maybe now -- it seemed to me january 6 would have shocked the nation. maybe the idea that a jury said this will make us feel -- moderate republicans who are out there might decide they want the party to go in a different direction. >> eddie, i think about how fractured society is. it feels like it's getting more and more fractured all the time. what do you think is the real driver of that? >> i think our way of life is fundamentally shifted. the contradictions of the last 50 years are in full view. people aren't able to dream as they once dreamed. some folk are worried that the country is being given over to these black and brown people, that folk are losing their advantage, the browning of american is a source of crisis. i understand doris' hopefulness, her faith. but donald trump is a chaos agent that's taking advantage of grievance and hatred.

we have to make a decision in this country. not that moderates suddenly come to some sense of reason. but finally, to discover the diversity that's at the heart of the country. i hope we can do it. i pray we can do it. we need to. >> thank you so much for your wisdom, your perspective during these challenging times for america. that's going to wrap up the hour for us. >> thank you for the privilege of your time. andrea mitchell, chris jansing and katy tur pick up our coverage next. ♪♪ good day, everyone. i'm andrea mitchell in new york. with my colleague chris jansing for a landmark moment in our nation's history. our teammate katy tur will join us in a moment from inside trump tower where donald trump has just talked about the prosecutor

and judge who presided over his case and said he would have loved to testify. >> this is a scam. this is a rigged trial. it shouldn't haven't been in that venue. we shouldn't have had that judge. he should have allowed us to have an election expert. we will appeal this scam. we will be appealing it on many different things. he wouldn't allow us to have witnesses. he wouldn't allow us to talk. he wouldn't allow us to do anything. the judge was a tyrant. >> sentencing is set for july 11th, days before the republican national convention kicks off. trump is expected to be overwhelmingly declared the official party nominee. while other felons have run for president in the past, trump will be the first nominated by a major party with a felony conviction and a solid shot of winning the white house. nothing in the u.s. constitution bars a felon from becoming

president. >> despite the state of our heavily divided nation, with defiant elected officials speaking out against the trial, a far right effort to publicly out the jurors and violent rhetoric aimed at the judge and others involved in the case, we have seen that our judicial system did work with a jury of donald trump's piers finding mr. trump guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. rendering a verdict like any other criminal case. that was stressed by the manhattan d.a. alvin bragg. >> while this defendant may be unlike any other in american history, we arrived at this trial and ultimately today at this verdict in the same manner as every other case that comes through the courtroom doors, by following the facts and the law and doing so without fear or favor. i did my job. we did our job.

>> joining us to kick off four hours of special coverage, catherine christian, andrew weissmann, don lamoine. we start with katy tur at trump tower. this is where we first saw you in june of 2015 as donald trump was coming down the escalator to declare his presidency with some of the same inaccurate and very controversial rhetoric about migrants and others that we heard today. this is when you first started covering him full-time nine years ago. >> what a nine years it has been. in many ways so familiar and so

completely the same. talking about immigration and migrants then. talking about immigration and migrants today. this is a surreal moment to be here in trump tower, because this is literally the scene of the crime. this is what he was convicted for in a manhattan courtroom, 34 felony counts of falsifying documents for a scheme hatched above my head. donald trump, david pecker, michael cohen, to go after donald trump's opponents in the presidential race and to bury stories that are negative about him, including stories from women, including one of stormy daniels. that's what he was convicted for. after that conviction, he came back here and held a news conference. there's a heaviness to this lobby that has not -- i have

never felt here before. i have been coming here a long, long time. the doormen, all the same. they are not smiling as easily as they once were. he had a crowd of supporters here. they looked to be trump organization employees, because they came out from the elevators behind me. there was a forced enthusiasm you could argue from some of them. donald trump went through his campaign highlights. they have been the same now for nine years. there was something forced about the way he was giving it as well. this conviction has actually gotten to him. there is a significance to him for what this means. it's not a civil fine. granted the civil fines were extremely large. this is a criminal conviction by 12 of his peers in new york city for the way he did business.

he was talking about falsifying records, it was almost as if he took person offense to it. on the subject of immigration, it's important to note today -- he talked about how immigrants are coming in and more terrorists than ever coming in. nothing based in evidence in terms of terrorists. nothing based in anything we can confirm. on the subject of immigration, there was a fix in congress. republicans led this fix in congress. a compromise in the senate that leaned republican, that republicans wanted, demanded for years. democrats made heavy concessions. some democrats said they couldn't vote for it. president biden was getting a lot of flak from the left for this immigration bill. it never got -- it never passed the senate. it went to the floor for a show vote so democrats could show how republicans weren't supporting it. it would never have gotten to

the house floor because donald trump intervened and told republican lawmakers he didn't want there to be an immigration bill, because he wanted to be able to run on it. this is a crisis of his own making, or at least a crisis he has been unwilling to help. this is a bill that would have allowed president biden to shut down the border. it didn't go anywhere because donald trump didn't want it to go anywhere. i was in court yesterday as this verdict was read. i wanted to see his face as it was read. i wanted to see the reaction from the former president. i watched him. he was stone-faced. he barely made an expression. as the jurors walked by, he looked at every single one of them. none of them looked at him at all. there was something to the expression. it's the same we have seen from him, the unmoving kind of a scowl. there was something about it

that didn't seem as natural as it had in the past, as confident as it had in the past. you gotta wonder -- i know donald trump is still running for president. he says he will continue to fight. i wonder how much of the fight is really still left in him. >> that's an important question. will it change to anger and manifest itself on the campaign trail? he has to go to an interview process. there's going to be presentencing reports. he will be sentenced. take me back to your observations today. to those of us who are watching it on tv, there's the sameness to it. exactly as you pointed out. some of the same issues. making same misstatements and lies he made in the past. hard to follow where he was going. i do think with donald trump --

you and i have talked about this before -- his mood, his reaction can inform how he deals with people, how he deals with issues, how he deals with what's facing him. who is the donald trump you saw today versus the guy you saw come down that escalator who most people thought didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of becoming president of the united states? >> i will make one small correction. i was not there for the announcement. i started covering him two days later. i was in london. i was a foreign correspondent. i started covering him. i was not there for the escalator announcement. i was there every day after that. i was here a lot. my first big interview was around the trump bar here. the donald trump back then was an outsider candidate who had a small chance. nobody believed in him. he was -- he was acting as if he had nothing to lose. when it started going, he built confidence. he was always confident but he

got angrier and angrier. he started rallying his base around him with that anger, with that vitriol, using it to his advantage. he has been doing that for nine years since. today he has that same instinct in him. he didn't seem to be as committed to it as he had, at least personally committed to it as he had in the past. he lifted his arms up and dropped them. i have never seen him do that before. it was resigned. that being said, it's almost as if he doesn't need to be wielding the power as forcefully as he once was. it's nine years. he has aged. we have all aged. the apparatus around him, the system around him, the people around him are pushing forward with that regardless. there's a well-oiled machine of anger and vitriol that the trump campaign has been using for years now with fund-raising

emails, with truth social posts. posts that aren't always coming from him. they are coming from his social media manager. they know what to say. people around him know what to say. his allies know what to say. there was a reason why the allies out there said the same thing when this verdict came down, it was corrupt, it's a banana republic. they know the talking points by heart. i want to leave you with one thing, because i think had is really interesting. donald trump came out today and talked to the press and these cameras alone. no family members by his side. eric and lara were standing to the side of the lobby. there was nobody next to him. there were no republican lawmakers here. there were no potential vice presidential candidates. we had seen so many of them travel to court with him, stand outside, give press conferences, wear the same suit and tie. yet, there was nobody here

today. where were they? where was boebert, gaetz, the people we have seen around him day in and day out? why were they not here? why on the first full day where donald trump has been convicted of felonies, becoming the first president in history to be convicted of a crime, why was he standing here alone? it's an interesting question. i don't know the answer. it's a remarkable image. it's a symbolic image for him to stand here by himself today without supporters he normally has. >> lots of reaction, but no one showing up. you will make your way back to us, which we are happy to have you here. thank you very much. we will see you soon. >> it's only a few blocks away. donald trump certainly railed

against the judge. let's show what he had to say. this seems like a violation of the gag order, which is still in place. >> if i wrote down -- this was a highly qualified lawyer. i'm not allowed to use his name because of the gag order. he is a sleaze. it took me a while to find out. he was effective. he did work. he wasn't a fixer. he was a lawyer. they like to use the word fixer. he was a lawyer. at the time, he was a fully accredited lawyer. >> andrew weissmann, let me come to you first on this. the gag order is still in place. we can get to how these violations and others could affect his own sentencing. >> right. >> the gag order affects the witnesses, the jurors, and he has been railing against them since this verdict that came

down shortly after 5:00 last night and then again in this high profile nationally covered -- it wasn't a news conference because he didn't take questions, but his comments today. >> it will be interesting to see whether the prosecutors do anything about this at this time as opposed to bringing it up at sentencing. i suspect it will be the latter. the judge will be concerned about witnesses, in part because he is thinking about the next trial, for any trial, not having retaliation against witnesses, with jurors, we know judge is concerned. that's a live issue about protecting these jurors, not just future jurors. all of this as you correctly point out, that all of this is something both the violations that have happened and his continued conduct goes directly to sentencing factors. the judge is looking for whether

there is an acceptance of responsibility, of remorse. this is a poster child for the antithesis of that. for the risk of recidivism. how much are you prone to just commit crimes again and again and again? just to be fair, appealing and taking appeals and making legal arguments about why you didn't think you had a fair trial, all of that is fair game. that's how our system works. the same way our system worked yesterday. that's just part of the process. >> also, the gag order did not stop him from testifying. in fact, the judge made sure he understood fully that he was giving up his right to testify, as he said he would. now that you brought up sentencing, as a co-conspirator, michael cohen, he got a three-year sentence. it was dialed back because he was a cooperator and he pleaded guilty. i was hearing you say that

there's a principle that the boss should not get a lighter sentence than the underlings, the employees, and also that he is not showing remorse. i was surprised because what you and others were saying -- let me bring everyone else into this -- is that certainly the d.a. could recommend jail time. i thought that as a first-time offender and non-violent offender, it would be off the chart -- off the table. apparently, according to the various principles of sentencing, he is violating almost everything here. >> our justice system is built on the system you treat likes alike. obviously, the complication there is lawyers on both sides are going to argue about what is a like -- how much are you similar? to be clear, michael cohen pled guilty to other crimes as well.

there was a wider range. on the other hand, he accepted responsibility and gets a lower sentence and credit for that. cooperated with the mueller investigation. i know that firsthand. all of that was a factor for getting a lower sentence. he was a lower-level participant. this was the crime that donald trump was convicted of, was as a leader of this crime. he was leading people to do it. he is fomenting a disrespect for law as we sit here. one thing that's notable, that i don't think people have focused on, is as katy tur pointed out, the scheme was hatched at trump tower that we just saw. where was it carried out? where was the final place in which it happened that the juror found unanimously? in the oval office of this country. in the oval office in 2017, that's where the crime occurred and was found unanimously beyond

a reasonable doubt that the president of the united states committed 34 felonies in the oval office. >> you talk about the lack of remorse. we have heard nothing from him. i thought it was striking even yesterday when he came out after court, even if you lose, typically you will hear a defendant thanking his team. they worked so hard for me, the family, the people who supported him. i don't know there's been a defendant in the history of the united states that's had more fervent supporters than donald trump. none of that was mentioned. he continued to rail again today about every part of the process. this was not that he did something wrong. it's the system is wrong. this is a witch hunt. he is being not prosecuted but persecuted. how we got here is going to be something that's going to be taught in law schools, i'm guessing, for a while. todd blanche said on fox that every decision was made in cooperation with donald trump.

i want to play that. >> how involved was donald trump in his own defense? >> what do you think? very involved. he is a smart guy. he knows what he is doing. he jokingly said to us a lot, he wanted to be the litigator, the one actually arguing, because he is a smart guy and he knows what he is doing. we made every decision together, we did. there were things he was frustrated with. >> we made every decision together. >> it sounds like a lawyer is saying, don't blame me for putting robert costello on the stand. >> i wonder, at some point do you look at, i've lost trial after trial after trial, e. jean carroll, trump org, which was about his company and not about him, now a felony case, i am a convicted felon. >> the system was the opposite of rigged. this man was -- lived most of

his life and worked in manhattan. that jury, manhattan jury, is a true jury of his peers. his defense attorneys helped select that jury. this was a trial with a very fair judge. he didn't roll over for the prosecution. he did not roll over for the die fence. he has an appellate process and those rights. it's very sad that his followers, including people who are united states senators, are putting out this, this was rigged. you should have respect for a jury verdict, whether an acquittal or a conviction. that's the rule of law and respect for the rule of law. >> that brings me back to what andrew was saying that maybe it's likely if there's a violation of the gag order that it waits until the day of sentencing. if there's concern about the safety of jurors, if there's

concern about the safety of anybody involved in this case, does the prosecution have to come forward? can a judge independently say, you are coming back in? we think you violated the gag order. what are the possibilities here? >> the judge has the ability on his own to enforce the gag order. it's his order. it's the court's order. he doesn't need the prosecutor do that. if you recall, at some point even towards the last few days of the trial, there were further violations of that gag order in mr. trump's comments after court. at the time, the prosecutors weren't doing anything about it because there was momentum towards the end of trial. it would have been disruptive. there wasn't much they could do that wouldn't disrupt the end of trial. now the trial is over. we are awaiting a sentencing date. i think you are going to see these things get conflated on sentencing. i think the remarks today, which violate the gag order -- i don't think there's any world in this the judge is not going to think that just not mentioning the

name michael cohen gets you out of the gag order. everyone knows who he is talking about. he who shall not be named -- >> he called him the fixer. >> everyone knows who he was talking about. he calls him a sleaze. it's clearly a violation of the gag order. it will increase the chances not only that the prosecution asks for jail time but that he gets it. there's the separate issue of whether the judge is going to see these as separate violations of the gag order. there's a reasonable possibility that you see that get conflated in the proceeding on the same day. >> that brings us back to what andrew was saying. i want to bring in peter baker. the political context here with the speaker, mike johnson, wanting the supreme court to step in. reactions from republicans, not just mitch mcconnell but all of the vice presidential wanna-bes. bill cassidy, a more centrist republican, a doctor, both of which publicly -- all of these

falling into line behind donald trump after this conviction tells you it's donald trump's party going into the debate and the republican national convention, but also larry hogan, republican former governor, candidate for senate in maryland in a very important race, saying the rule of law -- you have to respect the jury process, he was attacked by fellow republicans. >> yeah. there's no room in this party right now for anyone who does not think that, a, this verdict was the result of a rigged process, b, the 2020 election was stolen, and c, that donald trump is the victim of a vast conspiracy. those who do not follow that line will be punished. trump people made that clear. actually tossed out of the party. that doesn't mean all republicans believe all this. i think most republican office holders don't.

but they learned the lesson not to say so. you have seen a lot of statements in the last 24 hours from key republicans, most notably as you pointed out, mike johnson, the speaker of the house, second in line to the presidency behind the vice president, that's significant. most republicans actually are keeping quiet. look and think about it. most of them don't feel comfortable with this situation. they don't recognize an alternative panel forward. speaking out against him has resulted in them being tossed or forced out of office. you see a party that's falling in line behind its convicted felon leader. that's an unprecedented situation in american history. we have nothing to compare it to. >> every presidential nominee since 1952 has gotten limited intelligence briefings, an

abbreviated briefing. they still plan on doing that despite the conviction. would any other government official with a felony conviction have this kind of access? >> highly unlikely. it would depend on what type of felony and how long ago it was. certainly, one like this that involves fraud, that's just a key type of conviction that will never get you a security clearance. you are right that the president, unlike the rest of the government officials who have to submit an application, go through a clearance process, have extensive vetting. for those of us like myself and andrew, who had high level clearances, a president doesn't have to do that. i suspect the intelligence community will -- it's not like he gets the same level of daily

briefings as a nominee that he would get if he were a president elect or later president. there will be certain things that they will brief him on because he needs to know those in the event he could potentially end up becoming the president on january 20th of 2025. >> in fact, we have been told from our reporting that there are certain things that they will hold back. the presidential daily brief, as you know, has everything in it. there's less to the candidates. this in particular, this is a president when he was president of the united states in the oval office, as we saw, who brought the russian ambassador in and the foreign minister into the oval office and actually gave away a source and method that they had to pull back a key source from moscow as a result of that indiscretion when he was president. already at the end of his team, there was an agreement from

cabinet secretaries at the national security level to hold back certain things and to also oversee any decisions that he made regarding use of force. >> he is under indictment for mishandling classified documents. >> that's because of the florida judge that may never see the light of day. in any case, they have already decided that they are going to hold back some apparently, according to sources that nbc news has spoken to in last 24 hours. he doesn't have to have everything which he becomes the nominee. >> i guess the way i would put it is they are probably really scrutinizing what he has a need to know. that should always be the case, frankly, for sharing classified, highly classified national intelligence, national defense information. there's a presumption once you are the president, you have a need to know everything. as nominee, there's some leeway for what does he really need to know?

that wouldn't necessarily be everything. >> certainly in the white house there's debate prep going on. peter baker, the campaign is on. you have a debate next month. you have the conventions coming up. there's voter reaction already from some key dates, arizona, pennsylvania and georgia. i want to play reactions to the verdict. these are trump, biden and undecided voters. >> i don't see him as that much of a criminal. what he did was -- it might have been a crime, but i don't think it was that much of a crime. >> to me, it's justice. this is how our judicial system works. i'm glad it's over. >> it makes me embarrassed that the american president may go to jail, especially when i talk to friends overseas, friends and family overseas.

yeah, i don't think it will happen. the symbolism is -- holds meaning. >> peter, one other coincidence of the calendar, not only is the republican national convention dias way from the sentencing, that is the week that the 75th anniversary of nato is being celebrated, commemorated at a key time during the war with ukraine in washington, d.c. all the foreign leaders from 30 nato countries are going to be -- and others -- in washington, d.c. when the sentencing is taking place in new york city. >> yeah. that wouldn't be any diplomat's ideal way of showcasing your democracy. on the one hand, you can make the case that it showcases the rule of law and the most powerful person does not get off scott free when convicted of a crime. you know, it's an embarrassment, i think, for american leadership

that the next president might be a convicted felon. that doesn't seem to be a disqualifying factor. there are three events this year that are outside of the candidate's control. this one today. yesterday is one of them. the first. the other two are the debates in june and september. everything else they have control over. these are three big moments that are x factors in terms of, how will they shape voter convictions? we never had anything like this before. obviously, the indictments last year didn't hurt him with republican voters. that's not the only people who will vote in a general election. even if he keeps all of the voters he has right now, presumably he needs some of those voters who went for biden last time but are unsure about voting for him this time. i think the president is too old or they don't like inflation.

those voters are not exactly, you would imagine, say, now that he has been convicted, i like him better. you don't know. we can't judge against anything else. we have this today. we have the two debates. these are the key pivot points in this race. >> yeah. i think just reading some of the transcripts of the people that we have talked to, voters, some of them do actually think, you know what, wasn't sure, but on the other hand, i think this was overstepping their bounds, so i don't know. you are so right, peter. none of us know how this will play out. thank you. if anybody knows, well, he is at the big board. steve kornacki, it's great to have you back. too early to know the full impact of the verdict, clearly. what do the latest numbers show us about where the presidential race stands now? what we do know about how the trial played in. >> spoiler alert, i do not know

any better than you or anyone. we could say two things. the first is the trial itself, the last six weeks, witnesses, testimony, all of the press coverage, there's no evidence that changed the race. let me show you. these are two major polls. they came out just as this trial began. biden ahead by three. the race was tied in this one. with both, they came out with new polls. people who absorbed the news of the testimony, of the witnesses, of the proceedings at this trial. you can see, biden went from three to two. he lost a point. it went from tie to biden. biden gained a point there. lost a point, gained a point. a wash when you look at these two polls.

these are the two we have out there, the two most credible that were in the field just before the trial and in the field just just as the trial ended. worth noting that. look at the average of all the polls here. this is with a real clear average as the trial began, trump led by .3 on average. trump by .9 as the trial wrapped up. no real evidence that the trial itself has moved the needle in this race. something that's notable about this -- the question here, do you believe trump did something illegal? it was 46 before and 46 as the trial wrapped up. the other thing i wanted to point out is, the gap in who was paying attention. the very interested people, people say they closely followed the trial, almost 40% of democrats, almost 40% of republicans. the number for interests is just barely over 20%. people committed to supporting trump, to oppoing trump, more

plugged into this than interests, getting more people who are sort of mixed views of both, maybe swing voters. when you look among interests, this was interesting. this quinnipiac poll asked, would you be less likely to vote for trump if he was convicted? 23% said, yes, if he is convicted. what's interesting is, dig inside those numbers. the vast majority of the independents, already say they're voting for joe biden. only 12% of the independents who say that they would be less likely to vote for trump were already trump voters. what that adds up to is less than 1% in terms of the entire overall electorate by this poll. trump voters who might change. that could be significant. but that's -- that shows you the world we're dealing with in the

polling that came out during the trial. we are talking about what happened during the trial. now we are talking about a verdict. we are talking about the reality. >> i will interrupt you. keep your train of thought. that was donald trump walking out of trump tower. we have been showing you throughout this time the number of people who are standing outside. there you see him waving again, getting into his car. we don't have any guidance on where he might be going. donald trump on the move after a brief stay at his apartment in trump tower. i meant from the time he got there. there's no restrictions on his travel. he could be going wherever he wants to go. steve, i apologize. we wanted to let people know this was live as we were watching. go ahead. less than 1%, it's hard to parse that. how many are in a battleground state?

what is the actual real number of that versus what number decided the election in 2020? all those questions. >> sure. this is the kind of election where this is a major, major event. this is also the kind of election where we expect it to be close. you remember how tight the margins were in georgia, in arizona. certainly could be again this fall. any significant event that moves the needle a little bit could ultimately be decisive. even if we are talking about a small group, it could be significant. to give you a sense of what i'm trying to show, here is a pie. pretend this is the electorate. we know independents are about a third of the electorate. this quinnipiac poll is saying 23% of this slice of the pie, about a quarter of this slice of the pie right here are saying that they would actually be less likely to vote for trump if he is convicted.

again, we are talking about this slice now. the vast majority of this slice are people who already aren't voting for trump. they are voting for joe biden. you are talking about -- i can't get -- it's so small in terms of the overall electorate, that the share of independents who say they are backing trump who said in this poll that they would be less likely to in the event of this verdict. it's very small according to this pre-verdict polling. what is the post-verdict poll polling? you want to start seeing then, did the fact of the verdict -- did all of the trump -- the statement today, everything said about each side in the wake of the verdict, does that change minds? what we have been asking so far is, how they reacted to testimony, heard about in the news, whatever. now we find out if the verdict

and all of the affects in terms of posturing of both sides, if that's going to move the needle. what we can say is that the trial itself, everything leading up to the verdict did not move the needle. now you have a major event with the verdict. will that change things? i think we will start to get an answer in the next week. >> we have yet to hear from the president of the united states. we expect to hear from him. it's scheduled to be something to do with the middle east. we also think that he could, of course, take a question. steve, those numbers don't reflect the third party impact, which is another great unknown. rfk junior came out last night with a statement criticizing the trial and supporting donald trump, who has been very critical of him. thank you so much. >> it's good to have you back at the big board. thank you. >> including your artistic

endeavors. joining us now is brendan buck. so great to hear from you. the speaker came out right away, which may or may not be surprising. he certainly owes his loyalty and he is carefully made sure that donald trump is behind him and that he is in sync with donald trump. has given him leeway supporting the supplemental. however, the way that all these republican senators and other elected officials have fallen into line, most of them, so quickly without any of this sinking in and accepting a lot of the rhetoric from donald trump, inaccurate statements about the judge, the jury, the d.a., how surprising is this, except from what we were saying earlier to peter baker? it's donald trump's party. >> we know that. people that you mentioned

before, like bill cassidy, hardly a donald trump booster, commenting on this. steve pointed out that how independents break on this could be important. remember that how your base reacts is important at this point, too. i think what this will have the effect of, unifying the base, but also really energizing it. this has been an election where i think we have been maybe concerned, but thinking it might be a lower turnout than what we have seen in recent years. we have seen this before. everybody is tired of it. what we know -- we don't know a lot. i think what we know is this is going to unify and energize the republican base. i don't think you can say that for president biden. he still has an enthusiasm problem. this probably, if there was any enthusiasm problem for donald trump, i think this very clearly solved that. some of that is the fact that he is out there -- >> the biden/harris team put out

a statement. the president has been careful not to say anything. this from monica alba. the biden campaign is saying, in response, so they have a war room going, in response to what donald trump said today, america witnessed a confused, desperate and defeated donald trump ramble about his personal grievances, and leaving anyone watching with one conclusion, this man cannot be president of the united states. the fact is, they are trying to gin up their base. i agree with you that i think the conviction will create more enthusiasm among many trump voters, trump supporters. we are seeing that in comments we have gotten anecdotally. >> maybe the most remarkable part of yesterday was that both campaigns put out largely the same message at the end. donald trump said, follow through on january 6. the biden team said, this will

be decided on january 6. it read as they were giving him a pass. they don't think this is ultimately going to matter too much. who knows? this seems like it was a missed opportunity, a lot of missed opportunity for the biden team. donald trump every step of the way has defined this process. he defined the prosecution. he is defining the conviction. i understand why the president wants to stay out of it. he doesn't want to look like he is interfering. as a political matter, you have to find some way to message this. we know donald trump defines things. he has a creating his own reality and moving the political center of gravity. there's a real chance that's what he has done here. the women you talked to earlier thinks, he probably did this, but it feels like overreach. that's a very reasonable place for a lot of people to land. i'm not certain it's actually going to hurt him, even with independents. >> thank you so much. we are seeing that america as

divided as ever, and probably over this as well. we will wait for real polling to find out -- to get a better snapshot. stay with us. up next, michael beschloss -- if we needed context and perspective, it's from michael, the presidential historian on what this means for the united states, especially in this election year. stay with us. you are msnbc. (vo) if you have graves' disease, your eye symptoms could mean something more.

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with the first biden/trump debate next month and the republican convention days from the scheduled sentencing for donald trump, we are many uncharted territory. the presumed republican nominee is a convicted felon and has a chance of becoming elected president. michael beschloss joins us now. it's great to have you here. talk about the political and historic impact of this guilty verdict on the american public, which is so deeply divided. >> that's for sure. i think one way to do it is to say, what is unusual about donald trump that separates him from every other person that served as president? he is a convicted felon, 34 times. we never had another president who was convicted of criminal behavior. even more than that -- we saw this in the speech at the bottom

of the brass escalator in trump tower a little over an hour ago, what he was saying is that, we have never before seen a president who so deprecated and insulted our legal system and our rule of law in public. for instance, the closest that a president has come to criminal conviction, as you all know, is richard nixon, in 1974. well, the height of watergate, nixon gave a speech in which he did not say the system is rigged, he is being treated unfairly, terrible judge. donald trump called his judge the devil. in nixon's case, he was praising, honest prosecutors, he said, prosecutors, he said, a courageous judge, vigorous free press. nixon said it's essential now that we place our faith in the judicial system. that's what most presidents do, so maybe one of you can solve the riddle for me and i'll close

with this, and that is donald trump is saying elect me president. i'm going to take an oath to defend the constitution and the rule of law, and at the same time, i'm saying the system is rotten and needs to be replaced. i don't see how you can serve as president saying both things. >> so we went and did a fact check. now, not every single thing that he said that was wrong or misleading did we go to, but we have 15 pages just very quickly that were assembled. i'll do one fact check here, if we have control room, they love when i do this, show that video again from the press conference. you see that he has a huge number of press. he has photographers. he has people like katy tur. he was railing against the fact that he's been gagged. that he hasn't been able to speak, that his campaign is being abridged, and yet, he did not take a single question. katy tried to ask him a

question, other reporters tried to ask him a question, and then he also, frankly, went on another tirade against immigrants in his remarks and accused the biden administration -- well, let me let him say what his accusation is. play it. >> they're coming in from jails and prisons, and they're coming in from is mental institutions and insane asylums, they're coming in from all over the world into our country, and we have a president and a group of fascists that don't want to do anything about it. >> typical bombastic language, michael, from donald trump, but give us a fact check, a reality check on his use of the word fascist and its history. >> well, fascist, the meaning of the word fascist is a militaristic government that goes after minority groups, that

uses the power of the government to intimidate the enemies of the fascist dictator as we saw in mussolini's italy. donald trump all of his life has had his technique of calling other people what people are calling him. so i think that's what's going on here. but at the same time, if you just look at that speech as a sign of his fitness to govern, it reminded me a little bit of richard nixon's last press conference, november 1962, lost governorship of california gave this rambling grievance-filled speech, which climaxed with the statement you will not have nixon to kick around anymore. this is a leader who has tried to project strength and effectiveness and showed almost anything but during that speech. >> michael beschloss, it is always great to have a chance to talk to you. thank you so much. and we have catherine and andrew and duncan still with us. can i go back to the fact check for a second?

because donald trump really went after judge merchan on a number of different things including calling him corrupt and conflicted, and we were talking about the fact you've been in court. i've been in court. andrew, you've been in court. i was only there one day, but the judge that i saw and the jurors' reaction to him was anything but this. >> is so this is i just think so important because this was not televised, and there was no audio to make sure people understand how fair this process was, and we were saying this before we knew what the verdict was, to make sure that people regardless if they thought he should be convicted, whether they thought he should be acquitted, understood this is what you're in for a penny, in for a pound, if the process is fair, that's the way our system works. the judge could not have been more fair. attacking him as just to go back to the 2016 election, attacking him because of where he's from, you would think in this day and age, that would not be acceptable language, and in

spite of that, in spite of his being attacked, his family being attacked, you would not know that at all from being in that courtroom. he was really just the model of judicial integrity. the defendant obviously had a chance to testify if he wanted to and decided not to. he cannot say now publicly someone stopped him from testifying. there's many reasons he didn't testify and he wouldn't testify. he could put on witnesses. he put on two witnesses, one of which exploded in his face. >> and the other thing is that joe biden had nothing to do with the indictment, the timing, and in fact, geoffrey berman, the former u.s. attorney was forced out by the trump administration wrote a book and said that william barr was the person who delayed this indictment initially to protect donald trump, when donald trump's own attorney general quashed this so that's why it later came back.

it had been a zombie case and later came back under alvin bragg. the white house had nothing at all to do with this. >> alvin bragg is independently elected by the voters of manhattan. had this is a grand jury of manhattan residents, and his quibbles about the specific procedure itself is all governed by new york state law. it's a completely separate sovereign. it has literally absolutely nothing to do with federal government at all. it's just completely separate -- >> this is not a federal case. that's a pretty easy fact check. >> this justice department, biden's so-called justice department is about to put his own son hunter on trial. andrew weissmann, catherine christian, duncan levin, thank you so much to all of you. we're approaching the top of the hour, our colleague katy tur is back from trump tower. more special coverage in just a moment. stay with us, you're watching

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