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coverage of a historic federal indictment of a former president of united states begins at this hour with the dramatic full statement made by special prosecutor jack smith this afternoon when he, in effect, introduced himself to the american people, speaking publicly for the very first time in his six and a half months of investigating donald trump. >> good afternoon. today an indictment was unsealed. charging donald j trump with felony violations of our national security laws as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. this indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the southern district of florida and i invite everyone to read

it in full to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged. the men and women of the united states intelligence community and our armed forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. our laws the protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the united states and they must be enforced. violations of those laws put our country at risk. adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the department of justice, and our nations commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. we have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. applying those laws, collecting facts, that's what determines the outcome of an investigation. nothing more, nothing less. the prosecutors in my office

are among the most talented and experienced in the department of justice. they have investigated these cases to the highest ethical standards, and they will continue to do so is this case proceeds. it is very important for me to note that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. to that end, my office will seek a speedy trial in this matter, consistent with the public interest and the rights of the accused. we very much look forward to presenting our case to a jury of citizens in the southern district of florida. in conclusion, i would like to thank the dedicated public servants of the federal bureau of investigation, with whom my office is conducting this investigation and who worked tirelessly every day, upholding

the rule of law in our country. i'm deeply proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. thank you very much. >> leading off our discussion this, our glenn crusader, formal former federal prosecutor and host of the justice matters podcast, paul butler former prosecutor, and in both nbc leaguer legal analyst. also harry litman, assistant attorney general, a senior legal affairs columnist for the los angeles times. and paul butler, we just heard pretzel special prosecutor jack smith insist that it's very important to for me to know that the defendants in this case must be presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. now that's the person who donald trump has called a terrorist. that's the word he used for him. a terrorist. he has attacked this man's wife,

he is attacked jack smith absolutely viciously and told his followers that this is a completely unfair investigation, run by this man who just insisted the donald trump be presumed innocent until proven guilty. we >> jack smith has worked as a prosecutor almost his whole career. lawrence, he's a company man who today did what federal prosecutors usually do. let the indictment speak for itself. and the same time, smith and lead and prosecutor, he's a true believer in holding people accountable and especially in bringing corrupt public officials to justice. this ain't a documents case it is in his understated way jack smith told the world today the don trump's conduct with united states put it at grave risk. a trial prosecutors will be even more explicit.

this is about national security, about trump keeping nuclear secrets in the bathroom, the u.s. war plans next to the shower. >> glenn kirschner, i think we now know what rich's. rich is having so many bathrooms you can use one of them just for classified documents. >> lawrence, you know what else is rich? using your attorneys in further earns of your crimes. it's remarkable when you read through this indictment, this speaking indictment, how donald trump and his coconspirator, is criminal associate, mr. nauta, we're desperately trying to hide boxes of classified documents, not just from the fbi, the national archives, and doj officials, but from donald trump's own lawyers. and lawrence, these lawyers

were trying to protect donald trump's interests by going through the boxes, conducting diligent searches, and returning everything to the department of justice and to the grand jury pursuant to the subpoena for the return of all classified documents. and as they are trying to protect donald trump's legal interests, he and nauta are hiding, i believe, 67 boxes from attorney evan corcoran, and the others, and causing them to engage in incomplete searches, and then make false certifications that all classified materials have been returned. it is pretty rich when you are supporting the efforts of your lawyers who are trying to protect your interests. >> harry lippman we just heard jack smith say that he will

seek a speedy trial in this matter. what is that going to actually mean? >> that was one of the two things that jumped out at me. first as paul has noted, he was at pains. the behavior is criminal no matter what, but he was at pains to place it on a national security footing and really make clear what the risks were to us. and then the speedy trial. i know what it means, it means to have a trial completed probably by the summer so the american people can make their election judgment knowing where trump stands. that's the biggest risk, by the way, with the prospective appointed of judge only candid. not that she would somehow negate the whole charges but that she would indulge trump in what is obviously going to be a strategy of delay starting with oh i just have new lawyers we need time to get up to speed and alike. the real concern here is that we don't have a trial run its course by november 2024 and

people go to the polls blind as to what's gonna be happening to their prospective president. >> paul butler, given the speedy trial rules in federal court, how much latitude is a district court judge in this case have for setting a trial date, for example? >> she has a fair amount of latitude, in part because trump might very well do his usual playbook of trying to delay, delay, delay. in this case, trump's best defense is going to be about the law. we know from the indictment that the facts aren't on trump 's side, so he's gonna argue things like attorney-client privilege. if judge cannon keeps the place you gets to make those decisions. she gets to take her sweet time. and one more scary thing, if trump loses this case he gets to appeal and jack smith loses

the case it's game over. if a defendant is found not guilty, the prosecution doesn't have an appeal no matter how egregious the errors the judge made were. >> prior to a verdict in the case, is every ruling of the judge appealable, including dismissal ruling? >> now. not every ruling, and the good news, to the extent there is some good news, with respect to judge aileen cannon presiding, at least for the time being, is in criminal cases you don't see the piecemeal appeal after appeal after appeal that you see in civil cases. i think don trump and some of his corrupt associates were really adapt and running out the clock, weaponizing the delay in the court, particularly when it came to civil litigation and avoiding having to comply with

subpoenas. but the opportunities for litigants in criminal cases, and this is true on both sides of the bar, the prosecutors and the defense, to engage in what we call these interlocutory appears appeals, these piecemeal repeated appeals of each ruling. that is significantly reduced in the context of criminal litigation. but i will tell, you if i can follow up on what harry was saying about judge cannon, lawrence, i have considerable concern about judge alien can. and one of the first things i did was pulled the two 11th circuit court opinions that we all read previously, when they were smacking down, that's illegal phrase, judge cannon, when she tried to slow everything down by appointing a special master and prohibiting the department of justice from conducting its criminal investigation and the suspected crimes of donald trump with respect to the documents that the fbi had seized, and there were two phrases that jumped out of those 11th circuit court

opinions. one is that judge cannon, the district court, abused its discretion in exercising jurisdiction. she should not even have been in the game. she didn't have jurisdiction to make these rulings in favor of donald trump. and then the other phrase that always stuck in my mind that the 11th circuit said about judge cannon was, it's a familiar rule that courts of equity do not ordinarily restrain criminal prosecutions to avoid unnecessary interference with the executive branches, criminal enforcement authority. i mean, that's quite a slap at a trial court judge, basically accusing her of interfering with the executive branch's responsibility to conduct criminal investigations and prosecutions. if she remains the judge on this case, and she might, we don't know if doj will file a motion to have a recused and

replaced, i am concerned because judges can have an impact. as paul says, over the timing and over the substance, over jury selection, ruling on objections, what evidence goes before the jury. as you can probably sense, lawrence, i have a little bit of anxiety behind judge cannon being the one to preside over donald trump's case. >> harry lippman, a couple of ways that she could leave the case, one is she could recuse herself. she could just say, i'm not gonna preside over a criminal trial of the person who appointed me or for other reason, just recuse herself. the other being that prosecution can make a motion for her to recuse. is there any other way she could be removed from the case? >> it depends on how she was appointed. the third way everyone has been silly local rules, it could be that it to temporary appointment and something just

as a matter of course a new appointee happens. but you're totally. right you can imagine, why does she want that kind of grief and scrutiny? the only thing is, when you remember what glenn was citing, she twice doubled down after receiving the harshest kind of scrutiny. so that didn't seem to be with her personality. and in terms of recusal, it's true, you can do it that way, but man, the precedent is tough and the one case it stands out to the 11th circuit, the district judge basically refused to enter a sentence in the court of appeals had ordered. so query whether that's big enough. but i have to think that the judges of the 11th circuit don't want the potential embarrassment and a year of black eyes that she could present. and if they have some possibility of either gently or not so gently easing her off, they would take it. the question is, will the law present it prevent it? >> paul butler, glenn has just

reminded us. i remember reading that ruling but i forgot that specific language that it was an abuse of discretion for her to be in that case in the first place. so are we really going to be living with a situation where a judge abuses discretion, abuses the process to enter the case having broken in and grab the case. then gets rewarded with the actual trial of the case because the illegitimate entry of the case actually leaves her in a spot where it ends up with her when it becomes a trial? >> lawrence, whether we'll be in that situation is mainly up to judge cannon. and it's not just she was reversed twice in two months by the very conservative 11th circuit. it's why they reversed, and as he said, interim she explicitly

said she was treating trump differently than other targets of search warrants because he is a former president. the court of appeals had to school her, that's not how the rule of law works. look, there are 26 federal trial judges who are eligible to try this case. that includes active duty judges and senior judges. the chief judds needs to be very transparent about how to this case ended up judge cannon. the new york times has an email from a court clerk months ago with that person said that any other matters pertaining to trump will be assigned randomly. it's hard to believe that this was just an extraordinary coincidence. >> glenn kirschner, paul butner, harry litman, please stay right there. we'll come back when we come back former deputy and the fbi's counter intelligence division, people peter strzok will join our discussion. that's next. sion that's next. vely shields the enamel to defend against erosion and cavities.

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director john brennan said this evening about jack smith's indictment of donald trump. >> quite frankly, i don't think the intelligence community will never be able to determine conclusively what might even con compromised. you don't know what happened during this period of time that this was accessed. so they're going to have to do their best they can, but it's going to be over the course i think many years to determine

whether or not, in fact, whether the documents that were down there were in fact -- to the detriment of national sources and national security. >> joining our continuing discussion is peter strzok, adjunct at the school of former service and the former deputy of fbi's counter intelligence division. peter, well the points that john brennan made earlier tonight is that if someone were deliberately going in there, looking at these documents, they wouldn't necessarily take the document. they would take a photo of the document. they will take a picture of it, leaving the document where it is. so even don trump doesn't know that it has been compromised. and that is the kind of thing that is going to make it extremely difficult for the intelligence community to know what was compromised. >> lawrence, i think that's absolutely right. there is a retrospective

problem and a prospect to problem. the retrospective problem is exactly what you indicating there. people have been staying up overnight losing sleep trying to figure out who had access to this information, what sources and methods might have been exposed, what people need to be protected, what techniques need to be adjusted. but it's not just going back and looking in trying to figure out this very soft target mar-a-lago, which is absolutely a top intelligence priority for any credible foreign intelligence service where the russians, chinese, iranians, anybody else. the problem is also prospectives. if your chinese intelligence officer let's say in new delhi and you really are inclined to work for the united states of america and you happen to run into a cia case officer, or say you are russian case officer at the mission to the notations of new york and you really wanted to work with the united states. and you turn on your tv and you see a shower and a toilet surrounded by boxes and boxes and boxes of highly classified information, hoarded by a

former president, with god knows who going through that material, are you going to take that step to literally put your life in the hands of that cia officer, and that fbi agent, knowing you had somebody like donald trump who is absolute complete disregard for your safety? so it's not just looking back that this is a problem. it's anybody going forward who's witnessing all these events having significant questions about whether or not to work with the united states intelligence community. that's not just prospective recruitment, that's all our allies. every foreign intelligence surveillance looking at the pictures saying what the hell did we do sharing all our information with the trump administration? and what happens if he's back in power? so it's a huge problem, lawrence. a problem not only in the past, a problem going forward. and i don't see an easy way or easy solution around. >> peter strzok, i've been eager for hours now, since around 3:30 today to get your

reaction as a former high official in the fbi to the way jack smith ended his brief public comment today. let's listen to that again. >> in conclusion, i would like to thank the dedicated public servants of the federal bureau of investigation, with whom my office is conducting this investigation, and who worked tirelessly every day, upholding the rule of law in our country. i am deeply proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with them. thank you very much. >> what was your feeling about that moment, peter? >> i think a number of things. pride in the fbi and the investigators within the fbi. certainly appreciation for the special counsel to end his press conference with that very specific recognition of the work of fbi and best to gators. i am certain he is well aware of some of the political

commentary that is coming in from the fringes, particularly from a huge portion, it seems, of the republican right, catching casting aspersions at the false allegations that the fbi has become somehow politicized, the idea that they're going after trump without reason. the attacks from politicians, attacks from the media, certainly up to and including physical threats that have been going on as a result of president trump and other statements throughout the summer, that was very important, i think, for the special counsel to say that. acknowledging those folks working with him, certainly appreciated that. but also to convey to the american public just how important it is, the work that the fbi is doing, and the absolute professionalism that the fbi is bringing to the table with the work they are doing, hand in hand with the prosecutors on this team. i am certain the folks on the team will appreciate it, and i'm glad the american people had a chance to hear that, the last thing that he said. >> i want to take a look at a

moment that i mentioned earlier in our coverage tonight. this occurred on february 7th, 2021, so just a little over two weeks after joe biden became president of the united states. let's listen to this interview, which concerned donald trump's future access to classified material. >> should former president trump still receive intelligence briefings. >> i think not. >> why not? >> because of his erratic behavior on unrelated to the insurrection. >> you have called him an existential threat. you've called him dangerous. you've called him reckless. >> yes i have. and i believe it. >> what's your worst fear, if he continues to get these intelligence previews? >> i'd rather not speculate out

loud. i just think that there is no need for him to have the intelligence briefing. what value is giving him an intelligence briefing? what impact does he have it all other than the fact that he might slip and say something? >> peter strzok, with your experience counter intelligence, i just find some phrases in here now really loaded. first of, all he says that he is going to deny him those briefings on behavior unrelated to the insurrection on january 6th, which was so fresh and everyone's mind that time, meaning apparently in joe biden's mind, donald trump earned being banned from this kind of access before january 6th. >> yes, absolutely right. for the background of your listeners, presidents don't have security clearances. they gain access to classified information by virtue of their election and the minute that their successor is sworn in they lose that access.

so traditionally presidents have granted their predecessor sort of courtesy access to classified, whether it's occasional briefings or something comes up. but they're not entitled to that. i think if you listen to what biden is talking about, these erratic behaviors in things unrelated to january 6th and i need to be careful not to confirm any of this, but you may recall many reporting indicated that trump had and very odd times allegedly according to media reporting, disclosed very sensitive information to russians in the oval office that he pulled out allegedly what might have been overhead imagery down at mar-a-lago when he was meeting with prime minister abe to show him in full view of any number of picture, guests private citizens, at mar-a-lago who could look over and see what they were doing. so i think it was a very astute observation by president biden that one, there is no need a no benefit to the national

security in giving former president trump continued access and to, that opinion is based on very tangible real events that occurred not just in his presidency but throughout that time. literally in the first days of his presidency all the way through as we are seeing now to the variant. >> glenn kirschner, there's another phrase in there that the president has and by the way, it is so striking to see this president of the united states a couple of weeks after the last president of united states in his interview speaking so clearly and simply you get exactly what he is saying. there's no doubt about what he is saying. and so carefully. so norah o'donnell asks him, what is your worst fear if he continues to get these intelligence briefings? and joe biden says, i'd rather not speculate out loud. that sounds like he had a worst fear.

>> i think what we see in an interview, lawrence is president biden protecting our national security. and we know that now concretely. when we see those pictures of boxes of classified documents in bathrooms and ballrooms, spilling out onto the floor in unsecured locations, when we read in that indictment that he had some of these boxes ferreted away from mar-a-lago inferentially to continue to conceal them, brought them up to bedminster, and now he's showing extraordinarily sensitive information about possible ministry plans to strike a foreign nation, to authors and aids in anybody who seems to wander through his office while he is saying well, this is still classified. i could have declassified it when i was president but i

didn't, which, lawrence, we know contradicts what he has been saying ad nauseam about declassifying things with his mind or having them automatically declassified when he took them from the white house. we all sort of know intuitively and intellectually that telepathic and automatic declassification are not things but the beauty of having that audio recording is now prosecutors with almost surgical precision will be able to use before the jury donald trump's words to prove donald trump is a liar. he committed crimes. it's also gonna demonstrate his consciousness of guilt. it's in part what i call a just press play trial when you have audio recordings of the defendant being his own worst enemy. >> we peter strzok, one thing that i see in this interview,

the president is being very deliberate. joe biden clearly wants us to know, and of course the world to know, donald trump will not be getting intelligence briefings. and then you make the point about he'd rather not speculate out loud about what he might do with those intelligence briefings. the president there is also telling the world, he's telling other countries, if you find yourself or anyone finds themselves dealing with donald trump in some way, let's say the saudis, getting in the golf business with him and that sort of thing, whatever thing he tells you that he is telling is classified, it's not fresh. it's not this week. he hasn't gotten a single thing since he left the presidency. >> right. i think that's consistent with the messaging the president biden put out when it's on one of his first trips to europe seeking to reassure our allies in nato and the eu that look, the united states, we're

returning to normal. so the erratic behavior that you saw former president trump questioning whether or not the u.s. commitment to nato, which by the way, just weeks ago he continue to question whether or not his president he would keep us in nato. but i think there was a broad set of messaging from president biden. certainly are right, looking to the international community, looking to our allies and trying to calm some nerves, to say -- a lot of the things that you have seen have been so extraordinarily -- and you're absolutely right. and you can trust the united states with the most sensitive of matters, whether it's a military matter, whether it's an intelligence matter you can go back to the trust that we

once had and i think that's part of a broad messaging that he was trying to convey and you're absolutely right, seeking to highlight that access has ended and that there is not some ongoing threat, at least in terms of current intelligence that former president trump might have had. >> peter strzok, thank you very much for joining our discussion. we appreciate that. for the rest of our team we will stay in place for the continuation of our special coverage of the federal indictment of donald trump. we'll continue right after this break. after thi break. it has long-lasting light scent, no heavy perfumes, and no dyes. finally, a light scent that lasts all day. downy light!

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going to enforce all laws concerning the protection of classified information. [applause] no one will be above the law. >> that is one of six such statements made by candidate donald trump when he was running against hillary clinton in 2016 that are cited, quoted repaved nine of the indictment of donald trump. back with us, glenn kirschner, paul butner butler, harry litman, all former prosecutors. that string of quotes about donald trump in the indictment seemed to be there, possibly, to indicate not political

hypocrisy, oh he said he was gonna do this and he didn't, that would be the politicians interpretation of it, but more are very clear consciousness of mind, according to him, about how important it is to protect these documents. >> how important it is and how negligent, reckless, and intentional the former president was about not taking care. jack smith has not only those 31 documents pertaining to national security, he's got photos, he's got audio recordings, he's got videotape. and presumably he has a lot more that we don't know about because as loudly as this indictment speaks, you can be sure that some of the best evidence will be reserved for trial. >> harry litman, one of the lines they quote further down on page nine is, we also need

the best protection of classified information. that line presumably from donald trump before he became president will be presented, jacques deposed, to that now, by now famous photograph that we've been showing all day of documents just scattered all over the floor. that's the one right there. that's the way one of the storage spaces for the documents looked one day when one of the trump staffers saw that, took a picture, took that very picture and sent it to another trump employee there to say, look, we have a mess here that we have to fix. >> look, he comes off like an ear old in the sandbox saying mine, mine, mine. it's a really deftly written indictment. as you can imagine, every single line they thought about. i'll give you another example that i was thinking of when

pete was talking. a separate crime, a breath taking seriousness, to pass on information to others. that's what hansen did, that's what the rosenberg did. they don't charge him with that it. would be a separate crime under the espionage act, and they either don't want to for national security reasons or maybe don't have it beyond a reasonable doubt. but early up, paragraph six, they say he is willing to and they give the two examples where he is ready to send it out to a third party. so what that does is give a portrait of his cavalier attitude, his indifference to anything in the public interest, but not connected to an actual charge. there are several things like that where he sounds broader themes in the entitlement that he can use and present to the jury that are separate from the core of charges he is actually bringing. it's very thoughtfully done, as you can imagine it would be. they have been scrubbing it

carefully for at least a month. >> glenn kirschner, a quick last word from you on this indictment tonight. >> when i read it and i saw that the lion's share of the witnesses who are providing sharply incriminating information, not a gang of angry democrats, as drama kratz as don trump has wanted to say is after him, it's his own lawyers. they designate them as trump attorney number one, trump attorney number two, trump attorney number three, trump employee number one, trump employee number two. i think donald trump is done. >> glenn kirschner, paul butler, and harry litman, thank you all very much for joining us tonight. and coming up, more of our special coverage of the federal indictment of donald trump. nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss will join us on this historic night, next.

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department of justice. and our nations commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. we have one set of laws in this country and they apply to everyone. >> joining us now, is nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. michael, it has been exactly 24 hours since we spoke. and tonight we have the actual indictment. we've been able to read the 49-page indictment that last night we knew existed but we didn't know what was in it, we did know how many pages. we didn't know what we were going to see. what i felt today, in reading this document, there were many passages where i thought, oh, i'm looking at the chapter title of a historians book written about this case 50 years from now. there will be a chapter titled that will be, isn't that incredible? and that of course will be a quote of donald trump while he

is showing a classified document to someone who is a visitor. >> yeah. well, i read that report, and i heard you talking about it, great work today, by the way, thank you for doing that. i'm so impressed that you are so lucid and this late hour, lawrence is. very impressive. but here is the case where, just a mansion in history, and you have excellent history books, imagine if we were in the run up to d day 1942 and as you well know it was a crucial thing that we americans kept secret from the germans where we would land in france. they were not expecting normandy. well, let's say the president roosevelt just decided to sort of boast to one of his friends, you know, i've got a piece of paper here with a map that shows that we're actually landing in normandy. and what if that friend was in contact with some kind of a

naughty agent? these things did happen sometimes. had that happened, as it turns out we had 30,000 american deaths on that day. we would've had a multiple of that. we might have lost that invasion and if we had lost that invasion it's entirely conceivable that it could've been a chain reaction. we could've lost the war. or what if president eisenhower, president kennedy was careless with nuclear secrets and one of these go to the russians? russians even in the early 1960s, as you know, during the cold war, had a very elaborate intelligence network, especially in washington. the point is that you and i, through our lifetimes, and i think i can speak for both of us, we have been safe to assume that probably anyone who managed to get elected president of united states might make mistakes in foreign policy, like lbj getting us into a big war over the nonexistent --

incident, but what we didn't worry about, early start speak for myself, i didn't, was that you would have a president at the top who was cavalier and reckless with american lives and secrets, that millions of americans have given their lives to. >> as rachel maddow made this point last night that it seemed obvious about donald trump is a human being that if you let him into this kind of position then, yes, all of this kind of behavior is easily imaginable before we actually get the proof of it. but for all previous presidents it was inconceivable, especially post nixon, because in general, in politics, politicians learn their behavior in a variety of ways, including what happened in the last big scandal. so the politicians who came in post watergate came in with a better ethical attitude than

the politicians who predated the watergate era. >> right. a great example is a midterm election of 1974, a few months after nixon left office. many republican candidates for office, as we both will know, were hard put and they had to basically show that they would be different from nixon, who had just resigned the leader of the party, and that they would behave much more ethnically. that was something that lasted for a long time. but now we're in the age of disruption were a lot of people in 2016 thought it was funny the donald trump would behave like a child with a baseball bat, breaking china. well, the results could be that many american loved ones could be killed, and we have seen in this report today exactly the details of how this happened as an ex president can. you mentioned what he must've doing when he was president that we don't know about? >> well, yes, and we saw those photographs of russians in the

oval office very early in the trump presidency. which gave everybody that eerie feeling of what's going on in their. >> right. and whose performance with putin in helsinki. i would have other hazard to guest without knowing, but i would extrapolate the following. when joe biden came in the record of the negotiations between trump and putin and russians and americans at lower levels are probably very sporadic. usually, as you know, a new president comes in and has full access to every note that was taken by the previous administration, even if it was someone from another party who was hostile to the new person coming in. that is a big danger to american national security. we can't permit this to become a habit that happens with future presidents. >> michael beschloss, thank you

very much for joining us again tonight, we appreciate it especially on this historic night. >> thank you for the honor, lawrence. >> we will be right back. e right back ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ overactive bladder, or oab, can change your world. like going hiking, just to hike to the bathroom. reaching for the bar,

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the l'or barista coffee and espresso system. a masterpiece in taste and that word is impeachment. i'm sorry, indictment, not impeachment. a special live edition of the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle starts now. starts now ♪ ♪ ♪ >> it is one a.m. on the east coast, and we are live. i'm stephanie ruhle, continuin