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one of the most important criminal cases on donald trump has been on life support for weeks now, but it appears the case will live. and the former president will likely have to face trial. for the past two months, we have watched as the georgia election interference case against donald trump and 14 codefendants devolved into a high stakes side show. several of the defendants in this case accused fani willis of having a relationship with the special prosecutor on her team. nathan wade. a relationship that created a coofinterest. they argued that because of that relationship, willis needed to be thrown off the case, a move that would have effectively killed any chance of this case ever getting to trial. last month, da willis admitted that she and mr. wade did engage in a romantic relationship for a period of time, but maintained it had no

bearing on this case. the judge overseeing the case heard hows and hours of testimony to determine when the relationship began and what, if any financial benefit fani willis received as a result of this relationship. and all of it served to steer attention away from the heart of the case. the conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. fani willis raised that point during her own dramatic testimony on the stand. >> intrusive into people's personal lives. you are 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 no matter how hard you try to put me on trial. >> today the judge ruled on whether willis can remain on this case. in a 23-page order, judge scott mcafee finds the court finds the defendants failed to meet their burden of proving that

the district attorney acquired an actual conflict of interest. however, the established record now highlights a significant appearance of impropriety that affects the current structure of the prosecution team. as long as wade remains on the case, this unnecessary perception will persist. end quote. so the judge ordered the case could move forward if nathan wade were to resign. shortly after the judge's order, wade did just that. typically, developments have been binary. this latest development is not so simple. legally, this appear to be a win for fani willis. her case will go forward with her leading the charge. but trump and his team did successfully manage to delay yet another of his many cases.

and politically, this case has suffered a blow. the damage from weeks of televised hearings about fani willis' love life could not be undone. it has likely had a real effect on the pool of jurors who might eventually hear this case. willis will have to survive her own reelection this november. the entire side show will now be fodder for her critics. nbc news spoke to fulton county voters outside the courthouse today to see what impact this would have on their decision. >> did you see yourself supporting her after all this. >> no. >> how come? >> it just looks bad. that's all. overall. it just looks bad. it doesn't pass the smell test. >> did this change your opinion of her enough to like not support her? >> no. not really. just because, i have lived here my whole life. nothing has really changed. none of that affects me.

doesn't affect me at all. >> trump and his allies have lost the battle to stop the case but won the battle to delay the case and taint the case in the eyes of the public. and that has been trump's strategy all along. one of the things lost in the mix during all of this is trump's strategy of trying to gen up racist vitriol against each of the black prosecutors leading cases against him. today, in his order, judge scott mcafee chided fani willis for a speech she gave in january at the bethel ame church in which she accused her detractors of racism the judge said her speech was legally improper. suggested that he might impose a gag order on fani willis' team at some point in the future. but there has been no official admonition of donald trump's overtly racist attacks against

fani willis. in speeches and fund raising emails, trump has referred to willis as a racist and accusations she was romantically involved with gang members. >> they said as a young woman, a young racist in atlanta. and they say, i guess they say that she was after a certain gang and she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or gang member. and this is a person that wants to indict me. she has a lot of problems. >> now, in addition to those baseless smears, trump has attacked fani willis' father for being a member of the black panther movement claims she comes from a family steeped in hate. in one fund raising email, the campaign make as point of saying fani willis' name comes from the swahili word prosperous. i will admit my first language as a child growing up in kenya was swahili and there is

nothing wrong from having a name derived from a 3,000-year- old language. fani willis has been on the receiving end of countless racist threats from the public likely to continue if trump is allowed to keep spewing racist invective against her. from the beginning of this case, trump and his allies have tried to make it about fani willis instead of about the many charges against him for trying to overturn an election. and now that the side show has ended, how do the prosecutors turn the focus back to the man at the center of the alleged conspiracy? joining me now, former assistant district tone in the da's trial division. good evening to both of you. i think the point that we think of these procedural things, these motions, these decisions by judges as being a win for one side of the other.

it looks interesting. is she damaged by this? >> yeah. i mean, you see the judge's order but the state bar could do something. fulton county could do something. this is not only a finding that she was potentially dishonested but an invitation for investigations across the state. >> what do you make of that? that is judge empyred the trump team couldn't get a gag order against her. while there was no finding that this relationship was inappropriate, he had a lot to say about her. >> absolutely. and it is more than a hand slap. exonerating her from the allegations making it clear it did not exist. that said, that appearance has the odor we heard. and that is enough. and saying to da, you can't do this. you can't pursue this or use those words or act in this way. and you have to remove wade.

otherwise that appearance will maintain. and the public. and a reasonable public has to be able to say we have faith in the criminal justice system. and that cannot exist the way you are maintaining yourself. so strongly worded and more than just a slap on the wrist, but an exoneration at the same time. >> what do you make of it? what happens to this case? what are the things that the people watching tonight have to think about in terms of how the case moves forward and what happens next? >> the next step is probably that ashley merchant and the attorneys on the case will ask for review. at that point, assuming it is granted, the court of appeals will decide. on whether this is an exoneration, i don't think it is. the judge said there might not be enough evidence to prove they actually had a relationship before 2022. but, that line suggests he thought the evidence might support the witnesses were lying. it is a pretty serious

allegation. >> the big key here is not so much what was said and what wasn't said. it is a fact this case can continue. da willis still has this case. it is not dismissed. and there are other grounds that were challenged. so by an exoneration, this is saying to the people of fulton county, to da willis, you can move forward. you have made mistakes, but to his point, agree. by no means is she out of the woods but there is a rico case against the former president of the united states for tampering with the georgia election. is that stopping? absolutely not. all the way to the point where there are jurors, how does this get handled? for a juror, they have to listen to the case. the indictments and the facts presented. how does this affect how that moves forward? >> i don't think it will have much impact on jurors.

we hope the people are more reasonable and generally, they are. i think we will be able to find a jury in this case who will try to disregard allegations on both sides and focus on the evidence. >> jeremy, let's talk about this idea that donald trump goes against, goes after his prosecutors and most judges. except in the mar-a-lago case. does this kind of thing have an effect? the allegations came from one of the codefendants. who was sort of, who digs up dirt on people. he got charged and he decided to dig up dirt on fani willis. what's the effect this has on prosecutors on das ? that threaten the environment? >> you have to have a wall that puts yourself away from an outside force. it is sometimes very difficult. especially when it comes not just in words but white powder delivery. threat. it is deplorable, but at the same time, a prosecutor

understands that it is not an easy job. you don't take a case. because it is an easy case. you take it because you believe that is what justice requires. so i think that they will still march forward and do what they need to do. and donald trump will always be there sort of rabble rousing to put it nicely. the worst thing he is doing is not necessarily for the prosecutors. the worst thing hi is doing for all of us to really anyonish the judiciary and the criminal justice system. to cause people to have doubt all of the time. that is really terrible for all of us and for people who believe in a fair trial. so yes, the prosecutors will have that in their mind, but they will move forward. >> let's talk about the da, andrew. it is an elected position. the governor of georgia has introduced a bill to deal with what he calls rogue local prosecutors. fani willis is up for election in november. we interviewed just a handful of people with different

opinions. what does that environment do to this case? the stuff the governor is doing, that fani willis is elected and not appointed? >> you have seen how the politics play out. she was appealing to voters. and that will be key. makes it harder to have a trial that doesn't raise doubts. >> what do we think about the gag orders? the judge suggested that the trump team might find a gag order. to get a gag order for trump. tell me about that environment. >> i think that any prosecutor should take a lesson from jack smith. and that is you stick to what

is in that indictment. i think frankly, a gag order on all parties assuming it can be limited in a way that doesn't impact your ability to defend yourself and pursue your case is really something that is valuable because there are so many distractions. we don't node to hear. the public doesn't need to hear. none of us need to listen to. and it is something that is very unfortunate, the gag order, that doesn't mean that willis is immune from utility either. i think a gag order might be appropriate. as long as it is made in a very limited way. >> let's talk about the actual case. judge mcafee got rid of some of the charges. is the case looking as strong as it was before all of this started happening? >> yeah. that is special because the charges were not specific enough. only went to six counts in the

rico charge. on top of it, the exposure is basically the same. it doesn't affect the case in any meaningful way. >> guys, thank you very much, it is a more complicated issue than it looked like on the surface. jeremy, former assistant district attorney in the manhattan da's trial division. andrew fleishman, we thank you for your time. we have much more ahead including russian citizens protesting vladimir putin's anti-democratic rule as voting begins in the country's presidential election. but first, the first of trump's criminal cases that was set to go to trial, a judge today delayed its start for at least 30 days. what that means for trump's chances of ever facing trial before election day. that's coming up. before election day. that's coming up.

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delay, delay, delay. that's been the name of the game for donald trump and his legal team as they wade through the four criminal cases facing the former president. at the beginning of this week, three of trump's criminal cases had question marks hanging over the trial date. but his hush money case in new york was all set to start on march 25th. now, today, judge mershon agreed to push the trial back at least 30 days until at least mid april after trump's attorneys asked for a delay of 90 days. why did team trump want a delay? because they were given new records they said they needed time to review. before the trial. the records come from the u.s. attorney's office in the southern district of new york. which successfully prosecuted the former trump lawyer michael cohen back in 2018. and at least a subset of them may be relevant to trump's case. but why was trump's team just

given these new documents? because they waited to ask for them until january 18th of this year. meanwhile, the manhattan da alvin bragg made his request for the materials more than a year ago and disclosed to trump's legal team in june of last year. i don't know what they were doing from june of last year to january of this year. if teen trump wasn't happy with the original records request last year, they could have said something. but instead, they waited seven months to raise their hands and complain. will the former president ever be held criminally accountable? joyce, great to see you. thank you for being with us tonight. let's talk specifically. very generally speaking the delay tactic is one that is used by all sorts of defendants and one that is used very effectively by donald trump. but in this particular manhattan case, the circumstances of this

discovery, these documents, that trump's team says it needs time to look at. tell me about this. >> yes, this is such a confusing situation. this is case that was filed by the manhattan da, a state prosecutor. but because the feds, the united states attorneys office cross town in the southern district of new york had a related case. it is possible that they may have some materials in their possession. being good prosecutors, the folks at the manhattan's da's office reached out. they were given some documents they turned over to trump's folks. and much more recently, the trump folk sent a subpoena to the southern district of new york. we don't know if that request is identical to what the manhattan da's office asked for or if it is different in nature. but now the trump lawyers are back in court with the district

attorney in front of judge marshawn saying you know, the da's office didn't comply with its discovery obligations to us. and the red hearing is that it is not the united states attorney's office. if there was a problem with producing documents from the u.s. attorney's office, that is between them and trump's lawyers so the judges said this is a mess. there are significant factual issues here i need to resolve and that is why he set this little mess for a hearing. >> for those of us in the audience and sometimes on the side of the camera not legally trained, this seems to be the kind of thing we hear a lot about. obviously, we have mar-a-lago. it has to do with documents. so it is really important that everybody get to see whatever they want to see. but is this common? as you prosecuted many cases, how long can one delay for based on needing access to documents and being able to digest them properly? >> so i think the good news

here is that the judge is keeping this all on a very short leash. even to the point of telling all of the lawyers don't release your calendars. you know. we could still be going back to trial. but defendants have due process right to see all of the discovery they are entitled to see. and if the judge determines the trump folks are entitled to all of this discovery from the southern district of new york, he will give them time to process it. but the reality is these days, this production, the da said there had been about 100,000 documents so far since early march. more are expected. it sounds like a lot. but it there are very high powered programs used for scanning through these documents to determine what is relevant. it is not as big of a task as it soups like it might be and the da said in the initial documents dumps, fewer than 200 of them were relevant to this

trial so it may be a much smaller problem than it looks like on paper. >> the judge say theres will be a hearing on the day the trial was going to start. was that just in this continued effort to try to wade through this mess of requests and comes and things like that? >> the judge has to have a good idea of what went on here. he has asked both side to submit to him a timeline. their version of how this got hashed out. and think will look at that and he will decide if for instance the district attorney's office has made mistakes. if they violated their obligations. he has broad discretion, by the way, as a new york state judge to impose sanctions up to and including dismissal of a prosecution in an extreme case. that is very unlikely here. but he will scrutinize the facts to see who is at fault. >> thank you for doing what you always do.

i never know going into these things how to explain this to someone else and you help me do that so i'm always appreciative. joyce, thank you very much for joining us. still to come, mike pence once raised haze hand in a pledge to support the party's eventual presidential nominee. but that was then and this is now. we will explain. plus, the outcome of russia's election might be a foregone conclusion, but some russians are facing his wrath at the ballot box. that's next. the ballot box. that's next.

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voting has begun in the first of three days of russia's presidential elections. official russian sources are claiming that 25% of russian voters turned out today to cast a ballot. in the weeks leading up to this race, voters had been seeing ads encouraging them to head to the polls. ads like this one of a guy waking up and asking his smart speaker what he should wear and what he should have for breakfast. he heads after the polls when the speaker tells him to and when he asks a poll worker for whom she should cast a ballot, the democratic poll worker says you must decide. but the reality for this man and for every other russian citizen voting over the next two days is that the choice has already been made. vladimir putin is expected to

be reelected to a fifth six- year term by the time voting ends on sunday. here he is sitting down and clicking one button to vote. online. so easy. his win will keep him in power until 2030. his grip on power longer than any leader since stalin. a landslide victory is a foregone conclusion given the way the kremlin has centralized power and stifled dissent. the candidates running against him. the ones who have been approved to run against him, they support the kremlin. they refuse to say anything that would remotely sound like criticism of putin. and the opposition figures who could actually pose a challenge to putin's strangle hold on power are jailed. like the activist vladimir karammourza or dead like alexei

navalny. or forced to live in exile like navalny's widow. some russians might be heeding her call. several russians were arrested for pouring green dye into ballot boxes. green dye has been used to attack journalists and opposition figures in the country including famously alexe i navalny and a woman set fire to a voting booth in the district where alexei navalny lived. if she is charged she faces up to five years in jail. and in saint petersberg, a woman threw a malitov cocktail outside a polling station. she was arrested. though everyone knows the election is rigged, they are still willing to risk imprisonment to make their voice heard. to stand up to an institution that has tried to snuff out any form of opposition. meanwhile, vladimir putin, though an enemy of democracy, has admirers right here in america includeing the

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>> he was a fantastic guy. he has taken in no illegal immigrants. he runs his country very tough. >> and talking about who trump is trying to emulate, it is tempting to think of vladimir putin. the two are clearly fond of one another. but jacob halbron looks at trump a little different. in his book america last, he makes the argument that the play book trump is following is not as bold and brash as that of vladimir putin. you don't see his enemies mysteriously falling out of windows. he argues trump's play book appears to mirror that of the autocratic hungarian prime minister viktor orban. the kind of fascism that the

american right flirted with in the 1920s so what can orban teach us about the trajectory of the american right and what about, what should we expect if donald trump regains power? joining us now is the editor of the national interest senior fellow at the atlantic council. author of the new book america's last. jacob, thank you for being with us. i think this is such an important point. our democracy may go sour. it may go wrong. but not in the way of the movies. not in the way of revolution or dictators who eliminate the vote and overtly suppress democracy. what victor orban is doing to some degree. what erdogan is doing in turkey, what modi is doing in india is this more subtle form. >> it is a creeping form of authoritarianism which started

all the way back if the roman empire. i quoted edward gibbin. talking about the roman emperor as a subtle tyrant, augustus. that is what viktor orban has done. sold off the media to his cronies, made sure elections are gerrymandered so his opponents simply cannot win. elections are still conducted. this is the blueprint that donald trump would love to emulate here in the united states. >> and we are seeing it copied. conservative groups, right wing journalists going and visiting with orban. orban comes here to speak. he speaks at conservative conventions and things he has used, an urban rural divide like they have in hungary where urban people think what orban is doing doesn't make a lot of sense, yet he wins with the

rural vote. a hard line on immigration. and that immigrants will dilute hungarianness. >> it is uncanny the parallels. and they do expend to putin, too, who relies on a rural base and has opposition in saint petersberg and moscow. but these, they have tapped into this resentment to try and not simply win elections in the united states. but overturn what they call the regime. if you talk to conservatives today at the heritage foundation, they don't consider us to have a legitimate government. they are talking about christian nationalism and refer to the government here as a regime. regime means they can be toppled, overturned and replaced with an autocracy in their mold in what they see as the right way to govern the

united states. >> so the similarities to hungary, is these, this creeping fascism, it is given. that power is given to the leaders. it is not a revolution. it is not a military coup. people vote their rights away willingly. why? >> we saw this happen in weimar germany in the 1930s when hitler came to power. you have to win democratically. he is appointed in a coalition government in january 30th, 1933. he doesn't terminate german democracy immediately. he does it over a couple of months. and then, the nazis consolidated their power year after year. again, i don't think that is quite the formula we are talking about here.

you have jared kushner and richard granel touted as potential secretary of state. the new york times reports they are engaging in deals in the balkens for hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars. what is going on? >> that oligarchy is the interesting part. the idea that people profit off of this. and, they utilize levers of power. it's what a lot of people think politics is. but when you look at a place like hungary, that's true. the people in power, it is a quid pro quo. >> in the end it is always about the grift. orban is exploiting the so- called immigration crisis the way trump is attempting to do it on the southern border right now. but at bottom, it is, these are useful issues to claim power and then, it is about monetizing it for the family. and that is exactly what we are seeing with the trump family

right now. as the republicans claim hunter biden is a napoleon of crime. and we see others engageing in deals in the middle east. that is where trump is headed. >> obviously, vladimir putin is looking at it very keenly. viktor orban is the most resistant leader of the bunch. the slowest, the one holding up stuff to ukraine. what is it in it for these guy to prop up vladimir putin? >> they want to create an irliberal international. and orban is functioning as the go between. between trump and putin.

trump fetishizes strength. he sees democracy as inherently weak. he would like to cut deals with putin, get the united states from nato. have putin establish a sphere of influence. hungary would benefit from this as well. they have designs in the carpathian mountains on ukrainian territory so it would be a win win situation for all three leaders. >> i appreciate the work you have done. jacob is the author of america last. the century long romance for foreign dictators with the right. i will be interviewing a russian human rights activist and the wife of the political prisoner vladimir karamursa who i last interviewed the day before his arrest and continues to write op eds from prison inside russia. that's tomorrow morning on msnbc. we have one more story. mike pence became the latest

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will you be endorsing your former president? you were on the ticket with him last time around. >> well, martha, i appreciate the question. and it should come as no surprise i will not be endorsing donald trump this year. >> actually, it comes as a tiny bit of a surprise. as a candidate, pence largely avoided discussing the events of january 6 that did put his own life in danger. he then tentatively raised his hand to say he would support trump if he were convicted of crimes. pence joins a long list of trump administration officials refuseing to support him this time around. and yet, trump's support among republican voters shows no sign

of slowing. trump is on the glide path to the republican nomination despite 88 criminal counts and he fares well in general election polling matchups with president biden. while biden's every utterance is now watched for a potential mishap, trump's rambling incoherent lie-filled rallies go largely ignored. the new yorker's susan glasser watched one trump rally from start to finish. it is easiest to understand the threat trump poses to american democracy most clearly when you see it for yourself. small clips of his craziness can be too easily dismissed as the background noise of our time. watch his speeches. share them widely. don't look away. joining us now, susan glasser, staff writer for the new yorker. susan, thank you for being with us. this is such an important discussion. because it is really the ongoing media criticism of our

time. too little trump. too much trump. don't do what you did in 2016. this is the big question. increasingly i'm hearing from people like you, not only listen to trump, not only watch him. maybe even go to a rally to finally understand what it is that is happening in this country. >> well look. apologies in advance by the way. i'm not saying that this is necessarily good for your soul or uplifting in anyway. it is an exhausting experience to just put yourself in this frame that rallied the other night in georgia was one hour and 55 minutes of donald trump lying, rambling. ranting. much of it doesn't make much sense. as you know for years, he has struggled with the basics of a noun, a verb and a period. you won't find a lot of those there. beyond the delivery, and when it comes to age, you will come away from a performance like

this thinking this is a guy who is age impaired who really struggles with his words. who is visibly diminished in his vocabulary and delivery. it was the substance this time. there is something different this time. and it is not just the level of grievance and revenge. it is actually the dystopian hellscape he portrays america as. it is much worse and darker than even the american carnage speech. >> and i was going to say, we are used to that right from the beginning of trump. from his inauguration. pulling out of the climate accords. he has decided that's the way to go. it continues to work for a lot of the voters it is increasingly not working for

some big names. we heard from mike pence, john kelly. nikki haley. so, tell me about this. increasingly, there are big names who say i don't want to be associated with this guy even if he wins again. and it is not affecting him at the base. >> well that's right. this is a party in some ways that is the captive of its base. and you see that for the rationale some of the senior republicans like mitch mcconnell who have essentially thrown away their principles and gone ahead and endorsed donald trump. saying what could i do? the voters support him. i have heard that from senators, republican senators who in public are pro trump who have acknowledged to me and to other journalists privately, look, you know, what am i supposed to do? this guy runs ten, 20 points

ahead of me. in my own state with my own voters. so i think you see a republican party that almost hostage to a subset of its own electorate. that is number one. number two, it shows you that there is no such thing as a kind of elder statesman in this day and age. basically, the party doesn't care what those authority figures think. >> one of the things you write about here is the lies. and most people you stop them on the street and say what lies? they will talk about the election denial largely. but there were other things. you write something interest. you say trump's 2024 campaign platform is built on an edifice of lies. not just the lies about a rigged election, but an equally flamboyant new set of untruths about biden's presidency. tell me more about that. >> i was really struck by this one. you know, even compared with 2016, biden never said this stuff about obama when he was first running or even hillary clinton that he now says about

joe biden. he says joe biden is both a drooling incompetent old man. but also a criminal master mind who has weaponnized the government against him. and also, he has created a country where joe biden is single handedly ordering gangs of roving murders and thugs into our country to kill innocent people. he lays this all very directly at the foot of the incumbent president in a way that would have been the biggest news in any other campaign of our lifetime. this is like willy horton on steroids the way donald trump is talking to his adoring, cheering crowds of fans. he literally accuses the president of basically unleashing gangs of murders in the country and people just don't pay attention to donald trump when he says those things. >> one of the things people don't take seriously is whether

trump has authoritarian impulses or not. if he just says it because it works. what's his take? >> by the way, that book is a terrific book and i have read the book and i highly recommend it. what it shows is it is not just a question of authoritarian impulses. for donald trump, when i hear him saying in 2024, essentially my platform is me. i'm the solution to all of your problems. which by the way, is almost a direct echo of what we have heard from vladimir putin, since the invasion of ukraine. his solution is elect me, and, magically, wars will end. the border will close. the economy will inflate just at the joy of having me as your dear leader. >> susan, thank you for an amazing piece. thank you for being with us tonight. susan glasser is a staff writer at the new yorker. that's the show for tonight. remember, you can catch me back here tomorrow and sunday at 10:00 a.m. eastern in my usual slot.

i will be joined by nikole hannah jones out with a ground breaking new essay where she reveals the conservative movement to roll back racial progress in america. and when i visited gaza in 2019, i first met this woman, a remarkable young entrepreneur who developed compact solar charge to help people in gaza cope with routine power outages. heifer family has endoured devastating losses since then but she and her brother have gotten out of gaza and they join me tomorrow. before that, we have something amazing for you right now. a special edition of the trump indictments cohosted by andrew weissman and melissa murray. weissman and melissa murray.