when the powerful break the law and take more than their fair share, there are fewer resources available for working people, small businesses and families. and everyday americans cannot lie to a bank about how much money they have in order to get a mortgage to buy a home or a loan to keep their business afloat or to send their child to college. and if they did, our government would throw the book at them. i want to thank the entire incredible and hardworking team in my office that tried this case, because the scale and the scope of donald trump's fraud is staggering and so too is his ego and his belief that the rules do not apply to him. today, we are holding donald trump accountable.

we are holding him accountable for lying, cheating and a lack of contrition and for flouting the rules that all of us must play by, because there cannot be different rules for different people in this country, and former presidents are no exception. this decision is a massive victory for every american who believes in that simple, but fundamental pillar of our democracy, that the rule of law applies to all of us equally, fairly and justly. thank you. >> we've been listening to new york attorney general leticia james giving brief and sweeping remarks about the nature of her victory, this massive $400 million plus fine against donald trump, the biggest civil fine he's ever had to pay on record. this is a major, major day of

news in a week that's had a lot of news on this front. i'm ari melber. "the beat with ari melber" gins now. we are tracking remarks from the defendant here donald trump, who is expected to speak on this. whatever you think of the way he speaks or what he says, some of what he says got him into this fraudulent trouble in the first place. it is a reminder for all of the protestations, he has a lot of pressure building on him in the other cases. tonight, one thing that the attorney general and donald trump appear to agree on is this is a big deal, a bill ruling and they both want to speak on it. so we will bring you some of what donald trump says when he says it, just as we brought you

what the attorney general just said. i have a breakdown of this ruling we've been preparing all day. given the new remarks from the attorney general, i want to begin with our guests first. we heard references to the rule of law, which interests both of you. christy, i'll start with you. what was the attorney general trying to get across in broad strokes? a preview of what we have with a breakdown of more details, but she kept it at a very high level. >> she talked about his lack of contrition. that was striking in the language from the judge as well about the fact that his lack of contrition and remorse was pathological. did it really hurt him here that there can't be different systems of law for different people and he really hurt himself here in a way that he didn't have to the he had simply made some changes at his organization. you have a history of corporate

malfeasance here. >> what about what she said? >> when she said he can't be treated any differently than anybody else, he's a recidivist. he has broken the law repeatedly, so we need to hold him accountable because this is not his first rodeo and we need to send a message he's not above the law. >> bill, you don't get to choose which case comes down when. we have all these different states and there's no change in that. and yet here we are with what is measurably the biggest judgment he's ever faced. you heard the attorney general just talk about the size of that, his ego and that no one's above the law. your thoughts? >> i imagine we're going to see a lack of contrition from donald trump tonight.

he is close to clenching the republican nomination right now and running even slightly ahead of president biden. he's had a very bad legal year. >> 91 indictments, pretty bad. >> after january 6th, after everything else, it looks like he's going to win the republican nomination and has a 50/50 shot at the presidency. >> we're keeping an eye on the door. i'm going to begin our breakdown on this. we will hear something from him just as we heard from the attorney general. i want to go through the breakdown of some of what we got today. the ruling sent shock waves tonight. the attorney general has just spoken. this is an over $400 million judgment, the largest fine trump has ever had to pay. it bars trump from running any real estate business in the

state of new york for three years and a court-ordered monitor. it also bars trump's sons from real estate company work for two years. if donald trump comes out right now, these are the results he's going to be discussing. the trial also pulled back years of spin and confusion about trump org. take a look. >> it's a very sad day for, in my opinion, the country. a new york state judge just ruled that he's crooked as you could get. a lot of people expected something like this, but not for the amount. this is a very dishonest man. this is a man who's been overturned already on this case four times. but a crooked new york state judge just ruled that i have to pay a fine of $355 million for having built a perfect company, great cash, great buildings, great everything. it affects new york. it's mostly talking about new york, where we have a totally

corrupt attorney general. she campaigned on the fact that i will get trump. they've all seen it. more important than that, this is russia, this is china, this is the same game. it all comes out of the doj. it all comes out of biden. it's a witch hunt against the political opponent the likes of which our country has never seen before. you see it in third world countries, banana republics, but you don't see it here. so i just want to say this. you build a great company. there was no fraud. the banks all got their money, 100%. they love trump. they testified that trump is great, great customer, one of our best customers. they testified beautifully. and the judge knows that. he's just a corrupt person. we knew that from the beginning. we knew it right from the beginning because he wouldn't give it to the commercial division. this judge thought mar-a-lago is worth $18 million. it's worth anywhere from 50 to

100 times that amount. he rules against me before he. even got the case. he ruled against me. he said i was guilty. he didn't know what i was guilty of before he even got the case. leticia james is a horribly rupt corrupt attorney general. it's all having to do with election interference. the banks made a lot of money. they made $100 million. by the way, i paid approximately $300 million in taxes as the migrants come in and they take over new york. i paid over this period of years over $300 million in taxes and they want me out. let's see if we can get him out. these are radical left democrats. they're lunatics. it's election interference. i just want to thank you for being here. we'll appeal. we'll be successful, i think, because frankly if we're not successful, new york state is gone. people are moving out of new york state. because of this, they're going to move out at a much faster

rate. they used a consumer fraud statute that's never been used for a thing like this before. they're using on me because i'm running for president. i'm beating biden by a lot. the poll came out today. we're up 20 points on biden. if i weren't running, none of this would have ever happened. none of these lawsuits would have ever happened. i would have had a nice life. but i enjoy this life for a different reason. we're going to make america great again. these are corrupt people. these are people who shouldn't be allowed to do the things they do. they're using this as weaponization against a political opponent who's up a lot in the polls and always will be, because i'm competing with a man who can't put two sentences together who doesn't know what he's doing. we're heading into a third world war because of this guy. we have to win this election. they're doing everything possible to step in, but we're not going to stand for it. so thank you very much. we will get back to work.

it's a ridiculous award. a fine of $355 million for doing a perfect job, for having paid back a lone with no default, with no problem. at the trial they testified we had an expert witness from the school at nyu that made the statement. i was very honored by his statement. he's one of the most respected people anywhere in the country for doing this kind of thing, expert witness. he said this is one of the greatest financial statements i have ever witnessed before. he talked about even the detail. >> and we've been listening to donald trump there speaking out on the massive $400 million plus fine that he received. we took several minutes of that. he did announce that he intends to appeal the judgment. he took the attorney general's remarks. i'm going to go through a couple

of the points donald trump raised there because there were several claims of a factual nature. he said this judge found him guilty in advance, suggesting this was somehow an unfair process. that is false. this went through the traditional civil process in the courts of new york. there was an earlier finding of a summary judgment. donald trump said there was a situation where the banks got all their money back. that is true, although today's ruling discusses that itself is not a defense. you don't have to have a law degree. if you steal money and give some of it back, you might still be on the hook for potential liability. in this case he was found to be basically guilty of civil fraud even though the banks were made whole. he said the attorney general campaigned on this case. that is misleading or false. she did say no one's above the law. she did discuss the idea she wasn't afraid to take on trump.

but she did not as a campaign announcement say she would go after one individual. he made some sort of statement comparing this to russia, china, the doj. i can tell you a state case has nothing to do with doj, legally, factually or otherwise. it's completely different. he generally attacked people as crooked or corrupt, et cetera. the final fact check is he also asserted there was essentially no victim in this case. that is fact checked true in the sense of unlike other financial fraud, this was a different type of financial fraud. today's rather severe ruling against trump mentions that the banks got their money back, that it was in one sense a victimless crime, but that does not mean there was no liability. many of the key factual claims

he made were false. two were largely true. i want to bring back in our guests. i will start with you as the lawyer, christy. what you heard there is he will appeal. you heard his general disagreement with this process. he's free as a citizen to disagree with it, but as for the legal move, this was a very methodical 90-page opinion here. do you see a lot of openings for an appeal? >> no. there is so much detail. this judge goes witness by witness and makes detailed factual findings and findings based on credibility. he found donald trump not to be credible. donald trump just gave large speeches. he found ivanka trump not to be credible. he found eric trump completely

uncredible and found through a number of examples where things he said were completely belied by the documents. when you have those kind of findings, it makes it very hard for a court of appeal to touch those. >> donald trump is going to run this year against the united states. he calls it the biden justice department, which of course it isn't. he's running in a way against the rule of law. a normal candidate, a normal anyone, you lose an opinion in court, you say, i think it's wrong, i'm going to appeal. i have a high regard for the judicial system, especially if you're a former president. he is trashing the entire thing. he is convining a large

minority of citizens that we have a fundamentally corrupt legal system in this country. >> people say they don't want to hear a quote from him or a clip or anything. we tried to give equal time to both speakers on both sides of this case. you have to hear enough to at least understand that kind of savage barrage of misleading attacks on the system, the judge, the appeals process is not normal. we can't just take that as normal. >> he will avail himself of every opportunity for delay and for appeal and he will attack the system. this is the classic authoritarian playbook. you do as much as you can within the system and discredit it at the same time. it's very dangerous. >> we've been juggling breaking news here. we have a little bit more of the breakdown. we're hearing from both sides. it's a big deal on a friday night. donald trump came out on a friday night to talk about it.

the attorney general clearly very proud of her team for this big, big win in new york. i want to remind you how we got here and where we're going. this trial is the culmination of many round of defeats for defendant trump. >> donald trump once again in a courtroom with the fate of his business empire now on trial. >> i decline to answer the question. >> the 2019 statement of financial commission contained false and misleading valuations and statements, is that correct? >> same answer. >> it's collateral damage. >> i will not be bullied. ly not be harassed. this case will go on. >> she was right. the case went on. while there were many different tactics to try to obfuscate or delay, she would win those rounds. as for today's ruling now years in the making, it was quite exhaustive. the judge found that in order to borrow more at lower rates,

trump and his team would split blatantly false financial data to accounts which drove the fraud. the judge dealt with the claims and the evidence, finding that when confronted at trial with the evidence and receipts about living, that trump and his witnesses simply, quote, denied reality. this find is staggering for a company the size of trump org. the total is over $450 million, plus barring trump from operating a business in real estate in new york for three years. the massive penalty is on top of other recent huge fines like the defamation case and round one of the defamation case. that alone goes up to $90 million in legal fees recently

with $50 million. donald trump has managed to get himself in a position largely if not entirely by his own making where he has over half a billion in legal fees and counting. we're joined now by dan alexander, author of "how donald trump turned the presidency into a business." welcome back. at a certain point numbers become very hard to measure and differentiate. when you say it's a hundred million, it's 300 million, it's half a billion, these aren't numbers most people deal with. is this a big cost to trump org tonight? >> yeah. this is devastating. let's start with the most basic question. how much cash does donald trump have right now? he's sitting on roughly $400 million in cash. the numbers you just outlined are far higher than that. all of a sudden he's going to have to come up with not just $150 million in cash.

he's going to have to come up with multiple hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. there are two ways to do that. one is you borrow against your current assets. one part of this ruling that is really problematic for trump is it bars him from borrowing from new york financial institutions for three years. so taking out enormous loans against assets is not going to be easy for him. the other thing he can do is he can sell assets. but if he sells assets, everybody knows that he needs to sell assets. trump has always said that his properties are worth much more than they are, he's been very reluctant to sell anything at anything close to its true value. now he's going to have to be cutting deals on fire sales. this is going to be really ugly for him and for the trump organization. >> you mentioned the trump

organization. he basically tried to hand off partial responsibility or operative responsibility to his sons. they're called out in this ruling as well. it cites multiple examples of financial wrongdoing. the judge writes that eric trump has a habit of inflating the value of an estate in new york. in 2014 an appraiser advised him the development was worth around 14 million. in that same week trump advised mcconnie to use a different valuation. he advised the controller to use $100 million despite his knowledge it was less than half that. the quote says although eric trump testified that he had no idea if he intended the banks to rely upon his certifications,

the court finds that eric trump was aware that the certifications were required for the loans. dan, i take that detail back to you. this is a situation where at a dance people look at a phone alert or social media and say, they're going after trump, oh, they have it in for him. but it actually looks pretty meticulous in that point by point. this is not speculative when you have in the same week receipts showing someone knew x and lied about it and wanted to call it y. >> the fundamental problem for eric trump, donald trump jr. and donald trump is that this case relies on a mountain of documentary evidence. you can't argue against that. their signatures are all over these papers, saying we attest to the truthfulness of these numbers. then they go to court and say, oh, we didn't really know much about these numbers. it's very hard to take that

back. one of the things that really hurts is part of the penalty is disgorgement against the profits from the d.c. hotel that they owned along with their father. their father has not let them in on many of his deals, but he did give them each 7% of the d.c. hotel. it sold more almost $400 million and gave them a nice windfall of -- >> especially how much he involved them in. >> exactly. this is going to claw back the one deal they've really been a part of and have gotten major money from. now that's all getting washed away too. >> dan alexander, we appreciate you running the numbers for us. thanks. we have a new guest coming in here. we have a lot we're juggling. i have a little bit more of our breakdown. sometimes when you're watching

those big supreme court days, people say you could pull up the case, read it yourself. if you want to read this case, it's great. i encourage it. this is not like a supreme court case or some of the overrulings we've had that are easy to read. we have the scan up on the screen if you want to pull it down. but at times it gets quite arcane because it goes through these properties piece by piece. what we're going to endeavor to do tonight is show you some of the key parts. that brings you to another one which is interesting, the other son don jr., we mentioned that $400 million liability. this disgorgement piece will be tough. don jr. is also part of that ban for doing business. he got dragged into all of this. he tried to duck and delay, but he had to sit for his deposition where he proved quite vague. >> do you have any familiarity with an acronym gaap.

>> generally accepted accounting principles, yes. >> how did you become familiar with that acronym. >> probably an accounting 101 at wharton. >> what did they teach you about generally accepted accounting principles in wharton? >> well, i'm not an accountant but that they are generally accepted. >> anything else? >> that's pretty much what i remember from accounting 101. >> sounds like a fun day. imagine doing that for three or four hours. now, the lawyer for the state, the attorney general going against don jr. asked who had ultimate authority for the decisions. he had to admit it was a trio of weisselberg and himself. the judge finds despite claiming responsibility or knowledge of certain statements of financial

condition, trump junior would insist that all the material statements were accurate. that's another example where the judge went through it all and found this tension, at times basically misleading material, fraud, lies. i want to add to our discussion here in this rolling coverage. "new york times" investigative reporter russ loopner. welcome. you might be the closest thing to a tv accountant. you definitely know more than bill. >> fair. >> but i've told viewers directly it's hard to read a whole ruling like this. even in the business side, there are people who don't know as much about it. you and "the times" have been really exhaustive on this. big picture, does this ruling

and the tension that it finds, does it match what you found and your understanding of this? is it worse? is it better? >> i think the big trend that we see with a analyzing his tax documents. he was really rich about a decade ago from entertainment. he brought home $51 million on that. he used the money to fill in some gaps on some money losing businesses he created himself and also to create new businesses. as "the apprentice" became less popular that dried up and went from $50 million to $3 million, and he was burning through cash to keep filling in the hole that was created. that's one of the fundamental aspects of this lawsuit, is that he was lying about how much cash

he had on hand. he was appropriating other people's cash to fill in that hole and make it look like he had more than he did. the attorney general found he would have been cash negative. he wouldn't have any cash at all. >> can you try that again without that term? >> he had no money. no money. >> that would be bad for him because? >> first of all, he would not have been able to keep all of his businesses open. he would have had to shrink even more. that's what happened behind the scenes here. part of the ill gotten gains here are the sales of assets. donald trump has been shrinking for the last few years in terms of his business in order to generate cash to fill the holes that his poor judgments have made in other businesses. >> the judge talks about how just because you repay doesn't mean that you're off the hook legally. timely repayment of loans does not extinguish the harm.

the next group of lenders to receive bogus statements night -- might not be so lucky. he says the monitor will continue for a period of no less than three years. the duties can be enhanced and more oversight might be required. where does that fit into your picture of the business? >> my picture of the business, talking to people who have worked around him for the last 40 years, there is literally no one in that office who knew which businesses were performing and which were losing money except him and alan weisselberg, his accountant. it was a very closely-held thing. so donald trump, the idea that there's going to be someone overseeing him, someone telling him, no, you can't do that, someone who's going to hold him to normal business scrutiny is a monumental blow to his ego. >> how would that describe to an

average publicly traded company? >> there's no parallel. sometimes you listen to an earnings call from a corporation and a ceo and the way they describe their business, donald trump goes through life saying i like to golf, i'm going to buy golf courses. somebody wants me to put my name on a hotel. i'm going to put my name on a hotel. it was really seat of the pants, just whatever was his fancy at the moment. you see that in his balance sheets. >> i got a quick joke that only a few people are going to get, but it's never stopped me before. that would be like bill chris toll only investing in bagels and books in d.c.

i'm going to show you one more thing, which is the trump deposition. then i want bill to weigh in on this. on the one hand the trial is about lies. i mean, fraud is lies. that's been now proven and documents. and trump is known for his lies. some of his supporters will say, well, he's good at it, so what's the difference? then this weird thing happens where sometimes he's blurting total truths, right? the way he talks about these financial statements, which again, in any publicly held company there's lawyers and cfos. here's trump in his deposition. >> i never felt that these statements would be taken very seriously, because right at the beginning of the statement you read a page and a half of stuff saying go get your own accounting, go get your own this. >> why did you get these statements prepared?

>> i would say more for maybe myself. >> that might very well be true or at least true in the sense that he's completely dismissive of this as a rule based thing. >> yeah. it's hard to untangle all of that. i think he does do it for himself, because he needs to feel good about himself and that's the primary way he does it. on the factual basis of this, he signed loan documents to get all this money. i have $50 million in liquid cash sitting around and i have $2.5 billion in assets sitting around. he promised to sign a certification every year that he met both those standards, and every year it got harder to do. they're moving money around.

they're ignoring restrictions on the properties he has that will diminish the value of those properties. they're committing fraud every year in order to keep meeting those thresholds. >> trump is short of cash, which he will be if this judgment is upheld. you know how you can get unshort of cash? the saudi sovereign fund can invest a billion dollars in the trump organization. some putin bank can decide to put a billion dollars in and let the trump people figure out how to use it. i think the profitability -- it's not like trump hasn't done that kind of thing either. the degree to which we're now seeing even more probabilities for corruption, if you were some pro-trump multibillionaire, you know, a private equity

investment of a billion dollars. >> your point being that half a billion dollar hole at a time he's running for office and in desperate straits and has 50 million in legal fees could create more corruption risk. >> yes. >> this has already happened. one of the things that emerged from his tax returns is there was a big swell in memberships at mar-a-lago after he was elected. he started collecting like exponentially more in initial membership fees, 5 or $6 million a year. he had never really taken distributions out of that business. right then he started doing that. over the course of a few years he took $20 million out of that just from his increased membership fees. >> i'm going to take our first break of this whole hour here. we have a lot of news coming out of this, including the man who actually went to jail alan

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♪ ♪ ♪ deliciously de-lick-able delec♪ ♪les ♪ ♪ ♪ today justice has been served. today we proved that no one is above the law, no matter how rich, powerful or politically connected you are. everyone must play by the same rules. >> attorney general leticia james with the best day of her year, maybe her entire tenure in office with this big win on a very big case.

now we turn to another important piece of this. might not be as prominent as donald trump, but it is someone who basically went to jail for trump org financial crimes. this case, of course, was civil. that means it was only going to be a fine, how big. now we know, approaching half a billion. the former trump cfo alan weisselberg was found liable today for a new million dollar fine and barred from being a leader of new york businesses for three years. he's also permanently barred from financially controlling any company in new york. weisselberg was marched in handcuffs to jail because of pleading guilty to tax fraud. he is all over today's decision. the judge finding that weisselberg on more than one occasion asked him to commit tax

fraud. just imagine that alone was about some other politician, some republican or barack obama. the guy goes to jail. the guy works for the politician, the former president in this case. and then the guy is caught in another judgment asking other people, hey, come do crime with me. later in this same decision the judge notes weisselberg was aware of the negative cash flow, but told an employee to prepare a document containing a series of implausible assumptions to generate $26 million of net operating income. weisselberg instructed a top finance official to remove the management fee from the net operating expenses of trump tower even though they were an expense. again, a convoluted way of

saying blatantly lying to make money. both in accounting and in law, something we collectively know a little bit about, there's a lot of diplomacy and jargon and fancy terms. i say lie. i wouldn't have said it before the case was proven. the judicial findings find financial laws, knowing and willful, plus conspiracy to get more people to commit tax fraud. according to the courts, some of those people didn't join weisselberg in his tax fraud. when you look at that documentation, what does that tell you about the standard daily life of working in that office? was it more like a bank, or was it more like an under the table operation? >> i think much more like an under the table operation. these are very simple principles. you line up the expenses on one side of the sheet and the

revenues on the other side. they didn't like what the result was, so they just pulled out pieces of it to make it look better. so they're literally just playing with the underlying figures in this thing in adisin. >> i want to look at why this may matter. i'm going to assign positions. it's like law school. christy, i'm going to give you it matters. bill, i'm going to give you maybe it doesn't matter. i was talked to the great team of journalists i work with saying how does this contrast to the other stuff and there's legal moves every day. so we put together how this

broke across the country. i can tell you the fact that donald trump is speaking on it, there are ways that it might matter. here is how it played out today. >> it is a staggering number. >> judge engoron deciding that donald trump is liable for $350 million plus. >> this is a major gut punch as we all well know to donald trump, to his legacy. >> it's a big chunk of change here if this ends up not being overturned on appeal. >> you could say it's a body blow. it may be an understatement. >> this is all about donald trump, the difference being this is really bad news for him. >> the court has done everything short of ordering that trump be thrown into a woodchipper. the size of this fine and the level of sanctions here is breathtaking. >> so this is really a decision that will cause a lot of pain. >> christy, how does it matter?

>> i think it matters in a lot of ways. donald trump's whole image is about being this incredible businessman and also tied up in being all about new york and a symbol of new york and wall street thriving. this really puts the lie to that and shows that, no, in fact, his company was a mess, and not just was, is currently a mess. that's why this independent monitor has been extended for three years, because she put out a report just three weeks ago that there are still all kinds of inconsistencies and errors in his disclosures. they're going to have a compliance officer. they don't have a compliance department at this company. he's going to have babysitters. the person who has "the art of the deal" now needs a babysitter to make sure they're doing things appropriately. it totally changes his image. >> and bill, why would one argue that it doesn't matter that much?

>> in 2016 the efforts to stop trump from the republican operation. one thing they stumbled across was the trump university stuff. total conman, defrauding people who didn't know better, who didn't know what they were sending in their checks for, promising and didn't deliver. many trump businesses were like that, the ones that were consumer facing. he didn't get convicted of any of those things. he's defrauding deutsche bank here or something. the poor people who send him money basically didn't get much protection from the legal system. more importantly, it didn't work at all.

we put up ads in primary states. the trump university stuff is outrageous. >> you say it doesn't always break through just because it should. >> exactly. >> kind of theorizing about capitalism, though it is kind of astonishing. i don't blame anyone for this. he broke the law and it seems like the case is based on good legal arguments. one thing we've learned is you don't really know ahead of time. >> i asked you guys to play this out. that's fine. my last question for you is the toughest although the lowest stakes. given your great history here, you have to choose wyclef or fat

joe. >> i know very little about their music. i was on and many people i know have a very high opinion of each of them. >> i like to share with the viewers and maybe we'll pull this up on air someday. true or false, did wyclef free style rap for you in the break. >> he did. i was impressed by your knowledge of this. >> i'll take it. we love that. we love the combo. maybe we'll play it. again, we've been doing a lot of serious stuff here, so we can take a minute of fun. wyclef was standing here rapping at bill, going through the

different letters of the alphabet. thank you guys for humoring us and your expertise. let me tell everybody we actually have a lot more. you may remember we ended the evening last night saying we're going to hear from d.a. fani willis in court today. she did upend a lot with her testimony yesterday. she didn't take the stand today. we have an update in that story next. update in that story next (christina) with verizon business unlimited, i get 5g, truly unlimited data, and unlimited hotspot data. so, no matter what, i'm running this kitchen. (vo) make the switch. it's your business. it's your verizon. ♪♪ we're building a better postal service. all parts working in sync to move your business forward. with a streamlined shipping network. and new, high-speed processing and delivery centers.

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all on us! only on verizon. very busy news night. in the last hour alone, we heard from the attorney general of new york and defendant donald trump about that case. we turn now to part two of a story that captivated the whole nation and was carried on all of the news channels. the misconduct hearing for fani willis. yesterday's hearing turned fiery when d.a. willis took the surprise move of taking the stand. >> probably the whois words about some of the things you said that were dishonest within this motion. i'm not a hostile wince. trying to implicate i slept with him, which i find to be extremely offensive. highly offensive when someone lies on you. you have been intrusive into people's personal lives. let me tell you where you lied, right here and right here.

you're confused. you think i'm on trial. these people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. i'm not on trial. it is a lie. it is a lie. >> that was the hearing yesterday. and when it ended, it was said in public court the plan agreed to by all sides was for the d.a. to return and testify for additional hours this morning. everyone was ready for that. until we saw this morning this happen. >> actually, your honor, the state has no further questions for ms. willis. >> all right. >> okay, next wince. >> all right. next witness. georgia is one of the states where you have cameras in the courtroom. let's be clear, the cameras capture everything, including little moments like that and that was kind of the dry shift of plans. the d.a. not going back on the stand, neither side trying to get more out of her today. instead, the proceeding continued with other witnesses

including the d.a.'s father who took the stand and there was a discussion about the timeline of her relationship with the prosecutor she hire for the rico case. >> did you ever meet mr. wade in the year 2019? >> absolutely not. >> how about in the year 2020? >> absolutely not. >> have you ever seen mr. wade at ms. willis' house in 2021? >> never. >> did mr. wade prior to november 1st of 2021, ever talk to you about socializing with ms. willis? >> i can't recall. >> did you know they were dating? >> no, i did not. >> the defense lawyer cited text messages from wade's lawyer which allegedly discussed people knowing about the relationship starting earlier. the reason why that would matter is that it would appear to contradict willis' testimony and affidavit. but the reference, i'm speaking slowly and carefully, the reference to those texts may

still be covered by attorney/client privilege which might mean they won't be evidence in the case. what i can tell you is there are at least conflicting accounts of some of the details that may or may not lead the judge to decide whether there was a conflict here. i'm joined by j. tom morgan. welcome. >> good evening from the south, ari. hope everything is doing well in new york. >> you know, we don't see regions around here. is that the right way to put it? i'm just kidding. let's start with the testimony and by the end we can ask what your view of the whole thing is. but over two days of testimony now, what do you think the main conclusions are or the takeaways? >> ari, my big takeaway is that lawyers are great at asking questions. they're terrible at answering questions. maybe you should host a seminar on how lawyers should answer questions from other lawyers.

as you know, every witness in the past two days has been a lawyer. >> sure, i noticed. >> when you get down to the bottom line of this, the question for the judge according to the georgia supreme court is the only grounds for disqualification of a prosecutor is if the district attorney has a personal interest or stake in the conviction of the defendant. that has not been -- i have been watching this for two days. it is definitely -- there's a bunch of swat going on here, but there's no evidence that this prosecutor should be disqualified. >> i don't have james carville here to help. what's a pig's breakfast? >> it means a little bit of everything and nothing much of anything. >> oh, deep. yeah, look, the whole time i was watching, i was thinking pig's breakfast, i just didn't know the term. i was telling viewers last night, there were definitely some questions raised that people can debate whether d.a.

willis handaled her testimony perfectly or not. she chose to testify, she didn't have to. but none of that is central legally to whether they proved a conflict, which i also remind people is a high bar. there could also seem to be testimony that was helpful to d.a. willis today. this is the former senior official, former georgia governor, who sort of poked a hole in the idea there was a plot to hire only one type of person for the role and that might lead to the plot to financely rich because take a listen. >> she asked me since they were beginning this investigation, and she asked me if i would be interested in being special prosecutor, to which i replied i had mouths to feed at a law office, and that i could not, i would not do that. i lived with bodyguards for four

years and i didn't like it. i wasn't going to live with bodyguards for the rest of my life. >> that again as i was mentioned would seem to undercut the idea there was some set aside or big plan to only hire the person who she did have some type of relationship with. >> i thought governor barnes did an excellent job cutting through the defense argument that there was some wonderful plan to put her boyfriend in as a prosecutor. and the whole thing, ari, just doesn't make much sense. the plot is that she hires her boyfriend to prosecute mr. trump so that she can go take trips with him. i mean, that is the whole theory here. that she has some financial interest and gain by hiring mr. wade. the optics, and this is terrible, but optics can be deceiving. and the reality has to be, is

there a personal interest or strength in the conviction of the defendant, and i don't believe that's been proven. >> i got 20 seconds. do you think she made the right legal call to testify? >> that is a perception. i have gotten so many texts today from women saying she's done a phenomenal job. she had to push back, and then there are a lot of men who are saying, why didn't she calm down? she had to be more -- have showed more decorum. she should have been more of a lawyer. again, i think you and i have both watched witnesses on the stand and come away with totally different versions of what they say. >> i certainly think she has every right to go up and defend herself as she did. the legal question is could they have carried that without the testimony then why put yourself out there, but again, that's one you can debate. thanks for joining us. i want to remind everyone to tune in "the beat" tomorrow, saturday, 4:00 p.m. eastern. we have that special "beat" weekend. "the reidout"