you still have people out there that are terribly worried about the fossil fuel industry, stop worrying about a foot and a street where you get your kids and grandchildren, and that kind of planet that they're going to be living in. >> recently, you announced that you struck a bipartisan deal with bill cassidy, also on that committee for lowering prescription drug prices. this would be over and above some of the stuff that happened and passed into law for the i. r. a.. given that you have a bipartisan deal here, is it going to get a senate vote? doesn't have a chance in the house? >> i believe it's going to get a senate vote. in one form or another. they will get the senate vote, and look, when you talk about prescription drugs, guess what? you don't won all of the republicans concerned about that terribly. our republican colleagues understand that. there is no excuse when the pharmaceutical injury mates about -- guess what, they can't afford prescription and my republican colleagues understand that. so there is no excuse when the pharmaceutical industry makes tens of billions of profit every year we continue to pay the

highest prices then world for prescription drugs. this bill to be honest with you is a good step forward. it is modest. we're going to go further, and we have i believe on may 10th a hearing. we're going to be bringing into the committee the ceos of the major drug companies in this country, actually worldwide. >> great. >> and we are going to ask them about lowering the price of >> senator bernie sanders always a pleasure, sir. that is "all in" on this thursday night. alex wagner tonight begins right now. >> there are a lot of people who understand prescription drug costs in this country. and thanks to you at home for joining us this evening. it was a big test for the vice president of the united states, a test of his competence and his fitness to serve as second in command, just a heartbeat away from the presidency. and in that moment the vice president failed. he failed to spell the word

potato. >> that little bit at the end there, spell that again. you write it phonetically. >> that was former vice president dan quail in 1992 telling a child to adan "e" to the end of the word potato. lesson for all kids and adults everywhere, there is no "e" at the end of the word potato. i myself remember at the time vowing never to spell potato wrong again. it was a signal moment. and, yeah, moments like that earned dan quail a reputation as a bumbling vice president, not maybe the sharpest tool in the

shed. but in late december 2020 then-vice president mike pence was desperate. donald trump was refusing to concede the election despite having clearly lost to joe biden, and trump was putting immense pressure on his vice president to use his ceremonial role in counting the electoral votes to deny president biden's victory and instead falsely proclaim trump the winner of the 2020 election. and so mike pence called one of the few people on this earth who had ever held that ceremonial role before. he called dan quail. this is from bob woodward and robert costa's book "peril." quote, over and over pence asked if there's anything else he could do. you have no flexibility on this, none, zero, put it away, quail told him. pence pressed again, you don't know the position i'm in, pence said. i do know the position you're in, quayle responded, i also

know what the law is. you listen to the parliamentarian. that's all you do, you have no power. the man who could not spell the word potato acting as a voice of reason. how we underestimated you dan quayle. during this period vice president mike pence he was obviously franticly seeking advice from experts. eventually he called michael ludig. judge ludig told pence the same thing. pence had zero authority to change the outcome of the election. by early january pence and his lawyers were in the white house openly arguing with trump and his lawyer john eastman about whether or not the vice president had to authority to do what trump wanted. here was presence aide greg jakebes testimony to the january 6th committee about that very specific period. >> our review of text mystery and frankly just common sense all confirmed the vice

president's first instinct on that point. there is no justifiable basis to conclude that the vice president has that kind of authority. >> but president trump continued to pressure pence both privately and publicly. on january 4th trump ratcheted up the pressure at a rally in georgia. >> and i hope mike pence comes through for us, i have to tell you. i hope that our great vice president -- our great vice president comes through for us. >> he tweeted the vice president has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors. on the morning of january 6th just hours before rioters would storm the capitol trump called pence one last time, and by all accounts trump was furious. listen to what aides of the president told the january 6th committee. >> did you hear any part of the phone call even if just the end that the president was speaking

from? >> i did, yes. >> all right, and what'd you hear? >> so as i was dropping off the note my memory for remember hearing the word "wimp." i don't know remember if he said you are a wimp, you'll be a wimp. wimp is the word i remember. something to the effect of the wording is wrong, i made the wrong decision four or five years ago. >> the wording she related to i apologize for being impolite but do you remember what she said her father called him? >> the "p" word. >> a wimp, the "p" word. those were the words that the then-president of the united states used to describe his own vice president. and when the moment came pence prepared to do what his oath and by the way the u.s. constitution required him to do, and that is when a mob of violent trump supporters began to descend on the capitol. and president trump tweeted out

one final missive about his vice president. quote, mike pence didn't have the courage to do what should have been done. the mob got the message. >> i'm telling you what. i'm hearing that pence -- i'm hearing that pence just caved. is that true? i'm hearing reports that pence caved. i'm telling you if pence caved we're going to drag [ bleep ] through the streets. >> i guess the hope is there's such a show of force here that pence will decide to do the right thing for trump. >> bring out pence! >> bring out! >> bring out pence! >> during the january 6th hearings the nation got a glimpse just how close that maybe mob came to mike pence that day. he was escorted out of the chamber, taken down to the loading dock of the basement of

the capitol where he refused to get into a waiting armored limousine because pence was worried the secret service might take him away from the capitol and might stop him from doing the thing he knew he needed to do. since then mike pence has spoken carefully and sparingly about what happened leading up to january 6th. he wrote a book about his experience that left readers with more questions than answers about what truly happened that day. in speeches and in tv interviews he's obliquely referenced his final days with the former president like this interview with david murer of abc news where pence recounted his exchange between him and his former boss on the morning of january 6th. >> i picked up the phone and the president asked me where i was on the electoral count that would take place that day, and i told him despite what you issued last night from your campaign, mr. president, you know, i've been very clear that i don't have the authority to reject votes during the electoral count or return those votes to the

states. and it went downhill from there. the president became very irate on the phone. he said that if that was true, that he made a mistake five years ago. >> up until today those were the few public utterances that effectively were the only first-hand accounts from mike pence, and they were all federal investigators had to go on until now. this morning shrouded in a motorcade of black cars the former vice president entered a federal courthouse to testify before a federal grand jury in an investigation into the man he spent four years serving. mike pence was there for more than seven hours. so, yes, i mean mike pence wrote a book about what happened, and yes, he talked about it in tv interviews. yes, he's repeatedly sort of soft shoed around it in

speeches. but this is the first time a vice president or any vice president has sat down under oath behind closed doors and told the department of justice about the extraordinary position he was in during one of the most extraordinary moments in american history. joining us now is congressman adam schiff who served as a member of the january 6th committee. congressman schiff, thank you so much for joining me tonight. there's really no one i'd rather talk to of this development at this moment. and i wonder how you're looking at this in the broader lens of history, the fact the vice president has gone into the department of justice to testify for the department of justice about the actions of the president he formally served to potentially undermine democracy. >> well, it's a historic moment, certainly unprecedented. i'm glad it's taking place. we were deeply frustrated in the january 6th committee that he wouldn't come and testify before our committee and that we didn't have the luxury of time to

compel him to do that, but he needed to tell the story and he needed to tell it under oath. it's one thing you point out to go on a book tour and to carefully couch your words, the special counsel is not going to allow thim to couch anything. he's going to have to be fully forthcoming. i think it signals this is coming near the end of the special counsel's investigation. but more than anything else to me it's affirmation that the rule of law still works in this country, that a vice president can't hide behind false claims of privilege or, you know, the political expedience of not wanting to testify against someone popular in his party. that's not a good enough reason to do your duty, and that the courts would uphold his subpoena and compel him to speak. so unprecedented, certainly very important to the investigation, but also i think validates the rule of law. >> yeah, gold star day for the rule of law. you know, because of your deep familiarity with the events of

january 6th i'm interested in knowing what you would ask the vice president. what do we not know that we need to know about the run up to january 6th and the day itself? >> well, you know, i can say as a former member of the january 6th committee but also as a former prosecutor that what the justice department is going to be most interested in is what was the president's state of mind, what was his intent? if you look at some of the powerful testimony we elicited of when donald trump is on the phone with top justice department officials, people he appointed, he goes through all these claims of fraud in the election and the justice department people shoot them down and say there's no there there, we look at that, that wasn't true. and just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the republican congressman. that's powerful evidence of intent. the prosecutors of the special counsel, they're going to be interested in what other powerful evidence of the

president's maligned intent, his culpability is in mike pence's testimony. that is do they acknowledge mike pence as he acknowledged to his own top justice department officials that he knew these claims of fraud were false, that he knew mike pence didn't have the authority to do what he wanted. if, for example, the reports are that he told pence -- if the reports are accurate he told pence you're too honest to do what i want you to do, that's an admission he knows it would require deception and lying. so i think it's intent that the prosecutors are going to want to get at and show. >> yeah, first-hand account of the president's intent seems to be very valuable in this. i do wonder because mike pence tried to fight off the subpoena by invoking the speech and debate clause, and some questions are going to be off the table for prosecutors because a judge has effectively granted limited privilege, if you will, on account of that speech and debate clause. how do you see that hampering a potential line of questioning,

and do you think there are key moments in and around january 6th that the doj can't ask about? >> i think it's going to have a very limited bearing on what the justice department really needs to know because most of the damage was done before in terms of his conversations to the president, before he presided over that session, before that speech and debate clause even arguably would apply. so those prior conversations with the president in december, others in january, even the morning of before mike pence walks into that chamber i don't think there's any privilege that applies, so i don't think they're going to be very limited in what they can ask. i think the vice president was going to be required to answer questions, and i assume that he did, so i don't think it's going to adversely impact the prosecution at all. >> you're a lawyer. you know how this all works. when you look at the tea leaves i mean we know mike pence says he didn't want to testify, but

he's put so much out there. his top aides have testified in front of the grand jury. do you think he's ready to tell all behind closed doors? and is there a chance any of this is going to come out for public consumption at some point? >> well, he resisted telling what he knew. he resisted with our committee. reresisted until he was compelled to by the court. mike pence is thinking about mike pence. he's thinking about his presidential campaign, and he doesn't want to have to do one thing he's required to do that might alienate any of the trump voters. and so i'm sure the special counsel is going to have to pry everything out of him that they needed, so i don't think this was mike pence deciding, okay, here's the team to do a full accounting. i think this was the moment mike pence was told you're going to have to set your presidential campaign aside. you're going to have to tell the whole truth and nothing but the

truth. >> the idea mike pence is trying to still court trump supporters, i'm not going to comment on that logic but we'll wait to see -- >> it's potato logic. i was harkening back to it. it's potato logic. >> i see what you did right there. thank you so much, congressman, for making the time tonight. >> pleasure. >> joining us now is devlen barrett. thank you for making the time to chat here. i wonder if you're making anything the fact the vice president spoke in front of that grand jury for seven hours today. >> we know it was a significant amount of time that he spoke, and we also knew there's been a lot of legal build up to get to this moment. i think what you can read out of that is that mike pence was one of the boxes that prosecutors needed to check to finish their investigation. i'm not saying they are finished, but he's an important part of this because there's a

bunch of important conversations that they need to do everything they can to gather all the evidence they can about those conversations. >> i mean, i think everybody is asking this question about what does it signal in terms of tim timeline of the special counsel probe. and i know you have a thesis on that. i know some people said this is the end but that doesn't mean we're going to have a charging decision coming up anytime soon. how do you read this in the grand scheme of what jack smith is doing here? >> i don't think we can predict the future out of this. i do think we can say that, you know, they -- they had to do everything they could. the prosecutors had to do everything they could to get this story of the trump conversations and the eastman conversations with mike pence from mike pence. they have it from other people, but they have to -- they have to check every box. and mike pence was a big important box for them. i also think you can think of this in terms of the special

counsel investigation is -- is covering a lot of different ground in a lot of different direction. so i think when it comes to conversations inside the white house, conversations directly connected to the president himself on the issue of the final tabulations of votes, getting mike pence's testimony means they are close to gathering all of that type of evidence. but there's still lots of other categories of evidence they have to get and go through. >> i do wonder -- mike pence has speaken in recent days i think as recently as monday about the lawyers surrounding president trump. if we have time to play that sound can we please do that? >> is there anything that you could tell the grand jury that either the former -- the former president or a member of senior staff that you saw and observed commit a crime? >> well, i -- i just don't know if it's criminal to take bad

advice from lawyers. and this was an instance as i wrote a great liep in my memoir that in the immediate days leading up to january 6th i saw a cast of characters, lawyers that frankly should never have been allowed on the white house grounds giving the president counsel that was simply not grounded in history with the constitution and the law. so we'll comply with the law. we'll tell our story. >> this seems to be sort of like the convenient middle ground for pence to admit that bad things were done but try and shift the blame to the lawyers. having said that i mean how do you rate the peril that potentially john eastman and rudy giuliani may be in given what the vice president is saying and the fact he testified in front of a grand jury and is likely to have talked about those bad lawyers? >> i think you can see a lot of ways in which the prosecutors are looking very closely at people like john eastman and rudy giuliani. that's clear. i think mike pence is another avenue of gathering that kind of

evidence, and so i think that is important. but i also think what pence said in that clip is important in this sense. i don't necessarily think of mike pence as -- i don't assume that evidence is particularly damaging to donald trump. mike pence may even as a witness try to help donald trump. but i think the experience of mike pence overall is important evidence for the entirety of this case and the entirety of what prosecutors have to decide as to whether there are criminal charges here. >> do you think, devlo nchg, what pence says behind closed doors is eventually going to come out? assuming there is -- that there's eventual prosecution there's high likelihood we'll find out what he says, is that right? >> if there was a trial on any of these subjects presumably we'd get a sense what mike pence said in front of the grand jury. i think in high profile investigations like this there's a high chance that at some point

this version will come out. but mike pence has been very adamant that my private version will be the same as my public version. >> the only difference, though, is he's saying it under oath and the doj can ask some follow-up questions, which i'm sure they will have. devlin barrett, thank you for making the time tonight. i really appreciate it. >> thank you. we have a lot more to get to this evening. what is happening to the fox news audience now that tucker carlson is no longer on their airways? plus lawyers for donald trump wrote a detailed letter asking the doj to basically close up shop on that mar-a-lago investigation. and wait until you hear who trump lawyers sent that letrte (woman) oh. oh! hi there. you're jonathan, right? the 995 plan! yes, from colonial penn. your 995 plan fits my budget just right. excuse me? aren't you jonathan from tv, that 995 plan? yes, from colonial penn.

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here's what donald trump's lawyers are demanding happened to the special counsel investigation into trump's mishandling of classified documents down at mar-a-lago. quote, the department of justice should be ordered to stand down. stand down. that say the conclusion of a new ten-page letter from trump's lawyers, nothing to see here, just shut the whole thing down. now criminal defense attorneys regularly appear before judges and argue the cases against their clients should be dropped. but trump's lawyers did not address that in the letter to the judge, nor did they address

that letter to the department of justice. they didn't send it to a judge. didn't send it to the doj. that letter, that plea for relief from donald trump's legal team was addressed to a republican member of congress, specifically to the republican chair of the house intelligence committee. and that is highly unusual. what trump's legal team is asking here is for congress to interfere with an independent criminal investigation. in their letter the lawyers argue that it wasn't trump's faumt that those classified documents ended up at mar-a-lago, it was white house staffers and deep state government employees who were to blame. but as "the washington post" reported back in august trump saw himself -- trump himself oversaw the collection of documents that were sent to mar-a-lago. that is not the only question in this letter. throughout it trump's lawyers attempt to blur the lines by basically ignoring the key allegations against mr. trump like, for example, trump obstructed investigators in their attempts to retrieve documents, that it took a year

to get 15 boxes of highly sensitive documents. and it also took a subpoena and a raid to get the other 103 classified documents that were also in trump's possession. but no need to mention all of those other details in the letter. nothing to see here, folks. that letter from trump's lawyers to the top republican on the house intelligence committee, it was also sent to congressman jim himes, the ranking democrat on that committee and a member of the gang of eight. and as a result congressman himes has seen some of these documents after they gained access to the documents two weeks ago. congressman, thank you for joining me tonight. i wonder if i'm in some way reading this wrong, but on its face this effectively feels like a letter that's asking republicans to override the separation of powers that is outlined in our constitution, is it not? >> no, that's right.

in a cup of occasions in that letter the lawyers say the department of justice should be ordered to stop their investigation. it's just bizarre. these are lawyers and they know there's no circumstance under which the congress or the chair of committee has any authority to order, and frankly massively improper -- not surprising but massively improper to imagine that political players -- and in this building we're all political players -- should get involved in questions around prosecution. not surprising, right, this is sort of the hallmark of donald trump. but the letter is full of such misrepresentations as i read it i thought these lawyers have probably put themselves into some jepper day be suggesting biden did exactly the same thing, which is not true. suggesting donald trump didn't try to help the archives. >> do you think the lawyers are emboldened by the behavior of

jim jordan who is effectively opening up an investigation at the bidding of trump's defense team into the manhattan d.a.'s criminal investigation into trump. the separation of powers question or the role of congress in an oversight capacity has been breached by one -- in one investigation, so, hey, couldn't he do it here too? do you think that's had any effect on this? >> maybe so, but, again jim jordan cannot be held to task by the bar association or by judges for his behavior. he is, of course, protected by being a political figure doing supposedly what passes for his job. lawyers, of course, can be held accountable by judges and we've seen that with any number of the counsel as mike pence previously said in your segment was giving donald trump very, very bad advice. you know, look at, at the end of the day i think these lawyers understand they're dealing with a very serious situation, a very serious prosecutor with a set of facts pretty uncomfortable to

them. and i know they feel like those set of facts and up against the law is an uncomfortable thing because they are doing these games, these pr stunts that frankly make absolutely no sense. but, again, it's sort of classic atribute of the whole trump show. >> you're one of the few people that have actually laid eyes on these documents. and we know from reporting some of the documents you've likely seen include material on foreign relations nuclear capabilities, papers with secrets about china and iran, briefings with foreign leaders ahead of calls with foreign leaders, and maps containing sensitive intelligence. now, i know you can't talk about what you have seen, but is there a way you might broadly characterize the material that was taken from mar-a-lago? >> no, i certainly can't get into the details, but i can tell you knowing generally what was in the materials not just at

mar-a-lago but what was recovered from vice president pence's residence and whu was recovered from president biden's offices i guess, yeah, it's serious stuff. it is really serious stuff. and frankly anything that is classified is potentially serious stuff. and, look, just think about the way ten days ago people in this building were lighting their hair on fire outs of the leaks of this intelligence unit out of cape cod, massachusetts, by this 21-year-old airman. a lot of those same people who highly classified documents were found at mar-a-lago they started saying how classified was it, was it really classified? if it's classified it's potentially damaging to the national security of the united states. i can tell you based on knowing what was in there some of the stuff could be really, really damaging were it to have found its way into the hands of our adversaries or anybody else. >> when you talk about how damaging it is to national

security, in the letter the trump lawyers say basically shutdown the intelligence probe, have the intelligence community do an assessment, but they're already doing its own investigation into just how damaging this breach of national security is or the papers being in the wrong place are in terms of national security. do we have any sense of where that investigation is and when we will have conclusions about the value of these documents to america's safety? >> yeah, so, that investigation and damage assessment has been under way for some time, and we've gotten some preliminary -- preliminary judgments about what the answer may be there, but this is tough stuff. there are a lot of documents there, and what you care in a document is not so much what the document says. but you have to go back and look at how did we come to know these things? because it is how we came to know these things whether it was a technical collection mechanism or maybe it's a person, human intelligence source, you really need to go back and say could

the russians or whoever kind of work their way backwards to that source? that's a matter of life and death for humans and a matter of death if technical collection get compromised. >> congressman jim himes, thank you for making the time tonight. we look forward to hearing more as this all unfolds. >> thank you. >> we have still more to come this evening including another dramatic day on the witness stand as e. jean carroll faces off against donald trump's lawyer over the accusation that trump raped her. >> plus after firing tucker carlson fox news gets a dose of reality. reality. e wwi what are folks 60 and older up to these days? getting inspired! volunteering! playing pickleba...!

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the day after fox news called the 2020 election for joe biden, fox host tucker carlson texted one of his producers. the executives understand how much correct and trust we lost with our audience. we're playing with fire for real. an alternative like news max could be devastating to us. the next day the far right outlet that tucker carlson feerd, news max, their ratings doubled from what was already an election season high. every other major news outlet lost huge swaths of viewers, which makes sense. the election was over. but news max was surging. by the end of the month their audience was nearly ten times

its preelection size. the network's secret sauce was that it was immediately all in on trump's big lie. and fox news executives, well, they were getting nervous. on november 10th fox news president jay wallace texted fox's ceo suzanne scott. the news max surge is a bit troubling. it is a truly alternative universe when you watch, but it can't be ignored. scott replied, yes. and wallace followed up by texting, trying to get everyone to comprehend we were on war footing. in their now settled defamation lawsuit against fox news dominion alleged that the fear, fox's fear they were losing their audience to news max, that that was the thing that drove fox to start pushing the big lie themselves. dominion alleged that nox executives pushed for their shows to tell fox viewers what they wanted to hear regardless of the truth. it was something they referred to internally as respecting the

audience. on november 19th a fox white house correspondent got chastised by her boss for fact checking rudy giuliani's election fraud claims. she was told she had to do a better job respecting the audience. on november 24th fox host shaun hannity texted his producers, respecting this audience, whether we agree or not is critical. fox has spent the month spitting at them. now today fox news finds itself in a similar position to the one it was in the hours after the 2020 election. on monday night, the first night since the network parted ways with its star, tucker carlson, his old hour 8:00 p.m. was down 20% in total viewers. on tuesday it was down nearly 50%. meanwhile news max is surging again. monday's 8:00 p.m. show had more than triple its audience. and the big story over there on newsmax how fox news ditching tucker carlson shows that fox

news is too far left. so the question now is how fox decides to regain the respect of an audience. coming up next what trump's lawyer did to try to discredit e. jean carrol,l

(music throughout) get the royal treatment. join the millions playing royal match today. download now. today in a manhattan federal courtroom e. jean carroll took the stand for a second day to testify in her civil battery and defamation lawsuit against

former president donald trump. now, carroll says trump raped her in a new york department store in the 1990s, an allegation that trump has repeatedly publicly denied calling it a hoax and a lie and a scam. to kick off cross-examination today trump's defense lawyer, joe tacopina followed his client's lead. he showed evidence that appeared to show her being a financially and politically motivated loyer. during his opening statement he asked the jury it all comes down to do you believe the unbelievable. and that has been his strategy thus far, focus on the idea of plausibility. mr. tacopina spent a lot of time today highlighting any lapses and inconsistencies in her account. he asked questions why she didn't call police after the alleged rape, why she didn't see a doctor after the assault, why she didn't go to thpt.

after carroll testified she tried to use her knee to push trump away during the attack, tacopina asked what part of her knee she used, prompting carroll to stand up in front of everyone to demonstrate how exactly she did it. later mr. tacopina asked carroll we she didn't scream or call for help during the alleged assault, and she responded i'm not a screamer. you can't beat up on me for not screaming. as tacopina continued pressing carroll raised her voice and added, i'm telling you he raped me whether i screamed or not. mr. tacopina insisted he was only asking questions, but ms. carroll called him out for asking the questions that victims fear the most. quote, women who don't come forward one of the reasons they don't come forward is they are asked why they didn't scream. some women scream, some women don't. it keeps women silent. mrs. carroll is not the only one who didn't appreciate this line of questioning. judge lewis kaplan called

certain questions argumentive and repetitive. he also interrupted mr. tacopina several times ordering him to clarify and move on. despite those admonishments his questioning became so badgering touching on subject matter both parties agreed previously was off-limits the judge decided he'd had enough. the judge interjected one last time and then dismissed the jury while mr. tacopina was in the middle of a question about the dress ms. carroll wore on the day of the alleged assault. you did keep the dress you supposedly wore that day? carroll, yes. didn't throw it out? carroll, no, it was a beautiful dress. you didn't earn burn it, carroll, no, i would never burn a beautiful item of clothing. judge kaplan, we'll break here for the day, we'll return at 10:00 a.m. and that was that. joining us now "the new york times" author and msnbc contributor michelle goldberg.

michelle, so good to see you. i found so much of and extraordinary and distressing, and one of the most sort of excruciating exchanges but also enlightening exchanges was e. jean carroll's description of how she thought about this what she calls rape and the moments after it happened. i just wonder for people who haven't read this, i want to read this description and this exchange mr. her and mr. tacopina. now, carroll testified she thought trump was going to -- they were in the lingerie part and she thought mr. trump was actually going to try on the lingerie himself. she thought this was all a fupy interaction they were having, and then everything changes when they get to the dressing room. and that's where she says trump raped her. and then mrs. carroll said on the stand i was going to tell my friend lisa the story which i thought was hilarious, and then i got to the point i had to tell

lisa trump pulled down my tights. and before i said that lisa had to tell me to stop laughing. in my mind i think i was slightly disordered and disoriented. tacopina seds, you just said you were going to tell the story you thought was hilarious. yes. tack pena, so you thought the story of being raped by donald trump -- carroll, no, i didn't think that story was hilarious. i thought that story was tragic. but when i heard the words when lisa said he raped you, those were the words -- those were the words that brought the reality to the forefront of my mind. there is so much that society puts on women in the aftermath of alleged sexual assault, and this goes so far in explaining the complexity of emotions, right, where you don't want to believe what happened to you was actually rape. i found it remarkably frank.

how did you read it, michelle? >> i'd say two things, yes, remarkably frank and just remarkably real. you know, i think in that moment you are so stunned -- you can't -- you think is this really happening, could this really be happening? and you don't want to believe it. what really strikes me, though, is just the bizarre full circle -- full circleness of this moment. when you think about me too, me too started i think in response to donald trump's presidency. there were women all over this country who were so angry, they felt so demeaned, so degraded that this person had been elected and knowing very little they could do about it. and so they went after the abusers, kind of lower down the totem pole. they went after the abusers in their own lives and it kicked off this huge movement that eventually catalyzed e. jean carroll to tell her own unique

true story. and it brings us to this moment when donald trump is finally like being held to account or potentially being held to account for the abuse of women both he's been accused of and abuse of women in some cases he's boasted about. but in this questioning it's almost as if me too didn't happen. it's almost as if all of the kind of reckoning of public dialogue that we've had about why victims don't act in the way that, you know, people who watch too much crime -- too many crime dramas think they should act, you know, why they don't act that way. and yet, you know, why sort of sexual assault often doesn't play out the way people imagine it's going to play out and why that doesn't make it any less traumatic. it's almost as if none of that has actually happened with this attorney. >> yeah, i thought the exact same thing. the idea we're in this pre-me

too moment where so much has been unearthed about the way in which we doubt women when they tell us things and this notion of women as unreliable when it comes to their own bodies. a lot of that was debunked in the aftermath of me too. and yet this is the jurassic version of american society where that chapter didn't unfold and we didn't have a sort of come to jesus moment where it's like you should believe women when they tell you things. i just wonder if you think it's going to work as a tactic. the judge seems really skeptical of mr. tacopina's line of questioning. >> i -- i cannot -- i can't predict whether it'll work. i think new york city is a city that has no love lost for donald trump, but i don't know -- i think we've made some progress since me too but people still love to doubt women. we saw similar questions being put to amber heard, why didn't you go to the hospital and the

defamation case johnny depp brought against her, and the jury bought it. and so, you know, i think the reason that lawyers have tried to impugn the credibility of rape victims is because people often reflexively doubt women's tale of abuse in the way that don't other crime victims talking about things that happened to them. >> certainly the leading trend right now is not believe women about things that happen to their own body. there are states now where if a woman wants to have an abortion because she says she's been raped she has to have a police report to back it up. i think in florida, idaho, west virginia, georgia, and utah. it feels like it's a course correction from the years in which we sort of took what women were saying about sexual assault at face value. >> well, right.

i think it underlines how much of an exception that was, how much of a strange, unusual moment me too was and how evanescent if was, how eager people were to return to a kind of pre-me too or very pre-me too status quo, you know, where women's words were simply worth less than men's are. >> what we do know is this trial is not yet over. this is new york city. it is not another part of the country, and the trial is still unfolding. thank you for making the ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or

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that is the though for tonight. i'll see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. a dramatic new development in the special counsel's probe