tonight's last word is guilty. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now.

donald trump's lawyer arranging $130,000 payment to a former adult film star. >> he reportedly did so in october, 2016. one month before the election. >>'s story breaking news here in new york city. a grand jury has voted to indict former president trump. >> former commander-in-chief, now a criminal defendant. >> these are felony crimes in new york state, no matter who you are. >> we have officially begun the first criminal trial of a former president in the united states. >> i am not going to be getting a fair trial. it is a very sad thing. >> he seems old and tired and mad. >> the first witness in this criminal trial is now taking the stand. >> echo was right there beginning of trump's plan to keep his relationship with stormy daniels a secret. >> hope hicks on the stand. >> she just started crying. tissues came out. >> stormy daniels testified in vivid detail about their

alleged sexual encounter. >> lawyers have argued she is lying. >> michael cullen was called to the witness stand to testify against his former boss. >> both sides made their final pleas to the jury. >> verdict has been reached in former president donald trump's criminal trial. >> donald trump found guilty on all 34 felony counts. >> we did our job. >> this is a scam. it is a rigged trial. >> the american principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed. >> good evening, once again, i am stephanie ruhle. what a week and we have had. we are not 158 days away from the election, and donald trump, the presumptive republican nominee is now the first u.s. president to be convicted in a criminal trial. a jury in new york city found him guilty on all 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide hush money ahead of the 2016 election. it is an historic moment, and

there is a lot to unpack. with that, let's bring in our nightcap, my dear friend, emison b host, it nbc correspondent, and new york times best-selling author. she wrote the book on believable on the trump campaign. my dear friend, katy tur. she was there when the verdict was read. tim o'brien joins us. bloomberg senior editor and trump biographer danny zavala's joins us. nbc legal animist and comedian, the host of the tell me everything podcast on sirius xm. we have the verdict. there is no more use of the word alleged. donald trump has been found guilty. what does this moment mean? >> could you say it again, but slower for me? it would be lovely. >> guilty, all 34. >> i think we can say it is the most important, completely inconsequential event in political history.

it is not going to change anybody's mind, but there is no way to overstate the historic impact that it actually happened. the trial no one took seriously. the case no one thought could yield a conviction. and yet, the emotion and so many people of realizing after the mueller report had 10 counts of instruction and know and care, after the two impeachments any loss. stealing from veterans. not enough of congress cared. and the emotion i got on sirius xm last night from colors, grown men calling and crying because they cannot believe there was a bit of count ability. i went from being very cynical about the whole thing to being so moved by how much people's faith has been restored by these 12 new york jurors. >> let me chime in. he lost the last presidential election and people cared. >> you lost the last two if you want to be cynical about it. >> he lost the midterm elections, as well. the overflow room inside the courthouse that was right next door. >> she is flexing, she was there the whole time. >> i wanted to see his face. i wanted to see how he would react to potentially being

found guilty. and i wanted to know if he would raises eyebrows, if he would shrug his shoulders. what would his face look like lexi >> you brought binoculars. >> i did bring binoculars, the screen is very small. anyway, it was such an overwhelming experience, being in that room. because when they started reading the counts, it went so fast and there was anxiety, there was tension. people were shaking because who knows what's going to happen next? does it it affect the outcome of the election? is the clinical violence because of this? how those jurors must be feeling tonight, today, tomorrow, and the next day as they think about oh god, what if my identity gets released? what if i am doxxed? what is the judge thinking? it feels like we are standing on the edge of something, i just don't know what. >> we are on the edge of something. it is three more cases.

whether or not they ever go to trial remains to be seen. what is amazing about this case is this is the one that was on nobody's radar into really only a couple months ago. people were saying oh, that is scheduled but it won't go forward, because all these other trial dates keep getting pushed out. nobody expected this case to be much. people put it as number four out of four of the criminal cases against donald trump, me included. i did not place it very highly. in my view, any federal criminal case is always going to have a better chance of conviction than any state criminal case. and i still think that is the case. but the practical reality is that if donald trump is elected and he is inaugurated in any of those federal cases are still pending, they will go bye-bye. they will go proof. there will be an attorney general appointed who will make them go away. so if they ever go to trial, high likelihood of conviction. i just have to say, the new york case, i did not see it coming up this quickly. i fell asleep on it, and all of a sudden it was upon us. even to the last minute, i

thought well, that trial date has to get pushed out. and then it didn't. and it went forward. >> what do you think this moment means? do you think it only confirms people's political views? >> i sort of don't really care about the politics of it right now. i think the ramifications of this, there is a sentencing coming up, there is an election, there are debates, there are so many moments between now and november. but something john said earlier about mueller didn't go there, the impeachments didn't go there. i think that is a really important thing to land on, because bob mueller assembled a devastating information about donald trump, but he chose not to propagate in the courtroom. he left that up to the u.s. attorney's office in new york and congress to look at the evidence and do something with it. they chose not to do anything with it. >> and almost no one read his multi-hundred page report. >> we did, and are member talking to you about it. and congress impeached him twice. the house impeached him twice. the senate chose not to take the trial. donald trump is turning 78 years old this month. and for about five of those decades he has gotten away with

lying, exaggerating, undermining the roots of civic and civil society. and this is the first time that he has been brought into a courtroom and that act no longer works. and in all of these institutional movements that have occurred around him during his presidency and his post- presidency, this is the first one where he got put in a box and the facts got presented to a jury, and all the bloviating and the bs lost their power. he employed one of his three lawyers to essentially try to do that for him. embarrassed the witness, defend your client in a nonstrategic way that appealed to his emotions, but wasn't strategically wise. the jury saw through that. justice merchan saw through it. and they delivered a 34 count guilty verdict. >> i want to stay on that point. because he just said he instructed one of his lawyers. katie, you have covered him for

years. you know him so well. was one of the biggest challenges for trump's defense team trump himself? >> of course. of course. why do you think they denied that he had sex with stormy daniels? they didn't need to do that. they open themselves up to stormy daniels testifying about the details of the encounter. anything they made a point to repeating that david pecker said that he sold the most magazines ever? why do they keep saying the president of the united states? all of that was at least, in part, to assuage the ego of their defendant. i mean, we would not be here if it wasn't for the ego of this defendant. that is what gets him and all this trouble. having the affair, allegedly, with the adult film star while melania has a baby upstairs.

all of the ego surrounding this is what got him into this decision. the fact that he ran for president, then he ran for president again in light about all these things. it is all ego driven. >> and he was never held accountable, because of wealth when he was younger, celebrity when he was a little older. >> and he has the unique ability to have no shame. >> it has been his superpower. but think about all the people in the last 24 hours who were saying it was a kangaroo court, it was unfair, it was a sham. i have yet to find anyone saying he didn't do it. >> i have yet to find any of them say which specific charge, and there are still 54 charges to go. at which specific charge he is innocent of. my favorite of the defense is well, jesus was convicted, too. and i have seen this all day long. literally comparing this man to the nazarene because the images, the ai. >> is not surprising. there is a whole religious movement around donald trump. they take his name as the trumpets. the religious movement seeing him as a savior. >> for me that is my pet issue. the only way you can support

trumpets if you throw out the attitudes. if you throw out matthew 25. and the irony of the situation as trump as a christ figure is it was mixing conservative religion and authoritarian politics that got jesus killed in the first place. they don't know how to defend him. they are just attacking the system itself. that is why it is so moving to me to see the republican party finally embracing criminal justice reform, because they're going to start fighting for a convicted felon to get daily briefings really soon. >> danny, let's talk about something that the jury did that, as lawmakers haven't. anyone member of this jury could have ignored all evidence and said not guilty. and if they had they could immediately have monetized it and become a right-wing media star. they would be on television. they would be doing speaking appearances. maybe they could get a job in the next potential trump administration. how extraordinary is it that these 12 ordinary new yorkers, none of whom asked for this, right? when you get called to jury duty it is like getting chain

mail. they showed up, they did their jobs, and they put public service above self. >> it is more impressive than that when you think of it. we always see the end result, the 12 jurors. remember, we had a process where you also had other new yorkers who were willing to raise their hand and say you know what? i am too biased. i can't serve, i can't be impartial. and they stood up and walked out. that is actually something that trump and todd blanche were complaining about. i actually think it is an admirable thing about our jury system, that people in new york are going to have certain biases, just like people in staten island are going to have different biases based on polling, based on election results. in all of those people were honest enough, at least to the beginning. some of them self-selected, raise their hand, and said you know what? i'm out of your. i can't be fair and impartial. in the 12 the remained were not 12 random people. they were 12 people who had to look themselves in the mirror and say i can do this, i have

opinions, i may have voted a certain way, i may have thoughts about the president. because, look, this is not a case where you will find someone who didn't know who donald trump was. this is not a case where you will find someone on the jury who had no opinions about donald trump. i think it is virtually impossible to have zero opinions about donald trump area and everybody in america has a thought about donald trump. and yet, by the time you got those 12, once they had withstood the crucible of examination during the process, those were people who i guess i am not that surprised, who had self-selected, kept themselves on the jury, and you are right. there was always a chance of a stealth juror who would've said i am going to say all the right things and sneak on this jury. yes, that was a possibility. maybe we got lucky. maybe we got historically lucky. maybe american history got lucky because no stealth jurors apparently made it onto the jury. although republicans might say a stealth juror for the prosecution got on the jury. >> i'm surprised you would even put the may be on there. like there might've been a

possibility. i would've thought you would have looked at that jury and said of course they were impartial. >> i do think they were impartial. i do think this was an impartial jury. i think they self-selected that way. >> there is only one challenge. >> i think the criticisms from the right will be that. someone got on there who is a manhattanite who really wanted to convict trump. that is a narrative you will hear from the right. i don't believe it. >> explained his criticism from the trump campaign. they have been saying over and over it is impossible for him to get a fair trial in new york. less than two weeks ago he held a giant rally in the bronx, brought all of these people in and said i think i can win new york. so on what planet can he say within the last two weeks i can win new york, this is my hometown, and at the same time it is impossible for me to win in this left-wing city, which, by the way, a year ago acquitted tom barrick, his close confidant who is in a criminal trial in brooklyn accused of using his relationship with trump to get

special access for the uae. and he was acquitted. so, on what grounds can the trump campaign make any of these organs? >> that's an easy answer, on none. >> on the ground in staten island they can make these claims. >> you are mentioning, just invoking what a new york moment this was. he stands up in a courtroom and it is miles from where he was born, miles from where his father started building the very developments that were the foundations of the family's fortune, that he has squandered in different ways, both reputational he and financially. and a jury of his peers in the city that made him a national figure, in the city that ended up rejecting him so much that he decided to move to florida. bring them back home to try him and find him guilty. it is a very shakespearean fall for someone who is not elegant or, i think, civilized enough to into the books of shakespeare

. but he, nonetheless, the trajectory of all this is profound. and i think he felt that standing in the courtroom. i think when he came out in the hallway and started talking about the system being rigged again and rambling on and on, he looked worn down. >> little richard the third. >> are you concerned about the destruction that caused? we can all sit here and say the justice system work. but we have seen donald trump and the republican party chip away at the system, so there are all sorts of americans right now who can say i accept the verdict, however, i don't know, i don't trust the court, i don't trust the judge, i don't trust the system. how destructive is that? >> it is corrosive. donald trump ran on nonbelieving elections. that is what he's running on right now. 2020 was stolen. now he is running against the law. literally running against a court of law and claiming you can't be convicted, or he can't be convicted because manhattan votes democratic. democrats can't possibly judge

him fairly. that the prosecutor was a democratic prosecutor. the judge he claims was a democrat because he gave $35 to critical organization. follow that line of thinking, then only republicans can crossview republicans, and only democrats can prosecute democrats. what is justice scalia doing? what is justice thomas doing? can they possibly oversee any single case that comes before them that has anything to do with conservatives or donald trump? shouldn't he be calling for them to recuse themselves if he is going to take his argument to its logical conclusion? it is an illogical argument. you can't have it that way in this country. democrats prosecute democrats, republicans prosecute republicans, and vice versa. we all prosecute each other when we get in trouble. >> katie made the best point, so she gets the last word. time for a commercial. nobody is going anywhere. when we come back, trump rails against averted and republicans stick by him. what it could mean for the

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today donald trump railed against his conviction while president biden called those comments irresponsible and said the verdict shows no one is above the law. i want to know,

how do you think this verdict will impact the election? and the first thing i want you to do, danny, because they're all these people out there who think he is a convicted felon, he must not be allowed to run anymore. that is not the case. explain. >> there are exactly 3 qualifications in the constitution to be the president, and we cannot add to nor delete those qualifications. so, none of those include or have anything to do with being a felon or even being charged with a crime. and there is precedent. we have had a candidate run for office, really from a jail cell. not a candidate with any real chance of winning. donald trump is the first ever to be convicted and run, and what is still an open constitutional question is whether president can be jailed and whether a president can run the country from a jail cell. we don't know the answer that. we have tons of people like me with opinions about it. but we really don't know until it happens. >> willing to find out. >> so there is no felony disqualification for running for president. of course, there is impeachment

. you can impeach a president. if you can connect that crime does something in the office. but no, a convicted felon can run. impeach and convict, and removal is automatic upon conviction. >> john, how do you think the verdict went? >> it is almost impossible to tell. i think this will be ancient history by november. i think america has the collective attention span of the guy from momento, and it is something that happens in the month of may will be a distant memory of the month of october. the debate in june will have more of an impact in this ruling. i just don't know of any citizens whose minds will be changed by this. after he stole from veterans with the fraud online university and mocked a disabled guy, i don't know is who is going to say oh, i really don't like him. after six star wars movie i am willing to say darth vader is the bad guy. i think people's minds are made

of. there will be some nikki haley supporters who this will nudge them to vote, but at the end of the day i think the selection may not end up being biden versus trump. >> i think john is right about that. i don't think you can tell how this is going to affect the election. we do have a very short collective attention span. i had jen pulmonary on the air today, and i was so surprised by this, she was arguing to take donald trump's comments live more, to let them talk on television more. the exact opposite argument that democrats made in 2016 when they said you took donald trump too much, too much airtime, too much attention. now they are saying no, have him out there reminding people what he sounds like, how he goes off on these tangents, how he makes no sense, how he is always railing against immigrants and sounding, in their words, bunkers. i will say bunkers. that will remind voters that donald trump is erratic and chaotic, and he was not a good president. and it was exhausting having

him in the white house, waking up every day to a flood of tweets on your phone. what did he say last night? what war might he start? they think more of donald trump, not less, is better. and that that will collectively change people's minds up until november. >> this takes me exactly to my next question. i am greater transitions. there is a group of people who do not want that to happen. and they are not democrats. they are to rich gop donors who have said even in the last two weeks, we will back you, donald trump. i wanted to talk to you about this, tim. a year and a half ago, wall street ones were hot on desantis, hot on icky haley, and we collectively said we are upset about january 6, done with tron, all the baggage. and we have seen them in the last month, even in the last 48 hours start a line back up next to him. after the verdict i went through the phone, calling donor after donor, wall street guy after wall street guy. none of them are phased.

is this because they are transactional and they know he is, as well? and at this moment when he is down, he is keeping score, he is going to see exactly who was with him and in six months, if he is the next president, all of these superpowerful guys are going to have even more power. not just we are going to get the corporate tax cut extended or carried interest loophole preserved. they are going to have a bat phone into the white house to have whatever they want. and if you are elon musk, if you are steve schwartzman, if you are nelson health, that is worth gold. >> he has already promised that oil lobbyist. >> just two weeks ago. >> i will get you whatever you need to go. i think there's really only two issues that the people funding donald trump from the financial community and from the business community care about. especially the ones who are leading the collection services. it is lower taxes and regulation. antigens there. and it is because those most directly affect the health of their businesses and their wallets. in the same way that flip- flopping republicans who once

said they would have nothing to do with him are now lining up behind him, because he has that kind of sway and gravity within the gop. you are not going to be able to get through in the current era of primary without some nod from donald trump. >> but it is even more than that. at any point, you get the s.e.c., ftc on you, and in the next term you can call jt and say i don't want to take this call and he will fix it for you. >> and he will try to fix it for you. it won't be that easy, but he will try to do it. >> well, joe biden certainly won't do it for you. >> the other thing that is worth focusing on here is that the business community should care about long-term economic growth and widespread prosperity. it helps them, it helps their children, it helps all of them in myriad ways. >> good luck. >> what they have had for 37 months? >> everything he is proposing undermines that. he has inflationary policies. everything he wants to add to the deficit.

it does not give us a more educated middle-class american population. everything he wants to do is ultimately in the long term against the interest of the business community. but in the short term it pads their wallets. >> but it goes the ultimate power. elon musk was the best example. wall street journal was reporting it this week. he is potentially putting together some sort of partnership or coalition. he will go out and raise money for trump. look at joe biden's policies. pro-electric vehicles. that is great for elon musk. donald trump, anti-electric vehicles. donald trump's number one arch nemesis is china. that is elon musk mind state great next frontier. i'm not even talking about the stock market. elon musk is now donald trump's homeboy. if that is not about power, i don't know what it is. >> elon musk, let's derail, the thing i like most about joe biden is how much evil billionaires despise them. i think elon musk is a bit of an outlier because he seems much more concerned with being the joe rogan of billionaires

than actually being a successful businessman at this point. he seems much more focused on his own popularity and being adored by people, sort of like a certain residential nominee i can point out. >> should we be alarmed when things are so blatant. am certainly not saying the white house is for sale, but when you're seeing the meetings with the oil execs, business people whose policies -- >> are you saying that the white house is for sale? i will be what you want me to be. >> he solicited a bribe. in his first term there was a shingle on the white house. >> yes, that is true. that is a major concern, that the white house is for sale. and he signaled that during his first term. i don't know why anyone would be that surprised. we were talking about this earlier, that there was this hope in 2016 that the white house would change it. and we already know what we got. we know what we got for four years. so there won't be any surprise this time. >> and yet, so many of his

voters believe that he is fighting for them, even when he shows he is not fighting for them. he may talk a big game, but the policies he's annexed do not benefit the common person. deregulation, doesn't make your water cleaner? no. he will say that he wanted to have the best water ever, but he will not do anything actually make that water clean. he said he will lower taxes, a lot of people did not get a tax break. but why have the democrats not been able to convince those people that donald trump has not been good to them? what is donald trump's magical on him? is it just his words and his anger and the idea that he is a middle finger to the elites and the rest of the country who they don't feel care about them and have left them behind? the democrats have a messaging problem on this. they do figure out a way to say it listen, we have gotten rid of student debt by and large for a lot of folks. millions of week. >> joe biden and kamala harris set in a courtroom -- and inflation is coming down. all of these things are good

for the average american. they needed a better job of convincing. >> but they are doing it. president biden and kamala harris were in philadelphia talking about student debt, medical debt, things they are actually doing. >> i think you are right. they are doing a, 100%. all of these things are better. the stock market is better. prices are coming down. inflation is better. wages are going up. everything is good. but people do not know. and whose fault is that? >> 56% think that wall street is having a terrible year, that unemployment is at a 50 year high. >> but not people who are watching shows like these, not people who are reading the newspaper. they need to figure out how to get on social media and find a way to message to people who are only consuming information on social media. that is the issue. >> but i actually think the thing that cuts through this and is the most problematic for biden is the age. >> donald trump was essentially the same age! >> he appears to be more full of red old and joe biden does.

and i think a lot of voters have trepidation about whether or not joe biden will make it through a second term. so they tune out those second things. >> is it because they have issues about his vice president? >> i think it is because they also have issues about kamala harris coming into the office. whether that is racism, whether if it is because of her track record of not being in public office. >> do you think it should be a brokered convention? >> a brokered convention would require joe biden to willingly release -- >> do you think you should? >> think we should watch for the first debate. the reason we are having this debate early is because he wants to put that to rest. i think if he gets embarrassed in that debate there is going to be a lot of pressure on him from the parties releases delegates in august. >> i have to believe that more and more americans as we get closer to november will vote more on ideology and policy than vibes and energy. i get that biden is old, trump is old as well. >> they vote on vibes since the

dawn of time. >> we will see what roe v wade can do. >> we are going to take a commercial break. as we were talking about evil billionaires, i want to point out one who did something extraordinary this week erie and melinda gates. let's just remember that really quickly. elon musk is going to raise all this money, trump is bragging about raising $34 million in the last two days. melinda gates announced she is giving 1 billion in the next two years to causes for women and girls. so let's make sure we get some airtime to that kind of excellence. when we come back, donald trump facing more criminal cases. the supreme court will be weighing in first when the 11th hour and the nightcap continues. ned, ned, who are you wearing? he thinks his flaky red patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. ned? otezla can help you get clearer skin, and reduce itching and flaking. with no routine blood tests required.

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trump is facing three more criminal cases. one in georgia and two federal cases. danny, we know that one thing we are all in for is for the supreme court to decide if trump is immune from prosecution in the federal case. meanwhile, there are all sorts of ethics questions with these judges, most recently judge alito with these two flags hanging in two of his homes that everybody knows what they are all about. he is refusing to recuse himself. do you think you should? >> i don't know about recusal. it is interesting to me that everyone is talking about these

flags as if, i feel like no one is asking the question is that really what you do when you have a dispute with your neighbor? when you have a dispute with your neighbor, what you normally do is gossip or give them dirty looks. i have never heard of anyone flying a flag upside down, tp their house, egg their car, put toilet paper under the door handle. you don't rehang flag upside down. >> even if that were worked, that is only at one house. the other was on the jersey shore where i live, the most apolitical place ever. the biggest debates people have are are you going to the beach or are you going to the bay? are you drinking beer or going crabs tonight? it is nonsense. the argument makes no sense. >> exactly. so, should he recuse himself? i tend to think, the judges of the closest thing to royalty. they gave them life tenure for the specific reason, like it or not, that they are the ones who can ignore what people say about them and have a degree of autonomy. they can make choices that

might be politically unpopular, and whether those, whatever outside criticism, because that is exactly the way they were design. not so with presidents who were voted in and out, and not so with other politicians. federal judges are unique in that sense. it really is the closest thing we have to a king in a country that really wanted nothing to do with kings and queens. so, in the case of alito, should he recuse himself? i don't know if we are there yet. i think reasonable minds can disagree about that. i think there is going to be concerned going forward with whatever he decides. on immunity, for example. wherever he goes on any of these cases is going to be, for all of history, questioned as whether or not it was something that was motivated. and to some degree, clarence thomas as well. and that is something that whether or not we have recusal standards for supreme court justices, whether or not the rules of recusal apply to them, that is something that i think

we have to be realistic with. no supreme court justice is ever going to recuse themselves and must absolutely have to. >> i know this sounds sassy, but it is actually serious. his other argument about these flags was oh, it wasn't me. it was my wife. but i am being serious. you are married, katie. can you envision a scenario where your spouse does something publicly that puts your absolute livelihood at risk and you say to them you have to stop doing this and they say i'm going to get back to you in two days? is that plausible in any national world? >> certainly not in my marriage. >> if i could jump in on this. as somebody who constantly does things publicly that humiliates my spouse, i can tell you that when it comes to something like supreme court justices, there may be a heightened burden for the spouse as well is the justice. >> absolutely. >> you have to say look, there is some good things that come with marrying me and some bad things. and the bad things are that you can't get into a lot of weird stuff. >> please don't text the president's chief of staff

during a terrorism attack on the capital. >> not as free as it was before our marriage. >> exactly. and by the way, spouse, male, female, it does not matter. the bottom line is when you choose that job and you marry into that job, unfortunately that is the way it is. >> but on the issue of him having to recuse, the upside down flag is a protest against the results of the 2020 election. >> yes. >> and he is ruling on a seminal case about the january 6th insurrection. to me this absolutely disqualifies him. >> it definitely disqualifies him to you, and we have a system where we have said the supreme court justices are -- >> this court is very worried about the appearance of partisanship. >> are they? are they worried about that? do you think it keeps them up at night? >> they say they are. and if the chief justice is, as he claims he is, we should be expecting him to do some sort of policing within the court.

i don't know what he is doing. >> like a new set of rules last year? >> to be pressure, he could go to all of the justices and put pressure on clarence thomas and samuel alito to shape up or to recuse themselves. there is a pressure you can put internally. >> but what does pressure actually look like? >> he could've had a meeting. he could sit down with him. he could go out there publicly and say this is not acceptable. he could do those things. and he has not done them. >> i don't know even after he does those that clarence thomas and samuel alito will recuse. >> no, but it would send a signal to the rest of the country that hey, listen, a good torsion of the cortex this seriously and it matters to them. and please disregard their opinions. they don't color the rest of our opinions. we are trying to do this for the good of the democracy for the long run. as danny said, they are the closest thing we had to royalty. they should be held to the highest standard. >> i just want to say, poor

samuel alito. his wife did this to him, he had no autonomy over his flagpole. his choice was taken away. it should be his flagpole, his choice. but a woman took that choice away from him. >> that letter he wrote where he said my wife likes flags. i don't like flags. >> between him and menendez it is a very good month for men blaming things on their wives. >> okay, we are going to take a quick break. nobody's going anywhere. when we returned, our nightcap is here. what they are looking ahead at. katie is glad not to be sitting in the benches anymore and that courthouse after this historic week. what comes next? when the nightcap continues. a. when you've got a decision to make... the answer is j.p. morgan wealth management. old spice gentleman's super hydration body wash. (whispered) vanilla and shea.

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(♪♪) try dietary supplements from voltaren, for healthy joints. our nightcap is still here. we are getting a snapshot of what everyone here is looking ahead to and what could happen next. tim? i am not shushing you now. >> thank you, i am looking forward to the debate. the trump biden debate. >> you think it happens? >> yeah, and i think it is a calculated risk by the biden white house to show that he can go physically, mentally, verbally toe to toe. >> no, you think trump shows? >> yeah, i think trump does show. at this point he said he would

do it. both of their campaigns jointly brokered it. i think at this camping point he would look weak and afraid if he didn't do it, especially when one of the hallmark messages of his campaigning is that low-energy joe biden, joe biden is a wimp, joe biden is scared of me. so i think he shows up and i think it is a really pivotal moment for biden. and i think the white house thought long and hard about it, because he has to overcome this issue that he is feeble and that he lacks the energy to see his presidency through a full second term. and i think, like his state of the union, -- >> powerhouse state of the union. >> which got the republicans saying these bonkers things, i want to get a drug test for joe biden. make sure to get it before the debate. i won't go into donald trump. but anyway, you know, i think it is an important thing and i am looking forward to seeing both how the debate proceeds

and the impact it has on the race. >> i think donald trump, their campaign thing said joe biden is going to come out looking weak, they definitely want it. >> but that is a huge risk, katie. joe biden has policy after policy, winning policies behind it. and the thing that has been a hurdle is this idea that he is older and feeble. >> he has never walked into the debate with any policy chops and he always felt he walks out winning. >> and biden upstaged him in the 2020 debate. >> biden drives on lowered expectations his whole career. >> what is yours? >> we kind of took the air out of it. the trump immunity case. i want to know what the supreme court decides. we should be getting it in the next few weeks. june is fast approaching and that is the end of term. did they decide that donald trump has no immunity? presidents have no immunity? do they decide he has limited immunity? do they decide that the judge has to go back and figure out

what that immunity is? this will tell us whether this case could ever possibly be held before the election. and whether this case will ever be held. they have a lot riding on them, and we are also going to find out from this decision not where scalia and clarence thomas stand, but where cavanaugh, where only amy coney barrett says, how they feel about the future of democracy in the future of the office. in the presidency. >> both sides are going to win and lose at the same time on immunity. >> what is yours? >> well, i am looking forward to july 11th, the sentencing date for donald trump. which a lot of folks appear to be thinking that yesterday was the big show, but, and this happens a lot. people think about guilty verdicts as the main event in a trial, but far more important, at least to citizens, and maybe far more important to the constitution is what happens if donald trump is actually incarcerated?

i don't think there is a high possibility of that. i think it is far more likely that he gets probation. but what if he doesn't? what if he does not? oranges is color, but what if he does not? what if justice merchan decides to make a point and send him to jail, even for a day, to process donald trump to the system? that is something that will truly be a first. if it is a promotion only sentence, it is the same affect on his body. show the court, listen to a virgin, walkout, gave a press conference. sitting a presidential candidate and a former president to jail, to any kind of place, any correctional facility for any period of time, i don't care if it is 48 hours. it would be absolutely staggering. don't downplay july 11th. it is a huge day. >> my event is three days later, the event of the republican national convention in milwaukee. it is going to be a lot of firsts. first ever convicted felon nominated for a political party for president. first individual banned from

doing business in the state of new york for three years. if you would've asked me six months ago i would say there is an outside chance, there is a contested convention, they will bring in glen young can or something. i think anybody who tries to contest this convention will get a one-way ticket to jeff flake island. it will be very fascinating to watch. i just want to give a moment of thanks to the people who fought for yesterday's conviction, and the people who gave me inspiration who didn't make it to see yesterday. you will like eric bullard and mojo nixon and so many great people. some conservative brothers and sisters, too, who really deserved to have that joy of yesterday. and for trump, i am just grateful that now it is done and he can finally fly back to florida and be with his wife again. i am so happy for them both. >> all right, what i am thinking about is some other extraordinary people. i mentioned them earlier. it is my renewed faith in our justice system, and i don't mean the prosecution or the

defense or the judge. it was the 12 citizens. 18 if you consider the alternates, the jury. they didn't ask for this, but they took on the task of being the jury in the first criminal trial of an american president. for five weeks they put their lives on hold, and this is the really important part that i am looking ahead and forward to. possibly they are putting their lives at risk. they took this job seriously. they listened to hours and hours of testimony. they examined hundreds of pages of documents. and then they made a decision. they listened to evidence. they put country, they put justice first. and my hope looking forward is that each and every one of them is protected and safe. because they certainly deserve it. thank you all so much. what an unbelievable week. i am honored to end it with you all. katie, tim, danny, john, thank you so much. and remember, we are not done. you can watch the nightcap most

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