if it was that you still engage in work, have a successful practice, and then on top of that engage in these complex conspiracies to steal and fool everyone and live a life and how people outwardly think that you're, you know, who you profess to be in public. if you were taking a thousand milligrams a day, does that make common sense? i submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, it doesn't. i have no doubt that he was taking opiate pills. but i think he looked you -- i would submit to you to decide whether or not he looked you in the eye and claimed an amount that's inconsistent with whatever else we know about this man. it's really inconsistent with the survivability as a matter of common sense. he can never function at the level he's been functioning, keeping up with these pressures,

staying one step ahead for over a decade, if he was taking that much dope. i would submit to you. just one other lie that i would submit to you is a lie that he's trying to get you to believe to feel sympathetic for him as if the dope was the cause of the money and the cause of his issues when the reality is it wasn't. this had been going on for a long time and the finances prove differently. but what else about this? you've seen the interviews, and we're going to play some clips of these interviews. i'm not going to play them all for you again. you've watched, but if you have any question, go back and watch them. he talks about being paranoid. watch those interviews when he's with dave owen. he doesn't look like he's withdrawing from any drugs.

his responses are appropriate. he's not displaying any paranoia. he's smooth. he's focused on the events. he's focused on trying to get information about the case from law enforcement officers, which is interesting in its own right. why is he so focused on that? and in savannah where supposedly detoxing, he sat down as you've heard the testimony with a composite sketch artist and went through the whole process to come out with this picture, which i swear is not me. how'd do you do that? how do you do that if you're on that much dope? so why did he tell you that, ladies and gentlemen? why did he look you in the eye and tell you that as he sat

there on that stand trying to explain what was going on? it's interesting also that in one of the interviews with law enforcement, there were three interviews, june 8th, june 10th, and august 11th before we get to the side of the road that he mentions that paul was a little detective. that's very interesting for him to mention that because you've heard from marion proctor, maggie's sister that maggie called paul that, the little detective specifically in reference to paul paying attention and trying to keep alec from taking pills. why would he bring that up? that's an interesting thing to bring up because that was what that was in reference to. and what do we know? we know that in may, if we talk

about all the pressures that are coming upon him, all these financial things that we've talked about, this exhausting hamster wheel that's been going on forever, the need to beg, borrow and steal and stay one step ahead, and he's running out of options there. on top of that, we know in may paul sends a text to him saying mom found some pills, we need to talk. mom found some pills and we need to talk. another pressure from paul and maggie on him, and if you look at the texts, the weekend of the ball game on june the 7th, and those are in evidence, alec is not at the game. he's texting back and forth, and maggie's like don't come if you feel bad, and he's like, well, they're -- you know, i think i

can get a late checkout, and then he's like at 1:00 they made me leave. i submit to you it's -- were on him at this time. they were watching him like a hawk. opiates, the most powerful of withdrawals, and everything's coming to a head including this as well. run out of money, running out of options. doesn't get paid any significant wage, already stole the fees and spent that money in two months, has an expensive pill habit. and undo everything in his life, everything that is his self-identity, everything, the only things that he cares about because he doesn't care about lying to his partners and his family and his friends and his

clients if it will delay accountability for him. he'll do it in a heartbeat. and all of that is about to be undone. >> are we at a good stopping point? >> yes, sir, your honor. >> all right. ladies and gentlemen, we'll take one hour and 15 minutes for lunch. please do not discuss the case. >> and we are back live after watching the opening argument of the are prosecutor, the final key moments of the alex murdaugh double murder trial, the jury just heard the beginning of those arguments in the case that follow an extremely rare jury visit to the crime scene just a few hours ago, so any moment we are expecting the video that shows exactly what the jury saw

on a tour of what is known, especially if you have been following this case, as moselle farm, a very remote piece of property where the killings occurred. we will bring that to you as soon as we have it. but right now we have nbc's ellison barber who is outside the courthouse in walterboro, south carolina, we're also joined by msnbc legal analyst, and former federal prosecutor paul butler. paul, there are two key parts of the prosecutor's closing that i want to talk about. one is the time line, but if we can, let's start with motive, and i want to play for you a little bit about what he said that goes to motive. >> when you have a middle aged man who's outwardly successful, who has a strong family legacy, who has a prominence in the community and a reputation but

is living a lie, is living a lie. and that leads to and can lead to those pressures being overwhelming. and actions like this happening. husbands have been killing wives unfortunately for years and husbands killing sons goes back as far a king herod, and those pressures mount and someone becomes a family annihilated. >> so overwhelming family pressures, and then a guy who's taking so many opioids by his own admission, and somebody who he has said repeatedly and pressed this long before we went into closing arguments was an accomplished liar. does that add up to motive? >> i'm not sure it did, chris. the prosecution has an unusually difficult case for a murder

trial. they don't have any eyewitnesses. they don't have the murder weapons, and they're struggling to find a motive. so they emphasize the extent of mr. murdaugh's problems with his addiction, his criminal exposure for the fraud that he admitted committing against his clients, and his parents' serious illnesses. the question is whether any of those are reasons that he would have killed his wife and son. i do think that his testimony was effective at establishing that he didn't have any problems with them, that he cared about them very much. so the defense will have a strong rebuttal on this motive and we'll have to see where the jury is. >> so one of the other things, paul, that the prosecutor said was circumstantial evidence can be just as strong as direct

evidence. one of the things they focused on in the trial is the time line. let's take a listen to that. >> on june 7th, 2021, as all these pressures were mounting, the defendant killed maggie and paul. and how do we know that? we're going to talk in detail about that, but the time line puts him there. the forensic time line puts him there. the use of his family weapons corroborates that and his lies and guilty actions afterwards confirms it. >> so he obviously pulled out his phone when he talks about the time line, that key piece of evidence, which is a video that his son took that puts him at the scene of the crime at a time when he says he wasn't there, and he later admitted that he

had lied about that and tried to explain why he had that phone. that also really points to, i think, paul, and i'm curious about your thoughts about how they've built this time line. it's also about do they believe a guy who by his own admission has lied an awful lot? >> yeah, because there is no eyewitness, the closing statement from the prosecution is focusing on this circumstantial evidence, especially, chris, that video, which as you said places mr. murdaugh at the scene of the crime near the time where prosecutors say that the murder happened, and he lied about his whereabouts for 20 months. the prosecutors told the jurors today that mr. murdaugh is a good liar, and that as a trial lawyer, he knows how to manipulate jurors. >> one of the things he also did, elellison, you have been following this case for the duration, so you know it very

well. you know, they even described, the prosecutor even described malice and forethought, which are two of the elements of getting a murder conviction and what they mean, but in terms of the way that this case has been presented and what you heard today, what stands out to you about what the prosecution chose to zero in on? >> reporter: you know, throughout this case, there have been moments where even watching it, following it closely from the perspective of a member of the media being privy to some information that's not even presented to the jury, it has been at times a little confusing and hard to follow all of the layers of narratives because it is a complex case. they did not, investigators did not find the murder weapons. they are saying the state is saying these were family weapons that were used in part because of the casings that they found around maggie murdaugh's body that then matched according to their forensic experts other weapons that were found at different parts of the house unrelated to the shooting this

night. so at times you thought the prosecution made what feels like a pretty clear point to the jury saying, hey, look, that kennel video that puts alex murdaugh with maggie and paul right before we believe they were killed, it is time stamped, i think, as 8:45 p.m., the prosecution has based their time of death really on cell phone records. they say 8:49 was last time paul murdaugh ever turned on his phone. they say, hey, this is the only person who was with them roughly four minutes before we think they died, before their phones stopped turning on for good, and he would be the only person who would know they were there, and also, the only person who would show up to a crime scene planning to murder someone else without bringing outside weapons. they said who on earth would show up and then say, hey, we think we can find the weapons we need to commit this crime at the scene. one thing that i thought was interesting in the closing remarks so far is how they brought up his use of opioids.

something that throughout the trial as people just listening we have talked about being odd, sort of just behind the scenes is the amount of opioids that he claimed to have taken every single day. he says it was a thousand milligrams. i go back to an early e interview in my head that craig melvin did on the "today" show with the defense attorney shortly after alex murdaugh had that, quote, unquote botched suicide attempt on the side of the road, and he was making the case to craig melvin then that all of the money that had been stolen when the financial crimes were coming up, that's a separate case, that that was because he was using that money for oxi. and craig melvin stopped him and said, dick, that is a lot of oxi. that seemed unbelievable. for the first time we heard the prosecutors focus on that and say, look, i believe he had a problem with drugs. i believe he was taking pills, but do you believe he was really taking that much and then had the sense about him in interviews you've seen with

investigators from that night to be so clear-headed on his questions. they said, look, this is what he does. he lies. he's done it for ten years. look at these financial records and ask yourself, can you believe anything this guy says? this case is hard to keep track of. the motive itself is a little complex, difficult to understand, but creighton waters, the prosecutor said we know this sounds like a lot, but this is not a normal man, and that's the big question is will the jury believe this is not a normal guy. it might be unreasonable to all of us that somebody would murder their wife and child because of a collection of financial concern, but they're saying this is not a normal person. he was always privileged, and his legacy, his position in this community mattered to him more than anything else, and because he's not a normal person, he would do something we all consider abnormal. chris. >> and all the complexity in this case, ellison, you do have to wonder if they got any clarity in their own minds from

that extraordinary visit to alex murdaugh's sprawling farm. they took that right about 40 minutes away from the courthouse. how long were they there? when we're expecting to get that videotape and sort of what were the ground rules. >> reporter: so we should have that video any minute. the press pool team said they were going to be sending that video in during this lunch break, so the jury had 60 minutes -- or sorry, 30 minutes to see the crime scene. the press then had 30 minutes to see what they saw. so the video that we get most likely will not show any aspect of the jury out there looking at things, but we will see what the jury saw up close. we will see the kennels. we will see the feed room. we will see the path presumably up to the house, and in the outside of the main house, no one was allowed inside, but they were able to see the outside of it. what we understand from our colleagues who were there for that visit is that they caught a glimpse of the jury when they were walking the narrow path

sort of between the kennels and the feed room, and they said one juror was standing in the doorway of the feed room looking up at the frame. i think that's relevant because the defense has tried to make the case that basically paul murdaugh was not shot in the way that the prosecution has said, that the shooter who shot him was perhaps behind him and as a result inside that feed room with him. they've sort of brought up the positioning because their theory is if paul murdaugh was actually shot from behind and the shooter was inside that feed room with him, that there's no room it could be their client because he's too tall at the time he weighed a lot more than he does now, and that he would have been too big to maneuver in that space with two weapons. the prosecution, they say that's not necessarily how or where the shooter was positioned here, but i do think that's going to be an interesting thing, and i will be curious to see how the defense and the attorney who will be presenting their closing remarks is jim griffin, how they

incorporate that into their closing remarks and whether or not the prosecution makes a more direct reference to this visit, but hopefully we have video of it for you very soon. alex murdaugh was not at the scene. he was not even at the courthouse. he was at the jail, arrived pack back here shortly after, within minutes after the jury arrived this morning. >> ellison barber and paul butler, you're going to stick around. when we get that tape in, we're going to take a look at it together. thank you for that. meantime, attorney general merrick garland grilled by republican lawmakers on the senate judiciary committee, the really intense back and forth with one senator about the safety of supreme court justices. and if congress can agree on anything, it's that china has become a major political problem, but what to do about it? plus, a desperate search for survivors underway in greece after a deadly head-on train collision killing at least 36 people. that's all coming up on "chris jansing reports" only on msnbc. jansing reports" only on msnbc

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breaking news on capitol hill where we've been watching the explosive hearing pitting attorney general merrick garland against some of his harshest republican critics on the senate judiciary committee. this is the first time garland has testified there in over a year, and republicans aren't wasting the opportunity. hammering him repeatedly on their claims that the department is biased. take a look at this exchange between the attorney general and senator ted cruz over the

handling of protests that followed the leak of the dobbs decision on abortion. >> when rioters descended at the homes of six supreme court justices night after night after night, you did nothing. did you bring even a single case to enforce this law or did the department of justice decide this law doesn't apply if it's harassing justices for an opinion we don't like? >> when the dobbs draft was leaked, i did something no attorney general in the history of the department had ever done before. for the first time in history, i ordered united states marshals 24/7 to defend every residence of every justice -- >> has the department of justice brought even a single case under the statute, it's a yes, no question. it's not a give a speech on the other things you did. >> the job of the united states marshals is to defend the lives of -- >> so the answer is no. >> is to defend the lives of the

justices and that's their number one priority. >> are you unwilling to say no,st answer's no, you know it's no. i know it's no. everyone in this hearing room knows it's no. you're not willing to answer a question. have you brought a case under this statute? >> as far as i know, we haven't. what we have done is defended the lives of the justices with over 70 u.s. marshals. >> ryan nobles is nbc's capitol hill correspondent, debra barrett is a "washington post" reporter. clearly rem republicans had a lot to get off their chests. was that the tone, the tenor of what we saw throughout the morning? >> it really was, chris, and it wasn't just on that topic of the protection of supreme court justices after the dobbs decision. you also saw certain members of the senate judiciary committee on the republican side really press merrick garland about the doj investigating incidences around the school board. that's something the house committee is also concerned about, also senator marsha

blackburn of tennessee asking pretty tough questions about whether or not the doj was really looking into the bombings of crisis pregnancy centers. so you know, as you point out, it's been quite a while since garland has been in front of this panel, and there were a lot of things that both republicans and frankly democrats had to ask him about and certainly a lot of topics of substance as well, what the department was doing as it relates to fentanyl coming across the border and whether or not that is being something that is made a priority by the department of justice. so garland is someone who does not really engage in theatrics. some might argue that he could even be potentially boring in a setting like this. but there was certainly a number of instances where these republican members in particular were trying to make a point about the way they believe the department of justice should handle certain situations like this, and garland went -- made his best effort to not necessarily agree with those

premises, but find a way to explain what the department was up to. >> yeah, devlin, i know you've been watching this as well. some people who aren't used to seeing quite this level of energy at a hearing may find some of these allegations wild, how many spies insides fbi were inside of catholic churches. give me your big picture impressions of what we've seen today? >> well, i think a lot of these skirmishes are unfairly specific issues, but i think they all reflect a general theme, which is republicans trying to argue that the justice department -- and by extension the fbi -- are biased against conservatives and try to shield liberals. that is the attack. that is the accusation. the attorney general repeatedly denied that, as he has when these types of accusations come up. i don't think i saw anything particularly new or interesting except for one instance in which garland said that particular fbi memo talking about a possible link between extremism and a

certain e segment of the catholic church chs appalling and he didn't stand by that by any stretch. other than that garland made a great effort not to make much news. >> i also want to ask you about a fascinating account, does behind the scenes batles between prosecutors and fbi agents before the raid of mar-a-lago. tell us what you found, and why that situation became so intense sm. >> so what we're reporting is there was a lot of growing tension in the days and months leading up to the august 8th search of trump's mar-a-lago home, and the tension was that justice department prosecutors had for a long time been arguing they should do a surprise unannounced search warrant search of the former president's home, and the bureau agents, a bunch of them kept saying, let's slow down. we can just ask to go in. we can work out a consensual

search. this doesn't have to be so confrontational. this doesn't have to be so fast, and there was real tension over that, and that came to a head in a meeting we described around the end of january, beginning of august, and i think it's important because it shows the degree to which these debates about possible political motive or bias within the justice department, they really are still very present and in people's minds, and it really stretches back to 2016 in the clinton, trump battles, but it's still there in the back of a lot of people's minds. >> devlin barrett, ryan nobles, thanks, guys, really appreciate it. we are just now getting that new video from the jury's visit to the crime scene. let's take a look. so there you see the scene of the crime back with me. legal analyst paul butler, paul, one of the arguments, the key argument that the defense made, the reason they wanted to get there is what they called spatial issues.

they wanted, and we heard ellison talk about this, they wanted to drive home the point that they believe that alex murdaugh couldn't have killed his son the way the spatial situation is. how important might it be for jurors to actually go there, see the distances, see the size of the spaces for themselves in ways that, frankly, a videotape like what we're watching right now can't really tell you? >> that's right, chris. the prosecutors oppose this visit. they said that jurors could get the wrong impression because the crime scene looks different now than it did at the time of the killings. it's rare for judges to allow visits like this. remember, all of the evidence that's introduced in a criminal courtroom is tightly managed by the judge, but that's not what happens when a jury goes on a field trip like this. the jurors were not allowed to discuss the case with each other

during the visit, but they may have seen some things that weren't brought up during the trial, and if questions are raised, if jurors start forming their own theories of the case based on what they saw at this estate, sometimes that helps the defense more than the prosecution. >> ellison barber is back with us as well. ellison, again, as we're looking at these pictures, this is the dog kennels, and again, that's where dick har put lee yan said he wanted the jurors to get an understanding of the spatial relationships in that area. i want to go back to what they could ask could not do. they were there for about 30 minutes, and they're not -- they weren't allowed to ask questions, right? they weren't allowed to speak to each other about it. when they go into that jury room, all bets are off. they can talk about anything they saw or any observations including the guy who stood in the feed room, right? >> right, they gave some general

guidelines, parameters, one thing they did remind the pool of before they left because the drive was so long was just reminding them of the time line from when the 911 call came in to when the police actually arrived on scene. other than that, there were no questions, no discussions allowed and yesterday the judge actually had the bailiff and the officers who were going to be involved in transporting the jurors to the scene, had them take an oath and say we are not going to be answering questions. we will not be discussing anything with the jurors. so this was a very specific you can look, you can move around, but you cannot ask any sort of questions while there, the drive there or the drive back. you're right, i would imagine, you know, once this case is done they can't discuss every time they're let out on recess, they're reminded by the judge to not discuss anything, but once the case is done and we hear the end of the defense closing

arguments, then they will be able to talk about it, and you have to think that this is going to be a moment that stands out to the jurors that they would want to discuss. we never predict what they're thinking, how they feel, what they want to talk about, but i would be someone who is a visual learner and who would have a lot to say in the context of seeing it. even looking at this, we're showing the feed room. this is right about where paul murdaugh was shot and killed, and when i looked at some of the original documents that were from s.l.e.d., the south carolina law enforcement division, you know, they had a map showing the distance of where maggie was, where paul was, and sort of where they thought a shooter would have been positioned, and it is really helpful to see all of it in person because looking at a drawing where you just see, you know, sort of sketch marks, boxes, it did you want give you the same sense of things. there are a number of questions i would think visually seeing the proximity could help jurors as they're going to discuss this case, one that question the defense has brought up of how

and where was paul murdaugh actually shot, and if you believe what are forensic pathologists said they were inside the feed room, could he have physically maneuvered in there with two weapons and also shot maggie in such a short period of time. if you go back and think and process it in the context of the state's argument, then the question is physically if a shooter, they say alex murdaugh was standing outside that feed room shot paul murdaugh and then maggie was moving towards the gunshot, which is what one of their experts testified is that they believe she was headed toward the gunshot, if he could have then turned and had another weapon and fired it directly at her, and another part of, you know, what they had talked about a lot here is that throughout this area that we're seeing that there were oftentimes guns that were left out in the open, buster murdaugh testified to that. we heard a lot of people testify to that to the prosecution and the defense. i don't know who that helps more to have the idea that weapons were easily accessible, but

that's something the jury is probably going to be considering and thinking through as well. chris. >> so i also want to bring in david s. rudolph, you are back. you talked to us yesterday for -- i'm sorry? david, yesterday i just want to remind people, you were with us because you've been with juries who have gone to crime scenes before twice, probably the better known one is the michael peterson case which became a famous hbo series called "the staircase." i don't want to draw too many parallels, but the staircase that was critical to michael peterson's case was also small , an enclosed space, and the jurors got a chance to see that so if it's fair to make a comparison and you've just heard ellison say about the size of this space in the feed room, what should people take away from that about what the jury might indeed take away? >> we lost david rudolph, so let

me go to you, paul butler. let me tell you what michael peterson said yesterday. he said they cannot rely on what they have seen or heard. they can feel it for themselves. so tell me how important you think this could be seeing that space. >> you know, i think it will be very helpful in the sense that a trial is a search for truth, and to that extent the more evidence, the more information the jury has the better. some people are, as we heard visual learners, and so seeing this small space will help them understand one of the theories that the defense floated was that two people killed mr. murdaugh's wife and son, so the jurors will be able to look at the space, figure out whether that's possible, but chris, the danger of this move for the

defense is that the jurors also see this lavish 1,700 acre estates. it's just one of the properties that mr. murdaugh own. that may counter the impression that mr. murdaugh tried to create. he testified in this kind of folksy down home way he was just a regular guy just like them. the prosecution will say that he was just using his trial lawyering skills to try to manipulate the jury. that may reinforce, going to this crime scene, this lavish estate, may reinforce the prosecution's depiction of mr. murdaugh as this slick, entitled rich guy. >> well, more to come, we're going to continue to watch all of this and if we get more information or something that seems relevant from this video, which i think is going to be pretty extensive, we will have it for you. meantime, former president trump isn't going anywhere. the new poll showing the former

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sinking in to the gop. donald trump isn't going anywhere. for the first time in months when voters are asked to choose between just the two leading candidates, the former president beats florida governor ron desantis. a month ago, desantis led by four points in that yahoo news ugov poll. now trump leads by eight. that's a swing of 12 points to trump in just one month. let's talk about it with michael steele, former chairman of the rnc. michael, good to see you. does this poll suggest what frankly you and i have been talking about for a while, that trump may be a little more resilient than a lot of his rivals had hoped? >> chris, you covered this guy. you know him inside out. you understand what everybody should pay attention to, and apparently have stopped paying attention to is the fact that trump has his own lane. he has his own lane, and the

challenge for whether it's te desantis or anyone else is how do you access that lane, and then once you do, how do you take him out? how do you knock him out of that lane? trump is more than resilient. he's infected the body politic, and what do you have to do? you have to find the right resolution, the right antidote, the right type of penicillin if you want to recover. everyone just needs to slow their roll and understand the dynamics here. the money people, yeah, they're going to follow trump, but guess what happens when the base locks trump in? they'll come back to trump. they'll leave desantis. why? because they know where the pow center is. they're hoping to break that strangle hold that trump has through the money piece, but that's not trump's, you know, that's not his weakness. that's not his kryptonite. his super power is something

else. that's the problem desantis and others are going to have a problem decoding. >> i want to bring in ashley parker, senior national political correspondent for "the washington post." ashley, so now we've got at least three polls showing trump surging over the last month. how do we explain this, let's call it a february bounce. >> sure, there's a number of ways. one is that sometimes when trump is sort of ever present, that is what turns voters off from him, so you have to keep in mind when you're seeing that softening in his numbers, that was right when he was in the news not just for legal issues, various for his business, for the documents, getting investigated, but also because he had invited white nationalists down to his private club for dinner, and that's something that will hurt you with voters. he receded from view. his team is not doing these big rallies anymore. they're doing smaller events. they're releasing policy videos,

and they believe that that is something that helps him with voters because it sort of eliminates at least briefly the controversial chaotic version of trump that voters were eager to move past. i have to say, the post recently did a huge survey of the country talking to 150 voters in various swing states. i talked to about three dozen myself in two counties in pennsylvania. i'm not surprised by these results. as michael is saying, you know, there's a lot of voters who like trump and he sort of has a floor he's not going to go below of maga supporters, but a lot of voters we talked to who sort of said they were ready to move beyond the chaos and the controversy and they maybe liked someone like ron desantis, very few of them were ready to give up with trump. they said, lack, if trump's the nominee, if i thought he could win, i thought he could go all the way, i'd be more than happy to vote for him. >> sort of the m.o. for people who said it could be ron

desantis was pretty straightforward and simple. you know, he's younger. he's somebody new. he doesn't have the baggage. he's already raising money and frankly on a lot of policy issues he's not that different from donald trump. but he's already fading. i guess the question is what is the secret sauce? is there a secret sauce if you're going to run against donald trump and be successful? >> take him on, call out his crap. >> who's going to do that? among that list of 12 people who maybe sort of kind of might run, who's going to do it? >> we'll see. i think someone like a larry hogan may be prepared to do it, a chris christie may be prepared to do it. these are guys who can take the rebuttal, take the hit that will come. >> sununu? >> yes, sununu is a possibility as well. these three individuals have already shown their ability to tumble in the space, to make a

little bit of a rumbling kind of noise around trump and push back a bit. you know, maybe a little bit more one-off with someone like sununu, maybe more direct with someone like chris christie. they both seemingly are willing to engage. the question is whether or not and how they figure out that strategy to do it. my question with someone like desantis with all the love that people are showing him, show him you can take a hit, but more importantly show me you can hit and return, and when trump came after him with what i would consider lightweight, you know, kind of slap across the bow. desantis' response was basically a whimper. he did nothing. you can't allow that kind of energy to build up against you. you have to show you're willing to engage. you cannot be thinking about, oh, i can't afford to lose 1 or 2% of this base. you're going to lose some of that base if you go after trump, but you're going to gain so much more when you prove to the rest of the republican party that

you're willing to take him on. >> michael steele, who has done the math clearly, stay with me, ashley parker always great to have you on the program. thank you. an historic loss for lori lightfoot in chicago's mayoral race. what likely led to her defeat, and are other big city mayors paying attention? that's next. tttion that's next. ut all that ancient roman coinage? no. he's making real-time money moves with merrill. so no matter what the market's doing, he's ready. and that's... how you collect coins. your money never stops working for you with merrill, a bank of america company. your heart is the beat of life. if you have heart failure, entrust your heart to entresto, a medicine specifically made for heart failure. entresto is the #1 heart failure brand prescribed by cardiologists. it was proven superior at helping people stay alive and out of the hospital. heart failure can change the structure of your heart, so it may not work as well. entresto helps improve your heart's ability

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vallas and joining me now nbc's marissa parra in chicago, and back with me, michael steele. what more can you tell us about vallas and this newcomer johnson. >> both are democrats, but when you look at their ideologies, they really do have a stark contrast between the two of them. so we know that crime and education are two of the top voting issues in the city of chicago. and it's the path to tackling both of those is really where the two candidates here, that path starts to split. in their victory speeches, they wasted no time talking about both. take a listen. >> look, public safety is the overriding issue. but we will not have true public safety in this city until the schools become part of the public safety solution. >> i wanted to change the

system. that's why i became an organizer, fighting alongside of teachers across america. because it's not just what we're fighting for, it's who we're fighting for. >> so the vision for a safer chicago, well, their visions for how to get there are very different. vallas has campaigned on a hard and fast law and order candidate if you will. in his attack ads describing chicago as a lawless city, one that requires more support for police. he has been backed by the chicago police union, and really, his idea is to bolster the police force, get rid of some of the restrictions that have been placed on them. then you look on the other side, you have johnson who's been the more progressive candidate here, very open with his grass roots campaign efforts. he's been wanting to take a more holistic approach to tackling crime, trying to get to the

heart of it, the root of it, investing in things like mental health services, food insecurity. we talked about how valla is backed by more right leaning voters, and johnson, by the teachers union and progressive lean voters. these are two unions that lori lightfoot battled with publicly. she struck a centrist tone during her time here. chicago, the people have spoken, they want something different. >> so michael, clearly the message has changed, but changed to what? crime spiked during lori lightfoot's term, vallas ran on tough on crime and has the backing of the fraternal order of police. are people wrong to extrapolate something out of this for other big city mayors or is it that safety and feeling safe in your

home, whether you're in a liberal city or not is an issue that's in the scythe geist. >> those progressive policies that they saw, led to the problems that they were having on the streets of san francisco. so, you know, chicago, l.a., none of these major cities are immune to the realities of crime homelessness, poor education, et cetera, and so, yeah, it doesn't surprise me that the mayor ran up against this wall, particularly given her battles with the unions, on one level. but more importantly, the battles with the public in not being able to turn their heads around, to change their minds about how she was gunning from that centrist position. now you see them responding in a way that really is going to be a clarifying choice for them.

do you want to go with the more progressive holistic style that, you know, may or may not address these issues or do you want to do the law and order thing as we're seeing a lot of cities revert to, and don't exclude black folks from the conversation. just because this law and order tactic seems to appeal to suburban voters it also appeals to those who live in the city who are most affected by crime. it will be interesting narratives tee up for that political block and where the voters stand. >> michael steele, marissa parra, thank you very much. not long from now, closing arguments in the alec murdaugh double murder trial will continue. the jury will be coming back from their lunch break. we'll have that for you live as soon as it happens. we'll be right back. appens we'll be right back. introducing astepro allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid-free spray.

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