>> the historic arrest of donald trump and political retaliation in tennessee. >> we will not normalize serious criminal conduct. >> donald trump charged with 34 felony counts. becoming the first commander-in-chief in history to be indicted. his allies rushed to his defense. >> we are not going to comment. >> the white house chooses not to engage. >> we call for you to ban assault weapons. you responded with a result -- assault on democracy. ♪ >> this is "washington week."

corporate funding is provided by -- >> zoomers cellular provides wireless service that helps people communicate and connect. we offer a variety of no contract plans. we can find one that fits you. >> additional funding is provided by the yuen foundation, committed to bridging cultural differences. these individuals. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> good. history was made in new york city this week when for the first time, a former american

president was indicted, arrested, and arraigned on criminal charges. donald trump was charged a manhattan courtroom with 34 felony counts for falsifying business records. in a hush money scheme during the 26 teen election. he pleaded not guilty to all charges. the district attorney emphasized the seriousness of the charges. >> true and accurate business records are important everywhere. they are all the more important in manhattan. the financial center of the world. >> mr. trump responded in a defiant and embittered speech at mar-a-lago, his florida home, criticizing the case and the presiding judge. >> this fake case was brought to interfere with the upcoming election.

a child hating jed with a truncating wife and family. >> they have received dozens of violent threats since the arraignment. the white house is largely avoided commenting. but a spokesperson responded to news of the threats. >> i will not speak to an ongoing case. we condemn any kind of attacks on any judge. >> join us to talk about this and more is the congressional reporter for the washington post. the chief white house correspondent for the new york times. and a reporter at the guardian. thank you to all of us you for being with us. donald trump pleaded not guilty on tuesday 232 felony counts of all divine business records in the first degree. if this case goes to trial, it likely will not happen until the new year.

what happens between then and now and how does the trump team prepare? >>. good question. during the arraignment, prosecutors laid out a schedule. they need to come to an agreement on a protective order that was laid out during the arraignment area that needs to be set before anything else can really happen. from there there will be different stages of discovery that prosecutors laid out. that will take up to a week depending on when the protective orders are agrd by the end of a, potentially the legal team will have all the discovery that the da has put together.

by the end of the year, maybe they will be in court again for a short conference. we are not going to see them altogether back in the courtroom in new york on trial until potentially spraying of 2024. >> if you readhe indictments, the das office seems to have this pretty well documented. but new york law says prosecutors have to prove it was part of another crime to bump a misdemeanor up to a felony. the charging documents do not specify which laws he broke. the da is basically saying he does not need to show his cards. >> he does not have to lay out the particulars. it seems to behe kind of information that they got in the grand jury investigation.

the key question will be, what is the second crime? there seem to be multiple paths laid out. the second was the element about mix characterizing the payments for pat -- tax purposes. i think there are multiple have laid out. all of them are pretty chargeable. there a lot of discussion on whether you can have a state prosecutor use a federal crime in conjunction with an underlying state crime. >> there are couple of ways to gauge his reaction to all of this. one is that it fuels his particular brand of grievance politics. that is not all surprising. on the other hand it could be read as him acknowledging his vulnerability. not just in manhattan but in the

three other ongoing cases. >> if this were the last thing we would see as a legal challenge for him, that will be one thing. because they won't see a trial until next year. we went through this 25 years ago with bill clinton. we have very similar conversation. but this is not the last thing we are going to see. we are going to see some kind of resolution is not an indictment in three other cases. you have all of his other legal issues he has. he is going on trial in a few weeks in a civil court. he has another civil case in new york. he will be in court all year long. we don't know what the

cumulative effect of that will be. >>'s goal seems to be crystal clear, which is to turn his legal problems into political gain. >> he has raised quite a bit of money off of this so far. when you look at the rest of the expected republican yield, they are baing on exactly what you just said. the cumulative effect of all this will start to wear down his numbers. you are seeing a jump now and his numbers and popularity. the question remains as to whether one of them can break out in that sort of environment and permanently eat him in this race. >> who can? take us behind the curtain? how are they really feeling about this? >> i think his performance on tuesday night at mar-a-lago after the arraignment was pretty telling. he kept going back to the

classified documents case. he did attack the judge in the violation of that protective order. the warning that the judge had given to him that day saying he needed to tamp down the rhetoric out of concern for the safety of the officials involved. he was fixated on the classified documents case as ll. i think that is fairly telling that there are a number of potential avenues for criminal exposure down the line that have more grave consequences for what he is facing in new york. even just looking at his face and that courtroom, you could see up on the livestream. he was downcast.

he did n look like somebody with a lot of bravado. >> legal analysts have always said that the mishandling of the classified documents is more of a slamdunk. >> that case is complicated. you have espionagelements. and then you have obstruction elements. those are the kinds of questions that you would ask if you were instructing espionage case. i don't think you can do one without the other.

the easiest way to do that is say he obstructed the investigation. >> the new york case strikes me. what makes it difficult is prosecutors have to prove intent. that is notoriously hard to do. ask anyone who was involved in the donna edwards case. what do you see as the historical analog between that case and the trump case? >> donna edwards was a senator who ran for president and he covered up an affair with money that was construed by lawyers as a campaign contribution. he went to trial. there was a hung jury. some took away from this the lesson that it doesn't work. it is kindf a novel definition. he had not thought of it that way in the past. it was a new way of looking at it.

a lot of people are saying this one is in trouble for the same reason. i think it is a little different. it was the jury who decided about that case. they were judging the facts resented to them. the juries in this ce will judge the facts as presented. and the facts are pretty remarkable. we have known this for six or seven years. michael: -- cohen told a lot of it. i think the intent comes through pretty clearly that he wants to cover this up before an election. that is at the heart of the case. trying to taint an election by preventing the public from having that information. >> one criminal prosecution is onerous enough. he has not been charged in any of the other cases.

he is innocent until proven guilty in the new york case. but they are facing this multi-front defense. it further disrupts his ability to dictate his political schedule. and really control his own political destiny. that is what a political candidate does not want. >> it is complicating the entire field's ability to dictate their schedule as well. you had asa hutchinson announce his bid. he tried to get in there right before trump was indicted. that is a challenge. there court cases that could come up. it makes the entire election cycle unpredictable. that is giving opponents of the former president the sense of an opportunity where they might just be able to sneak by him. >> let's talk about the

republican reaction. republican lawmakers in various different ways are coming to his defense. only asa hutchinson suggested that he should get out of the presidential race. now that he is under indictment. >> the difficulty for them is when you have donald trump taking up so much of the oxygen, it is very evident that you need to get his voters. what they are trying to do is win over his voters while differentiating themselves. i have heard from a number of campaigns that they believe there will be a favorable contrast on between their candidates and between president biden and what is going on right now. >> for republicans looking away to break away from donald trump. the former president keeps giving republicans offramp after offramp. and yet the party is not taking any of these exits. >> they really have not from the

beginning. they don't want to do it. for all those reasons you have said. they are afraid of his voters or they want or of it is voters. their logic comes down to what mitch mcconnell said. we will let the democrats take care of him for us. that is their thought right now. we will let the prosecutors and justice department take care of him. we won't have to do it. >> one more potential problem for donald trump. we learned this week that mike pence will not appeal a ruling that orders him to testify in front of a grand jury. what kind of story would he be able to give this grand jury? >> this is a win for the special counsel.

he can testify. he was there. he saw a lot. he had a lot of discussions with a lot of people. i am more of a skeptic about this. on that would include discussions about what kind of electors he throughout. there were discussions with that. they could not get the members in. >> history made this past week. never before has a vice president been summoned to appear in court to testify about

the president with whom he served. what is your reporting suggests? >> i was joking with some of comes legal team that it would've been a great time for mike pence to have snuck in and testify before the grand jury with little fanfare. i do tend to agree with you. it is a performative victory for the special counsel. we will see how much information and how helpful he can be. he already had some of his top advisers testify to the committee. they have been dealing with the special counsel's office as well. giving them all the information they have. >> let's talk about how the white house is handling it.

president biden has the oval office but trump has the center stage. the white house seems to be perfectly fine with that. president biden is not competing for attention. >> when your opponent is busy shooting himself, don't get in the way. they want this next election to be a rerun of 2020. biden may not be a favor guiding might be happy about inflation or afghanistan and the other issues, but he is not trump. the more trump is out there appearing in court rooms, they are not going to comment. they don't want to look what like they are doing. they're not going to try competing with him. >> the white house press briefing started on time that day.

they are maybe not even trying to compete at all. they say she will just continue to focus on his agenda. they do believe in the benefits. what is going on with the gop in congress. you see them zeroing in on this manhattan district attorney. spending the time focus on that as wel >> let's turn to the extraordinary moves by the tennessee house republicans. they voted to expel to members. for breaking the quorum and floor rules. representatives from joined gun safety demonstrators on the tennessee house floor days after the nashville elementary school shooting. johnson survived the expulsion efforts by one vote.

this is the latest example of republicans taking extraordinary steps to exert control over democrats in elected positions. what is the potential for all of this to bacire? >> i cover the state legislature for years before coming back to washington. you are seeing washington trickle down into the states. polarization and anger and partisanship and a performative sense of outrage. it didn't really used to exist in the state house. thrisk for republicans here is when they are in charge, they can kick somebody out. any legislative body needs to keep the quorum. now that means you can be kicked out.

people were shouting at the president. that is a break of the koran. do they get expelled from congress? this could be a slippery slope. >> the white house is really picking targets here. president biden tweeted about it. he said gop officials are focused on punishing lawmakers calling for action. today the white house said he met remotely with the lawmakers. you see the picture there. vice president harris is meeting with them in person. it looks like the white house trying to align themselves with the energy among those who are advocating for greater gun safety. >> they also sought to elevate

the issue. the white house is not able to do more on this issue. such the vice president has been putting a lot of work on engaging young black men. i think that is very important point about this. >> at the end of this historic week, i thought it would be instructive to do a quick lightning round. you can give us your prevailing thought or really interesting piece of reporting that you happened upon. [laughter] >> i want to come back to trump's to parents in court. -- appearance in court. i had a pretty good view of him.

i could see his facial features very clearly. he came across as very unflattering. as looking afraid in away i had never seen him before. it was a really riking moment for trump to be finally hit with the sense that he was a criminal defendant. >> the gop is facing a huge identity crisis right now. they're having to choose between some of the old school politics of fiscal conservativism, and

also they are facing this crisis between that and the cultural flashpoints. now we are seeing this play out nationally for the first time. it will be very curious to see if the gop has strategized on the social issues. >> what is worth watching for? >> i don't want to give away any potential scoops. death valley looking at how they beat the drum on attacking the judge. they issued another records request a few hours ago. someone who is actively working on the case. i am curious to see how they respond. i don't think he responded today. he was advised the general

counsel not to cooperate with jim jordan's investigation into the indictment. we will be keeping a close eye on that. >> we are out of time. we can all go to your twitter account. thank you to my guests. a huge thank you. we will leave it there for now. thank you to my panel for joining us. thanks to all of you for being with us as well. on saturday we will look at efforts used by activists in states like kansas to limit access to abortion. good night from washington. >> corporate funding for "washington week" is provided by -- >> consumer cellular has been offering plans to design to help people do more of what they like. our customer service team can help find the plan that fits you.

>> additional funding is provided by the yuen foundation. committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. these individuals. the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you read thank you. ♪\ [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its ption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ >>

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