welcome to our special new york versus donald trump. i am ari melber and we are going to get into this criminal trial. defendant trump reeling in the first week of testimony in new york. we are covering that into nights hour. we will have expert from law to assorted tabloids. we have experts on that, believe it or not. we also have a special report on a separate indictment against trump lawyer boris epshteyn who first admitted his role on the beat. you will hear all of that tonight. this weakens with a remarkable contrast from d.c. to new york. let me tell you exactly what i mean. in washington you may know the trump friendly supreme court

slowed the prosecution and asked trump friendly questions about potential problems with prosecuting a president. if you listened to that argument or read about it, you may have noticed it almost sounded like that kind of trial was a futile project. while up the east coast and actual trial of an actual former president was going forward and the republic did not crumble. it is a contrast that hangs over all of this in america and what we are going to get into tonight in this first week of the new york trial. it seems to undercut the suppose it concern of the trump appointed justices that hypothetically, someday, somehow, in the future trials of presidents are a very bad thing, when they are actually already happening. the first week of this trial shows not only that it is possible, but also gave us the first evidence backed, in court, binding version of the d.a.s story and we put together a

brisk ride through what we are learning. >> the prosecution in donald trump's hush money trial drew sharp outlines of its case against the former president. >> the prosecution started. they laid out a dispassionate, straightforward, very linear and blunt to -- >> prosecutors telling the jury of seven men and five women today, it was election fraud, pure and simple. >> the defense gets right up and says the story you just heard isn't true. >> you hear the prosecution lay out a clear load map. >> you have a reference to the tape recording. that is a terrible tape for donald trump. >> the defense was like a circus leader. >> it is striking there is no family. he is by himself. >> david pecker, the publisher of the national enquirer, giving bombshell testimony. >> we committed a campaign violation. cohen's response, he said he wasn't worried because jeff

sessions is the attorney general and donald trump has him in his pocket. >> david pecker acknowledged that he did this catch and kill with karen mcdougal for the benefit of the trump campaign. >> that event spent hours trying to trip him up. >> senior vice president of the trump organization and donald trump's former longtime executive assistant described as the gatekeeper. his right hand. her lawyers are being paid for by donald trump. >> you heard that word, gatekeeper. the problem for the defendant is these gatekeepers and allies or even friends are talking under oath and the d.a. is getting details out of them to bolster the opening argument where the jury was told the cases about a criminal conspiracy and the cover-up. tabloid veteran david pecker has been admitting that. he recounts his dealings with the trump lawyer turned star witness michael cohen to buy and then bury stories all to protect trump's campaign.

he alleges a specific cam -- specific agreement. the d.a. told the jury this will also be corroborated with evidence in trump, the defendants, own words. with receipts showing an illegal conspiracy to undermine the election. the defense rebuts that by saying there isn't an actual conspiracy charge in this case. that's true. the word conspiracy has a legal meaning and also a colloquial meaning. they are saying they conspired together. the defense also attacks the election theory that trump promoted the election by unlawful means and that would be needed to supersede this misdemeanor of fraud into a felony case. so the trump defense has said maybe the d.a. is being alarmist about what amounts to, however dirty, politics as usual. trump's lawyers proclaiming there is nothing wrong with trying to influence an election. it is called democracy. the d.a. has put up three witnesses and

testimony this week. the national enquirer chiefly mentioned, david pecker, was clearly the hottest, unloading details and dishing on the original and sordid meeting that formed this alliance which involved defamation against all sorts of people including ted cruz and his family. details about how the inquirer acted as an arm of the campaign, meaning it so called media decisions were phoned in by cohen himself and the money to silence women came from both the inquirer and cohen, who of course was reimbursed by trump. so karen mcdougal and stormy daniels, they got money from different places but it all went back, according to the d.a., to the original campaign motivation. david pecker told on cohen for how they tried to hide contacts using a secret messaging app. how secret is it if we are all hearing about it in court? the d.a. also showing how the trump side knew this was wrong. that david pecker got nervous and cohen claimed that trump

had jeff sessions in his pocket at the doj. the d.a. is arguing that that adds to the evidence that team trump knew they had criminal exposure and their thought wasn't we didn't do a crime, their thought was our appointees will protect us. we have them in our pocket. i don't know how jeff sessions would fit in there, but it is an analogy. trump's doj didn't actually shield michael cohen. he was convicted and imprisoned by the very independent sd ny prosecutors who are federal prosecutors during the trump era. at the end of the week the prosecution turned to rhona graff, a trump employee who seems to be on better terms with him. trump is notoriously frugal, but the defendant, his company, are still paying for his lawyers. to take this all together and what you see is a lot more evidence against trump them reasonable doubt on his behalf. that doesn't mean he is losing

this case. the burden is on them. for the first week this wasn't a slow ride or a lot of accounting spreadsheets. this was a two by four swung repeatedly at donald trump as a defendant and while some of that came from the prosecutor's tough talk in the opening that i read to you, as we get into this tonight you have to remember a lot of that tough talk and incriminating information came from his body, tabloid chief david pecker, who said by the end of his testimony it is not personal, he still counts donald trump as a friend, he is just telling the truth under oath about their campaign crimes. how bad is it? we have two special guests with me at the table when we are back in 90 seconds. seconds.

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for nearly 160 years, pnc bank has been brilliantly boring so you can be happily fulfilled... which is pretty un-boring if you think about it. welcome back to our special, trump on trial. new york versus donald trump. we are joined by joyce vance and professor jason johnson,

both analysts for us. i went through some of what we got out of this opening weekend i think it is fair to say if you are on the jury it feels like the d.a. is up, in the lead. i was careful to say it doesn't mean we know the outcome. what do you think they achieved in this first weekend what do you think they have to worry about? >> it is a great question. if you are the prosecution and you are not up after your first witness, you are in big trouble. the prosecution really did start off with an unexpected bang. no one knew what to expect out of david pecker. we learned he had been cooperating with prosecutors and brought trump straight into the essential conspiracy, the election fraud conspiracy, which is necessary to turn the misdemeanor that is charged here into a felony. important testimony. he stood up well on testimony and cross-examination. they did not seem to come after him with a lot. they tried to pick away at his credibility, question the key

evidence, but he was thoroughly rehabilitated on redirect examination. the prosecution has to be feeling good. >> jason, i don't want to be unkind to the defendant and he is legally presumed innocent, but the family is not there. the jury can notice that. these are his friends and allies. some of them have gone so far they are like michael cohen, who is so angry at trump that it might affect his credibility. some like i emphasized said friendly. the guy is a liar, but we are friendly. i mean he may have committed crimes, that's what i thought we did, but we are friendly and he's got a whole back story of, shall we say, really complicated allegations, but we are friendly. if these are the views of his friends, how does that hurt him not only in the jury, but the court of public opinion? >> that is why this is such a bad week, because we can go through all of the legalese and jargon, but really the average person is picking up every

fifth word and they are picking up things like adult film star, payoff, family is in theory and falling asleep during the trial. the outside world is like okay, this doesn't look good. he doesn't sound alert. we are not seeing anything that makes us think he is alert and paying attention. it is the old song, friends, how many of us have them? if you heard someone say this room was filled with people who are supporting donald trump and they leave the room every day and melania is there and things like that, it gives the public the impression that these people believe in him. even if he is guilty his family is still with him so the fact he does not have people with him, that is what the public is picking up. >> are you going to tell joyce the reference you made? >> that is a classic. >> i don't think she does, no offense. >> i don't know. >> go ahead. >> what i'm going to do, i'm going to let you marinate on

this one. this is a classic and i'll tell you at the end. >> i love that. in tv they call that a deep tease. when we say joyce is coming back for the boris epshteyn breakdown later, that is a deep tease. we will come back to that. for the public we showed this earlier in the week. front pages. to say nothing around the world, where they don't have a vote, but it is ricocheting. what you think about the fact that it does take a level 10, the supreme court to say this is such a big deal and it is happening to remind people of what it is like if donald trump is in the center, whether he is in power, or the center of the story, people may have forgotten what 2019 was like. does that hurt him, just the feeling of what this is like? >> well, it adds up because people start thinking when is this guy not in court? he is in court for documents. he is in court for an affair. everyone thinks he will be in trial the whole time and that is what makes people worried. we talked about this before. i don't carry too much weight

in the polls this early, but what i can say is this. the number of americans who have said if donald trump is convicted of anything that it will affect their vote has stayed steady at 23 to 25%. so there is a risk here. this is not a situation where trump supporters say no matter what happens and democrats say no matter what. there is a core of the population and it tends to be independence that if he is convicted they will say i just don't think i can do it for this guy and that is a real consequence of this trial. >> i appreciate the precision of your mind. i appreciate that you dropped a second reference, gone to november. fugees. i am reminded of we are all in the danger zone, the judge hit the hammer, my brother and coming home. that is something he has to worry about with trump. will you now unveil your earlier reference? >> no, i'm going to wait. i want this to be g and you

will know this when you come back. you know she will integrate it when she comes back. >> people ask sometimes, was this planned or scripted? i did not know you were going to say it, so we will all be in suspense. joyce, i did want to include you in the legal breakdown, because these arizona charges are not only a big deal, they involve one of trump's new york defense advisors, boris epshteyn. so joyce will come right back as we get into that as these cases collide. we will show you boris epshteyn, you may remember him. we have that breakdown with joyce vance, next. rolaids' dual-active formula begins to neutralize acid on contact. r-o-l-a-i-d-s spells relief.

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her uncle's unhappy. i'm sensing an underlying issue.a it's t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit... unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock...” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it's not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. welcome back to our special, trump on trial. this month is actually the first time ever americans have watched a former president be put on trial. trump at the defendant's table with his lawyers including a prominent one, boris epshteyn. a veteran of the trump white house and campaign who has become central to trump's activities since 2020.

he was in court with trump as you see along with the lead defense counsel two days in a row, just as he was at the table in the first new york arraignment. his quarterbacking for trump comes after he joined and led many efforts throughout 2020, attacking those election results that showed trump lost. we have been reporting on those efforts for years, including how contrary to the initial impression that they involved not just mainly january 6 violence, but a host of other plots over those months and paperwork and election flow -- fraud. we pressed boris epshteyn on his role and his views which are relevant as he is involved in all of this. now here we are in this busy week as he is there, working on his phone with the lead counsel, trying to help trump stay out of a new york prison.

but what we can tell you as part of our special and with all this news you may have missed it, for the first time epshteyn joined the ranks of trump lawyers who need criminal lawyers of their own. arizona prosecutors indicting him for elector fraud. >> charges for a host of trump allies. >> boris epshteyn continues to have a prominent role. >> rudy giuliani, john eastman, mark meadows, names weaver in the past, suddenly back in the news. >> this is the first time he's been indicted, but also a former trump aide who remains to this day one of his closest advisors. >> this is obviously a big deal and like anyone else indicted he is presumed innocent. it is also, however, a big deal and a live issue in this new york case. defendant trump using boris as a lawyer and reporting on all of these issues. we have interviewed epshteyn repeatedly including when the early subpoenas hit.

>> when you say you will provide evidence, does that mean your intent is to cooperate? >> i am happy to provide evidence of the overwhelming fraud that happened in the 2020 election. >> is your plan to try to force a vote in the house to reverse the election outcome? >> i had no idea there would be any violence at the capitol. there was absolutely a plan and a process for there to be challenges -- >> is that a yes? is that a yes? >> a process to challenge electoral votes. >> so we pressed on those issues and questions. epshteyn is now indicted along with giuliani, meadows, jenna ellis, john eastman, lawyers who had to defend whether or not they became criminals and trump himself named among unindicted co-conspirators in that same case charging epstein. the new york times also says he could be an unnamed co-

conspirator in the jack smith case, where the sixth spot has never been fully identified. the new york times said that. we have not confirmed that, but we can confirm that epshteyn participated in the elector plot because we questioned him on that all the way back then before some of these probes had gone much further and we elicited a newsworthy admission. this is one year after the insurrection, long before jack smith was active. we pressed on how these aids and even lawyers seems to become directly involved in not only making arguments or defending things, which they are allowed to do, but in advancing active work that appeared to break the law, which could be indictable. right now. i will air that exchange and epshteyn ultimately admitting his role. saying he did it with

and that involved, let's recall, trying to deceive the government with fraud electors in states that trump had lost, where the loss had been certified. we are airing this in its full context, about 90 seconds, from that original interview and you will hear epshteyn admit the very elector plan he is now indicted for this week in arizona. >> there has also been reporting about the attempt to seat fraudulent electors. is that something you ever worked on or for example would support, in michigan? >> that's so funny. it's not fraudulent electors. >> the trump campaign asked us to do that. did you ever make calls like that regarding what you're calling these alternate electors? >> yes, i was part of the process to make sure there were alternate electors. >> so your view for the record is that you could, as a lawyer to the trump campaign, seat fees electors in states where

the process, the steeped -- the state results as overseen by the courts found that biden one. you don't see any chance that that could be against the law?'s >> the supreme court never ruled on the merits. >> the cases were so weak they didn't reach the merits. that included many trump appointed justices. >> it was a different makeup of the court and more and more information is coming out every day of arizona, georgia, pennsylvania, wisconsin. >> if you are aiding voter fraud, not only is that potentially against the law, but you would lose the lawyer client privilege under the crime fraud exception for your client, the trump campaign? >> it was absolutely done and done by the democrats. everything was done legally by the trump legal team according to the rules and under the leadership of rudy giuliani. >> there you have it. that was a big deal at the time.

epshteyn admitting in our interview in the back and forth after we pressed him and showed the results and examples and other corroborating evidence that he was in the elector plot and these are states like arizona where trump is lost, so it looks a lot like fraud. joyce vance, as promised, is back with us. i mentioned the nexus to the new york case and separately, even if he wasn't involved anymore for trump, this is another person in the elector plot that now is facing a potential trial and potential conviction. your thoughts? >> they might as well mark that tape that you played government exhibit 1 and send it to prosecutors in arizona, because that is in essence boris epshteyn captured on video, talking about the fake elector scheme he has now charged in in arizona and when that is added on to some of the other evidence we have heard about that is publicly known, right? we don't know what prosecutors

might have that we are unaware of. emails trying to convince officials in arizona that they should come on board with this plan to put in a fake slate of electors to try to tie up the certification of the electoral college vote. that makes arizona's case looks solid. really interesting that boris epshteyn is in court with donald trump in new york. not quite sure what we can make of that. he was not there for jury selection or opening statements. he did show up the day after he was indicted in arizona. maybe it was planned in advance, but it is certainly worth following. >> because it again shows how many of these criminal plots intersect. this is someone now indicted for 2020 election crime, trying to defend trump against a 2016 election crime as the supreme court hears a related election crime and we showed that. i want to put on the screen how many of trump's lawyers and other officials are in trouble. it looks like a lot of stamps. we start in the lower right where you have donald trump,

now in arizona. that would be big news any other year about any other president. it goes along with these other indictments and as you move over on the screen you see epstein, unindicted co- conspirator in georgia and indicted this week in arizona. as you go up you have more familiar names that got more attention because some of them were indicted a lot earlier in this process. where do epstein and these other people fit into accountability? as we cover this trial tonight, on the one hand we hear people saying donald trump keeps getting away with it. it doesn't look like these people are getting away with it. >> something i understood as a prosecutor is how slowly justice takes place. that has been true in this case may be more than anything else i've seen, but we are getting to the find out point. donald trump is sitting in a cold courtroom, not on the campaign trail in manhattan and as these other cases are indicted and particularly this

one in arizona, you have to wonder. will someone finally break from the herd and truly cooperate against donald trump? boris epshteyn has the appearance of someone, we don't know for certain, who was in close communication and can talk about what donald trump was thinking. that is something jack smith would like to have in the prosecution and the district of columbia when it is permitted to go forward. it is all intermingled. >> we will leave this on the screen. the other thing i want to mention is a lot of these people, particularly upper left, eastman and giuliani and ellis and powell, you can tell i was doing this out loud, were all very public. ellis was on this program. others have given press conferences. one of their bets was that if you will launder this brazenly in public it might look more normalized and prosecutors won't act. did that work and is it working now?

>> it absolutely worked originally. there were people like you and me, we were two of them, who were stunned and saw this as an effort to interfere with the election. from as early as when donald trump began to say ahead of the election year that he would not necessarily be bound by a vote that he lost. but there was this ef it can't be illegal because we are doing it openly and in public. that is not the sort of strategy you can maintain in face of good, independent prosecutors and that is where we are now. >> as you say people could look and go, oh my god, they admitted it and someone else says he said it out loud, so it can't be that bad. that is the trick or the game some of them are playing, the best i can tell. you have spent time dealing with this. but seeing this reach accountability in arizona where epshteyn is legally presumed innocent, but faces this mounting evidence. he does not think elector

fraud is a problem. apparently prosecutors disagree and the jury will decide on more than one topic. thanks for being here tonight. our thanks to joyce vance. more revealing testimony on the tabloid side of this. we have the special breakdown and our experts on the history of new york tabloids and how this might play with the seasoned new york city jury. ur. known for being a free spirit. no one wants to be known for cancer, but a treatment can be. keytruda is known to treat cancer, fda-approved for 17 types of cancer. one of those cancers is advanced nonsquamous, non-small cell lung cancer, where keytruda is approved to be used with certain chemotherapies as your first treatment if you do not have an abnormal “egfr” or “alk” gene. keytruda can cause your immune system to attack healthy parts of your body during or after treatment. this may be severe and lead to death. see your doctor right away if you have cough, shortness of breath, chest pain, diarrhea, severe stomach pain,

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here we are in this trial

and we want to take a step back as part of our special right now. donald trump grew, thrived, and enriched himself at the altar of pr and new york tabloid media hype. but as the great jay-z once said, the same sword that nights you could be the sword that good nights you. donald trump is fighting for his liberty and the prosecution because of, more than anything, the way he did these dirty, unseemly, tabloid deals. on friday his own former assistant took the stand and testified how she saw stormy daniels at that trump tower reception area. it was also the tabloid chief, david pecker, who testified and explained how this whole thing worked to buy and bury negative stories through the tabloids to boost the campaign. was that your purpose in

locking up the story about the playmate to influence the election, prosecutors asked? he confirmed, yes. also detailing how he worked with cohen. i will show you these headlines that are for the most part false. the false allegation about then trump competitor marco rubio. another one i can show you. let me look at the next one. infamously going after ted cruz. david pecker testifying that spray was manufactured down to the doctored photo, but trumps defense lawyers tried to push back and said it was a routine thing they did. in other words however bad it looks it was not a trump campaign thing, it is just how they roll. they brought up arnold schwarzenegger and that deal. he said that i would advise him about stories out there. acquire them for a time. also trying to get the jurors to doubt whether this was a

trump campaign thing or maybe just an inquirer thing. now mcdougal, i spoke to her lawyer in 2019, keith davidson, who told us this. >> the affairs happened in 2006. michael cohen and i first contacted each other about the matter in 2011, so at a minimum they knew about me and about stormy as a minimum in 2011. they knew about it in 2012, 2013, 2014. they knew about it in 2015. >> right, they knew about at this whole way and the money only comes through at the end. >> the point they're according to the lawyer and the d.a., the money came for the campaign and nothing else. this was not tabloid business, it was campaign tabloid collusion if you will. the d.a. also highlights the text that davidson, who you just saw, sent to one of the top editors at the inquirer. something that could be ripped

out of a novel. i wonder if we have a novelist around. looking at the fact to bury the stories like they planned, but they saw that he actually won and said, quote, what have we done? we are joined now by a presidential historian and as alluded to, the author of bright lights, big city. if you don't know the book you might know the screenplay starring the great michael j fox. welcome to both of you. jay, let's start with you. you know your way around fact and fiction in new york. what you think about the tabloids coming back to bite donald this way? >> it is ironic. he lived in the tabloids. i am afraid more than one of us did, but he used the tabloids for his own purposes. he knew very well how they worked in new york. i am happy to say on behalf of new york tabloids, they weren't

quite as blatant as the national enquirer. i remember for instance when i was tabloid fodder, it was something that i guess i would call trade and fade. whereby if you got called up and there was a scandalous piece of gossip about you, you could get out of it and you could have it killed if you had an item to trade. and certainly donald knew that and of course he often called up the tabloids as his own publicist, pretending to be his own publicist to spread some wonderful news about himself. but i find it quite extraordinary that the inquirer actually paid in order to not do the job they were alleging they were doing, to deliver news to the general public. and it is quite extraordinary. i hear that pecker is a nice

guy, but it is extraordinary to me the things that he admitted. the things he admitted were standard national enquirer practice. at least in those days. >> i think that is one of the parts of the trial that is so interesting and michael, we will turn to you. sometimes people watch criminal trials and they learn about how policing really goes down, which is separate from the guilt question. >> i have never seen law and order ever in my life, of course. >> it is not that the inquirer has a vaulted, high reputation, but even people who think less of it are surprised to understand it is not really a fact-finding institution. it impersonates a magazine at the supermarket, but it is not a magazine. it is a bundle of deals with no other standards. here was donald trump when back in the 1980s talking about how he uses media. >> do you cultivate a high profile? >> no i don't.

for some reason people call and they want to do something. newsweek calls and they say we want to do a cover story and i guess you have to go along with it. that happened and other things happened and's just happen. i can't tell you what. >> that is false. he hyped himself and everybody knows that. >> you mean donald trump said something that was false? where did you find this? >> i'm curious what you think about the sometimes sordid, almost low stakes of this when we think about history and yet this is the first trial and the supreme court reminded everyone -- >> i think in a way donald trump understood americans better than a lot of other politicians did. that is not said to down americans, but he understood the reach of the national enquirer. the number of people who you would be surprised to see in the supermarkets taking a look at an article inside a magazine with a very sensational cover. the same goes for the program

he was on. the apprentice. i am sure you were a weekly viewer, just like me, right? but the point is, that paved the way for donald trump because a lot of people watched that thing for more than a decade. a successful businessman who is tough with a heart of gold. none of those three things are true, but that was on that show. so in 2016 people like me and my guest, maybe you, who are not weekly viewers of the apprentice didn't know how much that would do to ease his entering politics. the same with the national enquirer. >> j again, we had all of our little details. we brought you and a historian here, big fish with no disrespect to any of the other fish. all of our fish are special. >> my mother said that about her children as well. >> but this is a heck of a

story and i am just curious what the novelist and you think sand would you write a novel this way? would it be too far-fetched? the floor is yours. >> someone pointed out to me trump has appeared in one or two of my novels, something i am embarrassed about now. i think it is interesting. michael reminded us of the way that trump apprenticed himself to the ways of the media. probably with this show of his, the apprentice. and you know, pecker testified that during the long run of that show when he became more and more familiar to the american public, he would repeatedly call pecker to promote or demote contestants on the show. to sell his own agenda, whatever it was that week. it seems almost extraordinary

for a novel, but in retrospect that was a very important part of his rise, the apprentice. which went, i don't know, seven seasons or something. i am embarrassed -- >> actually even more. on a network we know well. >> so much of the trump story i think would be deleted by any conscientious editor as being unbelievable. >> also the chief cartoonist and certain circumstances. >> indeed. >> it would be nice to have a little bit more subtlety. >> i think the character of trump would not pass muster in the world of literature, because it is a cartoon. >> although one thing you mentioned, you had it on screen. i think we were thinking the

same way. if you had a novel and it was about all of this, you would have a character from the national enquirer calling someone up on the night of donald trump's election victory and saying, what have we done? >> that is what i think is so important. they looked back and said this really worked. they knew it would help, they didn't know it would work. i think people can take and the jury can take their mind back to the end of 2016, the access hollywood tape. the general consensus proven wrong as it often is. you can talk about the iraq war and elections. sometimes the consensus gets it wrong. he would definitely lose, which is why they saw this as less likely to have an impact. what have we done? as we also mark this week, the supreme court justices friendly to trump continually implied that if you have law and order, accountability or trials, this would be some new, bad thing. we've had a lot of experts on

and that's not true. maybe the trump bias is showing. >> do you think a little bit? >> i think maybe. if you did have a problem of over prosecuting, that would be one thing. we haven't gotten there yet. we mentioned previously and prepared for your review, that we know about nixon and clinton. i mentioned those examples. agnew was of course in there, in the line for the presidency. the fact there was an accountable process by most people isn't viewed as a problem. it is viewed as at least if it is bad enough there are guardrails. take a look at what we prepared for you. >> i categorically and flatly deny the assertions that have been made by the prosecutors with regard to bribery and extortion on my part. >> what is your reaction to the resignation? >> i think it is a sad thing. >> it makes me glad.

should have been done a long time ago. >> i think they threw him to the wolves, that's what i think. >> simply wonderful. i think next and -- i think nixon should be the next to resign. >> before trump i think you could argue that they were somewhat bipartisan and people looked at that. we heard from trump friendly justice kavanaugh this week, actually maybe that stuff was the problem and the only good thing was pardoning nixon. what is going on with the lessons of history? >> in my view it was a terrible mistake because that hold later presidents, like donald trump, you could do whatever you want and probably the worst that will happen to you is like nixon. he will retire to your seaside via. as was the case in those discussions on the supreme court yesterday. i mean i could not believe my ears. i've always been raised to haves

days to have respect for the supreme court. they hear them saying things that sounded as if they were excusing january 6 as if it was a tourist visit and was relatively harmless. those are the people who are going to ensure a world of democracy and rule of law for future americans. if they continue to talk like that and act like that and, by the way, in so doing, delaying the jack smith trial, the only time trump will be directly tried, if he ever is, for what happened on january 6. we are going to be living in a very unsafe country. supreme court did that. >> very interesting and given how much real history and upside down alice in wonderland history we were hearing in the court. i want to get you on that as well. we started with bright lights and big city and the fun and adult content readers know from that. we started with the inquirer and the new york post, but by

the end week lasted up. >> if you have to class it up with me, you are really scraping the barrel. >> i am kidding. >> we are classmates. >> well almost. i don't know if jay remembers this, but the daughter of spiro agnew was a very nice and smart woman, named kim, was my classmate at williams college and i think her father came to our commencement so i am the only person in this segment whose commencement was attended by spiro agnew. >> thanks to both of you. our special continues. we will be right back. spraying flonase daily gives you long lasting non-drowsy relief. flonase all good. also, try our allergy headache and nighttime pills. frustrated by skin tags? dr. scholl's has the breakthrough you've been waiting for. now there's an easier-to-use at home skin tag remover, clinically proven to remove skin tags

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you've been watching our special trump on trial. you can connect with me online, including asking questions about this trial at arimelber.com. keep it right here on msnbc. hello and welcome to our special, new york versus donald trump. i am