safety. >> reporter: so a close call on a runway between planes or even vehicles is called a runway incursion, some serious, some not so serious. there were 1,700 last year, up 33% in ten years. back to you. >> i don't like that number at all, tom costello. not one bit. that's going to do it for me today. "deadline: white house" starts right now. ♪ ♪ hi there, everyone. it is 4:00 in the east, and so it begins. the 19 co-defendants indicted for their role to overturn the georgia election and beyond have begun to surrender. it is the attempt to hold them accountable. today a flurry of activity at the fulton county jail.

so far we have seen two of the 19 defendants turn themselves in. first was scott hall, a georgia bail bondsman charged in the coffee county election database. second, the grand architect of the coup donald trump's former law john eastman, a key figure in the attempt to overturn the 2020 election. a potential criminal conviction seemingly not deterring eastman from continuing to repeat the lies about the election that led to him being indicted in the first place. outside after he was processed our colleague asked if he believes the election was stolen. he said, yes, absolutely, no question, no question in my mind. eastman surrendered proving that the warning from a white house lawyer was all to press yent. >> i only want to hear two words out of your mouth from now on, orderly transition. eventually he said, orderly

transition. now i said, good, john. now i will give you the best free legal advice you are getting in your life, get a great criminal defense lawyer, you are going to need it, and then i hung up on him. >> today's activities, of course, coming two days ahead of donald trump turning himself in. he posted on social media that he will travel to atlanta thursday to be arrested. yesterday the disgraced ex-president agreed to a $200,000 bond and his consent order was notable for its specific stipulation, ones that were only found on trump's order. namely, that he is prohibited from intimidating any witnesses or co-defendants including on social media. more surrenders in fulton county look imminent. two men facing charges for the fake electors scheme, david shaffer and georgia state senator sean still, have arranged their bonds and consent orders with the da's office. it is a major contrast to trump's former chief of staff who is now digging in further in

his attempt to move his case to federal court. just moments ago he asked a federal judge to immediately grant his request or sign an order that would prevent da fani willis from arresting him since he will not be surrendering by noon friday. for her part fulton county da fired back with a letter to meadow's attorneys saying this, i am not granting any extensions. i gave two weeks for people to surrender themselves to the court. your client is no different than any other criminal defendant in this jurisdiction. the two weeks were tremendous courtesy. at 12:30 p.m. friday i shall file warrants in the system. that is where we start today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends. from "the new york times" congressional reporter luke fallwater is back with us. plus outside the wright street jail in atlanta, senior reporter for "the atlanta journal-constitution" is back. and former acting u.s. solicitor

journalist neal katyal is with us. neal, i start with you. this is when the inner workings and what i am sure lawyers and people inside the system think really is sort of the blender of the system burst into public view and we see these processes that maybe we have seen in tv shows and movies yield their fruit, things like mug shots are going to start coming out. things like arrest warrants if you don't turn yourself in. i mean this is where i guess the proverbial you-know-what gets real. >> yeah. i mean news4 we are all as americans, we know where criminal justice begins and it starts with an arrest and an indictment, and then there's a mug shot that is taken, there's fingerprints that are taken. there are bail conditions, bond agreements and so on. that's what every criminal defendant has. donald trump, unfortunately, has gotten away even in new york and under the federal indictments with being treat specially.

he didn't get finger printed. he didn't get the mug shot every other criminal defendant does. i'm glad to see georgia saying, not in georgia. we have no two-tiered system of justice here. you will be treated just like every other criminal defendant and we have seen that process unfold today with john eastman and others going to the jail to have the booking and everything else that should happen and, you know, for eastman to have it, so too should trump. they were in it together. >> neal, what do you think is going on with mark meadows and why not just go ahead and turn himself in, and if he succeeds in his efforts to move his case to federal court that would -- there's nothing about being booked that makes that more difficult? >> yeah, i think meadows has been someone who has been talking out of both sides of his mouth, and "the new york times" has a news story about that right now. you know, in a way he seems like a perfect trump henchman. he is like a invertebrate who

doesn't have a commitment to principle or anything else so it is not surprising he finds himself in this position. i think that dance is unlikely to work in the future. he has so far avoided a federal indictment from jack smith, the special counsel, but i think patience is wearing thin and georgia, of course, called him on it and said, no, the stuff that you did, mark meadows, culminates in a criminal indictment. he committed crimes. meadows has filed two different pieces of paper, nicolle, one is to say this belongs in federal court, not state court, and the other is to say he is absolutely immune from prosecution. both are, you know, poppycock to put it mildly. the removal -- for him to move from state prosecution to a federal courthouse requires him to say that he's performing a federal function, and it is true that the president or the chief of staff to the president have

broad powers under our constitution, but the one place our founders said that the line stops, the place where the president is cut out is the electoral college for the most important of reasons. that's the place in which a sitting president has the most self-interest, he can self-deal. our founders, you know, cut them out of that. so meadows and trump were not performing a federal function. they certainly weren't trying to safeguard the integrity of the election process like the cockamamie things they say. of course not. they were just trying -- they were in it for themselves, trying to launch a coup. then this other idea that meadows is absolutely immune as trump has been tweeting this as well on -- i can't think of anything more ridiculous. first of all, back in the nixon administration nixon's chief of staff went to prison for watergate. he didn't get some absolute immunity or anything like that. if this argument were true, nicolle, it would mean biden and

his current chief of staff, jeff zions, could install biden as the next president in 2024 and throw out the popular vote. that can't possibly be how the law works. our constitution never worked that way. these are bogus arguments through and through and they will be rejected in due course. >> it is amazing though they find lawyers to make those arguments for them. luke fallwater, neal mentioned this well-written, sort of tight analysis of the state of mark meadows as a witness who does not appear to be a named target in the federal investigations but is, of course, indicted for his role in a criminal enterprise in georgia. i want to take us through what you and your colleagues are reporting. >> sure. well, mark meadows, as he has done for some time, attempted to walk a fine line with these indictments, with these multiple

investigations. ultimately as your viewers know he gets charged in georgia but not by the justice department. one deciding factor perhaps in that is he was much more cooperative with the justice department according to our reporting. he submitted to two interviews before the grand jury. the second one, we're told, he was much more forthcoming than in the first interview with the grand jury. that's in part because a judge ordered him to do so after denying some of his privilege invocations. we know, for instance, that he said -- told the grand jury information both about the documents case and about january 6th, and you can see some signs in the federal indictment that meadows is cast in a less negative light than in the georgia indictment. in the federal indictment there's, i would say, both

positive and negative information on mark meadows in there. it recounts a scene in cobb county where he appears to do the right thing and tell donald trump that the elections officials are doing a good job. it mentions how on january 6th he asked trump to order the rioters leave the capitol, but it also includes an e-mail in which he helped coordinate the false electors scheme. the georgia indictment is much more damning about mark meadows and portrays him as a henchman to donald trump carrying out donald trump's bidding in multiple facets of the plan to overturn the election. so you can see this sort of high-wire, tight-rope walking which is how it was described in the story and how it appears so far to have worked for him with the feds but not so much in georgia. >> i mean, luke, again, i'm not a lawyer. i'm reminded of this at hotel

commercials, i just stayed at whatever the chain is. but it seems, and, again, we don't know what is going on in private, but it might be part of his legal strategy that his attorney has sort of kept him talking, kept some sort of channel open and it seems whether he did or did not cooperate fully the first time or whether he did or did not answer the questions they were looking to have answered on 1/6, it seems like he talked about the documents investigation in a way that abc news suggests might have been helpful in either corroborating or filling in some blanks. i mean do we have any sense of the disposition of mark meadow as legal expose is at the beginning, the middle or the end? >> i would think the federal case is still very much alive, that, you know, as we know jack smith has a pattern of bringing

superseding indictments and know that case is ongoing. i would guess he is not out of the clear just yet in any case. but i do think he made an effort at least with the federal prosecutors to give them enough information to try to act as neither a pro-trump witness nor an anti-trump witness. that was his strategy going in, to not be very negative about trump but also not defending trump. we know from abc news that he did tell them that trump had not given an order to de classify a broad declassification or which, you know, many people at the white house had said, but we know he said that directly to the grand jury. >> neal, i just want to pull you in on this for your legal analysis. of course, you and i talked about it at the time, that the idea that there was any standing de classification -- i mean it is like oxymoronic, key on sort of moronic, that would never

work. it is not how an intelligence product works. any document that travels from one building to the other on the 18-acre complex would automatically be declassified. it would involve calling the intelligence agencies, calling american allies, calling the nsa and the cia every night to tell them what he took with him. i mean it was nonsensical, but to now have it completely confirmed in black and white there never was any such thing as a standard declassification order seems like a devastating legal fact from a pretty authoritative witness against trump in mark meadows. >> 100% of the calls. this has been trump's defense ever since the raid on mar-a-lago. he always said, i had a standing order to de classify documents when i took them out of the oval office, which is thoroughly preposterous on every level. for one thing, it would mean that like all of the nation's most sensitive secrets the moment they left the oval office were declassified, covert

operations and things like that. the intelligence community would have had an up roar if that were the way in which these documents were being treated. also problematic is the fact that donald trump when he wanted to de classify in the russia investigation to harm his political opponents, he went through a certain process to do it. he didn't say, take 'em out of the oval office and say they're magically declassified. so it is not surprising that mark meadows is saying now there was no standing order to de classify. i mean it is like finding out, as i said to andrew weissmann the other day, it is like finding out there's sugar and desert. of course everyone knows that. there's no standing order to declassify the documents. >> what? what i think meadows does though, nicolle, it says to -- it is the prosecutors now have someone highly credible, the president's former chief of staff, saying donald trump, your main defense is not true.

that to me increases the criminal exposure of donald trump for the stolen documents at mar-a-lago. >> you know, that brings us back to what is happening today behind you in georgia. obviously in the georgia indictment they're all in the same side, they're all indicted for their crime as part of a criminal enterprise to overturn the results there. there is no one and better favor than the other. i wonder if you can take us through what we believe -- i know john eastman didn't answer many questions from my colleague. i wonder if you could take us through what we believe happened with eastman today? >> reporter: well, the surrender process at the jail behind me, there's -- people get their mug shots taken, there's electronic fingerprinting, there's a medical test, and kind of standard procedures like that. fulton sheriff has made clear he intends to treat all 19 of these defendants the same as he has

everybody else. initially i think especially for the more high-profile folks like donald trump we were wondering could that really be the case. are they really going to be doing a lot of these standard procedure kind of things like taking things and that's the case. we're seeing from other news outlets guidance to the defendant if you don't want to wait in line come in the middle of the night so you can get booked faster which is something that you do see here at this jail. >> the big event, i guess if we call it that, will be donald trump getting booked and going through this process. i know that the agency is reporting that the barricades will remain in place, britney, for at least a couple more days or maybe through saturday. can you take us through whether there are special preparations for that? >> reporter: well, you're referring to the fulton county courthouse where the streets have been blocked off for something like two or three

weeks now, and there have been defense attorneys for these various defendants coming in and meeting with the da's office to negotiate the terms of bond. but as we understand it talking to some of these attorneys, there wasn't much negotiating to be had. they walked into a room and were given a paper with the terms and basically told to take it or leave it. so we're expecting meetings like that to continues. at the meantime here at the jail media is kept very much at a distance. we are not able to see folks walking into the building. we are able to see cars coming in behind me, but as witnesses -- sorry, if defendants don't want to talk it is pretty easy to hide from us here. it was pretty noteworthy that john eastman came out and wanted to talk to the press, and i'm not expecting most of these others to want to do the same. >> let me put up what you are talking about. these are the bond amounts where you said there's not much negotiation around them. $200,000. john eastman, $100,000. jenna ellis, $100.

kathy latham, $75,000. scott hall $10,000. i think it is sbrings you are reporting these were sort of the amounts, take it or leave it. notable, tamara, only donald trump had a consent order that included so many specific stipulations about not intimidating witnesses. do you have any sense of -- i mean it seems pretty obvious where that came from but any sense to how it was received? >> reporter: well, not intimidating witnesses thing is a pretty common language and you see it across many of the bond orders. but what is unusual for him is the specific language about social media usage, not lambasting the community and folks involved. that seems to be very specific to donald trump. >> that's right. those grand jurors are already receiving a lot of threats online. we need all of you to stick around a little longer through a break. when we all come back, more on the goings on out of fulton county and the legal reckoning for many of the key players in

donald trump's coup. plus, lawmakers in tennessee return to an issue that brought them national attention. they're having a special session on gun safety and protests and calls for change. we will have full coverage of that. later in the broadcast, he played a critical role in stopping the trump coup plot as it was under way in the days and hours before january 6th. now judge michael ludic is trying to prevent the next constitutional crisis from happening. he will talk about his ongoing mission to save american democracy. all of those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. a quick break. don't go anywhere. so, no matter what, i'm running this kitchen. (vo) make the switch. it's your business. it's your verizon. ♪ ♪

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mr. jacob, did you hear from dr. eastman further after the riot had been quelled? and if so, what did he ask? >> later that evening mr. eastman e-mailed me to point out that in his view the vice president's speech to the nation violated the electoral count act, that the electoral count act had been violated because the debate on arizona had not been completed in two hours, and then he implored me now that we have established that the electoral count act isn't so sacrosanct as you have made it out to be, i implore you one last time can the vice president please do what we have been asking him to do these last two days, suspend the joint session, send it back to the states. >> we are back with luke, tamar and neal. i have to come to what we

reported at the top of the show, male. neal. it gives me pause to repeat over and over that john eastman still believes there's fraud. he is as whoopi goldberg would say a grown-up man who can read the verdict of 60 courts that said no, there isn't, that the evidence doesn't exist, simply repeating over and over again that you believe a lie to be a truth isn't a criminal defense, is it? >> no. so i mean what he said to our colleague, ali vitali, today was that there was no question that the election was stolen. the only thing i can think is maybe, nicolle, he is auditioning for an insanity defense or something like that because it is just so preposterous. this is a guy, i clerked with him, he was clerking at the supreme court when i was. i mean we all thought he was kooky but no one thought he would be someone who would go to jail. he has really lost his way. another statement he said today, he said that the indictment,

quote, targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients, something -- something, attorneys are ethically bound to provide and he was attempting to do so here by formally challenging the results of the election through lawful and appropriate means. that's a quote from him. now, there are so many problems with that. the idea that what he was doing was zealous advocacy is an insult to all lawyers. this guy was plotting a coup. yes, he covered it up with language like electoral count act and stuff like that, but we shouldn't mistake what he was doing. he was saying he could throw out the popular votes and replace it with state legislators picking their own delegates to the electoral college, and then the idea that he says he was formally challenging this. no, he tried to formally challenge it 62 different times and lost in court. what he did on january 6th with his colleagues was not lawful and appropriate means, it was

violence and a coup, and that's why every day of every week what he did was illegal. he wasn't acting as a lawyer. he was acting as a coup plotter. >> you know, lucas, interesting if you look back at the evidence that the 1/6 committee developed, it is abundantly clear there was a private john eastman who acknowledged that his coup blue friends, which adam kinzinger coined it, was unconstitutional and illegal. he knew he would lose 0-9. he argued he would keep two justices and acknowledged he would lose, 0-9 in the supreme court. he acknowledged that his coup plot violated the electoral count act. you can almost see the criminal trial playing out, even though he says this with microphones in his face behind closed doors he knew his plot was unconstitutional and illegal. >> what is more, nicolle, is i had to react when he said that to ali, in georgia that he had no doubt about these claims of

fraud because in john eastman's own e-mails when he is e-mailing people trying to get them to go along with the plan to overturn the election and a couple of people push back different times and said, where's the evidence, he acknowledges he doesn't have the evidence, he is relying on other people or things he has heard for that, he hasn't researched it himself or done any of the research or any inquiry into the allegations. he is just believing that there must be fraud. and another time he writes an internal e-mail saying that they have to be sure about this stuff before they go forward with it because donald trump or someone else could be charged by a u.s. attorney or a da if they make false -- swear -- make false statements in court. so what you see there is his rhetoric to the cameras is not matching up to what he believed in e-mails when he was telling people he hadn't actually confirmed that there was fraud because, in fact, there was not

widespread fraud. that doesn't exist. for him to show such certainty does not match up with what he actually knew. >> and, neal, i mean i think the questions around eastman to me were answered years ago when federal judge carter said that based on what he had seen -- and this was a proceeding around evidence production in the congressional investigation it was likely trump and eastman committed felonies. it has been abundantly clear for years now. what do you expect from eastman? do you expect a sort of delusional defense or do you think he will offer a plea or what do you expect? >> well, i mean eastman right now is signaling he has dug in and believing these, you know, ridiculous lies about the election. but, you know, he's not -- he's not a fool and he's got to know he's facing very serious criminal exposure here. the main defendant, donald trump, is not someone who is

likely to be loyal to him anyway. trump's strategy is to blame eastman and saying he was relying on eastman's legal advice. they are a little bit at loggerheads. to me, nicolle, the big thing about the georgia indictment, and it is set up nicely by your question about knowing already from judge carter that trump and eastman have faced criminal exposure, this criminal indictment has 17 other people in it besides donald trump and john eastman. so 18 others besides trump in total. that's 18 different people with different roles in the scheme, 18 people with different vulnerabilities to criminal charges, and 18 people with different interests in protecting themselves from these criminal charges. so to me that tells me there is at least 18 different ways and probably more in which this is all going to blow up in donald trump's face. he is facing -- trump is already

facing from judge carter's opinion on very significant criminal exposure and any of the 18 can turn state's evidence and build the case against him the way that mark meadows appears to be doing for the stolen documents case. >> it is so interesting. and to gamble on the silence of 18 people is a big gamble. tamar, i want to ask you something about this. trump's georgia allies search for ways to punish fani willis. several republican lawmakers are seeking ways to sanction fulton county district attorney fani will ills after she brought charges against former president trump and 18 allies. trump backers are going after will ills using a new state law approved by governor brian kemp that seeks to oust prosecutors found to be neglecting their duties or responsible for a violation. clearly there are no violations but it looks like it may not stop republicans from heading

down this path. what do you know about this? >> reporter: well, this is something that democrats have warned about from the beginning in the state house, even though the republican sponsors of the bill took great care to not put fani willis's name anywhere near this bill as it was being debated in the legislature earlier this year. they said they were trying to find ways to get prosecutors to do their job if they weren't enforcing laws or if there were kind of a gross negligence of duty, they like to fight a republican da in south georgia and his work. but democrats from the beginning warned this could be a way to go after da willis and to punish her for any potential trump prosecution. well, within days we are seeing republican members of the state house talking about using this measure to do it, and i guess we'll have to wait and see. republican leaders put the kibosh on other talk about convening a special session in order to try to get rid of da willis. we'll see how far this push ends up going in the legislature. remember, they don't start

meeting until january. >> i mean, neal, this seems like, you know, sort of a starr chamber kind of surreal extra judicial thing. i wonder if it would even work in terms of the substance of the case, which now exists. i mean can you take us through what would happen if republicans headed down this path and tried to sanction fani willis? >> yeah, this is becoming part of a republican playbook. governor desantis used a similar law in florida to oust a local prosecutor. the georgia one, however, nicolle requires the governor to appoint eight members to this commission and they're supposed to review what the district attorney has done, and there's no way in which eight impartial people are going to review this and decide that what she has done is inappropriate. i mean it is already as you pointed out a very respected federal judge even before a lot of the new evidence has already

said there was strong evidence that trump and eastman engaged in federal crimes. so i don't think that this is going anywhere. the other possibility is that the governor could stack the deck of this commission with people who are, you know, very pro trump or something like that, but this governor has already said the moment the indictment came down that the election was not stolen and things like that. so i think it is very hard for him or for this eight-member commission to do what donald trump is certainly hoping will happen, which is once again for him to evade legal process through a legal trick by trying to oust this prosecutor. i don't think it will work. >> you know, luke, i'm back to your meadows reporting. i wonder if you will have any sense of sort of the state of negotiations with meadows as one state cooperator. listening to neal talk about fani willis's case, i mean all of the evidence comes out of the

mouths of republicans. all of the evidence has fingerprints from trump dead ender doj people like jeffrey clark on it. all of the action was condoned by or carried out by mark meadows at the direction of donald trump, lindsey graham. i mean there is so much exposure we've seen from mark meadows specifically on the georgia front. >> yeah. i mean that's -- you know, that's why he's been indicted in georgia. but, again, his strategy is much different in dealing with georgia. he was not as cooperative. he pled the fifth a bunch in georgia. he was much more cooperative with the feds. so i think he saw that as his best chance to avoiding an indictment, and now, of course, he is trying to get the georgia case moved federally. he thinks he has a better path there legally. it remains to be seen whether he

will do more interviews with the feds. we don't know that. you know, the grand jury is a secretive process. we don't know whether there's more things he could tell them still or if they feel like they have enough and they have a strong case and they know exactly what he's going to say. you know, there's a lot of people who look at the facts of january 6th and think we've had, you know, a pretty damning case for a long time now. you know, the ruling you mentioned from judge carter is from last year when he said there was more likely than not that they had committed federal crimes here. so at some point, you know, you don't necessarily need more facts, right. at some point -- >> right. >> -- it is about the case, and that's what we saw here in georgia. >> such a good point. such a good thing to keep in mind. i think it was two years ago, right? >> was it that long ago? wow. >> i think it was a long time

ago. luke broadwater, neal cattar, tamar hallerman, nobody else to have this conversation with. thank you for starting us off today. coming up, protesters in tennessee demanding action on gun safety as the legislature gathers for a special session. we will take you inside what happened there. nside what happened there

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citizens in the deep red state, demanding gun safety measures. hundreds of people surrounding the state capital there, holding up photos of victims and publicly praying for gun safety laws to come to pass out of the state -- out of the legislature's special session. it comes five months after the shooting at the covenant school in nashville. a gunman killing three innocent 9 year olds and three staff members and setting off this new wave of activism and protests in tennessee. republicans responded in the aftermath of that school shooting by expelling two democratic lawmakers who helped lead protests from the house floor. republicans also refused to make any move on gun violence, refusing to take up a proposal for a so-called red flag law from governor bill lee, a fellow republican. so far state republicans there show little sign of budging in this current session, approving instead new rules for lawmakers deemed, quote, disruptive.

let's bring in a member of the tennessee three, state representative justin pearson who joins us right now. he was officially sworn back into the state house yesterday after winning back his seat in a special election. representative pearson, thank you for being with us. >> thank you so much. i appreciate it. >> you know, we cover a lot of threats to democracy nationally, and i remember when this was underway. everything that we talk about, silencing dissent, ignoring the will of the people, it all came to pass on that day. i wonder what you make of the fact that the people of your state who you were standing up for would like to see some gun safety legislation and the republicans are ignoring the will of the majority? >> our democracy is in peril. the reality is we have people in the state of tennessee, republican party, who are much

more interested in turning our democracy into their mob-ocracy or mob rules. we are seeing that quite literally in the rules being passed which have now prohibited our own constituents from coming into session and holding a sign that says "protect kids, not guns" or that says "am i next." that has now been banned during this special session. in fact, pieces of paper have more legislation than guns in our state. we are seeing in state legislature after state legislature the erosion of our democracy. so i'm deeply concerned about what is happening here in tennessee under the leadership of this extremist republican party of cameron sexton and william lambert because it is not doing anything to protect kids or to make our community safer. in fact, we are only going backwards in the decisions being put forward, that are saying to incarcerate children for longer periods of time or they're using mental health as an excuse for not doing anything to address gun violence. the national rifle association,

the tennessee firearms association, the american firearms association have a hold on our state capital and our state leaders that are preventing them from doing what is in the best interests of our children. the number one killer of children in this state is gun violence. it is not cancer or car accidents. that is not accidental. that is because the policy decisions and the policy violence that has turned into legislation and turned into law in our state. we should be doing everything in our power to change this. >> representative pearson, the numbers of people in your state who support the specific measure's red flag laws, other very reasonable sort of from the center gun safety measures, were high before. i think it was upward of 70%, 71% i think is the figure before the tragic shooting at the covenant school. i imagine -- here it is. 81% of people, of citizens of tennessee support red flag laws. 72% of the citizens of tennessee

support gun safe laws so that when you store your gun in your home it is safe. 62% support bans on assault-style weapons. the support for more guns in schools is a fraction of all of that. are any of these measures -- do any of them have the possibility of becoming law in the state of tennessee? >> i mean we are going to continue to work to make them law. because the majority of tennesseeans want to see gun safety laws, want to see these extremist protection orders and red flag laws passed because we want to live in safe communities. in fact, we want to live in safe communities in urban areas, in rural areas, in suburban areas across the state. what we have is a gerrymandered republican party that is refusing to listen to the will of the people including republicans who are demanding we do something about gun safety legislation. instead, they are opting for a status quo that has been killing us, a status quo that has left children at the covenant school and in my district, in district

86 in memphis and in shelby county more vulnerable to the whims of the rifle association, the firearms association. across the political spectrum people want to see us do something about it. look, the polling shows us that the majority of people in tennessee are sensible and want common sense legislation, but the influence that these gun lobbyists are exacting over the politicians here is palpable in the way that they are operating and the way that they are controlling and abusing their power as a bludgeoning tool rather than using their power to lift up our communities and lift up the people who have been victimized by gun violence. this is a tragedy. of all of the mothers that we speak to and all of the fathers and the siblings, the nieces, the nephews, the people who continue to suffer because their loved ones are here no more, they deserve to have legislation and legislators who use courageous -- courageous moral

and imagination to create the change we need. we know it is popular. we know that this is what most people want to see have happen because nobody wants to die from gun violence, whether someone is a second amendment loving person or someone who wants to see gun reform. i want for everybody to be able to live the lives god call for all of us to live which is to be in safety and protected from the harms happening in our community. we cannot be okay with the status quo where the number one killer of children in our state is gun violence. >> yeah, i think there's some new study that shows that all across the country the number one killer of children is now gun violence. representative, state representative justin day pearson, congratulations on winning your seat again back. thank you very much for being here to talk to us today. very important day. thank you. >> thank you so much. let's keep fighting. >> quick break for us. we will be right back.

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joining our conversation, editor at large for the bulwark charlie sykes is here. i feel like we are at the beginning of a political season and it's sort of like when pumpkin lattes come out at the end of august, i don't know if anyone wants it or needs it yet but here we are. it feels like the framer on everything can be described adds democracy or autocracy. 81% of people in tennessee that includes a lot of gun owners who

want red flag laws, it doesn't appear like that has a good chance of passing. where do you think we sort of should frame our view as we commence the political season? >> obviously that frame of democracy is important, but also the story in tennessee just is such an illustration of the arrogance of power. they have a super majority there and they wield it in such a blunt force way that it has backfired on them. remember talking about this when this first happened, i think i was on your show when they expelled those representatives. it seemed like an incredible act of political malpractice. what it served to do as we are doing right now is highlighting this issue in tennessee as highlighting the voices of those representatives that they expelled. if they were trying to punish them or silence them, or lower the profile of the issue, they failed rather spectacularly on

this issue, and it again highlights how these super majorities in these state legislatures, you know, can act with, you know, can -- they think with impunity, but also in complete contradiction to the overwhelming sentiment of the voters. again, i think this is going to be a theme that we're going to be talking about throughout the election year. >> i think it's part of the political drag on republicans. 80% of americans want to see something on gun safety, republicans are on the other side. 79% of americans support abortion being legal in some or all instances, republicans are on the other side. i mean, you can go all the way down the line and there's not as much division as republicans say there is and it's republicans need there to be. charlie sykes around for the next hour. we have to sneak in a quick break. next hour. we have to sneak in a quick break. . so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. ♪ stay off the freeways!

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>> he chooses his words carefully so when he warned of a revolution within a constitutional crisis everybody listened, that was former judge michael luttig, he was unsparing about the consequences to our democracy if donald trump had succeeded in overturning the results of his loss on january 6th. luttig, you might recall, is a conservative judge, a very conservative one, widely respected in republican circles. he advised then vice president mike pence that there was no justification, zero, for delaying the certification of the 2020 election. that's despite what donald trump and john eastman were saying at the time. now more than two and a half years after the deadly insurrection, judge luttig believes that his work is not done on this front and he has a new warning for all of us. he will be our guest after a quick break. don't go anywhere. fter a quick break. don't go anywhere.

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almost two years after that

fateful day in january 2021, that still donald trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to american democracy. >> hi there, everyone, it's 5:00 in the east now. that was the legendary retired judge michael luttig sounding the alarm during the january 6th select committee hearings over the clear and present danger that the disgraced twice impeached four-times indicted ex-president poses to american democracy today. to be clear, judge luttig says it is not because of what donald trump did on january 6th, in the

past, it is because of what donald trump and his army of enablers are telling us out loud they will do, are promising to do, are, in fact, running for president to do in 2024. as judge luttig puts t they, quote, pledge that in the presidential election of 2024 if the former president or his anointed successor as the republican party presidential candidate were to lose that election, that they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020. when the history of these times is written, judge michael luttig will be remembered as a modern day paul revere, warning all of us out loud that this could happen. and that is particularly notable, given that judge luttig is a conservative's conservative. he was appointed by george h.w. bush, he was on the short list of potential supreme court nominees under george w. bush,

his son. judge luttig is and was as the "washington post" puts it, quote, one of the most celebrated legal minds of his generation and, quote, one of the leading conservative intellectuals in the legal system whose views about crime and the rule of law stand out and sit adjacent to a years' long campaign for justice following the tragic murder of his own father. on that front, we learned in some excellent reporting from the "washington post" that it was judge luttig's mentor, then supreme court justice antonin scalia who would be the person to knock on judge luttig's door in the dark of night to deliver the tragic news of his father's death. judge luttig's republican conservative cred are so unimpeachable that in their hour of need mike pence and his attorney richard cohen turned to luttig in a late night phone call, quote, seeking luttig's legal advice on the night of january 4, 2021, as donald trump pressured pence to help him

overturn the results of the 2020 election. luttig's advice, quote, tell pence he simply could not block the certification. when luttig hung up, his wife turned to him and said, oh, my god, you have to stop this, and stop it he did. posting a seven-tweet thread early on january 5th offering pence, quote, both legal and political cover that, no, the vice president could not just change the vote total, and, no, refusing to do so did not mean he was disloyal to the president. it read in part, quote, the only responsibility and power of the vice president under the constitution is to faithfully count the electoral college votes as they have been cast. the constitution does not empower the vice president to alter in any way the votes that have been cast either by rejecting certain of them or otherwise. how the vice president discharges this constitutional

obligation is not a question of his loyalty to the president any more than it would be a test of a president's loyalty to his vice president. words that will no doubt be taught in law schools around the country one day. so it speaks volumes that after a lifetime spent as one of the most highly respected and regarded republican jurists in modern times, the person that republican leaders turn to in a crisis, that judge michael luttig is now allied and aligned with some of the people his rulings most enraged, that is how urgent this moment is? his view that judge luttig made it his life's mission to band together with people who at another time, if you will, in a normal time in american politics might have been viewed as or felt like political adversaries in the name now of a bigger mission, protecting this country right now from the leader of a party he once served and has loved. this is meant not just testifying before the january 6

select committee but unleashing a torrent of articles and analyses, many of which we have featured on this program when they come out, sounding all of the alarms that we as a nation are not out of danger from trump and trumpism just yet. it is where we begin the hour with former federal judge michael luttig. thank you for being here. >> thank you, nicolle, for having me on today. it's a pleasure. >> you know, i take a very keen interest and a hard line on republicans and you seem to have had almost a conversion and i want to ask you the role that your wife played in telling you you have to stop this, in not just privately doing the right thing but in being so public an vocal about what the wrong thing is and who is doing it in your view. how did that happen? >> nicolle, if there's one thing that i could tell the country

today it would be that the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election was not and is not politics. this is, as we now know from the indictments of the former president by the department of justice and jack smith, these were grave crimes against the united states of america, perhaps almost as grave as would have been treason. the night that i received the first call from my long-time friend michael cullen, he cast the question that way, which is, what can we do for the country? what can the vice president of the united states do for america

two days thence? this has never been a mission of mine, it's never been a quest of mine as the "washington post" said i suppose one could say it's a quest only in the limited sense that it has been a search not just on my part but on the part of the american people for the truth under the constitution of the united states about the events of january 6th. just one word about your impending question about my conservative transition.

again, this is not political, nicolle. it never has been and it never will be. i've not changed my conservative jurisprudential views, i have not changed my conservative political views one bit in 50 years. >> i was not going to ask you about your conversion, it's abundantly clear that the republican party in terms of numbers is moving or turning into one of the largest autocratic curious, autocratic friendly movements in the world. it's clear that it changed and i wonder if you ever wonder why more people like yourself aren't screaming in warning as loudly as you are. >> nicolle, i've said recently that in my view and the way that i define an american political

party, incidentally that's the way that americans have defined political parties since our founding, today there is no republican party. as to your question as to the fact that very, very few of our public officials and very, very few of republicans in general have spoken a single word against january 6th and the former president's role in that, that is mystifying and it's in my view a testament to how lost the republican party is at this point in our history. >> is it in its current configuration with its silence a

threat? >> nicolle, american democracy cannot function unless there are two robust, healthy political parties. today we do not have two healthy robust functioning political parties and so for that reason alone american democracy is in peril, as i've said repeatedly over the past year and in many forah, the two political parties are the political guardians of american democracy. >> when -- i mean, there -- think of the fact that there are only two members willing to participate in an effort willing

to get to the bottom of what happened on january 6th and a nearly unprecedented attack on the u.s. capitol and both of them lost their jobs for doing so, do you feel more alarmed today than you did on the day that you testified? >> heroism often comes about when one or several people have the courage and the will and the moral conviction to speak against what is wrong. that's what happened with congressman liz cheney and congressman adam kinzinger. they are to be applauded, indeed honored, for speaking the truth, if you will, to the american

people, pursuant to their oath to the constitution. >> i want to ask you about the rule of law, and i -- i want to ask you if the rule of law is in your view strong enough to take donald trump running against it. he's not really running against joe biden this time. this time his message is i am your retribution. he is treating his supporters as human shields and asking them to vote for him to shield him from the rule of law, which he promises to destroy if he is reelected. i don't know if we -- i mean, there have been organized crime leaders who have articulated a message like that, but never a candidate for the american presidency and i wonder if you think the rule of law survives that campaign. >> the former president's comments, nicolle, have been chilling to america for many

years now and, of course, he's escalated his attacks on the constitution, the rule of law and america's constitutions of democracy and law in the past three or four weeks as he's been indicted in the several courts and, of course, continuing a pattern that he had actually begun the day that he assumed office in 2016, he has viciously attacked the federal judiciary and even the individual judges who will preside over his trials. that is unprecedented in american history. it's inexcusable. it is a grave danger to america

and it's a disservice to the american people. incidentally, it's a disservice to his own cause in the defense against the charges that he will now be tried on by the united states of america. over the course of these years, nicolle, and i've said this repeatedly, the former president has -- he has attacked, viciously attacked, americans -- america's democracy, the constitution and the rule of law. the former president, he dared and provoked jack smith to indict him for both the mar-a-lago classified documents and finally he succeeded in forcing jack smith to indict him

also for january 6th, lest the former president succeed in making a mockery out of america, the constitution and the rule of law. the former president of the united states of america wanted to be indicted for these offenses on any given day from january 6, 2021, until the indictments were brought, he could have avoided and prevented prosecution. he did not want to. we now know that he wanted to be indicted so that he can run on the same platform that he has been talking about since january 6, 2021, namely, that the election was stolen from him by joe biden and the country -- i

don't know who he's referring to, but it was stolen from him, when, in fact, he lost that election fair and square in what was, we now know, perhaps the fairest election in american history. >> you are making a constitutional argument and i just want to read your tweet about the 14th amendment. the 14th amendment itself in section 3 answers the question whether dis qualification is janet democratic declaring that it is not. rather, it is the conduct that gives rise to disqualification that is anti-democratic per the command of the constitution. i'm not in any position to debate the legal merits of this, but i want to ask you how this happens. i mean, do the states have to use this argument to keep him off the ballot? i mean, how does this -- because it's clear that on the right

there is almost a pipeline of taking these arguments, bringing these cases, getting them all the way to the supreme court and changing policy. i wonder if you would be part of an effort to make that happen to protect democracy, otherwise how does this protect the country from him? >> nicolle, our constitution is written for the most part in broad, open-ended capacious language that -- in which the restraints on our government are defined and our rights and liberties as americans are defined in broadest principle. on the other end of that continuum of language in our constitution are much more specific provisions akin to statutes as opposed to constitutions in which the constitution defines, for

instance, the qualifications for the presidency of the united states. one of those qualifications is that the president must be 35 years of age. the disqualification provision of section 3 of the 14th amendment, and, therefore, the imposition of that qualification for the presidency is stated in perhaps the clearest language possible in the constitution and it is unmistakable blee applicable to the former president and his role in activities on january 6th. so the question is not whether the section 3 of the 14th amendment applies to the former president, it unquestionably does. the questions that the supreme

court must decide eventually are rather more technical constitutional questions, for instance, whether the clause is self-executing and whether -- which particular officials are in a position to challenge the qualification of the former president. but in terms of the process, the process is quite clear. i believe to a certainty that there will be secretaries of states in several of the states who will decline to place the former president on the ballot, arguing that he is unqualified by virtue of section 3 of the 14th amendment. whether that official or those officials qualify the president, former president, or they

disqualify him, that decision will be immediately challenged in state or federal court by a person with standing to challenge it. it would certainly include the former president. and from that moment on this will be a matter destined for the supreme court of the united states and the supreme court will be obliged to decide this monument alley important case before the 2024 election. >> it's so extraordinarily dramatic, it gives me chills hearing you talk about it. i want to ask you a personal question. i wouldn't put myself at your stature level but i parted with the republican party when it embraced donald trump who announced his candidacy by talking about people from mexico at rapists and murderers and i have never looked back but it

can be lonely and i wonder what the experience has been like for you in your very high-level legal circles to part so publicly with the standard bearer of the party you are in. >> it's not even been a consideration to me at all, nicolle. i am not a political person, i am not a political partisan. i held the views, the beliefs and the principles and the policy positions of the republican party my entire lifetime. i no longer hold the same views that they do, so i do not consider myself a republican except in name only, but to your question, your personal

question, it troubles me a great deal where the republican party finds itself today and the direction in which it is headed. i just -- i'm eternally hopeful that the party will come to its collective senses and its constitutional senses in particular because if it doesn't, it will never be the republican party that it has been up to this date. >> judge michael luttig, we hang on to your every writing, your every public testimony, every other interview you do and to get a chance to talk to you ourselves, we hope it is the first of many. the scenario you laid out is also riveting, so i hope we can continue to call on you as we follow that in the coming

months. >> thank you so much, nicolle. it's an honor to be with you today. >> it's an honor to get to talk to you, sir. thank you so much. when we come back, we will get reaction from our dear friends andrew weissman and charlie sykes to the constitutional argument that judge luttig is making about the twice-impeached four times indicted disgraced ex-president and the growing legal troubles he's facing in court. later on the broadcast on the eve of the reap debate how an unlikely candidate has become the darling of conservative media, despite raising all conspiracy minded questions about the january 6th and september 11th. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. ea"ddline: white house" continues after a quick break. ] struck out with the cheap seats? important things aren't worth compromising. at farmers, we offer both quality insurance and great savings. (crowd cheers)

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today, two days from today the disgraced twice impeached four times indicted ex-president will surrender at the fulton county jail for charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in georgia. that he ran a criminal enterprise to do so. it is a busy week for him, he face has hearing next monday in the federal criminal case against him brought by special counsel jack smith related to his efforts to block the peaceful transfer of power. trump's legal team has been battling with prosecutors over what that trial schedule with the trial date will be and in that hearing judge tanya chutkan will make the ultimate decision. all of this while the ex-president completely

undeterred to campaign for the white house in 2024 under the banner of, quote, i am your retribution. despite the legal argument we just heard here from former federal judge michael luttig, who maintains that the constitution bars donald trump from ever holding the white house again, setting up quite a dramatic clash of forces, joining our coverage msnbc legal analyst andrew weissman, editor at large for the bulwark charlie sykes is back with us. andrew, this was fascinating to me as a non-lawyer and may have been elementary to you but when i asked about the mechanism i didn't understand that it would fall to a skrath to interpret the constitution and leaf trump off, i guess it would be the primary ballot so they list all the other candidates and then for trump who would have standing to sue and for that case to make it to the supreme court. do you see that happening and where do you think it happens first? >> yeah, that is probably the most likely way that it can be brought up and be decided.

and it really does need to be decided as judge luttig said, it needs to be decided by the supreme court and it needs to be decided quickly because, you know, if donald trump is eligible the supreme court needs to say that, that he is ineligible, they need to say that as well. there obviously is an array of people that from laurence tribe to judge luttig who have written on this, there are others who are now saying the same thing, but it needs to be tested in court. there are a number of states where this could happen. it could be any of the so-called blue states where a secretary of state could make that decision. you also could have somebody seek what's called a declaratory judgment in advance of something happening saying i want a ruling that i cannot be thrown off of the ballot. so there are a number of ways that this can get to the supreme court, but, as you know, those

rciprociies can be slow, this has to be done quickly. i would like to comment very quickly about something judge luttig said, he's obviously a national hero, which are very many, many other thing who have acted out of principle but i thought when he said this is not about politics, i just think that cannot be stressed enough that this is not about differences about policies, about who should be on the supreme court or how they should rule. this is about fundamental democracy in our country and that is what's led him and many others like him, like you pointed out, to be taking the stand and speaking up. it has nothing to do with normal differences that we have as americans as to how the country should be run. >> it was a really important point and i hope you never have to feel like you have to make

any of your points quickly, andrew weissman. charlie, i was thinking when he said secretaries of state that brad ravnsborgy has testified under oath about the facts of donald trump's efforts to overturn the election in his state. how could brad raffensperger, how could he put him on the ballot in georgia? >> well, first of all, i want to say that judge luttig, is a giant of the law and hero of democracy. i have so much respect for him, but i have some of the same questions about the mechanism by which this is implemented. and i'm a little bit skeptical about all of this. as andrew says, ultimately you're going to need a majority of the u.s. supreme court to make a ruling and they're going to do this quickly, they are not going to wait until october of 2024. how does that happen? i know that judge luttig has written and has said that the constitution is self-executing, but it is not self-enforcing and i guess one of my big questions is how does this happen absent a

court finding, a court ruling that, in fact, donald trump has done what we all believed that he did was to be part of the insurrection. short of that finding of fact or that ruling by a jury, i just don't see how this necessarily happens. now, i mean, i think we need to have this discussion, i think we need to have a debate how a convicted felon and insurrectionist is eligible for the presidency, but i also hope that people understand that in terms of american democracy nobody is coming to save us. there's no -- that is going to take donald trump away, it's going to be up to we americans, voters, to take care of this because i have a hard time imagining that a majority of this supreme court will make this ruling when there's been no court finding, no guilty verdict. again, obviously i defer to andrew because i am not a lawyer either, jack smith rather notably did not charge donald

trump with inciting an insurrection, so, again, not even a conviction on that case necessarily automatically triggers this, but it certainly is an interesting and provocative argument, we all cano that donald trump is in no way fit to serve, that he ought to be disqualified on so many different grounds, but as a legal constitutional matter, it strikes me as kind of a reach. >> okay. i'm going to let andrew respond to constitutional law class in one second, but i want to -- this is the part in the program where i stipulate that the only reason we're looking to the courts and the supreme court in this case to save us is because the republican party is fundamentally broken? >> yes. precisely. >> and the reason judge luttig is newsworthy is because there is only one judge luttig. there is not another conservative judge of his

stature standing up. he likened it to treason. i mean, if it is that -- and he is a just of facts, ma'am, guy. if he looked at the facts and concluded that trump committed treason, what does it say about the continued sort of political gangrene, the rot on the right that there's only one person saying it, charlie? >> well, no, exactly. i mean, ultimately the constitution of -- the constitution rests on a virtues people which implies virtues political parties that will hold people to account, that will say if you behaved in this way if you want to suspend the constitution there is no way we are going to give sanction to you, that we're going to nominate you. of all the shocking things that have happened in the last eight years, donald trump is himself not the shock because he is no he is. what has been shocking has been this devolution of the

republican party and the degradation that's taken place. it wasn't that long ago that somebody who has engaged in this conduct and facing charges like this would not even be remotely considered for an office of public trust much less the presidency of the united states. here we are where the political party that should have protected us from this moment has completely abdicated its responsibilities. so i certainly understand why we are looking to all of the other institutions of our constitutional system to protect us against this cataclysm. >> yeah, i mean, notably when i asked if the republican party was a threat his answer was the republican party doesn't exist, doesn't even see it as a party. i'm going to do two things. i do want to sort of run this down and flesh this out because, like me, our viewers have honorary law degrees by this point but i have to sneak in a quick break. we will let andrew respond to the legal questions on the other side of it. please don't go anywhere. de of t

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we are back with andrew weissman and charlie sykes. andrew, as charlie is talking about what may be one of trump's defenses should this arrive at the supreme court that there would be no conviction for his conduct i'm thinking of the proposal to push this trial up to to 246 and all of the plates

pushing against each other, the speedy trial, adjudicating the alleged crimes ahead of the election and there couldn't be any more pressure, couldn't be any more tension between these two forces. what do you make of charlie's argument that if trump isn't accused of these crimes it may not prevail in front of the supreme court? >> well, it might even go further which is he's not accused of it and he is not convicted of it, just being accused may not carry the day. that's just -- you know, that's an accusation remaining to the proved. all of this is uncharted territory. the argument that judge luttig and larry tribe and other conservative scholars have made is that you have to separate what might happen in a criminal case which has to do with whether someone goes to jail, that's one thing, and the provision in the constitution and its history right after the civil war which doesn't in their view require a criminal charge,

a criminal conviction, but there does need to be some fact finder to decide is this insurrection, is it rebellion and decide what the standard of proof is. those are legitimate issues that are very undecided in the courts as to whether this would qualify, but i do think it's important to separate those two ideas out because one really is about the qualifications for office and the other is about whether you go to jail for different conduct. i would say, though, that i think that charlie's point about the public not saying and thinking, oh, there is a magic wand where the supreme court can relieve us of trump and trumpism is something we really have to put aside.

of course, donald trump should be held accountable for what he did, but if donald trump disappeared tomorrow, we would still have what i think is the struggle of our times with respect to democracy and what judge luttig is talking about. when i was working for special counsel mueller i felt this enormous pressure and unreal st i can pressure as to somehow robert mueller was going to change everything for everyone. then it was that congress might do it, or the attorney general. none of that is really the answer. this is, i think, i hate to say it, but this is going to be a constant struggle because there are so many people in this country who are willing to put aside the rule of law, put aside facts, put aside science and listen to and be influenced by a demagogue and not act out of principle, and that -- that is why it is so important to have voices like judge luttig

speaking to this because it goes to a larger core problem that this country has and isn't going to be resolved by any one case, whether it's the supreme court on this disqualification issue or by fani willis or alvin bragg or jack smith, as important as all of that is. >> this is such an important conversation and all we can do today is start it, but some of the fault of the pressure you felt inside the mueller probe is ours, right? i mean, i think if you were -- i mean, i was covering the mueller investigation, i think i was still registered republican, but my alarm at watching his conduct of firing comey and all of the conduct that took place in public view i think focused everyone's attention, certainly ours as a program on the work of the mueller probe. it's more the $64 million, it's the $640 million question,

charlie, is can we reengage, can we reconnect as a society and say democracy matters, say that the majority opinion on issues should prevail in elections, in courts, on policy? can we attach ourselves back to a common set of facts? and i think the answer is i don't know. >> but that's the question of our time, you know, and to andrew's point, this fight is going to go on for a very long time. look, i don't want to be too dark here, but, you know, we think about the depression generation, depression lasted, what, a decade. we think of the 9/11 generation. we are now living in the trump generation where we have millions of people who are coming of age during this period where all of these things are in flux, they're being questioned, they're being challenged and so this is a fight that is not going to end when donald trump leaves. this is something that is going to hang around. we are now in a generational

point in terms of the assault on democracy and the rule of law. >> yeah, i want to continue this conversation with both of you. you both bring some really important perspective to it, but there's breaking news. i've actually to be totally honest have to sneak in a quick break but we will be right back after a short break. we will have that on the other side. r a short break. we will have that on the other side i'm saving with liberty mutual, mom. they customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. you could save $700 dollars just by switching. ooooh, let me put a reminder on my phone. on the top of the pile!

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to become a guardian of liberty today. we have breaking news. there is a bombshell in the

classified documents case to tell you about, that is thanks to a new court filing from special counsel jack smith. prosecutors revealing for the very first time a potential turning point in their investigation that led to last month's superseding indictment. telling judge canon that superseding indictment, telling judge cannon that last month an employee at mar-a-lago known in the indictment as trump employee 4 retained a new lawyer, got new representation and retracted false testimony from this filing. quote, when trump employee 4 testified before the grand jury in the district of columbia in march of 2023, he repeatedly denied or claimsed not to recal contact about security footage at mar-a-lago. in 2023, he told judge vodberg he no longer to be represented by mr. woodward and wanted to be

represented by the defender. immediately after new representation he provided information that implicated walt nauta, mr. deoliveira and trump. wow. so, andrew weissman, help us make sense of the time line here. i was on the air with you as the superseding indictment came out, and i'm always gob smacked at the crimes trump gets people to commit on his behalf. it appears that this -- this employee at mar-a-lago has changed his testimony to tell the truth, and i wonder how that impacts his status as well as trump's. >> sure. so, this is how you get cooperating witnesses. this looks to me like you have the mar-a-lago i.t. guy went and either did an interview or gave grand jury testimony that the government could prove was false, and it is also an

indictment in a colloquial sense of the legal system when you have so-called house council. cassidy hutchinson gave everybody a crash course on what happens in this kind of political case. i saw it all the time in enron. i saw it all the time in mob cases, having handled those at the beginning of my career, where house counsel is not looking out for the interests of the person who they represent. and so here the person wisely got separate counsel. we saw the exact same thing with cassidy hutchinson where she gave testimony about what her forward counsel advise her to do, which was according to her, obstruct justice. here with independent counsel, you have somebody who has flipped and is clearly an insider saying what it is that

the three charged defendants -- that is mr. trump, mr. nauta, and mr. deoliveira, did in connection with the obstruction scheme. it's not surprising that you would have more than those three people. in fact i suspect there are quite a few more. and this is how you make a case. you do that, but it is really important that people have independent counsel. >> and andrew weissman, the fact that he is telling the truth with what sounds like a public defender, does that change how the government approaches mr. nauta, who i believe the government was lying to it from the beginning? >> well, mr. nauta by all accounts was given the exact same choice. he is where he is because he decided not to cooperate. he made choices about his own conduct. and he is being charged for that. it remains of course the government's burden to prove that, but he chose a very

different path which is why he is a defendant in that case. the same thing is reported to be the case for mr. de oliveira. i can't imagine jack smith wouldn't be interested in their truthful testimony as witnesses and even able to immunize them and have a prosecution agreement. in order, sell us what happened and what you did and we won't charge you with it, but you have to be 100% candid. this goes on all the time. i suspect we know about this person in mar-a-lago, there are other people in a similar situation that we will learn about as this case goes forward. >> you know, it always stunned me that so many ordinary people were willing to ruin their lives and their families lives to commit crimes on behalf of donald trump. and charlie, i guess i'm surprised that this doesn't happen more often, that the 18 codefendants in georgia seem to

be hanging together for now, that the other is involved in the -- i think the i.t. part is -- >> for now. >> right. the most clear obstructi act that donald trump wanted to servers deleted, in evidence that irony is totally dead at mar-a-lago. what do you make of whether it becomes two or whether this becomes a turning point? >> well, you know, that's what makes it so eye popping. before andrew answered your question, as you were reading the breaking story, i was thinking the name cassidy hutchinson, because we have seen this pattern where, you know, donald trump says, i will pay for your lawyer. i will provide this. as long as you have the in-house counsel or trump-paid lawyer, you have this inherent conflict of interest. i'm not going to go as far as to say about instruction of justice, but cassidy hutchinson changed her testimony as soon as she changed lawyers. this person changed their testimony as soon as she changed

lawyers. my understanding, and please clarify if this is wrong -- right now all those codefendants in georgia in the fani willis case are having to foot their own bill. donald trump is not paying for their -- right now, which would seem to create a rather problematic situation. because that seems to be a very, very risky situation for donald trump, because that's been his guarantee, right? people around him -- i will take care of you, i will pay for your lawyer as long as you are loyal to me. what do you think? what's going to happen down there? because it could -- this could get out of hand for him. >> andrew, you want to respond to that? >> yeah, so, look, donald trump has a number of levers to keep people in line. one of them is money. another is power. another is fear. another is potential pardon? he or an ally were the get in office.

for somebody who's relatively poor, the idea that you can sort of hitch your wagon to somebody who will take care of you, all of those are one side. but having independent counsel is really key, and that is why, to just bring us back to the beginning of your show, mark meadows who has independent counsel is where my eyes are on him, because i am just 100% confident that that is somebody who's being squeezed by jack smith. he has to take a plea if he wants to cooperate. i think that's where we are in that case. but i think he's going to. >> so interesting. i could talk to the two of you for the whole two hours. thank you so much for spending time with us and for rolling with the breaking news. another break for us. we'll be right back.

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thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we are grateful. "the beat" with ari melber start rites now.