it was poland who started world war ii and berlin did it because even though poland at cooperated with peddler up to a point, they stopped cooperating with hitler , when hitler really wanted them to cooperate more and once that happen hitler had no choice he just had to invade. and by the way, it was kind of in poland's favor. the exact same line. i mean, we haven't had someone trying to sell this line to an american audience since it happened the first time in 1939. with philippe johnson's quote unquote reporting, right?

with him, we had a committed american fascist allied with the nazis openly rooting for them, trying to sell us this bill of goods. that happened in 1939 it hasn't happened since until now. and the reason putin is trying to sell us the, american public, this bizarre line now, it is more worrying than it is interesting. it might be boring, but it is worrying. here is russian journalist masha gessen, explaining it for american audiences in that new yorker, it's a piece that i really highly recommend that you take a look at if you can in the new yorker. marcia gessen says this, quote, i can't get one passage out of my mind. in the history election force portion of the interview, putin said poland cooperated with germany, but then it refused to comply with hitler's demands. the polls forced him, they overplayed their hand, and they forced hitler to start the second world war by attacking poland. poland forced hitler to invade them. the idea gershun

-- she says, the idea the victim of the attacks serves as its instigator, by forcing the hand of the aggressor, that is central to all of putin's explanations for russia's war in ukraine. she says to my knowledge this is the first time putin described it there's a question in the same time. quote, the way putin described the beginning of this second world war, it suggests that in his mind, he might see himself as hadler. but perhaps a wily or one, one who can make inroads into the united states and create an alliance with his presumed future president. it is telling too gessen. she continues that putin took the time to accuse poland to be an ally with nazi germany and inciting hitler's aggression. as he is done with ukraine in the past, he's positioning poland as the air to nazi -ism. putin mentioned poland more than 30 times in this conversation with mr. carlson.

if i were poland, i would be scared. and of course. and vladimir putin is selling a new line to american. he is saying that poland is the real aggressor that we should blame for world war ii. and he is starting to use the same language, starting to cite the same we are reasons he used to justify invading ukraine when he talks about poll well. and what is really, really important to understand about that is that poland is a nato country. they have been for 25 years. no and we are in nato country. and if putin decides that he doesn't just want to invade ukraine, which he's done twice since 2014. and he just want to invade georgia and moldova as well, which he's also invaded. if he decides, is threatening, if he decides that he's gonna start shooting at poland now too, try to take land in poland, that would be putin and russia

attacking nato, which would oblige the other 30 nato countries in the world, including a, to come to their rescue against russia. or maybe not. less than 48 hours after that interview posted online, former president donald trump at a rally said if he's president again, basically, he would not honor that commitment. he appears to have made up a conversation with what he called the leader of a, quote, large nato country, in which he says he told this leader that if that country were to be attacked by russia, no, i would not protect you. he said, quote, in fact, i would encourage them, meaning russia, to do whatever the hell they want. as david sanger wrote in the times today, quote, the larger implication of his statement is that he, trump, might invite president putin of russia to pick off a nato nation, as a warning and a lesson to the 30 or so others in

nato about heating mr. trump's demands. i have to stress here that trump really did use the word encourage. he did not say that the united states would sit idly by in case russia invaded a nato ally. he said he would encourage russia to go after one of our allies. he would encourage them. in other words, he would tell russia to go take out one of our allies with the assurance that we do nothing to help. this is happening within 48 hours putin telling a handpicked interviewer which countries had it coming. and he's got one of them and nato at the top of this list. but don't forget, president biden's three years older than that guy. so obviously, there is equally enormous risk in picking either of these candidates to be president of the u.s.. one is obviously old. one is also old and facing 91 felony charges, and saying he would literally encourage russia to expand its war to hit

our allies. while russia's a dictator is signaling to an american audience that he plans to do just that. lots of other countries, i am sad to say, lots of other countries have to deal with former presidents and prime ministers facing criminal charges. it is awful, complicated, fraught, and nobody in this country wishes that we have to deal with that. but now we do. that said, take comfort in the fact that lots of other countries have had to deal with that one way or the other, maybe we can learn something from the lessons of how they've done it, well or poorly. lots of other countries have had to deal with criminal charges against leaders and would be returning leaders. but nobody is dealing with a would-be return president, telling a dictator who's just invaded one of our allies to please go on and invade another. pick one, go on, do it. for that one, that's us alone. , i see inspiration right through my glass.

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nato has been a success story for the last 75 years. but what bothers me about this is don't take the side of thug who kills his opponents. don't take the side of someone who has gone in and invaded a country, and half 1 million people have died, wounded because of putin. >> amid all of the other political drama and legal drama that we are contending with right now as a country, including that drama that our legal and political stuff are intermingled from here on out. the leading republican presidential candidate and former president, donald trump, this weekend promised that if he is elected president again, that united states will no longer pledge to defend american nato allies, if any of them are attacked by russia. and in fact he said he would, quote, encourage russia. that's the word he used, encourage russia to, quote, whatever the hell they wanted. joining us now is former u.s. ambassador to russia michael mcfaul. ambassador mcfaul was recently

in lithuania where he had the opportunity to speak to that country's leaders. it has a bit of insight into how this may be playing into our allies, who are very much at the pointing and of the spear here in discussions like this. ambassador mcfaul, it's great to see you, thank you for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> let me first ask you if you feel like any of the reaction to what president trump said this weekend, the interpretation of what it means, it's implications, if you feel like any of it is being misconstrued, if people are getting it the wrong way around. or do you feel like this is getting the right kind of response? >> i am stock -- i'm shocked by how mean the response is. you said it several times tonight rachael. it's just completely shocking what he said. and the fact that we're not all, thank you, by the way, for devoting so much time in your program tonight on it. and thank you for making the connections to the 1930s because this is a 1930s vibe.

and when i was in lithuania meeting with leaders, not just from this way but poland, latvia, estonia, that's the metaphor they're using a talking about these terms. what is shocking to me is that we're not shocked by it. it becomes so used to mr. trump saying these outrageous things. and then, oh, that is just trump being trump. but the fact that he said russia, putin should invade one of our allies, and he would encourage it. it is just outrageous, extraordinary. so that's the reaction that i think is strange to me. but there's not more people saying that, especially national security officials, former officials in the republican party. because i know that they agree with me, and i'm shocked that they're so silent tonight. >> in lithuania, latvia, estonia, in poland, in those countries, is there a sense that this is more than just

uncouth, that there's a real threat here that putin is actually sort of testing whether or not he can cross yet another border, that you can start military action against another country? >> without question. publicly, leaders from most countries have said that behind closed doors. they say it with even more emotion in their voice. and here's the scenario they worry about. right now, russia is stuck fighting a difficult, you know, stalemated war in ukraine. thank goodness that they haven't achieved greater objectives. and we need to help them so that the ukrainians so, that they don't. but they worry what happens to, three years from now, four years from now, when russia has greater capability and we, because mr. trump comes to power, are no longer interested in defending our nato allies. and they talked very openly about what we will have to do if the united states is not there

to help us. they talk very openly about how the soviet union was weak in 1941 when hitler invaded, and came back roaring in 1943, 44, 45. and they talk very explicitly about will the united states recognize the article five commitment that we have in nato to defend them. and if we don't, which coalition of countries will have to do it on their own? now, i hope they are wrong, and i think it is important to understand and underscore that so far, russia and that soviet union has never attacked a nato country. that's the good news. but the fact that they are having these conversations is deeply troubling, exacerbated and by what mr. trump just said a few days ago. >> and, i mean, some of the response has been sort of levant on the republican side. i'm thinking principally here about senator marco rubio, but also some other republicans who have said, hey, listen, we

passed a law that says the senate has to give permission if a president ever wants to get us out of nato in the future. like you said, this is trump being trump. this isn't a real risk. i feel like that may be true on paper. but the risk is that that green light is given once an american commitment is questioned on american soil by a would-be american leader, that legally it doesn't necessarily matter that the greenlight has been given, that the signal has been given, that that security umbrella has been removed regardless of realistically what happens as a consequence of trump's remarks. is that a fair assessment? >> that's exactly right, rachel, which is to say, yes, the law there, we're not gonna withdraw from nato. but if nato countries attack, especially an ambiguous attack, right? not tanks rolling, but something strange. and then trump says, i don't care because they did not pay us.

that's when nato begins to crumble with or without that law in place. >> michael mcfaul, former u.s. ambassador to russia. so, it's really good to see you. thanks for your time this evening, i really, really appreciate it. we've got lots more to come tonight. stay with us. night. stay with us. urn had me taking antacid after antacid all day long but with prilosec otc just one pill a day blocks heartburn for a full 24 hours. for one and done heartburn relief, prilosec otc. one pill a day, 24 hours, zero heartburn. ugh, i'll deal with this tomorrow.

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those are good careers! but i chose a different path. first, as mayor and then in the legislature. i enshrined abortion rights in our california constitution. in the face of trump, i strengthened hate crime laws and lowered the costs for the middle class. now i'm running to bring the fight to congress. you were always stubborn. and on that note, i'm evan low, and i approve this message. so this week is gonna be kind of nuts. i think we can all agree. former president donald trump started that week today at a courthouse in florida, federal courthouse.

it is for a hearing in the federal criminal case against him related to his allegedly hiding classified documents at his florida golf club and refusing to turn them over when he was asked for them. that's how this week started in at the federal court in florida. his week could end with a new york judge ousting him for running his family business, and ordering him to pay hundreds of millions of dollars. that's the punishment that the new york attorney general is asking for in her fraud case against trump and the trump organization. that new york times reports today that the judge in that fraud case is expected to issue his verdict on friday of this week. again, that is just new york times reporting. we haven't confirmed that. but we're watching that as well. judge engoron could do whatever he feels like. and friday was also the deadline for trump to appeal to the u.s. supreme court to try to get that justices to throw out lawsuits against him from capitol police officers who were injured on january 6th. on thursday, in new your, there

will be a pivotal hearing in the hush money criminal case, in which the judge is expected to officially schedule that start of that new york state criminal trial, that trial could start as soon as next month. that could be the first criminal trial that trump is actually in the courtroom for. also on thursday, georgia prosecutor fani willis will be appearing at a hearing about whether or not she should be disqualified from her r.i.c.o. case against donald trump in georgia. trump and some of his 14 codefendants in fani willis's case in georgia argue that she should be disqualified because she and one of the top prosecutors she hired for the case are involved in a personal romantic relationship. fani willis has argued that nothing about that personal relationship is disqualifying. she's argued that trump and his codefendants are just using these allegations, essentially, as salacious distractions, to try to muddy the waters and scuttle the case against them by creating a lot of public relations nonsense about this issue that has no legal

consequence. that, there was a hearing today on these allegations, and that judge in this case, georgia, allegations against district attorney. and, wants to hear evidence on the allegation. so it all, part of our political . but it also puts attorney fani willis in quite a spot,, regardless of what you or anybody think about personal, and whether wrong, the only person who is on that right now is the judge. he did say explicitly that he thinks she might be disqualified from the case because of these allegations. now, the key dynamic at work around this is that if fani willis is disqualified, fairly or unfairly, her whole office,

the whole district attorney's office is disqualified from working on that case, which would mean in all likelihood that all case would go away. and that is why georgia state university law professor glut cunningham argued in the times last month that the best thing on what is could do to protect her case against trump and we codefendants in georgia would be for her to take a leave of absence, take a personal leave of absence from that district attorney's office to turn over the case to a deputy district attorney that would end these proceedings against her effectively. and it would leave her office in charge of the case and the case could still go forward. we contacted professor cunningham about it is today. he told, as quote, this action, meaning a personal leave, by district attorney willis, should be looked at strategically as the best option she has to make this enormously distracting controversy go away and put the case back on track, still in

the control of the fulton county d.a.'s office. if judge mcafee grants any of the motion to disqualify willis at the hearing thursday this week, then her option to take leave probably disappears at that point. now, i should also mention the washington post is reporting tonight that trump plans to attend that thursday hearing in georgia, so he can be there in the courtroom as the details of this personal relationship between fani willis and this other prosecutor are laid out in open court. that should make it more of a circus, that and i believe there would be cameras and a court proceeding. don't quote me on that. of course, trump would like to be there regardless. all of that legal drama that makes up donald trump's week, everything i just explained there, it doesn't even make up the biggest legal development of just today. trump as of tonight's once again asking the u.s. supreme court to step in on one of the cases against him. he's asked the court to step in on the immunity case in a way that not many observers

predicted. we've got the details on that and much more, still to come. d

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this has been medifacts for olay. a three judge panel of the federal appeals court in washington, d.c. released a unanimous opinion last week saying that donald trump is not immune from criminal prosecution for his attempt to stay in power after he lost reelection. and when they issued that ruling, they also tried to box him in to what he could do next. they tried to box him into appealing straight to the u.s. supreme court.

they said, the way they rule, they said that if trump tried to come back to that same appeals court, if he tried to make that same quote take another turn with that same case, trump would risk the whole process speeding up, which is the last thing that he wants. they said if he came back to the appeals court, going straight to the supreme's, his trial on this issue would effectively be unfrozen. it would get put back on the calendar. all systems go. he might end up in court sooner than he wants to. today, donald trump did go to the supreme court, but he asked them to overrule -- that part of the appeals court ruling where they're trying to get him to speed up the process. he is asking the supreme court to allow him additional review from that same appeals court. he wants to be able to go to all 11 judges on that d.c. appeals court instead of the three judge panel that gave him the ruling thus far. and he wants to be able to do that before he appeals to the supreme court without risking

his trial starting up as punishment. he argued in his final, filing with the court tonight that this court should stay this unprecedented and unacceptable departure from ordinary appellate procedures and allow president trump's claim of immunity to be decided in the ordinary course of justice. this presumably, this filing tonight from trump and his lawyers, it seems to be their way of trying a bank shot. they're insisting that they should get more review and the appeals court in d.c. before he inevitably appeals to the u.s. supreme court. he's always playing for more delay. always playing for more procedure, always playing for more time. well, how strong is this play? how strong is this case for this? and if the supreme court does grant him what he's asking, what would that mean for the timing of his big federal criminal trial, for trying to stay office after he was voted out. joining us now is chuck rosenberg, former fbi official.

chuck, great to see you. thank you for being here tonight . >> my pleasure, rachel. >> did i explain the basics of that correctly, that he is trying to effectively get the supreme court to take away that rushing tactic, that tactic by which the appeals court was trying to tell him, you have to end this appeals process at some point and get to trial? >> yes, good description. i mean, think of it conceptually this way, three step ladder. you know, stepan would be the trial court. that's where the prosecutors want to be. that is where a jury would be seated. a trial would be conducted in a verdict -- prosecutors want to be there and mr. trump does not. step two on that latter would be the appellate court, where he recently lost unanimously on this claim of absolute immunity. what he would like to do now is either be on number three, step three, the supreme court, back in the appellate court, but by all means, rachel, to avoid step one, the trial court. >> what do you make of this, the strength of his argument and the strength of the filing overall in this approach? >> there are different

arguments. the underlying argument that he has absolute immunity, i think, is a weak argument. it's been heard twice now, once at the district court level, once at the appellate court level. the total four judges have ruled on it. all of them have agreed there is no merit to it whatsoever. procedurally, however, that is like you say, a bank shot. he wants to try and have another shot at the appellate court on bond with all of the judges sitting together, all 11, and hear his appeal yet again. and if he loses their, not to go back down through the trial court, but then to go up to the supreme court. what do i make of it? i don't think it is very compelling. i think everyone understands that what you outlined, that in the ordinary course of justice, as the trump team wrote, means as slow as possible. and i hope the supreme court does not grant that portion of his request. >> in terms of -- i know it's always folly to predict any

court decisions, certainly the supreme court. but do you think that there is anything that we saw at work in their consideration of his ballot eligibility gaetz, the oral arguments that we saw on thursday? is there anything to extrapolate from these arguments and what we saw in their approach to these trump matters that might help us predict how they're gonna handle this pardon. >> i hope so, rachel. the case you mentioned on the 14th amendment was put on an expedited schedule, and the briefing occurred quickly. the argument occurred quickly. i imagine we will have a relatively quick decision. so if this supreme court adheres to that philosophy, they could move this absolute immunity claim quickly. such that i still think it's possible, and i am somewhat bullish that he could be tried at wrong one of the ladder in trial district court. but that turns on a lot of ifs. >> chuck rosenberg, former u.s.

attorney, former senior fbi official, and excellent explainer of hard things. chuck, as always, thank you to be with us. always great to have you here. >> my pleasure, rachel. thank you. >> we'll be back. stay with us. wait! we can use etsy's new gift mode! yes, what do the french like? ...anyone? cheese... they like cheese! brilliant. done. plateau de fromage! oh la la! [cheering] don't panic. gift easy with gift mode, new on etsy. ♪(song in french)♪ (♪♪) (♪♪) (♪♪)

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you can get all hung up and you are gangly fly on. he will be left in alert. you will come down from the flirts with a bump, and the

chances are you will be in a slump and we unite and from. a thumping, but even the. >> but when you start reading dr. seuss. that was ohio republican senator j.d. vance tonight -- at this hour, the u.s. senate has just managed to advance a bill that includes funding for both ukraine and finding a way on deliberation. i mean mostly grandstanding and also trying to run up the clock . that's the only way really to describe j.d. vance and knowing the battle and josh hawley talking about the super bowl on the senate floor all evening. the bill they nevertheless passed this hour would send over 60 billion dollars to ukraine and it would send over 14 billion dollars to israel. the senate, it will go over to

the house. tonight speaker mike johnson is effectively saying he doesn't want it to go anywhere in the house. the statement said in part, quote, the house will have to continue to work its own well on these important matters. it's not at all clear that mike johnson and house republicans have anything approaching a unified will or that republican leadership is in any position what that will might be. there is even some talk among house republicans of circumventing mike johnson entirely on this matter, and doing it without him. but honestly, with these guys, who knows. watch this space. that is going to do it for us tonight. now it's time for the last word with the great lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence. >> good evening, rachel. we have andrew weissmann joining us tonight to tell you everything you might not yet know about the special counsel 's report on joe biden's possession of classified material between his vice presidency and his presidency. either to say, a lot has been left out. we're also going to be joined by that neuroscientist who wrote that great op-ed piece in

the