your defense contractor in getting upset, don't worry, there's going to be more programs like this in the future. they'll keep coming. the budget was like 142 billion. dollars joaquin sapien, thank you very much. that is all in for this week. alex wagner tonight starts right. now good evening alex. alex >> i can count on one hand the number of times you start a sentence with if you are a defense counter watching this. i appreciate this is a show for everybody. >> looking out for everyone. >> true, great content my friend. even for defense contractors. i thank you at home for joining us this evening. we have breaking news tonight involving the case against donald trump and his alleged coconspirators in the state of georgia. now, if you've been following this case, you know that former trump chief of staff mark meadows has been trying to get his trim -- criminal trial moved from state court into federal court. mr. meadows claimed that all of the alleged criminal activity

he was accused of in fulton county, all of that was actually just part of his duties as chief of staff to the president. and since the chief of staff is a federal official, meadows and his lawyers resent that he should be tried in federal court. meadows surprised everyone when he took the stand for over four hours last month. testifying that he never did anything in georgia on behalf of donald trump personally, or on behalf of trump's presidential campaign. he said he was only ever acting in his official duties as a member of trump's white house staff. had meadows succeeded in getting his case moved to federal court, it would have been a huge win for him. it would have meant that the jury in this case would not have been selected from fulton county, georgia. a county that joe biden won overwhelmingly in 2020. but mr. meadows did not succeed in this effort, in his ruling, judge steve jones wrote, the court concludes that meadows has not met even the quite low

threshold for removal. that judge went on to essentially wave away meadows claims that he is simply carrying out his duties as chief of staff. take this example. during his testimony, again, last month, mr. meadows was asked about a text message he sent to a georgia elections official, in which he essentially offered to have the trump campaign pay for part of the georgia recount effort. meadows wrote in that text, is there a way to speed up fulton county's signature verification in order to have results before january 6th, if the trump campaign assists financially? now remember, mr. meadows was trying to claim here that he was acting as white house chief of staff, not as a member of the trump campaign, when he sent that. on the stand, mr. meadows explained that text was in keeping of me trying to ask a person who should know whether it's a financial resource issue, you know, man power issue, or whatever. so i wasn't speaking on behalf

of the campaign. judge jones found this not credible. the court determines as a matter of fact, making a request to the georgia secretary of state's office regarding a possibility that the trump campaign could provide financial resources to find the recount effort, even if not directly on behalf of the campaign, is it still campaign related to political activity. mr. meadows also testified about his mysterious surprise visit to the cobb county convention center, where georgia officials were conducting the audit of georgia's vote. mr. meadows asserted that that she was somehow part of his official white house duties. this is how mr. meadows explained that in his testimony last month. what i did was go to the cobb county convention center to look at the process that they were going through. and in doing so, was trying to, again, check the box to say, all right, everything is being done right here. and so if there's allegations of fraud, we need to move on to something else.

here's what the judge had to say about that one. the court factually finds that meadows overseeing state election recount processes related to president trump's reelection campaign, in other words, nice try mr. meadows. that's not federal work. the ruling goes on like this with judge jones not buying what mark meadows was selling. but his involvement in the phone call between donald trump and georgia secretary of state, brad raffensperger, was somehow federal work. that his arrangement of a call between trump and other georgia elections official was, again, somehow federal work. that a meeting with a michigan state official was, again, federal work. just jones was not agreeing with any of that. in fact, the only thing mr. meadows is accused of doing that judge jones finds was within his duties as chief of staff, was the fact that mr. meadows sent a text message to republican congressman, scott perry. as judge jones writes, near the end of this ruling, meadows was

required to come forward with competent proof of his factual contention that his allegations -- his actions, involving challenges to the outcome of the georgia election results were within his role of chief of staff. his efforts fall short. tonight, just before we got on the air, lawyers told mr. meadows told the court that they plan to appeal this ruling. joining me now are former active u.s. solicitor general, neil katya, and melissa redmond, former prosecutor in the fulton county d.a.'s office and now professor of law at the u.s. georgia law school. neal and melissa thanks for joining us. neil, i know you have some thoughts on this based on your social media activity. let me just first ask you how strong an appeal is on this ruling. >> week. very, very weak. this decision by judge johns is 49 pages long. it's very thorough. it's not surprising, in a way,

alex because i think anyone who understands how the statute works knows that this notion has always been a long shot and meadows and trump filed it anyways. i suspect with trump's blessing. because meadows and trump are scared of one thing. it's not the jury. i think what you were talking about before matters. but i think the real thing is they are afraid of the american public seeing this trial play out on cameras, so that the word -- the american public and the world can see it. in federal court, there are generally no cameras. which is why i think they really want this to be in federal court. but to be in federal court, as you were saying, alex, there has got to be federal work involved. judge jones meticulously, page after page, explains there ain't no federal work. the constitution actually cuts the executive branch out. he says, of the decisions over election fraud, when it comes to presidential election. for good reason, you don't have

an incumbent president to use all of their powers in ways to try to keep themselves in office. which is what trump and meadows were trying to do here. >> just to follow up on, that really quickly. you don't think that there is a chance that the 11th circuit of conservative judges entertains this appeal. >> obviously anything is possible, but just a strict reading of the law tells me there's no merit to the appeal. the 11th circuit, alex, has neal katyan historically been a place that protects states rights. one of the key moves judge jones made here is to say, look, if you do this, if you take this state prosecution and move it to federal court, it is the height of federal courts interfering with state powers, state responsibilities. and is antithetical to what our founders discovered. >> i've got to ask, there's one part of this ruling where judge jones, effectively, concedes a point to mark meadows. that his request from

congressman scott perry for some contact information could possibly fall within the scope of work as a white house chief of staff. do you think that opens the door to anything that further? i know neil is broadly skeptical of the appeals process on this one. but how did you read that one concession in this ruling? >> i don't think it moved his argument forward, because of the way r.i.c.o. works. because of the way he may have been in -- it's not a charge. what judge jones pointed out was the gravity of the issue is what was the conduct. and was that conduct related to meadows duties as a federal officer? so the state doesn't even have to approve that text message to prove the targets against him. and for that reason, i don't think it will play into the appeals in the 11th circuit. >> just for people, i actually understood georgia r.i.c.o.

statute was broader than the federal r.i.c.o. statute. but it's really clearly outlined here that the burden of proof is way lower. i wonder, professor, if you could just explain that a little bit more in terms of what needs to be proven in a court of law, as it concerns the sweeping conspiracy, and what doesn't need to be prevented. >> right, so the state has to prove that the 19 individuals committed acts -- that they entered into an enterprise with a common purpose. that being to overturn or to challenge the results of the georgia election. and that one of those coconspirators committed at least two predicate acts. the overt acts outlined for the jury, and tell the story to the jury of how they went about this enterprise. and what each person's involvement was in the conspiracy. then it lists a particular crime that they are charged with. so there's the r.i.c.o., there's overt acts committed in purpose of the r.i.c.o.. then there are the criminal

offenses attached to that. so they have to prove that that each defendant committed to predicate acts. they have a list of 161 overt acts to acquit. >> in other words, d.a. fani willis has a lot to work with. speaking of which, neal, the fact that mark meadows took the stand last month, everything he said when he took the stand can be used in a criminal case. one of the things he was unable to do, that the judge cited in this ruling, was explain any outer limits to what would not be considered federal work. that basically nothing was off limits. and therefore, everything was fair game, as white house chief of staff. do you think that's problematic, as we head into a state criminal trial? >> i don't, alex. first of all, i think what meadows said in the court today, sweeping rejection of, it doesn't just do meadows case for removal, it -- donald trump just as much.

everything the judge chose to say is that the president is cut out, the executive branch as a hole is cut out of policing president elections. so that means, when donald trump, if he does file a motion to remove the case to federal court, it is going to be rejected. to be sure, judge jones is careful, on page 48, he says, look, i'm only talking about meadows motion here. other defendants can file their own stuff. we will deal with it then. there isn't a way to rule for trump, given the decision today. that's why i think the most important thing that needs to happen, and i think it should happen tomorrow, alex, is that the prosecutors from fulton county, fani willis, take that notice of appeal that mark meadows has filed, say, i'm going to appeal. and tomorrow, they should file something called a motion to expedite and say, look, i this is a case that should be fast moving. it's a criminal case with enormous stakes.

ken chesbrough and sidney powell are going to trial on october 23rd because of their motion. all of this removal stuff has to be fully decided by the federal court of appeals, and, indeed the u.s. supreme court, in the next couple weeks. this shouldn't be a couple of days or weeks not months, there's nothing to these appeals. they are simple and easy to resolve. it should be done quickly. but trump's entire motion has always been delay, delay, delay. we are far too late in the game for further delay. >> that was sort of exactly my next question, professor. judge mcafee, who is the judge in fani willis's case, has expressed concern that this whole appeal about getting this case thrown out of state court and put into federal court could complicate the speedy trial that is going to happen for kenneth chesebro and sidney powell. i would assume that fani willis is going to try to get that resolved asap, given the concerns that have already been expressed by the judge.

what is your opinion on that? >> i think the case against chesebro and powell will go forward on october 23rd. i don't see a way for these issues, in the federal removal cases, to be -- in time for those defendants to be joined into the october 23rd trial. i think we are looking at the least at two trials. the two on october 23rd, and then maybe the 17, i suspect that will be further divided at some point later. i do think she will follow the rule to expedite, to get this resolved as soon as possible. mcafee has to decide how far we go with the state case. there are going to be pretrial motions that have to be heard. there will likely be appeals of whatever the decisions will be on those pretrial motions. so all of that still has to take place before we even get close to a real trial date for any of these. so he indicated that he wants

to have weekly check-ins to see what the status of the pretrial motions are. i suspect that one of those questions will be, what is going on with the removal appeal? what is the state position on that as it relates to whether to continue their efforts to join all of these defendants together? >> i would assume, neal, given your opinion on donald trump's appeal to potentially get this moved into federal court, that your dismissal of that notion would extended to appeals from the fake electors who want to get this moved into federal court, and jeffrey clark, the former doj who also wants to move this case into federal court. do you think this is effectively a blanket shutdown of all of that? >> i do. at least in respect to anyone working on the executive branch. because ruling in page 29 -- says the constitution does not provide any basis for executive branch involvement with state election and post-election procedures.

that's a quote from the opinion, that applies to any executive branch official. people like ken chesbrough never had a stronger removal claim in the first place, because they weren't even federal officials. that's going nowhere in terms of removal. but to the executive branch officials like mark meadows and -- i think today's opinion by judge john's is really well done, and will put the nail in their coffin. >> okay. said by neal katyal and the, i guess we have and in point, i guess. neal katyal, melissa redmon, think you so much for your time and expertise tonight in this breaking news environment. i appreciate it. we still have a lot more ahead tonight. including a look at just to the special grand jury down in fulton county recommended charging in georgia. who might have flipped on donald trump, as a result of that. and who came very close to being indicted.

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haven't seen that report. dishes are imminent. >> thank you. >> that was fulton county district attorney, fani willis, in january of this year. asking a judge to block the release of a report made by a special grand jury detailing indictment recommendations. miss willis wanted it blocked because, in her words, charging decisions were imminent. now she made that request in january, and she indicted last month in august, we clearly have very different definitions of the word imminent. but d.a. willis did manage to keep the charging recommendations in that report secret intel today. you might remember that after d.a. willis's special grand jury finished its investigation, this woman, the foreperson of that special grand jury, emily kohrs, she did a bunch of tv interviews in which she sort of tiptoed around who was on the list of people that the grand jury thought d.a. willis should indict.

but emily kohrs barely clearly wanted to spill the beans. >> so we are talking about multiple people. >> yes. >> how many people was the so long list? >> it's not a short list. . it's not a short list. we saw 75 people. there are six pages of the report come out. i think. if you look at the page numbers. so it's not -- >> so we're talking about more than a dozen people? >> i would say that, yes. look >> i guess we will call that will power. and now, today, we finally know what special grand jury foreperson, emily kohrs, was dying to tell the world. they recommended indicting 39 people. is it more than a dozen? i would say that, yes. it's a whole heck of a lot more than a dozen. now i know most analysis of

d.a. wilson to indict the 19 people she did indict has framed this as a sweeping indictment. but given the number of people she could have indicted, maybe it's sort of a conservative indictment, numerically speaking. here are the 21 people that the special grand jury recommended be indicted that dhs willis ultimately did not indict. that's a lot of people. among them are ten fake electors, six lawyers, and three u.s. senators. now, one of those fake electors is the current lieutenant governor of georgia, bert jones. the reason for his exclusion is likely because d.a. willis held a fund-raiser for jones's political opponents. so the judge overseeing the case is disqualified miss willis from prosecuting him. it makes sense why burton jones didn't ultimately get indicted. as for the other nine fake electors, the new york times reported in the spring that nine georgia fake electors had taken immunity deals. they began cooperating with d.a. willis's investigation. that could explain why they did not get indicted. but what about everybody else?

what about senator lindsey graham? you might remember that more than a month before trump infamously called georgia's secretary of state, brad raffensperger, and asked him to find nearly 12,000 votes, you might remember that in november of that same year, lindsey graham gave mr. raffensperger his own call. in that call, mr. raffensperger said that senator graham appeared to suggest that he, raffensperger, find a way to toss a legally cast ballots. to toss legally cast ballots. at the time, senator graham said the characterization of his call as it's a -- to toss ballots, was ridiculous. today, the senator put out a statement saying he just had questions, and was doing his due diligence. but as georgia's republican secretary of state, brad raffensperger, described that call, there was just an implication of look hard, and see how many ballots you could throw out.

by the way, all of that was publicly contemporaneously reported. so when senator graham ultimately voted to acquit president trump in his january 6th impeachment trial in the senate, senator graham himself was under investigation. which is ironic. a wild conflict of interest. both? i don't know. now we, know the special grand jury voted in favor of d.a. willis indicting senator graham. so i didn't she? why didn't she follow the grand jury's recommendation to indict georgia senators kelly loeffler and david perdue? or the jury's recommendation to indict trump's former national security adviser, michael flynn? or trump's political advisor, boris epshteyn, or all the rest of them? what -- what was d.a. willis's thought process from when the grand jury made these charging recommendations last year to when d.a. willis made the decision to indict just 19 people last month? we are going to get some expert help sorting through all of

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at the work of the fulton county special grand jury. the one that investigated donald trump's attempts to subvert the 2020 election in georgia. the final report of that seven month investigation does not provide the level of narrative detail we saw in d.a. willis's

indictment of the 19 codefendants. but it does offer some new information, including the breakdown of the jury's votes on each of their recommended charges. and it also raises some pretty compelling questions, like why there are 21 people the grand jury voted to charge, but d.a. willis chose not to charge? joining me now is chris timmins, former deputy chief assistant district attorney who has tried to r.i.c.o. cases in dekalb and cobb county georgia. mr. timmins, thanks so much for being here. i have a lot of questions. i know some of them are unanswerable. i'd like to get your expert opinion on the eight months that separated d.a. willis's announcement that charging decisions were imminent, and her decision to actually announce those charges in august. what was happening in those intervening months? do you think that perhaps the dea may have been working on rounding up some cooperating witnesses or flipping people who were potential

coconspirators in all of this? >> alex, exactly. what you are doing in between the time of the special purpose grand jury issues a report and resulting indictment that comes down is you are working on your case. so i think that's why they are not afraid of that october 23rd deadline. i think they are ready to go to trial. what you are doing is you are building, you are drafting, you are testing. making sure that each one of those 161 acts in further of the conspiracy were proven. i've run special purpose grand juries in the past. i've taken a special purpose grand jury report and turned it into an indictment. it takes some time from the time you get that report to be prepared to indict, then finally be ready to go to trial. >> can i just ask you an inside based question on that, what goes into flipping someone on a r.i.c.o. case? once you have the special purpose grand juries report, and before you've announced the indictment, what is the outreach like there to potential witnesses and defendants? >> sure, so most of the time, you are dealing with folks of

this particular case that would have attorneys. you are talking about their attorneys. you've got a carrot and a stick. your stick is that rico carries 20 years and it grids out really high on a payroll grid here in georgia. what that means is there's a scale of 1 to 10. ten being the most serious, those are carries is that carry life sentences. one being really insignificant cases like a county theft. rico is at a nine. if you get sentenced under r.i.c.o., you are going to sentence at least eight months in prison, assuming you get a prison sentence. that's a huge hammer to tell someone if you get five years, you are going to do four of them in prison. you do a lot of talking to attorneys. you also find out what you are getting back. as we say here in the south, i'm illegitimately from atlanta, you don't want to buy a pick and poke. meaning you want to know what testimony you are going to get in exchange for the agreement to provide immunity. those are all things they are doing in that time. >> to that point, there are two folks that the grand jury -- the special purpose grand jury

recommended indicting, klete to michelle and boris epshteyn, names known to people following this closely. people who very much know the inner workings of the plot to swing the election. they were not indicted by d.a. willis. is it safe to assume that they may be cooperating witnesses at this point? >> i mean, it's dangerous to assume anything. because you just don't know. there are a number of reasons why somebody could be left out of an indictment. one of which is that they just don't fit within the r.i.c.o. scheme. based on what we know outside, i don't think that is the case for these two. they would seem to be people, based on what we know, would fit within the r.i.c.o. scheme. but obviously we don't know everything. certainly not as much as the d.a.'s office knows, and certainly not as much as their attorneys. now if i were to place a bet, i would bet that they are cooperating with the state. but you just don't know for sure in this case, until we get towards trial. and we see them on a witness list. you see them on a witness list, it's pretty clear they are cooperating. -- >> we will be trained on that.

i believe that that would not be buying a pick and poke, to get cleta mitchell and boris epshteyn to be cooperating witnesses. but i'm from washington d.c., not ohio or atlanta. the special purpose grand jury recommended the indictment of, at the time, former sitting georgia senators, kelly loeffler and david perdue. how unusual is that in georgia law circles? in criminal cases down in your state? >> so we broke some records when they indicted a former president of the united states. so that has kind of set the bar. but going after united states senators is huge as well. we've had some cases where local officials have been gone after. we had one case in dekalb county where as a prosecutor for my time where the incumbent sheriff assassinated the sheriff elect. there were other cases where we've gone after other public officials, some of which i was involved in. but nothing nearly the size of this. it would be massive if they

just indicted the three senators. but adding the former president of the united states on top of that is huge. again, i think it has been said over and over again by pretty much everyone who is analyzing this case. we are in uncharted waters. >> i do wonder about the fake electors, we know that there were 16 of them. georgia, the d.a. willis charged only three. ten were listed in the grand jury's suggested a list of indictments. but three are not included, either in the report, or fani willis's indictment. i know that's a lot of math. but for those fake electors that we know if that weren't in either the report or the indictment, does that tell you anything? again, i'm not trying to use the assume word, but what should we glean from that? >> i think, but i'm not sure, we've got to be careful. i hate doing the lawyer thing, alex. >> i think you are right to be cautious. you are right to be cautious. >> i think, based on some motions that were filed to disqualify council on the

grounds that deals were offered to some of the electors, and not to others, i think it would -- based on that, i think it's probably safe to assume that some of the electors took a deal with the state. again, it's likely. until we see the witness list that comes out from the district attorney's office or the state, we just won't know. again, we've got to be cautious when we are suggesting that people took a deal from the state. don't want to impugn negative actions onto them, when they may not necessarily be there. >> i appreciate the discretion there. i think what's important and what i am hearing from you is it is one of those things where you see a dark serenely gliding along the water. but underneath the water, the duct is paddling furiously. those eight months, we were all wondering what is happening down in georgia, it seems pretty clear. at least from the evidence or the indications we have right now. that the d.a.'s office has been working triple time to secure their end of this case, which is why d.a. willis was fine to go ahead with the speedy trial

that starts october 23rd. do you think that's an accurate assessment? >> i do. jon floyd is a good friend of mine. he's a mentor. john and i would periodically meet for drinks. i didn't get to have drinks with john for a few months there. i was pretty sure he was up to something. he was the guy that was over fani willis's right shoulder when the indictment came down. and john was most likely the architect of the indictment. but certainly nothing went into it that was not approved by madam d.a.. it's always a team effort when you put together a 96-page document. i know he was very, very busy. i'm sure the entire team at the district attorney's office was busy as well. when you are going after the former president of the united states, you cannot make a single misstep or you are going to cause major issues for your office, and possibly for the united states. >> jon floyd, the r.i.c.o. guy, as we call him. if he wasn't going out for cocktails with you, chris timmins, we knew he was busy with something. thanks for that little tidbit. >> absolutely. >> of social calendar detail.

chris timmins, thanks so much for your information, your wisdom, your expertise, i appreciate it. >> thanks alex, it was my pleasure. >> still ahead this evening, the poison, the poison that is getting peddled on elon musk's media platform, and what it may do to a potential jury pool. that is coming up. there are some things that go better... together. like your workplace benefits... and retirement savings. with voya, considering all your financial choices together...

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you aren't, maybe you are, if you are wondering what tucker carlson, the disgraced former fox news host has been up to since his firing, i'm about to show you. but first, a warning. what you are about to hear is nonsense. >> his name was larry st. clair. he told an amazing story. he said that in 1999, he had encountered barack obama in illinois. had sex with barack obama, then used cocaine with him. it turns out, larry sinclair is still alive. he lives in mexico. but today, he is in our studio. we are happy to have him. laura sinclair, thank you so much. >> okay. where do we begin with this. for starters, the man that tucker carlson is interviewing there is a known con man. larry sinclair first went public with his barack obama story in 2008. he held a press conference to air his allegations in front of the national press club. shortly after that press conference, mr. sinclair was arrested by d.c. police on a

warrant for theft and forgery charges. mr. sinclair has been charged multiple times with check and credit card fraud. that's a way to say he operates under not one, not to, not three, but 13 different aliases. in 2004, he refused to show up for a court appearance, claiming he was terminally ill. he is, as you saw, alive today, 19 years later. during his interview, tucker carlson tried to bolster larry sinclair's credibility by noting that sinclair took a lie detector test about his alleged encounter with barack obama. watch tucker failed to mention there is that larry sinclair failed that lie detector test. this is the kind of wrought mr. carlson can get away with now that he broadcasts exclusively on elon musk's disinformation super highway, x. formerly known as twitter. the past week has been a lesson in just how much power elon musk wields, and how willing he

is to abuse that power. musk started this week by threatening to sue the anti-defamation league for defamation. claiming that the group was responsible for ex's significant loss in advertising revenue. in reality, it was likely musk's decision to allow not cease and other hateful disagreements -- groups like the anti-defamation league called attention to that. and mr. musk is now apparently using his platform to promote far-right extremists and white nationalists who are campaigning against the atl. that kind of poison amplified and promoted by the likes of elon musk is not only influencing american politics, it is tinting every aspect of american life. including the potential jury pools that will be deciding the fate of the ex president and his coconspirators. symone sanders-townsend and michael steele join me to talk about all of that, coming up

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yourself, to whatever degree, that a crime didn't occur here in georgia in connection with a 2020 election process? or to the contrary, if you've already convinced yourself there is no way any crime occurred in connection with the election process in 2020 in georgia, i'm going to ask you to include yourself in the

conflict category. >> that was fulton county superior court judge robert mcburney -- d.a. fallen tree willis's special purpose grand jury last year. 26 people apparently felt they had not already convinced themselves as to whether or not crimes had been committed. they thought they were neutral. they were selected for the panel. they went on to investigate and take the witness testimony for several months. we now know that that special purpose grand jury recommended indictments against 39 people. twice as many as were ultimately charged by d.a. willis. but according to the newly unredacted report, every time donald trump's name was mentioned, there was one no vote on recommending to indict him. every single time donald trump's name was mentioned. that lone no vote could signal a problem for prosecutors, now that trump has been indicted and a jury will have to -- joining me now is michael steele, msnbc political analyst and former rnc chair.

and simone sanders -- and of course, the host of symone here on msnbc. it's good to have you here my friends. simone, this one juror, each and every time trump's name was mentioned does not find a reason to indict him. you could look at that as glass half full. i suppose. that it was just one juror. but they need a unanimous vote on convicting trump. fulton county is deep. biden won it by 46%. even there, there is one person who is resolutely decidedly defiantly pro trump, against all the evidence that is being presented. >> well, are they pro trump or do they just not believe the details set before them? this is the challenge for district attorney fani willis. and frankly, i think it is why it took, why she took the time, and her team took the time to come to the number of people and whom which they were going to charge within this r.i.c.o.. because they saw how the

special grand jury played out. look, i think what's really important here is that donald trump at every single case here is going to be, through scary injuries, he's been convicted by -- in the grand juries at least, they said enough to say, hey, try him. -- this is not right. there is some there, there. i believe, you jack smith. i believe euphonious. i believe you alvin bragg. it's going to be very important when it comes to particularly in georgia that fani willis and her team are able to make their case clearly. the difference here is it's going to be televised. we will all be able to see it. >> i do wonder, michael steele, when you talk about the jury selection process, i -- i'm prematurely nervous about it. given, again, the fact that she would have to secure a unanimous conviction. when you look at republican attitudes towards donald trump as this process, as the

evidence has been reported out, as we've seen more allegations come forwards and indictments come forward. the republican support for donald trump increases. cbs poll august 2023, -- the there are inevitably going to be some republicans in that jury. >> yes. there will be. [laughter] and that is the problem. look, it's a challenge, because when you are resolute in a conviction, that someone is not culpable of the crimes that are being alleged, it makes it, to simmons point, it makes it very challenging for the dea to put together the kind of jury pool that will work in a way that they can avoid the reasonable doubt. here is the problem.

the problem is that the republicans have been sitting these jurors for a long time now. and so with every irruption from republicans around the country, pick a topic. it further cement a thinking, a mindset inside the body politic. yes. but more importantly, inside growing number of jury pools given the four states that are involved in the judicial process right now with trump to be able to put together 12 men and women who objectively look at the facts and decide guilty or innocence. you rightly point out here that one juror resolutely, every time trump's name was mentioned, said no. so extrapolate that out across the country in these other cases, rather, and there lies the problem for jack smith,

fani willis, bragg and others. >> i know you wanted to make a point. i think you wanted to make a point here. >> yeah, i think this is why jury selection on march 4th with the trial in washington d.c., dutch china chutkan is going to be very important. -- i'm not a lawyer, alex. i've been an intern for lawyers for a very long time, worked for the lawyers throughout my career. i sat through a number of jury selections. it's intense. it's meticulous. it is for the very reasons that the chairman is laying out. because the jurors that you are putting in that jury box, those are the people that can make or break your case. >> i would also say, they are going to be up against not just donald trump, but the right-wing misinformation ecosystem that is no compunction about spewing lies. before we came into the segment we played a video of tucker carlson having a known con man on ex, the former twitter platform, spinning lies about barack obama. barack obama, no longer president. but literally still rot --

that same old hobby horse of racism. and everything else to malign a former democrat, just for the sake of stoking a grievance, anger, retribution against someone who actually has no bearing on republican politics anymore. what has happened to the gop in the trump years and post trump years, it is unrecognizable in a lot of ways. >> absolutely. i think this is why we talk about democracy. we need to strong, at least two strong political parties in this country. i worked in democratic politics for a very long time. but i don't believe everybody should be a democrat. we need republicans, we need independents, we need folks who are willing to stand on the side of truth and what is right, and what you have one political party who has bent the knee, if you will, to the lies and the tyrant and the dictator -- the would-be dictator that is donald trump, i think there are very real concerns. but the reality is it is bigger than trump. you could take him off the

table tomorrow. the party would still have the problem that it currently has. >> michael steele -- you can't put the genie back in the bottle. elon musk is out there with his own platform, tucker carlson is re-platformed. what happens now? >> hell no, they shot the genie a long time ago. they can't put the genie back in the bottle. no. they did to the cheney what they wanted to do to mike pence. they hung his as. that's what they did. they made it very clear the direction they wanted to go. and there is no doubt here. here's an interesting thing that i've thought about over the last few weeks, watching these trials begin to go through there process. the delay is not going to necessarily be with the moves by republicans and trump, and others, to push back the calendar. that jury process could take a while. if these prosecutors do their

homework, and there do jill advance, the kinds of questions they need to ask, it can be very hard to find someone to sit on that jury sooner rather than later. it's going to be very, very hard to do. >> all right, well listen, we still have a couple weeks to go. michael steele and symone sanders-townsend. wonderful friends to close this week out. symone is going to be right back here in an hour to host the 11th hour. of course, you can always catch her on her very own show, symone, if we weekend at four pm, right here on msnbc. i owe you guys. thank you, and thank you for using this fabulous genie metaphors. that is our show tonight. now it is time for the last word with my other friend jonathan capehart, who is in for lawrence. good evening jonathan. >> good evening, alex. that's a dynamic duo you had there. michael steele and symone. that's fabulous. >> we are stuck in the decks for you. >> thank you. we are going to have our own cool kid up in a moment talking legal stuff. alex, have a great weekend. >> you too.