okay, i'll do this. i'm going to do this. let's go. this election is now over. congress has certified the results. i don't want to say the election is over. i just want to say congress has certified the results without saying the election is over, okay? >> now congress -- >> yeah -- >> now congress -- >> i didn't say over. go to the paragraph before. hours after the deadly insurrection, donald trump still refused to admit the election was over. those lies and all the ensuing damage inflicted on the country are now at the center of the new criminal case facing the ex-president of the united states who is a candidate to be the next president of the united states. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, august 2, the month of august coming in like a lion. let's dive right in to yesterday's unprecedented events

out of washington where former president donald trump, who took an oath to preserve, protect and defend the united states constitution, has been indicted for allegedly trying to subvert that very same document. a federal grand jury convened by special counsel jack smith voted to charge the president for his alleged efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. >> the 45-page indictment lays out four felony charges against trump. conspiracy to defraud the united states, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. trump is scheduled to make his first court appearance in the new case tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. in washington. special counsel smith spoke about the case after the indictment was unsealed and emphasized the seriousness of the charges. >> the attack on our nation's

capitol on january 6, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. it's described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the u.s. government, the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. >> joe, we're going to dig deeper into all of these charges, the potential jail time that comes with all of these charges. but as people think back to january 6th, 2021, two and a half years ago, the way they felt watching people storm into the capitol, the way they felt not hearing from the president of the united states to stop it, the way they felt watching cops get beaten up with american flags, justice is patient. here it is, a 45-page indictment that shows the bill has come due for that day. >> the wheels of justice grind slowly.

they grind finely. we have jen psaki, chuck rosenberg, ken dilanian, mike barnicle, jon meacham, claire mccaskill, al sharpton -- you go down the list, bob woodward, michael schmidt, neal katyal, ari melber, john heim, so many people here today to talk about what certainly is the most important criminal case in the history -- >> what stood out to you in it? >> -- this great republic. you know, it's so easy, mika and willie, we do this every day and we see the lies and we see republicans, unfortunately, and people on the trump right in media just lying, going along with him and lying, and it's very discouraging. what stood out to me reading

this 45-page document, far from being a democratic conspiracy against donald trump, the document, all 45 pages, filled with not only republicans that supported donald trump and voted for donald trump but people whose lives depended on him winning the election. who would have been richer, more powerful, more connected had he been elected. and these are the people time and time again that jack smith drew evidence from, got evidence from, and it is astounding, willie, i go through this document and i see he's just throwing things against the wall. one lie after another, constantly, and time and time again, it's not a liberal saying, no, that's not true, mr. president, it's not an editorial page editor for "the new york times" saying that, it's not somebody on msnbc prime time

saying that, it's republicans. if you all will be patient with me for one minute, this is so telling. jack smith writes this. his claims were false, and the defendant knew they were false. in fact, the defendant was notified repeatedly that his claims were untrue, often by the people on whom he relied on for candid advice on important matters and were best positioned to know the facts, and he deliberately disregarded the truth. for instance, and then he goes through the defendant's vice president and all the times the defendant's vice president told him, mr. president, that's wrong. it's against the law. we can't do it. senior leaders of donald trump's justice department, the director of national intelligence, again, his principle adviser on intelligence matters disabused

the defendant of the notion that there were any election interference. the department of homeland security, cyber security and infrastructure security agency, called it, quote, the most secure in american history. >> and then he was fired. >> he was fired the day after he put that out. all of donald trump's senior white house attorneys, there's a reason why he went after the co-conspirators he did, because all of donald trump's senior white house attorneys that stayed with him through charlotte, that stayed with him through racist comments about invaders, about countries, you name it, all the fascist language that stayed with him through two impeachments, they were the people that stood up --

his senior white house attorneys, selected by donald trump, to provide him candid advice, informed the defendant time and again there was no evidence -- no evidence -- of this fraud. and also told him, your presidency will end on january 20, 2021. senior staffers on the defendant's 2020 campaign whose sole mission was the defendant's re-election -- think about how much more powerful they would have been if he had won. instead of searching for jobs, what are they doing now? now they're testifying against donald trump, talking about the lies. and time and again they said, what you're saying, mr. president, just isn't true. state and federal courts rejected every post election lawsuit filed by the defendant, his co-conspirators, his allies, providing the defendant

real-time notice. in arizona, the arizona speaker of the house, who was pushed and pressured by donald trump, said if there were evidence of illegal votes or an improper account, arizona provides a process to contest the election. but the law does not authorize the reversal of the results of an election. i don't like the results of the presidential election. i voted for president trump and worked hard to re-elect him, but i cannot and will not entertain the suggestion that we violate current law to change the outcome of a certified election. >> and his life was changed. >> arizona voters chose it and our system requires that -- an evangelical, a republican, lifetime republican, a trump supporters refused to do it. in georgia a senior campaign adviser told donald trump that his dead voters claim was untrue, and he wrote this, he

said, quote, when our research campaign can't back up any of the claims made by our elite strike force legal team, you can see why we're 0-32 on our cases. obviously it's tough to own any of this when it's all just conspiracy beamed down from the mothership, closed quote. closed quote. again, a trumper who wanted donald trump to win. in georgia, the lies about the 5,000 dead people, the georgia secretary of state said, well, mr. president, the challenge that you have is your data is wrong, the actual number. the defendant claimed voters voted in georgia, the georgia secretary of state's counsel said we've gone through each of those as well, and those numbers that we got, we're just saying, they're not accurate. you can go through every single state, the michigan house

speaker. >> this is an amazing statement. >> we diligently examined these reports of fraud, to the best of our ability, said the republican speaker of the house in michigan who donald trump invited to the white house to pressure him. i fought hard for president trump. nobody wanted him to winl more than me. i think he's done an incredible job, but i love our republic, too. i can't fathom risking our institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing electors for trump. i fear we would lose our country forever. this truly would bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the electoral college, and i can't stand for that. i won't. not a "new york times" editorial writer, a right-wing conservative speaker of the house who supported donald trump all the way said he can't do it.

then, you go to another state and on december 27, trump raises with acting attorney general specific claims in wisconsin the acting defensementy attorney general told donald trump the claim was false and, willie, we can go on and on and on. why did i spend all of that time talking about it? because right now democrats are being blamed for this. democrats are -- it's supposedly something to distract from hunter biden who we have said if he did anything wrong, send him to jail. we don't care. it's up to the justice department, up to the people prosecuting. they're claiming this is a left-wing conspiracy. this was written, all of these statements, republicans, the january 6th testimony, cassidy hutchinson, all of the people who testified there, they were

republicans whose very professional lives depended on donald trump winning. >> that was the power and the effectiveness of the january 6th select committee, and it's important that you just laid that out, because the argument already, we're hearing from trump defenders and even his own attorneys on tv, he was operating in good faith, which is to say he actually thought the election had been stolen from him. well, no, if you go through these 45 pages as you just did in a very important way because it shows who exactly and how many people were telling him, sir, you lost the election. here is a claim you put up. here is why it's nonsense. another claim and state by state, go to michigan go to pennsylvania, go to wisconsin, go to arizona, and, yes, go to georgia. we're waiting to hear more from the d.a. in fulton county in a matter of a couple weeks here about that case, he knew. so the argument this was all in good faith is nonsense as laid

out here and as was laid out, as you said, in the january 6th committee. the other defense we're hearing this morning and last night was this was about the first amendment. he had the right to say these things. well, jack smith, the special counsel, mika, short-circuits that in the indictment, too, and yesterday saying, yes, of course, we concede he has the right to say these things that is protected in the first amendment. what he doesn't have the right to do is to go out and work to overturn the results of the election, which is to say put in false electors. you can say whatever you want to do, but you can't do the things that he has alleged to have done here to overturn the 2020 election. and you're right, joe, speaker mccarthy, kevin mccarthy, the speaker of the house, yesterday said as this came out, he was there, he was furious, he was screaming at donald trump on the phone on january 6th. he knows what happened. he knows what donald trump did. said yesterday after this came out, this indictment, he said, well, this is just an attempt by

democrats and the biden department of justice to distract from that big hunter biden news we had yesterday. that is the defense in the face of all of this. >> and let's be very clear here -- i'm glad you brought that up, willie -- let's be very clear here -- i talked about all the republicans that chose country over an attempted coup. last night people like kevin mccarthy and there were also some people on the other tv networks who continued to lie. these are people who spent the months after november the 4th, election day, spent months undermining america's confidence in democracy, savagely choosing donald trump over american democracy, and lied about it

repeatedly. evidence here in black and white. they lied about it. they knew they were lying just like kevin mccarthy knows he's lying. what are they doing now? all of their lies led to january the 6th. that's why people came and rioted because they lied about american democracy. so they've been sued. they've paid out almost a billion dollars. they're probably going to have to pay out another billion dollars. and what are they doing now? let's be really clear about this. now kevin mccarthy and donald trump's allies and right-wing trump media, are undermining america's confidence in our judicial system. >> yes. >> james madison's third branch that balances out the other two and protects the constitution of the united states, now -- it wasn't enough from november through january the 6th to

undermine americans' faith and confidence -- americans, 35, 36, 37% -- but enough, enough to cause chaos. enough to try to make a run at overturning the federal government. that's how they spent their fall in 2020 and winter. now they're spending their fall and spring of 2023 and summer of 2023 undermining america's faith in our judiciary, in our justice department. just like they savaged the military, intel community, universities and colleges, the best in the world, they're savaging every institution in the name of a failed reality tv host, a failed president who has lost in elections from 2017 to

2023. and yet they continue to savage it. and so now what is kevin mccarthy doing after savaging american democracy? he's now savaging our judiciary. and let's just say a lot of opinion hosts on other tv networks are doing the same thing. and i can see why they don't want to read this document. >> never saw him actually reading it, we did look at everything. >> they were drawing on it, doodling on it, joking about it -- >> talking about other things. >> a good reason why, because these facts -- >> from republicans -- >> this republican -- this republican indictment, it's not something that you're going to want to read if you've spent the last couple of years depending on websites run by chinese religious cults. let me say that again.

if you are depending on chinese religious cults for your information about the united states of america, the greatest country on the face of the earth, or maybe aunt mabel's facebook postings she got from somebody like in russia, you're not going to want to know the truth from republicans. this is the truth from republicans. >> let's bring in the first of a number of all-star panels we have this morning for you, the host of "way too early" at politico, jonathan lemire, author of "the big lie." former white house press secretary, jen psaki, joins us. nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent ken dilanian is here. former u.s. attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. attorney and contributing columnist at the "washington post," george conway, and nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. >> ken dilanian, set it up for

us. >> joe, you set it up very well. what's so remarkable about this indictment is it starts off, as you said, with jack smith acknowledging that donald trump not only had the right to claim fraud and the election, he had the right to lie about it. the first amendment right to lie. but not to launch a campaign of what smith called pervasive and destabilizing lies and then act on it. that crossed the line into criminal conspiracy, and the indictment charges three separate conspiracies, conspiracy to defraud the united states, conspiracy to obstruct that official proceeding on january 6 and conspiracy to deprive voters of their rights in those seven states. there wasn't a lot of reporting on this along the way, i was wondering whether they would charge, and they did, the plot to subvert the justice department, which i found to be the most dangerous part of the whole thing because, remember, jeffrey clark, co-conspirator number four in this indictment,

wanted the doj to send a letter to states saying that the justice department had found pervasive fraud in the election and we recommend you call your legislature in to special session. and as you said, joe, those trump-appointed career people in the justice department, said that's crazy and they stopped it. nonetheless, jack smith has charged it in a conspiracy as part of the indictment. the indictment doesn't charge donald trump with inciting the violence on january 6, with seditious conspiracy, but what it clearly articulates towards the end is that donald trump, as the indictment puts it, tried to exploit and did exploit the violence at the capitol on january 6th to continue his campaign, his alleged campaign, to try to delay and subvert the lawful transfer of power in part by calling seven separate lawmakers and there's new evidence about calling senators, even as the violence was unfolding, and asking them to

continue to delay. the last thing i will say, and i'm stealing from chuck rosenberg, so forgive me, chuck, there are legitimate defenses. despite all the evidence you laid out, a lot of people i talked to think donald trump could persuasively claim he legitimately believed the election was stolen and/or that he was relying on the advice of lawyers. the problem with that defense is it seems it would require him to testify at the trial. who else can talk about donald trump's state of mind? and that, obviously, would be legally disastrous. it's a real track jack smith has set for donald trump in a breathtaking 45-page indictment, guys. >> it is a breathtaking 45-page indictment. it is narrow. it is focused. it is powerful for the reasons that ken pointed out, willie, he doesn't have to prove donald trump was responsible for the riot and, secondly, he gives up at the very beginning, donald trump has a right to lie. if he wants to lie, he has a

right to lie. then he moves on to the conspiracies he took part in where he laid it out specifically -- >> the rights of voters. >> -- the rights of voters. jeffrey clark's name in there makes one eric hirschman prescient who, as we learned -- again, another donald trump lawyer, a donald trump lawyer who defended him through impeachment, defended him to the very end up until january the 6th, telling jeffrey clark, you'd better get yourself a good criminal defense attorney. and we found out yesterday afternoon at about 5:30 that eric hirschman, once again, was right. >> yeah, even a lot of those people in the trenches right up to the end knew when it was time to get out including hirschman. joe, "the new york post" is playing it straight today. conspiracy to defraud the united states, talking about donald trump, "the new york daily news," crimes against democracy this is headline news in papers not just across the country but around the world. chuck rosenberg, your name was

invoked by ken. i'll let you have a crack at this 45-page document. what you see in it, what's there, and what's not in it? were you surprised by anything as you read through the indictment? >> it was an extraordinary indictment, willie, compelling, linear. by the way, prosecutors don't put things in an indictment unless they can prove it. what you see in this indictment over and over, as joe so well articulated, are lots and lots -- hordes of high-ranking republican officials who told mr. trump over and over that he was wrong, that the election was fairly held, that he lost, there was no basis to challenge it once all of his appeals and lawsuits had been denied. there's a really interesting issue here, willie. if i wanted to prove what you know, i can do it based on what you say or on what you're told.

and this indictment is replete with what mr. trump was told over and over again, that he had lost the election. so i think ken is exactly right to point out that there's not a first amendment concern in bringing these charges. it's not what he believed. it's not even what he said. it's what he did. the crime is what he did. he acted on falsely held beliefs. now, again, the department of justice doesn't put things in an indictment that it can't prove. so i imagine that all of these witnesses overwhelmingly high-ranking republican officials in the trump administration, have gone before the grand jury, have testified under oath, and that testimony will be the same testimony used at the criminal trial. it's a damning indictment, a compelling case, it was and remains a threat to our democracy. >> you know it's interesting, willie, talking about all the

people that testified before the grand jury. obviously mike pence. you can read this and see he played an extraordinarily significant role. but another name that sort of is floating out there, mark meadows. many assume he was not named as a co-conspirator, he could have been, many worry their worst fears may have been -- may have come true because there is suggestion mark meadows also helped put this together. >> he was seen walking into a courthouse and staying mum. that does lead to more questions as you read through this. george conway, you're leafing through it as we speak. i know you read it yesterday as well. what jumped out to you as an attorney? >> what jumped out to me i think we owe a great deal of credit to the january 6 committee.

there are some interesting things in here that we haven't seen before. it's hard given the fire hose of information that we've had over the last three years about this to figure out which things we've seen and which we haven't. most of it fundamental tracks the themes laid out and the facts that were drawn out in the january 6th hearings and including the charges. 371, 1512, conspiracy to defraud the united states and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, those were the same statutes the january 6 committee were litigating about in front of the judge in los angeles when they were contesting documents. they laid out a road map for the prosecutors and the prosecutors went with it. i'm really impressed with how quickly mr. smith has put this all together even though -- even though so much was gathered by

the january 6th committee, it's a lot to strip it down to its essence to what we really need to prove. and the fact they only charged one defendant i think is critical. the more defendants you add to this, the more exponentially complicated the pretrial proceedings become. and so what he has done here, he's trying to package a case that can be tried next year. and i think with the right judge, and people say this judge is an experienced trial lawyer, former public defender, she should be able to navigate this to a trial next year, i think. >> that judge handed down some of the stiffest sentences yet to january 6th participants, rioters. the second sentence in the indictment is simply the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election. it goes from there that he spread lies, that he had actually won. those claims were false and the defendant knew they were false. interesting how actually little the events of january 6th play in here.

this is about the big lie. this is about the months of the lies and the conspiracies and efforts to overturn the election ticking through state after state. some states that donald trump lost by less than a point like georgia, won new mexico where he lost by ten points. it is a conspiracy that is laid out so clearly and so plainly. and it's interesting what charges do not appear here. there was nothing here about inciting the insurrection, no seditious conspiracy charge, which some speculated might be part of this because we saw members of the oath keepers and proud boys receive similar charges. that's not the case. to george's point, this seems like it is meant to be as clear and as streamlined as possible to move forward as quickly as possible. and, joe and mika, we are left with a scene next year where donald trump will be shuttling from courthouse to courthouse, from campaign rally to campaign rally. it's not just that he's a former president, he's the leading

republican to be the nomination for that -- the nominee for that party again. he has a chance to be president again. and what this indictment is about, it's so serious and maybe it will be the hardest to prove in a courtroom. it is about the very heart of our democracy, an important moment like we've never faced before. >> that's why it's interesting this indictment is very simple on president trump's actions, not on the actions of others rioting at the capitol, but his actions trying to change the results of an election and infringe on the rights of voters, impede them. jen psaki, curious what stands out to you in this. is the biden white house doing it right by having a movie night? presidents often weigh in on big moments. >> you're right, mika. i think as we've all been talking about, unprecedented and an unprecedented moment in history. it's about donald trump not joe biden. if you're sitting in the white house right now, that's what

you're thinking about. you want to leave space tore this -- the significance of this indictment we've all read through and highlighted and left notes in, and the moment in history and not make it about the presidential campaign or the political campaign. while they let it breathe right now, which i think is the right thing to do, they are going to at some point have to figure out how to run against trump and the details of the type of things that are in here. and the contrast there is not about getting into the specifics of the indictment or trump's criminal challenges or the legal cases or what will be said in hearings, necessarily. it is the contrast of what joe biden will represent if he's elected to a second term and what trump would represent. as i was reading through this, mika, i was thinking yesterday or last night about the day before january 6th, january 5, 2021, if we all remember, the day the election in georgia,

right, when warnock won the special election. what we were worried about and thinking about in that moment, a delay in the certification of the outcome and shenanigans on the floor, right, by shenanigans, things done from a legislative standpoint or from members who were supporters of trump. we underestimated, we all did, what trump was capable of and reading this is a reminder of what he is capable of. and that is the thing that stuck out to me because we still have a lot of time to go. trump is not going to be mute. he's going to be out there on the campaign trail. we've seen him already try to -- he's raising money. already tried to get his people to come out. and that's the other place to watch. overall, i think the white house, if you're sitting in the white house, you want this to be about trump. you want the air, the space, all of it on that. that's the right thing for history and the right thing for them politically in this moment as well. >> you know, jen, we all did --

certainly you did and i did as well -- underestimated the lengths to win he would continue to go trying to overthrow this election. and after reading this, i also will admit i underestimated many republican officeholders' dedication to their oath over donald trump. you read through this time and time again whether it was -- whether it was acting attorney generals inside the white house, whether it was speakers of the house, there would be a collective panic when you would see michigan speaker of the house and head of the senate go donald trump, when donald trump would put out a statement lying about mike pence saying mike pence agrees with me. time and time again pence, time and time again, pushed back on the lies. it really was striking.

reading just how far donald trump would go and how time and again he met resistance from republican officeholders, republican appointees. >> i completely had a similar reaction, and i kind of have these nerdy labels at the top state by state because what is so effective about how this is written, and maybe jack smith is a better communicator than we give him credit for, another takeaway, officials in these states, to your point, there's an entire section on each state. georgia spcifically stood out to me as these officials stood up time and time again. we know this because of the reporting over the last couple of years, but it does stand out to you. also on page 36 of this indictment if people haven't read through it, it starts the whole conversation and the whole perspective of mike pence and the private conversations mike pence had with donald trump

including, which stuck out to me and i can't get it out of my head, this moment where his chief of staff was so concerned because donald trump essentially threatened him in a private meeting, who was concerned about mike pence's safety. that is the vice president of the united states who served with the president, who stood by him, campaigned with him, advocated for his policies, and his chief was staff was so concerned about his safety because the violence here and the threats was of no concern, it seems, as you read this indictment, and that also stuck out to me. >> so concerned about his safety after hearing donald trump's threat that he notified -- he notified the secret service. >> yes. >> -- to let them know the vice president would be in danger the next day on january the 6th. and sure enough, he was.

michael, i saw your thread. is that what we call them? i saw your thread last night. >> i guess. >> you said remember this night. i went back through my lifetime. 1974, my grand mom was driving me through that richard nixon resigned and that was one of those moments that stuck with me. remember this night, what you said last night. i suspect we all will be looking back on last night as a turning point. >> totally agree. one thing we'll remember is how last night and the 12 hours since jack smith delivered that indictment with the help of a courageous grand jury, how does this fit into the larger

american story? i think the last 12 hours fit perfectly into the american story. and that is this. from time to time america faces threats from monsters who want to destroy our democracy. that happened in 1861 with the confederacy. abraham lincoln and northern soldiers and northern voters came to our rescue, saved the union. the same thing in 1933. almost at the point last minute franklin roosevelt came to power, saved our economic system. pearl harbor, 1941, we were bombed. our system was very much in danger, our democracy, many people were giving it up and saying the democracy had seen its last days. franklin roosevelt helped put a coalition together at the last minute to save democracy and freedom around the world.

9/11, 2001, osama bin laden. donald trump, just like those other threats to american democracy, tried to destroy our system. came very close to doing it, to take away our system of elections. peaceful transfer of power. it almost happened. the thing is, joe and mika and willie and everyone, it's almost happening again this morning. who is the republican front-runner? donald trump threatening to do it all again but even more effectively saying he will institute a presidential dictatorship we may assume will take our democracy away and this indictment, and i will close with this is coming at almost the last minute. i think two or three months

later, we would be less optimistic about the chance a trial can take place before next year's election. >> and your comments reminded me of lincoln's statement that all of the armies of europe and asia couldn't take a drink from the ohio river or make a trek through the blue ridge mountains. if we as a nation are to die, we'll die by suicide, by our own hand. >> right, right. >> and that's -- >> never underestimate american democracy. we protect ourselves. we save ourselves from danger. >> so to that point, actually, this is where i think it's fair enough to question those right now like speaker kevin mccarthy, like republicans in congress, and like those tv hosts.

i understand the fear they may have of donald trump. i accept all of that. but what i don't understand right now is denying what is in this document and the testimony under oath by other republicans in six different states, local politicians who stood up and testified telling their story. i don't understand why these lawmakers, why the speaker of the house, and why tv hosts who are constantly feeding donald trump's ego, why they can't give these people a chance to be heard, why they can't read this document and take a look at what, okay, might have happened, did happen to our democracy. if you were there on january 6th and if you saw what happened -- >> they know what happened, mika. >> they know what happened. >> but my point is you're

actually at this point going against what republicans are saying. >> they know what happened and you can see this on fox news last night, a split between some opinions really just turned down some extraordinarily sad, depressing performances, and they're doing it because they fear, unfortunately, their own viewers. >> but they know. they know better. >> other people on fox news, and we sue steve ducey early on, bret baier -- >> people who cover the news. >> covered it straight, covered it hard, told the truth. so there's a split. and the people, the same with republicans, we talked about the republicans that have done the right thing here, and i think what's all the more remarkable about republicans that have done the right thing are how many we've seen over the past six years who haven't.

they don't fear donald trump. they hate donald trump. let me say that again, kevin mccarthy, these other republicans, they don't fear him. they hate him. they fear his supporters. they fear his supporters will turn the channel to another network. they fear his supporters will vote for another republican. >> that's a toxic relationship. >> they fear that. we see and hear republicans, listen, i'm a conservative. i voted for trump. i wanted him to win. i love the constitution more than i love donald trump. i will not lie for this guy. i will not betray my country for donald trump. and so, again, that's what's so disappointing with some of these people we see who spent from november the 4th to january the 6th undermining american

democracy, turning a mob against the united states capitol and against congress. and now the same people on tv and in congress that are doing everything they can to turn americans against the system of justice that sustained this great republic for over 240 years. chuck, can you give me a time line? we understand the time line in the documents case. any idea what we should expect? we heard fair and speedy trial several times over the past 12 hours or so. what sort of time line are you expecting to see? >> i want to refer back to something george conway said, because it's an important point, and it helps answer your question, joe. right now there's only one defendant in this case, mr. trump. the mar-a-lago case, as we know, has three.

this is a simpler case, it's more streamlined. with three defendants, you have three defense teams, which means three opening statements, three closing arguments and every government witness is cross-examined three times. that's not true here. it doesn't involve classified information necessary to bring this case to trial. so it's simpler. now here is my bias. i come from the eastern district of virginia where i was a federal prosecutor. it's known as the rocket docket, and cases move with dispatch. my belief is this case can be tried before the election. i don't see any reason why it shouldn't. that's not up to me. it's up to the judge. this seems like a much more streamlined case. now one caveat. mr. smith said yesterday, and we haven't talked about it yet, that the investigation continues. it's possible this indictment, too, will be superseded and other defendants could be added.

but in its current posture, i believe it's not just possible but imperative it be brought before the election. mika, i hope this makes you feel a little bit better, this case will not be decided in the halls of congress and it will not be decided on television. it will be decided by 12 ordinary citizens in a federal district courtroom in the district of columbia. those are the voters who matter in this case. we can talk about it all that we like, but this case will turn on the facts, on the law, and in the appropriate venue for a determination that mr. trump committed among the most serious crimes imaginable in the history of our republic. >> that is such an important point, chuck. everything we're hearing on cable news, the truth social, all caps post, from members of congress, that's politics. this is the law. you cannot run from this 45-page indictment. luckily we have four hours this morning, because there's so much to get through here. and, ken, just a couple of quick

passages from page 33 as pertains to vice president pence, on christmas day 2020, calls then president trump a very merry christmas. quickly in response donald trump asks him to overturn the results of the election on january 6. and the vice president reportedly replies, you know, i don't think i have the authority to change the outcome, but merry christmas to you, mr. president. january 1, and, boy, doesn't this capture the whole thing, the defendant, former president trump, calls, berating vice president pence because he opposed the lawsuit seeking a judicial decision that would have helped donald trump. trump says to vice president pence, quote, you're too honest. that was a flaw that he was too honest. so, ken, as you look over the horizon now, we know president trump, former president trump, will have to be at the

arraignment tomorrow or appear tomorrow. what happens from here? what kind of time line including another case from the special counsel's office? >> first on mike pence, i found it fascinating the statement from his campaign were some of the most aggressive we've seen, not lamenting the prosecution of a former president as he has in the past but saying essentially no one is above the law and you shouldn't subvert the constitution. fascinating because he is a key player in this. it was interesting, it appears the special counsel obtained his contemporaneous notes that weren't available to the january 6th committee. in terms of time line, i agree with chuck and george conway the whole point of bringing this case with the single defendant and unnamed co-conspirators who could be charged later is to get this to trial before the election because, well, chuck said it's true that 12 jurors will decide this case if it goes

forward. if it's not tried before donald trump is elected president, if, in fact, he runs and is elected president, this case will go away. that's what bill barr said and what everyone believes. now the georgia case, which we can talk about later, can't necessarily go away because donald trump would be elected president. but this case and the other federal cases could, and that's why this is so crucial in terms of the system of justice to get this to trial. we have a judge tanya chutkan appointed by president obama in 2013, the only judge in washington, d.c., who has exceeded the recommendations of prosecutors in some of these january 6th violence cases and who actually ruled against donald trump in a crucial january 6th case. he was trying to keep his documents away from the january 6th committee ruled that he had to turn over hundreds and hundreds of documents. amplifying what others have said, this indictment did rely

in huge part on the work of the january 6 committee. a staffer texted me and said i'm going to pretend that jack smith thanked us in his remarks. you'll have the chief investigator on later, essentially was forced out of his job as general counsel at the university of virginia because of his work on that committee. the nation owes that committee a great debt because there were a lot of people at the justice department and the legal community who didn't think much of this case. who were not prepared to even imagine an indictment like the one we're reading right now until that committee put this evidence in front of the american public. >> and there was a deep unhappiness until the january 6 committee kick started them and we should note to this judge will receive a number of hateful and racist attacks from the former president and his supporters. ken mentioned georgia. that's where i wanted to go with you, one of the states highlighted in here.

we are expecting news of another charge. talk about the inner play and then the state one. how is that going to work? >> they both seem to be doing their own thing, fani willis, said she couldn't pick out jack smith out of a lineup or something like that. it doesn't appear they've been coordinating closely at all, but what they're trying to do and what they're trying to prove is parallel. i think the strategic choice mr. smith has made to just focus on donald trump is a very, very smart one, and i think that's good his case will go to trial before hers. by all accounts she's going to bring a much more organized crime kind of case involving the georgia rico statute that involve a lot of defendants.

as chuck points out, that makes life more difficult for a trial judge. but i think at the end of the day what matters is you get two bites of the apple. i just don't see how he survives all of these cases, donald trump, because each one -- he's played russian roulette with the law, and i just don't think he's going to make it through the next year. >> michael, donald trump at 4:00 p.m. tomorrow, i want to ask you to give some perspective to at that moment. this is an arraignment of a former president and his third indictment. i can't think of a historic parallel because there is none. >> sometimes there's not. and in this case here is the

ex-president, presumably, assuming he's found guilty of this, returning to the scene of his crime. i mean, it's such an american tale here. he's being brought to washington in the vicinity of the capitol where this insurrection took place near the white house where he planned this plot against america to steal our democracy and a jury of 12 ordinary, and no american citizen is ordinary, but 12 american citizens, which is the highest title we have in this country, not president, not chief justice. they will meet to decide his fate. if the founders came back from 1787 and they saw this happening, what better tableau that demonstrates the fact that no human being in this country should be above the law. >> right. >> no man is above the law. general psaki, donald trump faces 78 counts across three

criminal indictments. and as people who have been supportive of donald trump all along, lawyers have said, many have said if he's guilty on even one of those 78 counts, it could, in effect, be a life sentence for him. >> just one. >> just one -- >> out of 78. >> of all of those, and, jen, that doesn't even include georgia -- >> no. >> -- which is coming up soon. i'm just curious, feel free to comment on that. you started to talk about this before, but how difficult it was actually during the transition trying to set up a government because all of this chaos that was going on. >> i'm going to play a student in michael beschloss' class trying to please michael

beschloss. getting a lot of attention is the history of peaceful transitions of power. and i was working in the obama administration when barack obama came in and took over for the bush administration. there were lots of disagreements on many policy issues, iraq, the iraq war being a big one, but we worked in lock step with the bush team to help address the financial crisis, to help address any national security threats. that is how it is supposed to work even when you have substantive disagreements. you accept the outcome, but you also work with people where you have battled, where you have fought publicly, where you have debated. when donald trump came in and i was in the obama administration during that transition, what president obama said to all of us is, yes, this is not the outcome we wanted. that is clear. but i expect all of you to behave the way the bush team behaved when we came in, which is to treat people with grace, with respect, provide them with

information. yes, we disagree with many things, but that is what we are expected to do. this entire transition and everything around it threw into question that peaceful transfer of power part of our country for hundreds of years. and that, i think, should be a part of the conversation as well because it's such an important part of how we continue to operate as a democracy. >> and there are so many other parts of this conversation still to come this morning. jen psaki, nbc's ken dilanian, chuck rosenberg, george conway and presidential historian michael beschloss, thank you all very much for coming on on this important and historic morning. and still ahead on "morning joe," much more on the newest indictment against former president donald trump. we'll take a look at what trump's lead attorney is saying about the new charges and a possible defense.

plus, more on the judge who has been assigned to the case and her history of handing down stiff penalties to dozens of alleged january 6th rioters. also ahead how trump's 2024 campaign is already trying to profit off this new indictment and what it means for the gop primary race. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ack. >> the day after, eastman -- i don't know why he called me, or texted me wanting to talk to me, said he couldn't reach others. and he started to ask me about something dealing with georgia and preserving something potentially for appeal. and i said to him, are you out of your mind.

i only want to hear two things, orderly transition. repeat those words to me. eventually he said orderly transition. i said, good, john. now i'm going to given you the best free legal advice you're ever getting in your life. get a great f-ing criminal defense lawyer. you're going to need it. and then i hung up on him. m.

- the will states that mr. marbles will receive everything he needs in perpetuity. thanks to autoship from chewy. - i always love that old man. - and he gets the summer house. - what? - [narrator] save more on what they love and never run out with autoship from chewy. i need it cool at night. you trying to ice me out of the bed? - [narrator] save more on what they love baby, only on game nights. you know you are retired right? am i? ya! save up to $500 on the new sleep number® smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add an adjustable base. shop now only at sleep number®. the first time you made a sale online with godaddy was also the first time you heard of a town named dinosaur, colorado. we just got an order from dinosaur, colorado. start an easy to build, powerful website for free with a partner that always puts you first. start for free at godaddy.com are you still struggling with your bra? it's time for you to try knix. makers of the world's comfiest wireless bras. for revolutionary support without underwires, and sizes up to a g-cup,

find your new favorite bra today at knix.com

i was in the oval office,

and at some point in the conversation the lead data person was brut on. i remember he delivered to the president in pretty blunt terms he was going to lose. >> we had seen nothing improper with regard to the voting conditions, and i told him the real experts of that had been at dhs and they had briefed us that they had looked at it, and there was nothing wrong with the voting machines. >> i tried to, again, put this in perspective and to try to put it in very clear terms to the president, we've done hundreds of interviews, the major allegations are not supported by the evidence. >> the stuff shuttling out to the public was [ bleep ], the claims of fraud were [ bleep ]. he was indignant about that. >> just a reminder of the people

who are around donald trump leading up to january 6th telling him there was no evidence of election fraud, but he refused to give up the big lie, and his actions have led to this point, a third indictment facing three conspiracy charges, an account of attempting to obstruct an official proceeding in a desperate attempt to stay in power. >> willie, last hour i read through all of the republicans that testified here, that gave all the information that jack smith basically put together in this indictment, the most historic indictment in the history of this republic most likely, but the defendant's vice president, senior leaders of the justice department, director of national intelligence, director of cyber security agency calling the most secure in history,

senior white house attorney, senior staffers on the defendant's 2020 re-election campaign, people who desperately wanted donald trump to win, state legislators and officials who wanted donald trump to win and state and federal courts. there we saw, again, showing barr, barr, an attorney general, broke one norm after another norm in his pursuit of defending donald trump and believed in an imperial presidency and basically said as much and then there you have donaghue and eric herschmann, these are people who defended donald trump through some of, we believe, mika and i believe at least, some of the worst episodes in recent american history, and they stayed with him and then when he tried to overthrow the federal government, they said, enough. and those are the people, again,

die hard trumpers, those are the people who have given jack smith the facts to, well, send the president of the united states, the former president of the united states, to prison for life if he's indicted on these charges. >> and that was the power of those january 6th hearings that we just played footage of, also the power of this document which is the indictment is coming from inside the house. the people who are on this list, in this indictment, who are speaking about it, say we told donald trump time and time again and it's documented here in these 45 pages, he lost the election. there was no fraud that you're hearing about from crazies, no fraud from your friends on certain tv shows. you lost. joe biden is going to be president. time to move along. he didn't buy that. now that undermines his argument, which we're already hearing in the last 12 hours of i was operating in good faith. donald trump saying i actually thought i won the election and i was just pursuing some leads.

well, no, he didn't. he knew he lost, and it's documented in here. if you're just waking up with us this morning, the indictment against donald trump alleges he did know, his claims of the election being stolen from him were false, and he was notified repeatedly his claims were not true. it begins in part, quote, the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election. despite having lost, the defendant was determined to remain in power. so for more than two months following election day on november 3, 2020, the defendant spread lies that there had been outcome determinative fraud in the election and he actually had won. it goes on, these claims were false, and the defendant knew they were false, but the defendant defended them anyway. he created an atmosphere of distrust and anger. the indictment details how then

vice president mike pence and senior government officials warned trump and his co-conspirators efforts to hold on to power could lead to civil unrest. it also highlights how on january 4th, 2021, after one unnamed co-conspirator acknowledged to a senior trump adviser that, quote, no court would support his proposal to reject electoral votes cast for president biden, the adviser responded, quote, you are going to cause riots in the street. joe, all these quotes, and i encourage people to sit with this document, to read it, 45 pages, are coming from people who worked for and alongside donald trump. >> jonathan lemire is still with us and joining the conversation this morning we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, former u.s. senator, now on nbc news and a political analyst claire mccaskill, nbc news legal analyst andrew weisman, "new

york times" opinion columnist french, the american presidency at vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham. he at times serves as an unofficial adviser to president biden, for the record, and president of the national action network and host of msnbc's "politics nation," reverend al sharpton joins thus morning. >> jon meacham, as a pulitzer prize winning presidential historian, i want to follow up on something we've talked about here throughout the morning. we just showed some clips of eric herschmann, saying you'd better get yourself a good criminal defense attorney. his attorney general, bill barr, telling him it's bs, you then have acting attorney general saying the same thing. you have eric herschmann who defended him throughout his presidency and the impeachment, his intel committee, department

of homeland security cyber security team, you have all of the white house attorneys, you have all of the staff on the campaign who desperately wanted him to win and, of course, the vice president. we can go down the list. it really was unanimous. this is why he had to bring in outsiders that i guess felt they had nothing to lose, rudy giuliani and the other co-defendants -- >> right. >> and how striking, as willie said, that this is not like watergate where woodward and bernstein had deep throat and had whispered conversations and finally got john dean to turn, this is everybody, everybody inside the trump white house all saying, all saying what he did on january 6th and leading up to january 6th contemptible and his

lead white house counsel was asked by the january 6, did anybody in the white house support the riots, support what was going on? did they want the protests to continue other than donald trump? he said, no. donald trump on an island to himself here and, my god, it shows up in this historic document. talk, if you will, just, again, as a pulitzer prize winning presidential historian your thoughts as you were reading this indictment last night. >> one of the statutes under which the former president is charged was, in part, drafted by u.s. grant who went up to capitol hill when he was trying to break the klan in the south, the first time we had to break the klan in the south in the 1870s, and he wrote down what he needed as an enforcement act for that legislation.

and the notion was that the white south was trying to repeal the verdict of the civil war, in fact, as reconstruction unfolded. it was a period of lawlessness. it was a period of white supremacy. it was a period where former -- i guess they're still traitors, right -- successionists were trying to win what they could not win on the battlefield. attempted to exert the power of law and morality, a conscience of the country, to set things right, to actually enforce the reconstruction and the notion that, guess what, we meant what we said when the declaration of independence was issued on july 4th and that the constitution had to apply to everyone not just white men.

that's an hour of great presidential vision and grace. on the spectrum of american history, what the former president did after the election in 2020, is one of the darkest hours because he put fundamentally his own appetite, his own ambition, ahead of everything else. and we on say things are simple and straight forward, lots of things are straightforward, not many things are simple. this is one of them. there are a lot of complicated reasons for this, but straightforwardly, that's what this is about. it's about a single person who has a remarkable hold on an extraordinary number of americans which has happened in the past. we have been in the grip of wrong-headed delusion before. what we haven't had is a person so powerful that they can bend the constitution to the point of

breaking. and one of the things i've been fascinated by just reading last night and this morning, are my friends in the conservative movement who are arguing that, well, because they weren't very good at staging coups, it can't be that serious, which strikes me as a particularly unconvincing argument. the constitution was bent in the aftermath of the 2020 election. it has not broken. but that doesn't mean it won't break. and i say this with as much conviction as i have about anything. if we break the united states of america, it's going to be mighty hard to get it back again. and thomas payne said even before the constitution was drafted in the beginning of the revolutionary war, he said in america the law is king. we don't have a king who has his own appetites and ambitions and can bend the body politic and the public life of the country to his own purposes.

the law is supposed to be king. and one of the things we'll have to face here, and i don't know the answer to this. it's heartbreaking that i can't answer this, is are we up to this? are we up to the demands of american democracy? which fundamentally requires us to defer our own appetite and ambition to say, you know what, i lost this one, but i'm going to go organize and i'm going to try again. and, you know, i can't get 100% the old reagan rule, i can't get 100% of what i want. maybe i can get 16 and fight for the 40. that requires a certain level of mature citizenship. and that sounds grand, and i don't mean it to, but fundamentally, if we aren't able to defer our own immediate gratification in politics, then we're not going to have the constitution.

>> and as you say, jon, donald trump viewed those laws as obstacles. the constitution was getting in his way of seizing back power. so andrew weisman, as this document came down, it was unsealed yesterday, became public. what did you see in it? what surprised you about it? what should we expect in terms of a trial based on the charges brought here, be based on there just being one defendant in this document, donald trump himself with co-conspirators but just him charged here? what did you see in this indictment? >> my first reaction was very, very similar to joe's reaction. i also created a list of the incredible number of sources of evidence at the trial and all, as you said, willie, coming from inside the house. it was just clear the facts here are really not at issue.

it's clear the law is not at issue. these are charges that in the main have all been brought before with respect to what has been termed the foot soldiers, the blue collar part of the case. this is now going after the ringleader alleged to have orchestrated this plot. so this is completely following the rule of law, and i agree with the comment that this is really not going to be a trial of donald trump where the facts and law are clear. it's really a question for whether the country is going to believe in the rule of law and insist on it at the ballot box. and the thing that did surprise me was the six unnamed co-conspirators, it seems very clear to me that they are going to be charged if they have not been charged already under seal,

i just don't think that we're going to see them in this case. as chuck said this is a case that's clearly designed to go to trial quickly. jack smith was handed a certain time line and a certain task, and i think the reason that you see an indictment where it's clear that seven people could have been charged, and i believe seven people will be charged, but the reason you have one person here is because jack smith understands that the goal here is to have a trial so that the general election is informed by that trial and people being able to see one way or the other the outcome of the case and the proof. >> so, claire, we're also learning trump's team wanted him to stay in power so much they were willing to call in the troops. that's according to a chilling

scene spelled out in the indictment. jeffrey clark, a former top justice department official and who appears to be co-conspirator four, suggested invoking the insurrection act to quell any anti-trump protests with force. the insurrection act is a law that empowers the president to deploy the military to shut down rebellion and unrest within the united states. clark appears to have made that suggestion to deputy white house counsel patrick philbin three days before the capitol attack in an exchange captured in the indictment. philbin warned that if trump tried to remain in office despite evidence of widespread fraud there would be riots in every major city in the united states. clark responded, well, that's why there's an insurrection act. the indictment also details how trump considered installing clark as acting attorney general because he was friendly to his

election views. trump ultimate patly backed down from that plan after multiple top officials said they would resign in protest. claire, as a former prosecutor, former senator, i'm fascinated in what stands out to you in this indictment. also pointing out this is his third indictment, and, unlike the documents case, which is very grave, very serious, there's a lot of opportunities in the mar-a-lago documents case for trump's attorneys to slow things down. there's classified documents that have to be handled very carefully, lots of ways this could be held up, and there's a judge that some say might be leaning toward trump, appointed by trump, criticized for some of her actions earlier on. the difference here is this actually, and correct me if i'm wrong, this actually could be a speedy trial with a judge that is, let's just say, highly

respected. >> yeah, and respected by both sides, by the way. let's make sure we point that out before all of the character assassination begins on this judge, which will happen, if it hasn't already, it will happen probably beginning today. listen, here is what struck me when i read the indictment. it's no different than what you have been talking about this morning. two things in this country right now are 100% republican. one participate of that is the evidence in this case. it is 100% republican evidence. it is his advisers, it is his officeholders, it is his aides, it is his campaign officials. they are all republican, they are all trump supporters. that's the evidence in this case. the other thing that's 100% republican in this country right now are the people that are lying about this, continue to lie about this, and who have allowed trump to do what jon

meacham eloquently said. that is bend the constitution almost to the point of bending, the enablers. and i will tell you maybe the saddest thing for me last anytime was watching tim scott. we are watching in real time someone lose their moral compass it someone sacrificing their character at the altar of political ambition, someone who knows better, who was there, who saw what happened, who saw people running for their lives, who knows that what trump did was wrong and what he has said is wrong, and the thing that kills me about all of this is if trump has evidence, which is what it will take to overcome this indictment, he still has not shown it anywhere. if these people, if these fox news opinion leaders, if all of these u.s. senators that went to yale and harvard, cruz on holley, if they have evidence,

then why haven't the american people seen it? there is no evidence of fraud. none. what little they had they tried and lost went up in flames in dozens and dozens of courts across the country. so this really is about whether or not the rule of law is going to survive. and if it wobbles, it will be because of one reason, republicans in this country that have lost their love of country in order to further their own political ambition. >> a few things, claire, you're right they did try to present the evidence and lost 63, 64 times before courts of law that threw them out in most cases. you brought up senator scott. we were just talking about him with george conway in a commercial break to put context around what claire is saying, this indictment, read through it, 45 pages. you'll see what's in here, what happened. tim scott, running for president, of course, said, and who was there at the capitol on

january 6, i remain concerned about the weaponization of biden's doj and its immense power used against political opponents. he goes on to say biden's doj continues to hunt republicans while protecting democrats. as claire says, he knows better. he's running for president. maybe he wants to be trump's vice president. who knows. that is a character test a lot of republicans have failed and continue to fail here. you have the document in front of you. you've been reading the indictment. you've seen a lot in your career. think it's fair to say what is outlined in these 45 pages is something completely different and completely beyond anything we've ever seen with the president. >> which will, the document is clear, concise, it's well written, it's too the point and it's a horrific portrait of a deeply damaged country, a deeply divided country, being led by one single individual, the defendant, then a sitting

president who led a concerted attack on the united states of america. and while it's horrifying to read, and whim it's deeply troubling again and depressing, it's important to point out that within it, there are elements of sunshine or elements of hope. i refer specifically to a man named rusty bowers, the speaker of the house in arizona, a republican, a conservative, who repeatedly -- repeatedly -- told the president of the united states that he would not violate his, rusty bower's, oath to the constitution. he would not recall the arizona legislature to review the election results. he would not try to overturn the results. the results were the results. mr. president, you lost the election in arizona. all of this while rusty bower's daughter was dying. she died january 28, 2001.

i don't know about you, but parts of it was so depressing but the rusty bauer example prove there is some hope that the constitution will not break. >> i think the hope is the constitution is upheld as we go forward. as i was looking through the indictment last night, i grew up and started my activism in brownsville and they would say, rev, i caught a case. nobody walk down the block and said i caught three cases. so this is serious. on the other side of it, one day

our children's children will read american history. we're looking at american history and how it will play out is going to be very important. the sad part about this to me is this is not a man that is facing all this because he believed in a political position or policy or cause. i've seen people go down the wrong side for a cause. this is all about him, narcissism with steroids, and to think he could get this whole country divided and split and commit these crimes and have others commit crimes off his own self-agrandizement is as sick as it can get.

>> some went along for the ride for too long. this case and moment in history where, again, the power of this document is that it is effectively authored by the voices of republicans, people alongside donald trump who stood up to him. maybe not enough in the years preceding that. he knew because the people around him told him he lost the election, but he went ahead anyway and tried to overturn it. >> like andrew weissmann said before, two things jumped out at me. one, how desperate donald trump was to try anything and everything he could to seize power after he lost the election. but the second was, and i didn't know what to expect reading this, going through the 45 pages a follow-up on what mike said, one republican officeholder after another republican officeholder, one republican judge after another republican

judge saying no, and it spelled out here, we talk about it early in the 6:00 hour donald trump's vice president, senior leaders of donald trump's justice department, donald trump's director of national intelligence, donald trump's department of homeland security and cyber security calling it the most secure in american history, senior white house attorneys telling him no. you have absolutely no fraud here. senior staffers on the 2020 re-election campaign whose sole mission, as jack smith points out, was to get donald trump re-elected. would have been a far more powerful, far more wealthy in the future had donald trump won. donald trump state legislatures and officials supported trump through and through and then, of course, state and federal courts. we talked about rusty bowers, the speaker of the house, can he

go to georgia and in georgia you actually had senior campaign adviser emailing saying, listen, our research and campaign team can't back up any of the claims made by elite strike force legal team. you can see why we are 0-32 in cases. he goes on to write, the help on all fronts. it's tough to own any of this when it's all just conspiracy beamed down from the mothership, closed quote. you go to georgia, you have donald trump lying on the telephone saying 5,000 dead people voted in georgia, a republican, somebody who voted for donald trump. well, mr. president, the challenge you have is your data is wrong. then donald trump said there were thousands of out-of-state voters -- georgia secretary of state refuted it. we've gone through each of those

and the numbers we've got, that you were just saying, they're not accurate. in response to other defendant allegations told the defendant, donald trump, the georgia bureau of investigations investigated all such claims and found no merit to them. we can go to the leaders, the republican leaders of the house and the senate that donald trump invited to the white house to browbeat them. they went back to michigan, and this is what the michigan house speaker wrote after it was all over. we diligently examined these reports of fraud to the best of our ability. i fought hard for president trump. nobody wanted him to winl more than me. i think he's done an incredible job but i love our republic, too. i can't risk our norms and traditions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electorate with trump. i fear we would lose our country, the republican michigan speaker of the house said, i feared we would lose our country

forever. this would bring mutually shared destruction in regards to the electoral college and i can't stand for that. i won't stand for that. on december 27 the defendant, donald trump raised with the acting attorney general a specific fraud claim that there had been more voters in wisconsin than actual people there. the acting defensementy attorney general informed the defendant the claim was false. i can go on. every state, jonathan lemire, every state, these are people, again, not -- i'm looking through here and trying to find "the new york times" editorial writer whose editorial is in here, or the msnbc prime time host, member of the young marxist league of the greater manhattan area -- i'm trying to find a democratic operative. i'm trying to find woke warriors. i can't. you know why, they're all trumpers. you go through here, this entire

document is crammed like the january 6th documents and reports. these are all trumpers. and these are not just people who supported donald trump and got disgusted. these are people that stayed with him through charlottesville, people who stayed with him when he started using fascist language, telling people of color that were in congress, go back to where you came from. these are people that stayed with him through two impeachments where he refused to give ukraine defensive weapons unless he dug up dirt on biden. >> payoffs. >> these are people who stayed with him through illegal payoffs to porn stars, people who stayed with him even through the bitter end when he was pushing his attorney general, bill barr, to arrest joe biden and his family

two weeks before the presidential election. they all stayed with him. they're the ones who are testifying now against him because it was so blatant, it was so un-american, it was so treasonous. no democrats here. all trumpers. >> the most powerful part to the january 6 house committee was when it was republicans, trumpers who were offering their testimony about what he did, the same is true here in this document. these are republicans. these are die hard republicans, die hard trumpers. that is, these are republicans who stood in the breach. they did the right thing, but some of them suffered real electoral consequences. rusty bowers, he got crushed in the republican primary trying to be house speaker again in arizona. liz cheney, representative cheney, was the star of the january 6 hearings, she got crushed in the republican primary in the aftermath. evidence this is still donald

trump's party. are there exceptions? brad raffensperger won re-election as georgia secretary of state. what we're seeing here from other candidates on the campaign trail that includes tim scott, governor desantis, just about all of them, save maybe chris christie and asa hutchinson, they're all still toeing the line and donald trump is the odds-on favorite to be the nominee again next year. of course it could be a different story in the general election which is going to be happening, andrew weissmann, against the backdrop of, we think, this trial. and we heard from trump's lawyers previewing what we think their defenses will be. the biggest part is, well, he believed -- he believed that he won. he believed the election was stolen from him. the indictment shows otherwise, the evidence people were telling him, sir, no, you lost. that's going to be trump's mind-set. i won. so talk to us. is that going to be potentially effective defense?

>> well, let's see, the first thing that is going to be hard for him if he wants to make that claim is he would have to testify to his state of mind, and i think for the same reason that he did not testify in the e. jean carroll case, he did not come in and speak with us in the mueller investigation, and i think any good defense lawyer will not want to put him on the stand, that will be a blood bath if he actually takes the stand. two, to claire's point, that defense needs facts. there are so many facts listed in this indictment, and if there were facts to help support that subjective belief, you would think we would have heard it. there still are no facts. and i do think in a court of law is where facts and law still

matter. so i think that's are two real problems with his mounting that type of defense that he truly believed it. finally, if you look at the indictment, think about the allegations of how many times he lied. if you believe this, why are you resorting to so many false statements with respect to even your own vice president and, for instance, on january 5 when he issued a statement saying the vice president agreed with him that the vice president had the power to change the votes and send this back to the states when the vice president, as the indictment alleges, said that is the absolute opposite of what he was telling the president. so the series of lies that are listed in the indictment really belie any claim that he had that

subjective belief. finally, there is a point it's not entirely clear for all of these charges his belief on that matters because there are certain things you just cannot do even if you believe you won the way that you deal with that is go to court and you bring a case to show that there was fraud in the election. well, he did that. the indictment says that is a lawful means to challenge the results. the problem is he lost, as willie said, over 60 times. so once that's done, you don't get to take the law into your own hands regardless of whether you are a foot soldier or the former president of the united states. >> andrew weissmann, thank you very much for coming on this morning. of course this is a case where the judge presiding, who has dealt with j-6 rioters, four counts, simple, clear lines, four counts, one defendant. definitely looking like it's set up to be a speedy trial unlike,

perhaps, the other indictments that the president is facing. all completely unprecedented. and david french, your new piece is entitled "this is the trial america needs." you write in part, quote, millions of americans believe today that joe biden stole the presidency. they believe a series of demonstrable, provable lies, and their beliefs in those lies is shaking their faith in our republic, and, by extension, risking the very existence of our democracy. there is no sure way to shake their convictions, especially if they are convinced that trump is the innocent victim of a dark and maligned deep state, but the judicial system can expose his claims to exacting scrutiny. and that scrutiny has the potential to change those minds that are open to the truth. smith has brought a difficult case, but it's a necessary case.

foot soldiers of the trump movement are in prison. its allied militia leaders are facing justice, and now the architect of our national chaos will face his day in court. this is the trial america needs. and, david, to your point, i think there are a lot of americans who are hurting, who believe trump's lies, and, i think it's hopefully a time for a national conversation. it's definitely not a time to shame anybody who has been led down a path of lies, but to try and help people understand that republicans here have testified under oath. they have put themselves on the line. they have showed the bravery that perhaps some leaders under trump haven't. but many have. many have stood up for our democracy. >> yeah, absolutely. and, look, i'm not naive. i know that you can present

overwhelming evidence here and you can have trump supporters at core maga base with him to the end. there was a silver lining in the dark cloud of some of the polling recently, and it showed 37% of republicans are these card hard core trumpers. i don't think can you shake them. another 37% were in the category called persuadable and that meant their minds were open at least somewhat. there was some openness there. and that's where i think a trial like this that pushes through the objections of the january 6 committee, a show trial because there wasn't real cross-examination and all of that, here you're going to have real cross-examination. a trump legal team trying to poke holes in the prosecution case. you'll see the best the american system of justice has to offer as far as fact-finding goes,

proof goes, where that persuadable number of republicans can really come into play, and then let's also not forget the verdict of history here. i hope we are at the largest number of people who really, truly believe trump and it's all diminishing from here. that's where i hope we are. if we are there, this trial is going to be an important piece of that puzzle to obliterate this conviction that so many americans have that there was something wrong in 2020. and that's why it's so key to bring this case. >> you know, david, i remember, and i've talk about it before on this program, i remember my dad who, of course, my parents, like your parents, i'm sure, very conservative southerners, southern baptists, grew up shaped -- their politics shaped in large part by the chaos of

the 1960s. undermining what they believed a post-war america should look like. riots in chicago. riots across the country. they saw nixon as the guy that was going to bring law and order. whatever it was going to be. i remember throughout watergate my dad being skeptical thinking the east coast elites. they've been after him, it's the communists -- i don't think he thought they were communists -- but it's the communists who want us to lose in vietnam. all this other stuff. and i remember him sitting at our breakfast table in 1974 when the tapes came out, the contents of the tapes came out and i

remember my dad looking and reading it and putting the paper down saying and shaking his hand, that man has done half of what this newspaper article says. he is unfit to be in the white house. he needs to leave today. i keep trying to remind myself there are still people had a were there. people turned their back on just basic facts because they feel they've been let down by the government. we've said on our show, i have seen a lot of people voting for donald trump in '16 and '20 that are moving away from him. and mika will tell you, we are surrounded, i am surrounded every day by probably an 80/20

trump/biden mix. people say they voted for trump, they're going to vote for trump again. that has started to happen in my world. i'm seeing a lot of people say, no, we can't do this again. we cannot follow this guy again. the reason i'm asking you and going on so long on this, i'm just curious. it doesn't seem to be reflected in the polls, but i'm curious -- i would guess if i'm hearing that anecdotally, you're hearing that anecdotally as well. >> yeah, absolutely. that "times" poll i referenced was kind of my life. you had three chunks of republicans, 37% were hard core trump. they didn't see any flaws at all. 37% were persuadable. they might have been leaning in the trump direction and 25% they don't want any more of trump and

that breaks out what i've experienced. let me focus on the persuadable. you can kind of know you're talking to somebody like that when they have suspicions about 2020 but they can't really articulate what they were. they don't really know why they have suspicions about 2020. they don't know quite literally how stupid the conspiracies were. and, look, this indictment lays it out clearly how absurdly over the top these conspiracies were and how uniformly the serious people in trump's orbit were rebutting them. and this is something that's honestly not known out in the wider world. it's definitely known in the subculture who pay close attention to politics. they don't even know the theory. they just know -- they just feel like something was wrong in 2020 and i think this trial can really expose that trump knew,

these claims were bogus and the claims themselves were really dumb, they were really obviously wrong. and i think that's really important to emphasize. >> david french, always worth reading. his new piece in "the new york times" is titled "the trial america needs." thanks so much. rev, different from the other charges we've seen in the mar-a-lago case, for example, where we saw real world violence at the end of it. and that the people who participated in the violence predicated on this lie that this document shows donald trump perpetrated that they're going to jail now. people who showed up, thought the election had been stolen, went into the capitol, defaced the capitol, beat up cops, they're going to jail now. in other words, he's brought other victims among his supporters into all of this. and now he may become one of them. i think andrew weissmann would

say he's not going to get these jail sentences that are possible, up to 20 years, a couple of them up to 10 years, on one up to 5. if he gets the low end of any of these if he's convicted for a man next year will be 78 years old, that could be life in prison. >> and he will be disgraced, someone who always wanted to come from the outside and show the guys he considered on the inside that i beat him, will go out in history as ultimate disgrace. the sad part is some of them in jail that believed him really did believe him when he knew better, and this evidence, this indictment shows that. the bigger picture for people like me that have fought for voting rights is that he really didn't care, that people stood in line and voted. it didn't even matter to him. my mother and father from florida and alabama moved to new

york because they can't get in their lifetime their vote protected until the voting rights act of 1965. their generation produced people like me that could run for president. none of that mattered to him. it was all about him, but, you know, joe is an old music historian, there's a song that if you dance to the music you're going to have to pay the piper. >> jon meacham, this is a deeply damaged country we're talking about and no accounting for the amount of damage a former president of the united states has done to the country while he was in office. your job this morning, your job right now is to tell us through knowledge of history, past and present, that there is hope, that the sun will come out on american democracy, that we are

still a thriving democracy. >> well, the reverend just laid out the case for hope. this country only exists as a multiracial integrated democracy. it has only existed since 1965 which is 20 minutes ago. we won world war ii, we fought the civil war. we apolished slavery, extended suffrage, all as a segregated and in the latter cases a country that endorsed and perpetuated human enslavement. we began to more fully lean into the declaration of independence. if we can make that much progress, it's not a case for self-congratulations. it's not a case for, well, we got it right then so, therefore, weapon get it right now. that's not guaranteed.

but hope has to be derived, i believe from history. and the american past suggests that we can make tomorrow better than today. it's a moral question and it's up to every one of us. >> jon meacham and reverend al sharpton, thank you both very much for being on this morning and still ahead on "morning joe," we have a lot more to cover on this historic indictment. we'll be joined by legendary watergate journalist bob woodward, former acting u.s. solicitor general neal katyal, chief legal correspondent ari melber, and many more. but first, an inside account of the january 6th probe in the house from the lead investigator for the select committee. the key moments from that investigation and how trump ended up here. also ahead, why this is the trump indictment that really matters.

we'll read from tom nichols' new piece in "the atlantic." as we go to break another moment from the january 6th investigation featuring eric herschmann, a former trump white house lawyer, who pushed back on john eastman's attempts to overturn the election. pushed b his attempt to overturn the election. >> i said i want to understand what you are saying. you said you believe the vice president can be the sole decision-maker, under your theory, that would make the decision on who is the next president of the united states? he said, yes, and i said you are out of your f'ing mind.

♪ 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. ♪ why didn't we do this last year? before you were preventing migraine with qulipta®? remember the pain? cancelled plans? the worry? that was then. and look at me now. you'll never truly forget migraine. but qulipta® reduces attacks, making zero-migraine days possible. it's the only pill of its kind that blocks cgrp - and is approved to prevent migraine of any frequency. to help give you that forget-you-get migraine feeling.

don't take if allergic to qulipta®. most common side effects are nausea, constipation, and sleepiness. learn how abbvie could help you save. qulipta®. the forget-you-get migraine medicine™. ♪ (upbeat music) ♪ ( ♪♪ ) constant contact's advanced automation lets you send the right message at the right time, every time. ( ♪♪ ) constant contact. helping the small stand tall.

your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

♪ i have type 2 diabetes, ♪ ♪ but i manage it well. ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell. ♪ ♪ i take once-daily jardiance, ♪ ♪ at each day's staaart. ♪ ♪ as time went on it was easy to seee ♪ ♪ i'm lowering my a1c. ♪ jardiance works 24/7 in your body to flush out some sugar! and for adults with type 2 diabetes and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. jardiance may cause serious side effects including ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration, that can lead to sudden worsening of kidney function, and genital yeast or urinary tract infections. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop taking jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection, ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction, and don't take it if you're on dialysis.

taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. ♪ jardiance is really swell, ♪ ♪ the little pill with a big story to tell. ♪ on the morning of january 6th, president donald trump's intention was to remain the president of the united states, despite the lawful outcome of the 2020 election. over multiple months donald trump over saw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the presidential election and prevent the chance for presidential power. >> it has been a year since the house launched its own investigation into the january 6th insurrection which was a

plan to overturn the election, and that influenced the latest indictment against donald trump. joining us now, timothy hathy. so many who rioted on january 6th are living the consequences, defaming the capitol, threatening of life of lawmakers, nancy pelosi and mike pence. it hurts that these people were so terribly misled by lies and conspiracy theories, and some could argue are donald trump's lies and donald trump's conspiracy theories. but this happening right now is

not what about indictment is about specifically. it's about defrauding the united states, obstructing the proceeding, and the conspiracy against the rights of voters on who the president will be. four counts focusing on donald trump's actions, and that's what jack smith, again, will have to prove in the court of law to a jury of 12 that these actions happened by donald trump. i am just wondering how much of what you uncovered in the january 6th investigation measures up to what you are seeing in this indictment? >> mika, it reads very similar to our report. it was quite familiar to me reading the indictment because almost everything in there was part of what we presented. the indictment reads very much like what chairman cheney read

out, this was a multipart plan to disrupt democracy. so the facts are not new, and the core story has been there from the beginning. the difference is this is coming now to a court of law, and people may be skeptical about congress. we had a lot of criticism about our process. they are certainly skeptical about the media and uncovering these same facts. now it's going into a federal courtroom where the facts will be presented and tested, and maybe those same facts, despite the fact of the novelty of them.

i hope now that they are in a courtroom they will make a difference. >> many of the people who will worked alongside president trump, this was their line, you lost the election. none of this stuff that you are hearing is true. you lost the election. so it mirrors what you did in the january 6th committee where many of the witnesses worked for donald trump and in the west wing. how important was it to you to hear those voices just as this indictment? >> important. when it comes to people that are

close to the conspiracy, to the lead defendant, all of our witnesses were trump appointees and part of his administration, and so it will be hard for his attorneys to say they were lying or had a grudge against the president. you want to get people who were there for conversations, who were present for the act in the furtherance of the conspiracy. we had courageous republican insiders that came forward before the grand jury, and they are the silver lining of hope in the story because they did the

right thing. >> claire mccaskill here. i know for my perspective and others' perspective, the january 6th committee was the emma teus of the special counsel look into this case, and everybody got to see this realtime. as you are aware, rule 53 in the federal system says no cameras, no broadcasts. to me that's another form of criminal in this innocence that the people of the country will not be able to see the trial. do you see any other way chief justice roberts could change rule 53 and allow the american

people in the courtroom so they can see. >> you are right. the federal rule does not allow cameras in the federal court, and arguably this is a case of great significance that could justify a change in that policy, but i doubt it. the january 6th committee, on which i served, was only successful because we got really good facts. jack smith has those facts and arguably even more. they will rather be presented inside a federal courtroom, and facts matter. i hope in america that ultimately those facts do get

through to the people. >> former lead investigator for the january 6th select committee, thank you for coming on. >> thank you. it's just past the top of the third hour of "morning joe," and we have been covering yesterday's federal indictment of former president trump. jack smith voted to charge the president because of his efforts to stay in power following the 2020 election. conspiracy to defraud the united states, conspiracy to

obstructing a federal proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. trump is scheduled to make his first court appearance in the new case tomorrow at 4:00 p.m. in washington. a lot to look at here, joe, including the judge presiding in this case. >> yeah, a judge that has -- >> highly respected on both sides of the aisle. >> yeah, highly respected because she was, i believe, a public defender, and sympathetic to the rights for defendants to make sure they get a fast and fair trial, and that's what we think we will be getting here. and trump's defense right now seems to be that he really thought he won the election, and -- well, fine, but not

really relevant whether he believed that or not, because if you believe that, you do what he did, and you travel that on state levels and -- >> every right to do that. >> he lost 63, 64 cases, motions before the federal courts. so, first of all, that's not really relevant, but just for argument's sake -- just for argument's sake, let's say it's relevant. jack smith lays it out, verse and chapter, of how donald trump knew he lost. how everybody that trump hired to run campaign knew he lost, and every lawyer he hired to run the white house knew he lost, and his attorney knew he lost, and his acting attorney

general after he got rid of his attorney general, he knew he lost. donald trump told aides he couldn't believe he lost to joe biden. so facts do matter. facts do matter. the opening count, as you say, the introduction, actually, donald trump was the 45th president of the united states, and the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election. >> establishing fact. >> the fact that that's even contested by anybody, given all the evidence from trumpers here. all the evidence! it shows you what a deranged twisted world view has taken

place because of donald trump. people are rotting in jail right now because of donald trump. it's the 45-page indictment for the 45 president of the united states, and it's there in the second sentence, donald trump lost the election, and he can believe he won but you can't break the law because of that belief. it would be a remarkable thing to see the former president in a federal courthouse this time in washington, d.c., and some say in the mar-a-lago case he drew a sympathetic judge, but not in this case. of course, they are deeply

worried about this case. we have shorthanded this for a year or so now, and the january 6th investigation -- it really only plays a small part of this and it's a cameo at the end, and this is about the big lie, and this is a month's long effort to overturn the will of the people, to overturn the results of a fair and free election, and to try and attack, willie, the heart of our democracy. this may not be the easiest case to prove, but it's certainly the most important. it's one that puts our entire democracy on trial as donald trump tries to run for president again. >> we were talking about the judge, tanya chutkan. she was confirmed to the united states state by a vote of 95-0,

and that includes votes from marco rubio and ted cruz, and all the republicans that we expect to go after her. but back to the 45-page indictment, the idea that trump thought he won the case in the indictment, this indictment blows that up. jack smith the special counsel says i totally agree, you have the right to say whatever you want, you can lie until you are blue in the face, and you did, but what you don't have the right to do is take action to overturn the results of the 2020 election. >> yeah, and jack smith put that up at the top of the indictment, actually. donald trump had the belief that

he won and he can articulate it as long as he wants, but he does not have the right to transform that belief into illegal conduct, and that's where you have the issue. if it has not started already, the attacks on the judge could have started, and claire mccaskill put her finger on something that has to happen before the healing of this country, put this trial on tv so every american, no matter who you voted for or who you believe, you could hear listings of facts, not myth or politics but facts, and you will hear witnesses that could testify to the facts, and that would be a great thing for the health of the democracy. >> that's a great point.

it's one that one of our guests have been making. we saw and heard the faces and the voices of the people that worked with donald trump and said they made please with him to stop what was happening on january 6th, and stop lying about the 2020 election, and that's an important point. >> the sad reality, again, to reinforce it, there are so many facing the consequence for those believing the lies and going to the capital on that day. we have bob woodward, former u.s. attorney, and washington correspondent for "the new york times," michael schmitt, and georgetown law professor, paul butler, and charlie sykes joins

us this morning. >> walk us through this. what should we expect to see over the next several months? >> what we will see will be the beginning of the process we would see in any prosecution. there will be an exchange of discovery by the prosecution to the defendant. it primarily goes that direction in criminal cases. we will see donald trump file a flury, very likely, of pretrial motions designed to challenge the legally of the indictment. we can expect to see that full range of claims that we have seen him seemingly try on in public over the next few months. but this indictment is crafted in a highly strategic fashion that makes those sorts of defenses irrelevant to the debate. jack smith makes it clear as he designs this indictment. the former president is charged with his conduct and not his

speech. there will be no sort of a first amendment defense that will work against these charges. in all things he seems to have been deliberate about all the charges he selected and about the fact he uses to underline them so they could take away some of the defenses we are talking about, and one is that donald trump acted on what he believed to be true, that he won the election. it comes down to willful blindness. everybody around him told him that he lost. he exhausted all his legal avenues for challenging that, and that's when he pushes ahead and that's where jack smith charged him with the criminal conduct pfp >> you look at the 63 cases on

the election fraud conspiracy theory all thrown out by courts, whether they are liberals or federal society members, they are all thrown out. you look at what georgia's supreme court did in that case on a state level, throwing out all his challenges day after day. you look at what the d.c. circuit has done over the past months and years, actually, thrown out the privileged challenges he or others may have made. the supreme court of the united states, the same there. it seems to me that donald trump -- i don't know if his lawyers have the nerve to tell him this, but if he doesn't win it in that courtroom, he will not win it on appeal. >> that's right. think of two kinds of defenses the former president is offering. one, his main defense, it's political.

it's to try and win re-election and then point an attorney general who will dismiss the case. he might also try to pardon himself, and that would set up a battle with the supreme court, or at least send the case to the supreme court for it to decide. the legal defense we have heard so far is that he was acting on the advice of counsel. that will not fly. or that he did not have criminal intent, that what he was doing was part of his presidential responsibilities to assure the election was fair, and that will not fly. and then the defense involving the first amendment. you cannot say things that are not true to avert the democracy, and that's what that the indictment accuses the former president of doing. >> bob woodward, we have had

people say this morning, as we look through the indictment, watergate was bad, but this 45-page indictment looks watergate look quaint in comparison. >> nobody will ever make watergate quaint because of the tapes, but this is an astonishing moment as people have noted in this indictment. go back to the january 6th committee. they laid out the facts, and the problem jack smith had, what is the crime to fit these facts? he found in the criminal code, 18 usc section 371. it sounds kind of technical, but actually that section clearly lays out and nails these facts.

what trump is alleged to have done is defraud the u.s. government and in a very important supreme court decision written 100 years ago by chief justice taft who had been president then and went to the supreme court, the hammerschmitt case, and taft says this section of the law says if you do something dishonest, you violated the law. throughout this indictment trump's behavior on all of this, the core is dishonesty, dishonest behavior by means that are dishonest. it actually laces up a history

that goes way back, and it really inshrines what the january 6th committee did, and news reporting by your network and lots of other organizations saying these are the facts. it couldn't be clearer. >> joyce, everyone knows that 50 years ago bob woodward, ben bradley and kathleen graham in the "washington post" helped to prop up and save democracy. i think it was 49 years ago at some point this week, maybe yesterday or the day before, that a principle counsel to the president of the united states, john ehrlichman was sentenced to jail for his part in the cover-up. it struck me reading the 45-page jack smith indictment yesterday that there was an element in there -- you can correct me and

point out what happened -- but an element in there that was familiar and may have been part of ehrlichman's sentence, and why he was sentenced? >> you have a great memory for this, mike. you are absolutely right. we are talking about the fourth charge against trump, and it's the third conspiracy for those trying to keep score at home, and i guess civil rights attorneys like myself, i guess we are a rare breed, but this criminal code is about a civil rights conspiracy. and ehrlichman gets charged with the same charge we are seeing now against donald trump with the watergate, and i will read a sentence that clarifies how the charges are against him.

trump is charged with entering into a conspiracy designed to intimidate one or more free persons in the enjoyment and a right and privilege secured to them by the constitution and laws of the united states, that is the right to vote and to have one's vote counted. that's what the former president stands charged with. something we learned in the ehrlichman case before he was appealed is what that meant before the state of mind, that the government has to prove this against the defendant, and the government will have to show that trump engaged in conduct, he intended to engage in conduct that would deprive people of constitutional rights that are well known and firmly established. that raw and legal language is in many ways so antiseptic, but

what it shows is this former president wanted to end our right to choose, and that's the echo back to watergate. >> michael schmitt, according to yesterday's indictment, a top adviser increasingly became -- well, it appears to be rudy giuliani. on december 8th, a senior campaign adviser that spoke with the defendant on a daily basis and informed him on multiple cases that various fraud claims were untrue expressed frustration that many of coconspirator one and his legal teams' claims could not be substantiated, as early as november, for instance, the senior campaign adviser informed

the defendant that his claims of a large number of dead voters in georgia were untrue. with respect to the persistent false claim regarding the arena wrote, when we can't back up any of the claims made by our elite strike force legal team, you can see why we are 0 for 32 on our cases. i'll obviously hustle to help on all fronts but it's tough to own any of this when it's just conspiracy, expletive -- and you are looking at jack smith's approach to all of this. what do instances like these tell you about these counts against the former president and a speedy trial? >> what is sort of remarkable

about the document and the case that it has laid out and the story that is laid out is how much the people around the president, republicans, people who had been loyal to the president, were telling him over and over again there was nothing to this. this is folks at the justice department. these are folks on the campaign. these are aides at the white house. this is littered -- more than littered, but this is a theme throughout the entire indictment. it shows time and time again trump had been told by people who knew and who he relied on before that there was nothing to this. that helps enforce the idea that he was engaging in this effort that was corrupt to overturn the election. that even if he says he believed this stuff, he should have known

based on the overwhelming things that these people were telling him, that the election had not been stolen, that he had lost fair and square. it's part of what, i think, made the january 6th report so compelling and what makes this indictment so compelling. it's relying on the people around the president to show what he had been told, and that he was being repeatedly told this, and that he was ignoring it. it helps to develop a narrative of the corrupt intent. it shows how deep -- deep-seeded and destructive this campaign was that he was engaged in. i think it's really what helped make the entire case that was laid out yesterday something as strong as legal experts have said that it is.

it will be very interesting to see, you know, when this goes to trial, what the testimony of those individuals looks like. we know from the january 6th committee and the videos they put up of the transcripts -- i mean of the interviews of the witnesses and what those witnesses look like, and you can then have them on the witness stand. >> charlie sykes, i have been this morning talking about this morning while there is much to be distressed about when you look at our former party, when you look at certain news networks, and as mike barnicle said earlier, and you don't normally hear this from mike barnicle, rays of sunshine, and he talked about -- i am glad mike had rays of sunshine in an otherwise depressing day for the

red sox nation, and so in a deeply disturbing indictment for the former president of the united states, and we have been talking about the republicans presented this entire case to jack smith, no "new york post" editorials -- they are not just republicans, but trumpers that stayed with him from charlottesville through two impeachments. you name it. that's something to take heart in. i do feel though that it's important to repeat for the second time, the response from republican officials, from tim scott to kevin mccarthy. you and i never saw this coming from these people that we both

know, that we both like, but never could have imagined in a million years where donald trump's people say he was trying to subvert american democracy. they can't just come out and condemn that sort of action. instead they try and turn it on joe biden, or hunter biden or the rule of law. it's really distressing. >> well, and, you know, it's familiar by now, right? they say nothing matters and donald trump's poll numbers will go up. let me give you the flip side and not to be too optimistic there. the effect of jack smith's indictment is to flood the zone with criminality, and they want to talk about crime and hub and the border.

instead this is what they are going to get. think about donald trump. he's running for president in 2024, and there will be donald trump the fraudster, donald trump the rapist, and donald trump who lied on the election and tried to overturn democracy. this is what is going to suck up all the oxygen. the republicans are going through the motions, but they bought the ticket and this is what they signed up for. if they are going to latch themselves to donald trump, what will come out is january 6th, the big lie, in a loop. it's worthwhile reminding ourselves that they are not the

only people that vote in presidential elections. in fact, you have independents and democrats that need to be motivated, and we are going to have a remarkable year. being a criminal defendant is very time consuming, and among them, many unprecedented things, we never had a candidate for the president of the united states never had so much on his calendar at a time when he is running a campaign. it will be interesting to see how that plays out. >> it's staggering. we spoke to david a while ago, and many that were around him day in and day out voted for donald trump in 2016 and '20. what we have seen is an

exhaustion level where the same people that gleefully told me they voted for donald trump, and now they are throwing their arms up and saying can't do it anymore, he will lose again and he's going to jail. i learned in politics, anecdotal evidence adds up quick. if you are hearing the same thing from your republican community that we are hearing from ours? >> i sat down with david on my podcast the other day and we went through all of this. the problem is that we have been doing this now for seven years. it is one thing, you know, to make one rationalization after another, but it's exhausting,

and there's so much dishonesty on so many different levels, and if you are not bothered by the big lie and the effort to overturn a democracy, what about rape and the espionage act? the cumulative weight of all this, it's all going to come to a head in early 2024 if these trials go ahead. just imagine what these trials will be like. think the o.j. trial times ten, and the january 6th committee times 1,000. it will be inescapable, and at some point republicans have to look at each other and say is this worth it? how much further are we going to go? the burden is getting more and

more unbearable. they signed up for this, all the polls would suggest. this indictment drops the same day when donald trump is tied with joe biden in the polls, and so they have made their choice and they will get it good and hard. >> you would think even some republicans would say what mike pence said yesterday, and he said today's indictment serves as a important reminder that somebody that serves over the constitution should never be president of the united states. if you will allow me to engage on putting you on the spot here, some of the prison sentences on the other side of these cases if convicted, and there's no indication this is being offered by the special counsel, you can

see the maximum prison sentences on the right side of the screen, and are there any that are saying we have to cut a deal, we have to keep you out of jail, because if it's not this one it could be the mar-a-lago case, and would you be looking to cut a deal if you are donald trump's team? >> if you are donald trump's defense team, you are absolutely looking to cut a deal. that's what happens in 90% of the federal prosecutions. the defendant ends up pleading guilty. the defense team would love that given the strength of the evidence in all of these cases, but especially the federal prosecutions. the problem is the defense team is beholden to their client who has political and personal issues with pleading guilty. at the end of the day, if he does not want to go to prison,

his best choice is to try and work out a deal with jack smith that consolidates both cases and a guilty plea that either results in no prison time, which would be a tough call for jack smith, but he might be able to make it, or little prison time. the judge, if she gets to sentence donald trump, she is likely to throw the book at him based on her experience with other january 6th cases. of the 24 judges in the d.c. district court who have had january 6th-related cases, judge chutkan is the toughest sentencer. >> we should underline the special counsel, jack smith, has given no indication there's a

deal on the table, but it's just a hypothetical -- >> yeah, and donald trump said he didn't want a deal. bob woodward, we want to give you the final word now. in this singular american moment, where do we go from here? >> i think there's optimism in all of this, and it's a very important theme line. that is that we talk about being in the post truth era where facts don't matter. as we know the old way, facts did matter, and there are roughly four standards in establishing facts. do you have witnesses? do you have participants? do you have contemporaneous

notes? do you have documents? look at this indictment. what is -- what underlines every element of it, every fact? a firsthand witness, a participant. some sort of contemporaneous notes or documents. here's the memo that john eastman wrote. it's complete. it is verified. it is authentic, so we, in a way, when you look back at this indictment, it has revived this idea central to democracy and our news business, facts matter. >> bob woodward, joyce vance, paul schmitt, and charlie sykes.

thank you all. >> that's important what bob woodward said. we have newscasters that lied repeatedly about the big lie, and news network that had to pay a billion, and will have to pay another billion probably, and so facts do matter. the journey over the last few years, people lie repeatedly and never thought there was a consequence to it. we have seen time and again over the past six months the laws of gravity are returning to this society, to this republic, and this is just the latest and maybe the most dramatic of that.

still ahead on "morning joe," should president biden be speaking about president trump's indictment? we are going to ask jen psaki about that just ahead. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. [ tires screeching ] director: cut! jordana, easy on the gas. force of habit. i gotta wrap this commercial, i think i'm late on my payment. it's okay, the general gives you a break when you need it. yeah, we let you pick your own due date so you can pay your car insurance when it's best for you. well that's good to know, because this next scene might take a while. [ helicopter and wind noises ] for a great low rate, go with the general.

that? >> this is an unprecedented and precedented moment in history, and this is about donald trump and not joe biden. you want to leave space for the

significance of the indictment that we all have read through and highlighted and left notes in, and not make it about the presidential campaign or political campaign. while they let it breathe right now, which i think is the right thing to do, they are going to, at some point, have to figure out how to run against donald trump and the details of the types of things in here. in the contrast, there's not a lot about get into the specifics of the indictment or donald trump's criminal challenges or the legal cases or what will be said in hearings, and it's about the contrast of what joe biden will represent if elected to a second term, and what trump would represent. january 5th, 2021, if we all remember, it was the day where it was the election in georgia

where warnock and ossoff were elected in the special election, and we were thinking about a delay in the certification of the outcome and delays on the floor, and i am talking about something done from members of those around trump, and that's what stuck out to me. we still have a lot of time to go. trump is not going to be mute. he will be out there on the campaign trail, and we have seen him already try to get his people to come out and he's raising money. that's the thing to watch. but if you are in the white house, you want this to be about trump because that's the right thing for history and politically for them in this moment as well. >> you know, jen, we all did -- certainly you said you did, and

i will say i did as well, underestimate the weeks to which he would go to overthrow this election. i will also admit i underestimated republican office holders and how long they would go to support donald trump. there would be a collective panic when you would see the michigan speaker in the house ahead of the senate go for donald trump, and then donald trump would say mike pence agrees with me, and pence pushed back time and time again on the

lies. pence met resistance from republican office holders and appointees. >> maybe jack smith is a better communicator than we give him credit for. as a takeaway, the officials in these states, and georgia stuck out to me as all of these officials standing up time and time again. we knew this from all of the reporting and discussion from the last couple of years, but it does stand out to you. also on page 36 of this indictment, if people have not read through it, i recommend they do it. it starts out with the conversations with mike pence, and i can't get it out of my

head, this moment when the chief of staff was concerned because donald trump essentially threatened him in a private meeting who was concerned about mike pence's safety, and his chief of staff was so concerned about his safety because the violence here and the threats was of no concern, it seems, as you read this indictment. that also stuck out to me. coming up, did jack smith set a trap for donald trump? nbc's ken duh lanen joins the conversation next on "morning joe." new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today.

dilanian. >> what's remarkable about this indictment, is it starts off with jack smith acknowledging that donald trump not only had right to claim fraud in the election. he had the first amendment right to lie, but not to launch a campaign of what smith called pervasive and destabilizing lies and act on it. that crossed the line into criminal conspiracy. and the indictment charges three separate conspiracy. conspiracy to defraud the united states. conspiracy to obstruct that official proceeding of congress on january 6th and conspiracy to deprive voters of their rights in seven states. what i found remarkable, because there wasn't a lot of reporting on this along the way, i was wondering whether they were

going to charge -- and they did -- the plot to subvert the justice department, which i found to be the most dangerous part of the whole thing. remember, jeffrey clark, coconspirator number four in this indictment, wanted the doj to send a letter to states saying that the justice department had found pervasive fraud in the election and we recommend you call your legislature into special session. and the trump-appointed career people at the justice department said that's crazy, we're not doing that and they stopped it. jack smith has charged it in a conspiracy as part of this indictment here. and the indictment doesn't charge donald trump with inciting the violence on january 6th. it doesn't charge him with seditious conspiracy. but what it clearly articulates towards the end, is that donald trump, as the indictment puts it, tried to exploit and did exploit the violence at the capitol on january 6th, to continue his alleged campaign to try to delay and subvert the

lawful transfer of power. in part, by calling seven separate lawmakers. there's new evidence about call ing senators, as the violence was unfolding and asking them to continue to delay. and the last thing i'll say, and i'm stealing from chuck rosenberg here. forgive me, chuck. there are legitimate defenses, despite all of the evidence that you laid out, a lot of people i talk to think that donald trump could persuasively claim that he legitimately believed that the election was stolen and/or that he was relying on the advice of lawyers. but the problem with that defense is it seems it would require him to testify at the trial. who else can talk about donald trump's state of mind? and that obviously would be legally disastrous. so, it's a real trap that jack smith has set for donald trump in a breathtaking 45-page indictment, guys. >> it is a breathtaking 45-page indictment. it is narrow. it is focused. it is powerful for the reasons

that ken pointed out. willie, first of all, he doesn't have to prove that donald trump is responsible for the riot. and secondly, he gives up in the beginning. he has a right to lie, if he wants to lie. he has a right to lie. and he moves on to the conspiracies that he took part in where he lays it out specifically. >> the rights of voters. >> rights of voters. and jeffery clark's name many there, makes erik hershman present. a donald trump lawyer that defended him to the end until january 6th, telling jeffrey clark, you better get yourself a good criminal defense attorney. and we found out yesterday afternoon, about 5:30, that erik hirschman was right. >> the people in the trenches right up to the end, knew when it was time to get out, including hirschman.

"the new york post" is playing it straight today. conspiracy to defraud the united states. donald trump against democracy. this is headline news not just in the country but around the world. chuck rosenberg, your name was invoked by ken. i'll let you have a crack of the 45-page document. what do you see in it? what's there? and what is not there? >> it was an extraordinary indictment. prosecutors don't put things in an indictment unless they can prove it. as joe so well articulated are hoards of high-ranking republican officials, who told mr. trump over and over, that he was wrong, that the election was fairly held. that he had lost, that there was no basis to challenge it once all of his appeals and lawsuits had been denied.

i can do it on what you say or what you're told. and this indictment is replete with what mr. trump was told over and over again, that he had lost the election. so, i think ken is exactly right to point out, that there's not a first amendment concern in bringing these charges. it's not what he believes. not even what he said. it's what he did. the crime is what he did. now, again, the department of justice doesn't put things in the indictment that it can't prove. i would imagine that all of these witnesses, overwhelmingly, high-ranking republican officials in the trump administration have gone before the grand jury and have testified under oath.

that will endeuced at trial. coming up, "the washington post" jackie alomine, how the republican leaders are responding now that their leader could face time in federal prison. "morning joe" is coming right back. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. there's nothing like clearer skin and better movement-and that means everything! ask your doctor about skyrizi today. learn how abbvie could help you save. the chase ink business premier card is made for people like sam, who make- everyday products, designed smarter. like a smart coffee grinder,

that orders fresh beans for you. oh, genius! for more breakthroughs like that- i need a breakthrough card. like ours! with 2.5% cash back on purchases of $5,000 or more. plus unlimited 2% cash back on all other purchases. and with greater spending potential, sam can keep making smart ideas- a brilliant reality! the ink business premier card from chase for business. make more of what's yours.

welcome to the fourth hour of "morning joe." it's 6:00 a.m. on the west coast. 9:00 a.m. in the east. we continue our coverage now of yesterday's unprecedented events out of washington. the second federal indictment of former president donald trump. third overall indictment. the 45-page document lays out four felony charges against the

former president. conspiracy to defraud the united states. conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding. and conspiracy against rights. all for his alleged efforts to stay in power after losing the 2020 election. trump is scheduled to make his first appearance at 4:00 p.m. in washington, d.c. >> we've been talking about how this testimony came from people that supported donald trump, through and through. for our friends on the west coast, we'll get to some of that. for those across the rest of the country watching this morning, they'll say, okay, we get that. they are all trumpers or republicans. it is so important to remember, these people who testified against donald trump, that stood

up to lie after lie after lie, about him winning the election supposedly, they testified against their own interest. mike pence stood to gain power by being vice president for eight years and being next in line to be the successor of donald trump. all of those white house employees, they didn't want to leave on january 20th, 2021. you talk to people that work in the white house. they tell you, that's one of the most depressing moments when you're in there and, whoosh. mika told me a story of her father being national security adviser. having the red phone. ronald reagan raises his hand, secret service rip out the red line. they say, bye. they drive away after being there for four years. everything changes. that's why it's so important. these people that have all, all

testified against donald trump, these people that stood up to his lies, to his attempt to overturn democracy. they were doing it, not just against his interests. they were doing it against their own best interests. which makes jack smith's indictment the read all the more compelling. >> it is. the power of the document just as it was the power of the document by the january 6th committee. they took great pains to make sure it was the people in the room. it was the advisers. the cabinet members who were supportive of donald trump up to that point and finally said, you lost that election. and i heard about this thing in michigan. nope. that didn't happen. what about this in arizona? nope. didn't happen. and calling not just on the people in the room in washington, but local officials. the attorneys general in those states and people that run

county elections in those states. sir, respectfully, there's nothing wrong with the election here. we looked and looked and looked. that is why this is a powerful document. it comes from people in real-time, documented in the 45 pages saying, sir, you lost. you lost. and that takes away his argument that's being made already this morning by his defenders and his attorneys, which is that he was acting in good faith. he was saying, yes. i actually believed i lost the elections. that's not a crime. i thought i lost. i wanted to right that wrong. chapter and verse. 45 pages. adviser after adviser, cabinet member after cabinet member. there's no basis for your claims that this election was stolen. it was secure and you, sir, lost. and donald trump knew it. >> as you go through the

investigation, that told him he lost, and told him that he lost the election. and told him his last day in office was january 20th, 2021. you go to the states, six, seven swing states. he went to the speaker of the house in arizona saying, no, mr. president. no. we can't do that. the speaker of the house in michigan, another republican, a guy who said donald trump was a great president. he did everything he could to re-elect him. what did he do? he dade the same exact thing. i supported donald trump. all the republican officials in maricopa county. over and over again, recounting. these republicans saying, mr. president, you didn't win. we go to georgia and the infamous recording that's going to get indicted over the next couple weeks. all big trump supporters.

they're the ones that make up the backbone of this indictment. >> let's look at the indictment. rusty bowers was the speaker at the time. this is what he told the january 6th committee. take a listen. >> did you ask mr. giuliani about the assertions he was making? >> on multiple occasions. i said, do you have names? for example, we have 200,000 illegal immigrants, some large number. 5,000 or 6,000 dead people, et cetera. and i said, do you have their names? yes. will you give them to me? yes. the president interrupted and said, give the man what he needs, rudey. he said, i will. and that happened on two

occasions. >> did you receive that evidence, during the call, after the call or to this day? >> never. >> at some point, did one of them make a comment that they didn't have evidence but had a lot of theorys? >> that was mr. giuliani. >> what did he say and how did that come up? >> my recollection, he said, we have the theories, we just don't have the evidence. >> jonathan lamere back with us. the investigative reporter, jackie alemany. and neil atimal and host of "the beat" and national affairs analyst john heilemann. ari, i'd like to start with you. can we talk tomorrow at 4:00, what can we expect? >> well, i think we have the federal arraignment and the president of his last one. you have seen how that looks.

and donald trump's crowds, the type of things that he threatened didn't materialize on the last one. it should be a fairly orderly process. shouldn't take that long. these are the most serious charges that donald trump has been indicted on. and the only time, now that he has three indictments stacked up, but he's never been indicted for actions in office. that's worse. it's a higher bar. and it speaks to the real seriousness of the charges for him as a federal defendant and someone who could be convicted. after his appeals can be incarcerated or convicted. it speaks to the heaviness, the gravitas of all of that. so, the arraignment should be straightforward. the charges are serious. this is the biggest indictment he faces. >> we can tell what donald

trump's defense is going to be. it's no defense at all. two nondefenses. they're talking about the first amendment. jake smith takes off of the playing field in the first couple paragraphs. he really did think he won. of course,there's so much evidence that he told other people that he lost. and he couldn't believe that he lost to joe biden. just for argument's sake, say if he did think he lost. when you think you lose an election, you challenge it through proper channels. you go through the courts. you get the recounts. then, you accept the outcome of it. you don't try to launch a riot against the united states capitol. there's no defense there, is there? >> no. you're right. the idea that trump believed that he won, despite all of the

evidence over and over again. trump will try that defense. i don't think it will cut the mustard. the only way it possibly could, is if trump wanted to argue that he was insane and try some sort of insanity defense or something like that. just because you won the election, doesn't mean you can take the different actions to subvert the will of the people over and over again. whether it's the fake electors plot. calling on people to january 6th to washington, d.c. to disrupt the most sacred moments we have in our democracy, accounting of our votes. that's why ari is right to say, not only is this the most significant indictment that donald trump is facing, i would say the most significant indictment that anyone has faced in the united states.

this 45-page indictment paints the picture of a man in office and is imperilling american democracy. and with respect to the first amendment claim that trump has, you're absolutely right. on page 2, jack smith neutralizes this thing. of courses, you have a first amendment right, but the idea this is all speech. that's a guy that orders someone to kill someone else, and orders a hitman, and says, i was just speaking. i didn't actually do it. if the crime is committed through speech, you have no first-amendment defense. the gravity of this moment cannot be overstated here. this is not like anything we talked about on our program in our lifetime. this is as serious as it gets. >> i encourage every american, no matter what side you're on, to read it and make the

assessment for yourself. what does it mean that donald trump is the sole defendant. there's six coconspirators and sorted through, rudy giuliani, john eastman. what does it mean that there's just one defendant listed here? >> i think jack smith was doing this for getting this trial on the road. he's looking at the clock in november '24 election. and the possibility that trump or some other republican might win and stop a trial that's not complete. and so, what he has done, is this is one person, donald trump. reading the indictment, it seems like other people, like jeffrey clark, will face indictments. they will be in separate cases. and the reason for that, when you have joint trials and joint defendants, it slows things down. we face this with the george

floyd murder, that was committed primarily by derek chauvin, but was committed by three officers. do you try one and go faster or try them all, that would result in a slower trial? jack smith has opted to go faster, charing just one. but all the other six are under alert. they know they are targets. they have done -- they're named as -- not by name. but singled out as committing serious federal crimes. this is where the conspiracy doctrine which is three of the four charges comes in. this doctrine has roots to flip the other defendants. and what these other six people are on notice of, you better cooperate with jack smith, otherwise you're looking at your own indictment. the facts of this indictment aren't all written in stone yet. there's more to come for any of the six or more to come.

>> anybody who has watched this show for the past six months knows you wrote the book on january 6th. it must have been fascinating reading this charging document against donald trump for events surrounding the big lie. tell me your takeaways from it. anything surprising in there? was the biggest surprise that somebody came together and pieced together just a horrifying, horrifying narrative? >> yeah. we've been discussing. so much of the work was done by the january 6th house committee. they laid it out for the public to see last summer. it was the impetus, mr. believe, for the doj drive. we have gone over it extensively. journalists across washington and new york, each and every day. still, when put together and concisely in a lean, indictment,

it is remarkable and stunning to see it laid out there. as you've been mentioning, joe, republicans, they're providing the evidence. they tried to stand up to trump to tell him no. say, sir, you lost this election. it is the second sentence. donald trump lost this election. and again, this is really about the big lie. far more so than the events of january 6th. it's what about what happened to bring us to that day. and let's remember, jackie, there's lots of members of congress, republicans who voted to decertify joe biden's win who are serving there. they went with that, after the rioters on capitol hill. congress is on recess. those that want to avoid the matter can, at least for the time being. they won't be able to forever. what is your early sense how trump's allies will respond to this. in particular, house speaker mccarthy, at the end of last week, seemed to be moving away

from an impeachment inquiry towards president biden. do you think this need to provide cover for trump, could push him back in that direction? >> yes, jon. the house gop is trump's biggest fan and biggest allies, as he is seeking to push back against jack smith, as forcefully and publicly as possible. the house conference has made this a key part of the oversight investigations. hence, the creation of the weaponization committee. as you noted repeatedly, their job in spinning this indictment and this investigation in particular, is going to be a lot more challenging and different than the past few indictments. that's because, after alvin bragg's indictment, it was easier for the gop's investigative panels to issue subpoenas and to attack alvin

bragg. you saw the issue, three dozen subpoenas of people involved with the sdny investigation. they brought in mark pomerance, the former prosecutor that left office after it became clear that trump was not going to be indicted and the investigation was stymied. this time around, all of this evidence is from republicans, supporters of trump. most of them former supporters of trump. some of them still working for trump. some of the people working closely with the former president now on his campaign, are also people who have been cooperating with the justice department. some of the six coconspirators are involved with the campaign in certain ways. this will be a heavier lift for house republicans, as they come back to congress in september.

>> nichols has a piece called "this is the case." this is the moment that will determine our democracy. any form of association with trump is reprehensible. that each of us will draw moral conclusions about anyone who continues to support him. that these conclusions will guide our political and personal choices. our democracy is about to go in legal and electoralsurvival. if we don't speak up to each other and the media and officials, and trump defeats us by regaining power and making a mockery of american democracy, then we'll all have lost a lot more than a few friendships.

we face trump a dedicated enemy of our constitution. and if he returns to office, his next administration will be a gang of felons, good evenings and resentful mediocrities, all of them who will gladly serve trums sociopathic needs while greedily dividing the spoils of power. >> tom nichols suggesting this moment is a dividing line. i find in politics, even though it's shocking, sometimes it takes a little more time for more people to move over. i'm curious, this indictment, along with the georgia indictment coming up, is going to have, not on the primary or the fund-raising. let's face it, it helps him with his base. looking out over the horizon in the general election.

>> i mean, joe, the question presumes a couple things. you said a second ago, we now know has been evident for months and more evident than ever in the last couple weeks in the polling, that this legal onslaught that trump is facing, unprecedented, historic, damning in many ways, is a political asset to him in the limited sense of the strength of the republican party. >> right now, for trump to not be the republican nominee, are outside of the lines of precedent, at looking at contests. the lead is dominant. it's prohibitively large right now. power of the party has been undented by any of this. so, if we assume he's going to be the republican nominee, i think the two most important questions in american politics now, are both relate to questions of legal proceeding. legal procedure.

neal katyal, ari, some members of the panel may have a better sense than i do. i think these are the pertinent political questions. which if any of these cases are going to be heard in a court of law before november of 2024. that timeline, can trump stall out the clock and get through to election day without having faced any of the these charges in a court of law? that's number one. and number two, if one of any of this case or any of these other cases, does go before this case and the documents case. if they get in front of the court, are they going to be televised or not? i will say, if the cases are not televised, not only will we miss the opportunity of educating the public about what actually happened here, but we will plant the seeds of further polarization, further conspiracy

theorizing. if the cases are not on television, will believe they never happened. will believe that it was all made up. they will think that it is -- these cases are the moon landing that somehow it all took place on a sound stage in burbank. we will have deeper distrust between the right and the left over there, unless we show people in real-time the evidence and the proceedings that take place against trump. those two questions, i think determine a lot. will we get in front of a jury in any of the cases? and will any of the cases be televised? that's the ball game for me on the politics of it. >> that was so much of the power of the january 6th committee hearings is that we got to see them. we saw the witnesses. we heard from the witnesses. we got to watch them tell their stories. ari, i put the questions to you, as you look at this matrix of cases, two federal cases. you have alvin bragg in

manhattan. you have fani willis, the d.a. pursuing her face. maybe announcement of charges there in the last week or so. how do judges coordinate? how do they coordinate? do they fit together? and what's the likelihood of seeing one, two, three or all of them before the election? >> all of the cases are scheduled before the election. we know how legal cases can be delayed. this on the conspiracy could come the fastest. it has no coconspirators, and no classified information unlike florida. federal documents don't have cameras in the courtroom. that's why we're familiar with the antiquated sketches we see. those aren't just a nod to a "new yorker" style affection for cartoons in court. they are an old-fashion reflection that we don't have still cameras, let alone video cameras in court. there's ways you can imagine, if this were an episode of "24" to

find loopholes, are an exception. if we're following precedent, you're not going to see cameras in the court. the broader point that was raising at in "the atlantic" article, is we're talking about the effort to turn this nation into a dictatorship. alleged crimes and violence, which we all did see on tv that day, to stop the lawful transition of power to president biden. you see the way and the way people kind of see things or move off things, with an emergency. i think it's true. there's a group of people that follow the news less than us and our viewers. and less than people in politics that moved on from this in a way, that they might not have moved on from 9/11 or other national emergencies, that required -- as this does, if you

see indicted crimes of accountability. the only difference with "the atlantic" piece is, all of that is fair if this is true or convicted. true is something we have to deal with in society. what happened. convicted is a legal standard. so, in fairness the defendant who is presumed innocent, if he were to be acquitted, if he were to beat this case, we would all, as journalists and citizens, deal with that and honor that. we have a system for that. if we draw a line, there's new evidence that came out yesterday, including around page 40. the evidence that somebody inside the oval office said after the violence began, trump said out loud, in affirmation of it, this is what happens when they steal an election from him. another lie. basically, he was for using it into the night, calling senators. continuing to use what happened that day in the service of a coupe. smith treats that as evidence. that sounds strong, as chuck

said on "morning joe" today, you have to prove that. i think he has a witness in the room. but in fairness to the defendant, if you go to trial and somebody disproved that or they come out with a recording that trump said something better than that, that's what we have trials for. we have to get to the truth through this process. >> ari melber, busy day ahead. we'll watch "the beat" as we do every night. 6:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. ari, thanks so much. neal, before we let you go, you've been emphasizing this point, that we need transparency here. this trial has to be televised. why is it so important? and number two, what is the likelihood it will be? >> i understand ari to be making a descriptive point saying this trial will likely not be televised. darn it. i don't think we can settle for this. this is the most momentous case.

and one of the most important procedures in the history of the united states. the idea it will take place in a closed courtroom, where americans can't see this for their own -- with their own eyes, i think is unforgivable and undemocratic to the extreme. this is run by the chief justice and authorizing it or a law passed by congress. that raises its own issues because congress seems incapable of acting in any way, shape or form when it comes to this or any other issues. i think a judicial conference is the way to go. there's a precedent here. in the george floyd murder, minnesota never had a televised criminal trial in its history. it was a rule that forbade it. but the judge authorized it. there was such extreme public need for it. similarly, there's a process here that can be used. i think it should be in a vote. i would like to see it by both

sides in this criminal trial. i don't think either side should hide from the american people. and i think media organizations can go and ask the chief justice, as well. this is important to do. important to do quickly. so we know what rule thes are and whether this trial is going to be televised. neal, thank you for being on. such a consequential moment in history. coming up on "morning joe" almost one year ago, the january 6th select committee voted to refer donald trump to the justice department for prosecution on criminal charges. we'll be joined by an adviser to that committee, as trump now faces a new federal indictment over his efforts to stay in power. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. be right ba. .

two... one. my husband and i have never been more active. shingles doesn't care. i go to spin classes with my coworkers. good for you, shingles doesn't care. because no matter how healthy you feel, your risk of shingles sharply increases after age 50. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever,

and upset stomach. shingles doesn't care but, shingrix protects. shingrix is now zero dollars for almost everyone. ask your doctor about shingrix today.

let innovation refunds help with your erc tax refund so you can improve your business however you see fit. rosie used part of her refund to build an outdoor patio. clink! dr. marshall used part of his refund to give his practice a facelift. emily used part of her refund to buy... i run a wax museum. let innovation refunds help you get started on your erc tax refund. stop waiting. go to innovationrefunds.com you really got the brows. sleepovers just aren't what they used to be. a house full of screens? basically no hiccups? you guys have no idea how good you've got it. how old are you? like, 80? back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights. we don't get scared. oh, really? mom can see your search history. that's what i thought. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity.

32 past the hour. the indictment announced by special counsel jack smith against former president donald trump, were charges built upon the work of the january 6th select committee? take a look. >> the attack on our nation's capitol on january 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of american democracy. it was described in the indictment. it was fueled by lies. >> we were winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually. and our numbers started to miraculously get whittled away in secret. >> lies by the defendant, targeted at striking a bedrock function of the u.s. government.

the nation's process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election. >> i looked at mike pence. and i hope mike is going to do the right thing. i hope so. i hope so. if mike pence does the right thing, we win the election. [ chanting ] >> the men and women of law enforcement who defended the u.s. capitol on january 6th are heroes. they are patriots. and they are the very best of us. >> hold the line. hold the line. >> they did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. they put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. >> the man seized the opportunity of my vulnerability and grabbed the front of my gas mask and used it to beat my head against the door. >> i remember thinking there was a very good chance i would be torn apart or shot to death with my own weapon. >> since the attack on our

capitol, the department of justice has remained committed to ensuring the accountability of those criminally responsible for what happened that day. >> joining us now, former republican congressman denver wriggleman. he served as an adviser for the january 6th select house committee. first of all, your take on the indictment and so many echos from the work that this select committee did. >> i was -- thanks, mika. i was surprised it came that quickly, to be honest. the first thing i looked for was the descriptors. i was looking for to see if mark meadows was described as one of the coconspirators. when i didn't see that descriptor, i had an idea that maybe mark meadows was part of the chain of evidence that jack needed to go forward. when you see the talking about the january 6th committee and how they documented him, which

is a fifth coconspirator, it made me proud. you're looking at that. all the way through december 9th, the three major examples, i believe that the committee made, was just so astounding. what the electors and giuliani and powell. but the other side, the command and control portion hasn't been addressed. don't think jack smith is done with donald trump yet. >> when you look at the potentials. he mentioned mark meadows. there could be a lot of flippers at play. flipping, completely flipping on trump. raising questions. are we going to see conflicting charges or people that have flipped in this case? >> good question. and we've been on mark meadows

watch, not so much us, but donald trump's own people. wondering where he was and worried that he was going to flip for some time. i think the congressman's point that he wasn't listed as a coconspirator, at least yet, suggests that perhaps he did what his lawyer said he was going to do and tell the truth when required to do so by law. i'm curious what your thoughts are with meadows, with pence, how much pence cooperated. and jack smith saying, this is an ongoing investigation. maybe not in that manner. but he did -- he made sure to tell everybody, this is an ongoing investigation. and more people may be named. >> the first two of those questions, joe, are the -- the third question is important.

it speaks to the big magill in the room. and every indication, and stipulating, i'm not a lawyer, but a simple country lawyer like yourself, every notion is that mark meadows has been cooperating and what a lot of the tea leaves here suggests. the things we know, from the indictment, one of the most powerful things in it, i'm sure you mentioned over the course of the coverage this morning, the fact that this quote, which is on the front of newspapers and on websites all over america right now. the quote of mike pence saying you're too honest. and trump saying to pence, when pence refused, you're too honest. why is that important? we know that mike pence, who had to be the source of that quote. that's what mike pence will

testify to if called in this case before a court. the former vice president of the united states will have to get up in a courtroom, in a way he's been able to keep his testimony in secret because of the grand jury, not appear before the 1/6 committee. he's trying to become the republican nominee, potentially. he can be drawn on to the witness stand to say those words. donald trump said you're too honest. and that to me, is an important fact because it leads to the thing, joe, you've been hammering on all morning. that donald trump, by implication, if he is saying pence is too honest, it's another reflection of the fact that trump knew he lost. i think that will be a powerful piece of courtroom testimony and a powerful moment in the drama of this case for republicans seeing mike pence or hearing mike pence, reading mike pence going on the witness stand and hearing those words. that's a big moment we're sure

will happen. >> you're too honest. page 33 of the indictment, if you're reading along at home. on christmas day, six days before the you're too honest moment, vice president pence calls donald trump to wish him a merry christmas. donald trump says, yeah, yeah, yeah, i need you to flip the electors. mike pence says, sir, i don't have the authority to change the outcome of the election. congressman riggleman, we've been talking about this morning about your former colleagues, speaker mccarthy, chief among them, being confronted with this extraordinary indictment and saying what about hunter biden. how do you explain the fear of donald trump supporters, even in the face of this? in the face of the thing they lived through? in the case of the case of speaker mccarthy when he called donald trump, found his courage and yelled at them to stop this, because they're coming to kill

some of us, it would appear, on january 6th. how do you explain after this indictment, your former colleagues -- not all of them. some of your former colleagues hanging in and publicly saying they're willing to look the other way? >> what a question. that's a lot to unpack. i think can i do it. you talk about hunter biden. the what aboutism defense is huge. i have the forensics on the hunter biden data. i've been doing that also. i've seen the same people behind january 6th is behind the biden laptop. and giuliani is one of those indicted. the second thing, when you talk about congressional representatives. there's a huge pucker factor going on with some people in the mark meadows text. the people that were pushing eastman and clark. you look at scott perry and like lee.

you look at the texts and three dozens that we found in the mark meadow text messages. if you look at what the purple team did on the committee. that's why i'm talking about jack smith. right now, we haven't looked at the command and control. how they raised money on the lie. how they targeted people for the moneys. and the moneymaking oermgs operation between november and january. the money that the trump campaign raised. all these things, all of the wrappers coming with jack smith and what the january 6th committee did, i believe this is the tip of the iceberg. i believe the hunter biden laptop will be what aboutisms. and i think the representatives are scared. and we have the control side that was the acquisition pipeline. maybe down to wire fraud and

things like that. i think it's just starting, to be honest. congressman, boy. you rang a lot of bells there. it's fascinating -- >> i can ring some bells. >> you touched on things that i hope our friends that are watching right now heard. there's so many things that have happened that we've all grown numb to. going well, he's doing this. but he's going to get away with this. of course, these doing that. he's going to get away with it. members of congress are trying to push a conspiracy against the united states of america. they're going to get away with it. the one that really -- the bell you rang that i suspect, will be rung again by jack smith, is the big lie as a $250 million profit center.

steve bannon, arrested, indicted, charged and convicted for lying about a scheme to build the wall. that was nothing. that was a spring picnic compared to donald trump raising -- everybody needs to listen to what the congressman just said. donald trump is -- a quarter of $1 billion based on that lie. a quarter of $1 billion. i find it hard to believe that the feds are going to be cool with that. >> i don't think they are. i think it's the biggest conspiratorial grip in the united states. and you look at the other members of congress that were on the stop the steal and that lie. the rnc, how much did they raise? when you stack the moneys today,

you know people are still fund-raising off it today. that's what shocks me is how many american citizens were grifted out of their money, still giving money for this. and it's ridiculous to believe that the election was stolen. by the way. when you look at the next messages from mark meadows. electors and state legislators were texting to mark meadows. the people doing the studies in michigan, all that stuff runs through those text messages. when you look at the money coming in, the other thing that's fascinating, is that mark meadows, at this point, joe, you're right, was not as far as the definition, on the descriptors for the coconspirators. to have the chief of staff, that was involved with every person on that coconspirator list. >> central. >> mark meadows was dealing with every person.

for him not to be on there is a massive indicator to me. >> all right, congressman. denver riggleman. we appreciate it. even with all of the bell ringing. >> mark meadows was central. >> important info. >> thank you, sir. >> i feel like we need to circle back quickly, based on what the congressman just said. we were joking about it at the time. mark meadows, he turned over all of his text messages, right? and donald trump gets mad at him and he says, i'm not going to cooperate anymore. after he gave them everything. and then, donald trump told him that his book was fake news. yes, it's fake news. here's this guy getting pushed back and forth and back and forth. i'm drawing no comparisons here. i'm not going to say it.

>> text it to me. >> there's some conspiracies and international crimes where you find a person that's provided the road map. we'll talk about what i'm thinking about later. >> later. >> i'll say here, mark meadows, i think the congressman's right. i think those text messages not only embarrassed allies at fox news, but provided a road map. a road map that jack smith walked down all the way to this 45-page indictment. >> that's an important point. a lot was made that mark meadows did not come up to testify. by the time he refused to answer, heed a given it all up. given up all of his e-mails and texts and documents. he said, that's my testimony, take it. i want to help you along. i'm not going to show up and be seen on camera testifying. with the weeks ago, he walked

into a federal courthouse, offering no comment. you can see what he did, his extreme cowardice on that day. he said, there's nothing i can do about this. the big guy wants this. and it's going to happen. he's trying to seek some form of redemption by help jack smith make his case. >> or doesn't want to go to jail. cowardice. >> or maybe his wife has said, i don't think you want to go to jail for this guy. >> as we go to break, another moment from the january 6th hearings, concerning coconspirator number two, also known as attorney john eastman. according to the testimony from another white house lawyer, eastman believed violence in the street was an acceptable risk to reach his goal of overturning the election. >> you're going to turn around and tell 8 78 million people in

this country that your theories, this is how you will invalidate their votes because the you think the election was stolen? they're not going to tolerate that. you're going to cause riots in the streets. and he said, words to the effect that there's been violence in the history of our country to protect the democracy.

there's no question, none, that president trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. no question about it. president trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office as an ordinary citizen unless the statute of

limitations is run, still liable for everything he did while he was in office. didn't get away with anything yet. yet. we have a criminal justice system in this country. we have civil litigation. and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one. >> senator mitch mcconnell speaking about donald trump's culpability for the january 6th attack right after trump's acquittal in his second impeachment trial. and yesterday that accountability came from special counsel jack smith. andrew mccarthy, a fox news legal analyst and contributing ed forfor the national review is warning republicans that donald trump, quote, doesn't have a prayer of being elected president again. in a new piece written yesterday, he wrote, in a normal race, the republicans who do not favor trump could be expected to

come home in droves in the general election if he is the nominee. that is not true of trump. it is reasonable to forecast that at least a quarter of republicans will not support trump under any circumstances to have a chance in the general election, trump has to make up that support. but from where? the country has already made up its mind about him. from here there's no up, only down. if we nominate him, he's going to get drubed. >> this is what we heard. we keep talking about friends, relatives, donald trump supporters who have talked to us and said, voted for him twice. can't do it again. some people that didn't vote for him in '20 but were big fans in '16. in '22, they went to vote, they voted for everybody that -- except for, like, the crazy

people trump supported and they said in '24, they just -- they'll either stay home or won't vote for president. none of these people are saying they're going to vote for joe biden. but joe biden doesn't need them. what joe biden needs is for them not to vote for donald trump and that started happening in 2020. with all the votes in wisconsin and other states, right? >> right. and, look, i offer one cautionary word here to everyone who asserts he can't be elected. while a lot of us said before 2020, there's no way donald trump can be competitive in 2020, he hasn't changed a single mind since 2016, he lost the popular vote then. you know, they'll never be able to find all of these new voters out there which they said they were going to do, people who didn't vote for trump in 2016, didn't vote at all, they turned those people out and he increased his number of votes out in 2020. i never want to rule out the possibility of a two-party

system with our electorate college, but there's a way for donald trump to thread the needle and there's all these questions around the lack of enthusiasm for joe biden, et cetera. having said all of that, you know, the notion given everything that's all -- all of that is the prehistory before this insurrection, before these charges, before all of those things that, joe, you and i have talked about endlessly, have made trump all the more toxic in the key suburbs in the five states that are going to determine the election, pennsylvania, georgia, arizona, michigan and wisconsin. the man is in worse state now than he was in 2020, and that is only going to get worse in the general election because of all this legal stuff, this peril, this woe, the cases he's facing. it's going to get worse in the suburbs. >> and the alleged crimes in all five of the states, john just listed, laid out inside these 45 pages. we'll see the president we think tomorrow 4:00 at the courthouse

for his arraignment. assuming he shows up and doesn't do it virtually. final thoughts on a long, historic morning here. >> the mitch mcconnell clip that we played, he did denounce donald trump. afterwards, he voted to not acquit him in that senate impeachment trump. had trump been -- to not find him guilty. if trump had been found guilty, he wouldn't be able to run again now. he still is. he's dominating the republican party and now we will have a campaign in which he's going from courthouse to courthouse while running for president. >> unprecedented, historic, consequential, also really sad. that does it for our coverage this morning. ana cabrera picks up the coverage in 90 seconds. to reduc, but statins can also deplete coq10 levels. that's why my doctor recommended qunol coq10. qunol has the number one cardiologist recommended form of coq10. qunol. the brand i trust.

bridgett is here. she has no clue that i'm here. she has no clue who's in the helmet. are you ready? -i'm ready! alright. xfinity rewards creates experiences big and small, and once-in-a-lifetime. sleepovers just aren't what they used to be. a house full of screens? basically no hiccups? you guys have no idea how good you've got it. how old are you? like, 80? back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights. we don't get scared. oh, really? mom can see your search history. that's what i thought. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity.

this hour on "ana cabrera reports," breaking news on the third indictment of former president donald trump. what happens next now that trump stands charged with conspiracy to defraud the nation he led, accused of scheming and lying to stay in power. >> the attack on our nation's capitol on january 6th, 2021, was an