share? i believe the economy i'm leaving is the best in the world and stronger than ever for all americans. so i think that's what we have. we'll see what the next president does. >> all right. before we go, a programing note this weekend on the velshi banned book club, we will be talking about the famous fahrenheit 451 by ray bradbury. i'll speak with the legendary lois lowry, author of another prescient dystopian classic, the giver, and jason stanley, yale university's philosophy professor, author and fascism expert. that's tomorrow at 10 a.m. eastern. i hope you'll join us. and that is tonight's last word. the 11th hour with stephanie ruhle begins right now. >> tonight, the death toll is rising as firefighters struggle to contain the los angeles wildfires. we get the latest on the ground and talk to a survivor who barely escaped the blaze. then wildfire conspiracy theories spark a misinformation storm online. we've got an expert here to separate fact

from fiction. plus, donald trump becomes the first former president to be a convicted felon. what it means just days before he returns to the oval office. as the 11th hour gets underway on this friday night. good evening once again, i'm stephanie ruhle. it is a privilege to be here with you. our nightcap crew would normally be here. they will be back next week. but tonight we have got a lot of breaking news to cover. so let's get started. down in southern california, officials are only beginning to survey the absolute devastation. at least 11 people have been killed in the historic wildfires, but that number continues to climb. officials say they are making good progress, but there is still a very long road ahead. the palisades fire is only 8% contained, burning more than 20,000 acres, while the eaton fire is only 3% contained, burning more than 14,000 acres. the disaster response has faced multiple complications, including a water pressure

crisis which has left some hydrants completely empty. while firefighters have been battling the blazes, governor gavin newsom ordered a state water and fire official investigation into what happened. also tonight, nbc news has confirmed that a major reservoir in pacific palisades was out of commission when the fire first erupted. a former manager of the l.a. water and power department told the l.a. times the reservoir would have helped to an extent, but it would not have saved the day. in just a few minutes, i'll be speaking with the director of the ucla water resources group to help us break all of this down, because there are so many conspiracy theories out there. but right now, i want to bring in ellison barber, live from altadena, where the eaton fire is still raging. ellison, i am grateful for your work out there. every time i turn on the television, you are out there in the elements. tell us, have officials made any progress and what is the air condition like for you? >> yeah. i mean, look, they're doing the best they can. i mean,

my team, everybody is wearing a mask. i've taken mine off just so you can hear me as we're talking. it doesn't feel great if i lived in the area. and as i'm in here moving around, i am wearing a mask when i'm not on air. but, look, it's a challenging situation. you mentioned the fire hydrants. i want to show you kind of what we're standing next to. i'm going to get to this stuff behind me. but you see the smoke? this is an active area, right? this right over here. you see that under the stop sign next to that burnt out car? that is a fire hydrant. stephanie, it's not being used by the fire teams, the strikers that are here working right now. that is because they are not getting enough water to it. there is not enough pressure to get water to use that. there's another team a couple blocks down who are dealing with the same situation, but some of the firefighters on the ground here, they've told us just a couple blocks the other way. those fire hydrants are working and there are crews, utility crews working to try to figure out where there's a break in the line here and why they aren't able to use these fire hydrants. but that's an ongoing problem here. right now. those fire hydrants here from this block and further down in altadena on this main street are not working right now. there's not water in them. there's not

water pressure. they can't use it. what they are using are tankers. they're bringing in what essentially are big. they look to me like water tanks. i have been told tanks are what fly in the sky. tankers are what these are. they're using it to get water to the engine, to then try and put out this fire. and part of why i want to show you what's happening here is because one, it's obviously a very active scene, but it also tells a bit of the story about the hurdles that these teams are dealing with on the ground. they're dealing with buildings that are multi stories that have collapsed and they've dropped down a lot of them on basements. and so what happens when they collapse like that is there are often pockets of embers or other fires underneath those layers that have crushed into the basement that are still burning and that are still dangerous. they call those hotspots. so this entire building, when we were here 5 or 6 hours ago, when the sun was still up, as we were headed towards like 5 p.m. or so, this was not burning anymore, right? like it looked like this was essentially a big

pile of debris. but everything was okay. i would have told you. i would have probably, if that was a building i owned, walked in it and been like, watch your step, but it's not on fire anymore. i would have been wrong. and that's what they say is the thing. they want residents in this area to understand who are in mandatory evacuation orders when they're saying, you still can't come into this area, it's because for so many of these, this part at least near the eaton fire, so many of these buildings actually have not been cleared, and they're not entirely sure if they're safe. and they are having a lot of situations like this where there are pockets in these buildings, particularly those that have basements, and they can't always tell if there's a basement where the levels of the floors have collapsed and there are still fires and heat underneath, and then they are reigniting and hotspots are popping up, and they're having to then try and deal with getting the building and the fire under control. so this one they've been working on for hours just down the street, i'm just going to turn so you can see the lights, because it will give you a sense of the

distance where there's that other truck down there, those lights flashing. that is another building where they're having the exact same situation. it was a building that 5 or 6 hours ago, looked like there was no longer a fire there. but there are hotspots underneath the stairwells and in the basement. and now crews are having to try and get it back under control. so they say this is an ongoing issue where there's a building where in theory, it looks like it's no longer an active fire or something that they have to be worried about, but then those hotspots reignite, or they just show up in a different way where they realize that that building is not entirely clear, and they have to come back to try and work on putting it out. so they say that is part of what makes containment so difficult. and here you'll see in buildings there's one that is just absolutely destroyed like this. and then over here there's another building that is just standing, and then a block down another building that's entirely destroyed. so there's a lot of layers to the challenges they're having trying to get these fires under control. and hotspots like this are one of them. a lot of these buildings have basements. there are still embers. there's still heat underneath these

buildings that have collapsed and been burned and it's popping back up. so they're essentially having to go back and fight these fires again on buildings that a few hours ago looked like they were no longer on fire, but they still were. >> stephanie, because of that, are residents trying to come back? i get that they shouldn't come back, but especially because things to a lot of people look, okay. i'm sure people are dying to come back and see their properties, trying to go through the rubble and see if they can find their stuff. >> yeah, i mean, they are. and that was a thing that we noticed a lot today. we started the day, the morning at a checkpoint where there was a national guard, a couple of national guard members, as well as california highway patrol stopping people from coming up. and in this area, they've been telling people if it's under a mandatory evacuation zone, you cannot come back. and they were not letting people come by car. in some areas. they were letting people come on foot. but for the most part today they were telling people they could not come into this area. and there were a lot of people who were really frustrated. we saw one man come up to the national guard and he was saying, look through my stuff. i'm not a looter. i'm trying to go help my

friend. i need to take him supplies. he needs help. and they said, we can't let you. and they say that is one because they are worried about the possibility of looters. and california officials say they have arrested at least 20 people for looting. but really, when we talk to the fire officials on the ground here, they say the main issue that they're worried about with people coming back is that there are a lot of active lines that are still downed power lines, but that it's a lot of stuff like this where there's like a lot of these homes have basements, and if you go into a home and we let you go back towards that and you walk into it to get something out or to try to assess the damage, and you step on a layer and there's a hot spot underneath it where you get burned or it collapses and you go underneath that. it could be catastrophic, really dangerous and possibly deadly. and they don't want that to happen. so one of the firefighters i was talking to here, he said, look, we get it. we know how frustrated people are. i have so much empathy for you. but please be patient with us because we're doing our best. and there are a lot of questions that need to be asked and need to be answered on why you know, things like this, like the fire hydrants aren't working here to help this process go faster. but in terms of what they're doing on the ground and why, they're

saying, for now, wait a little longer, it's because of stuff like this. they haven't been able to clear all of the buildings and even the buildings that look clear. there's still the risk of hotspots popping up right now, and they're dealing with a lot of these in this area. but yes, people are incredibly frustrated because they just want to go home and they want to see what is there. we met one woman today who said, i know my home is still standing. i saw it on the ring camera. i just want to get a change of clothes. i haven't been able to get a change of clothes. i only packed for one night when i left and that's all i've had. i just want to get clothes. but this. they say this is really why they're saying we can't let you back in. but we understand you're frustrated. stephanie. >> 20 people already arrested ellison. that legit blows my mind. if any of those potential looters are watching get used to the heat because you're going to burn in hell. that is just horrible. ellison, please stay safe where you are. you need to pack it in for the night. i am sure you're going to be out there all weekend long. thank you. i want to bring into this conversation natalie mitchell. she narrowly escaped her home in the palisades with her husband.

that leave first. i just want to say i am so sorry for what you are going through. thank you for joining us tonight. for us, we are trying to understand what's happening out there. walk us through those last few moments in your home before you left. how did you get out? what was going on? >> it's just really crazy to even think about it and to retell the story. but the one thing that stands out is looking out my bedroom window, on out the balcony and seeing the flames. it started out just very, very small and within ten minutes it had grown so huge i felt like i could reach out and touch it. it just felt so close to me. and by then we were already frantically saying that we had to get out. we had been sheltering in place all afternoon because there's one road to get in and out of our neighborhood on palisades drive and the fire access road had. we

couldn't go that way because the fire was impacting anyone to go that way. so you could only go out palisades drive. and we had been sheltering in place, and we knew at that moment when we saw how bad the fire was on the hill, we could see it from our bedroom window. we had to get out. and it's like, you know, there's that moment where you feel like, what should i take? what should i do? what? i just felt paralyzed. and i could just remember my husband gerald. just saying, we have to go. we have to go now. get in the car. whatever you can pick up. just get it. and i had put away a few things, but really, i felt, you know, i was pretty unprepared. and so we just grabbed whatever we could. and we got in the car and it was the most terrifying experience of my entire life. i mean, everything was on fire, just raining fire, burning embers. both sides of the mountain were on fire. we saw houses on fire. just the visibility. there was no visibility. and i just thought,

are we going to get out of this? we were not with our kids and both of us were together. so you have that feeling like we both have to survive to get to our children. and i just, i just feel for every single person in the palisades, i know so many people who have lost their homes, so many friends, and i just the sadness is indescribable. >> how are your children doing? you have three young kids. i mean, the palisades is all they know. it's their home. it's their universe. >> it is. >> they have been raised there. they go to have gone to school there and, you know, playdates and soccer games and running and all of the things that they that they know. and the town is gone. it's decimated. i think it's difficult. it's very, very, very difficult for us all to process this. i vividly remember just bawling my eyes out when i realized that our beautiful library is gone. you know, it's

a place where i've taken my kids for story hour and eclipse parties and just getting books. and it's a big part of our life. the grocery store, the you know, there's so many things the car wash, the little, you know, restaurants that are small businesses that people own and love, that we go and spend time, you know, there it's just it's all gone. and it just it just doesn't seem real. it feels like we're going to wake up from this nightmare. and i know, i know that we're not. >> so do you have any idea what the community is going to do? i mean, no schools, no businesses, no stores. how is that going to work? where are you going to go? >> well, we fled the area, so we are about 35 miles north of the palisades right now. and we have, you know, we've had families open their homes to us graciously to take us in. and i'm sure that is the same for many other families. and i think

it's just, you know, i was saying it's kind of like hour by hour. you're just, you know, doing the best that you can to feed your kids, to give them some normalcy, to give them a place to sleep and, you know, some warmth and comfort and a hug and then you just figure it out as you go. but it it is just horrifying what has happened to our beautiful town. >> it sure is. natalie, thank you so much for joining us. i am so sorry for what you're going through. >> thank you so much. >> i want to bring into the conversation gregory pearce. he is the director of the ucla water resources group and research and co-executive director of the ucla luskin center for innovation. gregory, i'm so glad you're here with us because we keep hearing all this conflicting information about this water problem, this water pressure problem. can you tell us exactly what is happening and why? >> yeah, well, there's a few different fires, obviously, and

that means actually different water systems dealing with the different fires. there's 200 different water systems in los angeles county. but i think the big controversy has been around the palisades fire that's served by la dwp, which serves the entire city of la. in that case, there's been a lot of criticism around the lack of functioning of the fire hydrants around tank sizes. and now recently around a reservoir that's up in the area. being offline, i'd say largely, i know it's not a popular story that what public officials are saying about the capacity of an urban water system to fight a wildfire is true, and that they're not well equipped. they haven't been expected to fight wildfires in the past, and that the system may not have been fully equipped, or it certainly would have helped had the reservoir online, although that was mostly a matter of luck. very bad luck because it was offline to try to address public

health issues. but even if there were, i don't know the exact number, but several times the amount of water that was available that wouldn't have made the difference in stopping the fire certainly would have helped. but this fire was fast moving, and water is only one part of the equation. and fighting fires, especially in this type of terrain. so it's largely unreasonable based on the evidence we have so far, to expect that the system would have performed much better. there's a big question about how to build things in the future, but that's that's really a different question. >> donald trump has suggested bringing water from northern california to southern california to fight the blaze. >> yeah, so that's been a long standing debate. there is water moving from northern california to southern california. there's been a debate for 40 years about whether we should move more of it. i think he's referring to that. none of that would have made a difference in this case, specifically because that water wouldn't have been close enough

to fight the fire. and really, the story in this area is in all of these areas, is that they're hilly, or at least the fires are starting in hilly areas. and so you need a lot of pressure, a lot of power to move the water to where it needs to be to fight the fire. you can't just store a ton of water up in these areas unless you build completely different infrastructure than we've done in the past. so the idea that just having more water from northern california to southern california would be helpful is just not true. >> here's something that stuck out to me today, because the former manager of the l.a. water and power department said that the that the system has never been designed to fight a wildfire like this. but why would that be like, haven't we known for quite some time? the california is at very high risk for wildfires. >> yes, absolutely. we've known that california in general is prone to wildfires and that some urban areas will face wildfires.

but i don't think, frankly, that we as a society have been willing to pay for the infrastructure that would be needed, especially on the water side, but also on the power side and the firefighter side to address fires of this magnitude. and we're pretty reactionary, and it would cost again, i don't know the exact numbers, but multiple times what we pay now for all those services to have stopped these fires in their tracks. and maybe we're going there in the future. maybe that's what we'll do. but to date, that just hasn't been expected. and we have trouble having, you know, people are concerned about what they pay for water and power now. so i think it's largely a question of societal will and also a question of, you know, whether we can afford this infrastructure in certain areas, whether these areas are defensible from fires like this. >> all right, gregory, thank you so much for making us smarter tonight. i appreciate you speaking with us. >> thanks for having me. >> when we return. another problem as the wildfires spread,

so do the conspiracy theories. we're going to speak to an expert about all this misinformation. and later, donald trump dodges punishment in his hush money sentencing. but he cannot avoid his new official title convicted felon. the 11th hour just getting underway on a friday night. >> on a magical night. dreams take flight and sometimes dreams come true. >> snoopy arrives at solitaire grand harvest dive into a world of fun and adventure with snoopy right by your side as you play solitaire, solve challenges and reach new heights, collect the unique snoopy collection and prepare for an experience filled with joy and excitement. salter never felt so good with solitaire grand harvest. download for free now. >> how are you tired of that old worn out bath or shower? now you can have a new one installed in just one day, with a new limited time offer from jacuzzi bath remodel. we're waiving all

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one (800) 403-7539. that's one (800) 403-7539. monday's inside with jen psaki at eight, the rachel maddow show at nine and the last word with lawrence o'donnell at ten on msnbc. >> this show began and continues being the place to have the hard conversations. >> each week on my podcast, i'm joined by uniquely qualified guests who help me take a big picture look at the issues, like representative jasmine crockett, late night host seth meyers, former attorney general eric holder, and many more. why is this happening? listen now. >> this one requires a deep breath. conspiracy theories about the california wildfires are spreading quickly online,

fueled by prominent conservatives including donald trump and elon musk. they are blaming everything from endangered fish to democratic officials to diversity, equity and inclusion policies. so let's bring in mike rothschild, who tragically lost his home in the eaton fire. but he's also a journalist and a conspiracy theory expert. he's the author of jewish space lasers, the rothschilds and 200 years of conspiracy theories. mike, before we talk conspiracies, i want to talk about you and your experience. i am so, so sorry. i believe you lost your home. what is what is going on? >> well, we are in our fourth place that we have sheltered in. this will be our second different place that we've slept. and we're in the central coast of california. we got an alarm on our phones at about 325 in the morning on wednesday that we needed to evacuate, and we packed up some things earlier. just out of an abundance of caution, i could see the fire from my porch. it started as a

glow off in the distance. i could see it moving across the mountains, and within a few hours we were essentially packing up and driving away for our lives. >> and what do you know about your home? >> it's gone. it is a smoking crater. we, one of our patio chairs, might have survived. other than that, it is. it is a total loss. our neighbors on either side are burned out well over a dozen, probably two dozen friends, neighbors, people we've known for years have lost everything. >> i am so sorry. so while you are dealing with this sort of unimaginable tragedy, right, people keep saying, oh, it's just stuff, but losing your home is losing the evidence of your life. and while you are grappling with the reality of this, wild, wild conspiracy theories are spreading all over the internet at a time when people desperately need good

factual information. what's driving this politics? >> well, politics is part of it. part of it is human nature. we look at a vast catastrophe, like wildfires, like nine over 11, like jfk. and we're looking for answers. we're looking for who really did it and who is to blame for it. and i think a personal tragedy affects you. you want someone to be angry at you. you want someone who did it to you. and i think in this case, they're looking for a cartoon villain. and unfortunately there isn't one. i'm angry. i lost my home. i lost things that cannot be replaced. friends of mine lost everything. i have a right to be angry. there's just no one for me to be angry at. i mean, the wind did this. it's foolish to be angry at the wind, but it's very profitable to tell people that it was di or antifa arsonists or the endangered smelt or gavin newsom who did it

to them. it drives commerce. it drives virality and clicks. and unfortunately, we live in an attention economy where social media and politics drive the way we look at the world and the way that we look at reality. and it's extremely unfortunate for the people who are going through it. >> rage. it sells better than sex. is that why we're seeing the likes of a donald trump and elon musk? i mean, trump is claiming that there is no money for fema aid in these fires. he made the exact same claim a few months ago when north carolina was hit by the hurricane. and that was those lies were hugely damaging. are you worried that it's happening again and the innocent people, it could hurt because, yeah, in general he likes to get people fired up. it helps with popularity. it helps with clicks. but these are people's lives. >> well, i know it's happening again. i know that the rumors of fema abandoning people, of firefighters, abandoning people, of refusing to do their jobs, unqualified firefighters being hired. i've seen the

firefighters. i saw them a block away from my house. i can't imagine anyone working harder or putting themselves in more danger for less reward than firefighters to insult these people by by insinuating they're unqualified is deeply, deeply hurtful. it's deeply racist. it's ridiculous fear mongering. and it doesn't help. people are scared. people are. people have no idea what to do next. i mean, the text chains with my friends of what do we do now? who do we talk to? what is happening? conspiracy theories don't help anybody. they don't lend a hand. all they do is cause chaos and fear and they're hurting people. and it really it has to stop. and unfortunately, it is only going to continue. >> are we more vulnerable to conspiracy these days? like, did something change in our society? you've been studying it for 200 years. >> well, i haven't personally been studying it, but the

rothschild family, to whom i am unfortunately not related, has been the subject of all of this stuff for centuries. we've always been conspiratorial, going back to the great fire of rome, but we now have the ability to log on to social media and see anything that we want to see and have a fire hose, so to speak, of disinformation, of lies, of rumor being fired at us. and we believe the things that dovetail with what we already believe, with the biases that we already have with the villains that we already hate in our hearts, we have influencers who are who are pounding us with these things, and they reinforce the beliefs that we already have, and they travel much faster, with virtually no barrier to entry for anybody who wants to read them, and for anybody who wants to create them. it's trivial now to go online, create a tiktok account or a facebook account or an ex account and just start spreading nonsense. and if you do it enough, and if you do it in a way that really hooks

people and hits them at the right time, in the right way, you can turn that into a career very quickly. and unfortunately, we are all vulnerable to the right piece of disinformation that hits us in the right way, in at the right time. and this is the right time for hundreds of thousands of people who are terrified right now that they're not going to have a place to live tomorrow. >> and it comes just as the fact checking efforts on mark zuckerberg's platforms went up in smoke. mike, again, i am so, so sorry for your loss and i'm grateful you joined us tonight. thank you. >> and altadena will rebuild. >> all right. i'd like to end on that note when we return, donald trump cements his place in history as the first president to enter office as a felon. we're going to break down his sentencing next. >> muscle cramps were keeping me up at night. >> so then i tried slimming the magnesium plus calcium supplement that helps relax tense muscles so i can rest

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history, tonight cemented presia convicted felon, just ten days out from his inauguration. the judge, acknowledging the extraordinary moment. >> never before has this court been presented with such a unique and remarkable set of circumstances, ultimately finding an unconditional discharge. >> the most appropriate sentence for someone about to occupy the highest office, meaning no jail time, probation, fine or other penalty. >> the considerable, indeed extraordinary legal protections afforded by the office of the chief executive is a factor that overrides all others. >> the prosecution in agreement. mr. trump earlier for the first time, speaking directly to the judge, calling it a terrible experience. >> it's been a political witch hunt. it was done to damage my reputation so that i would lose the election. and obviously that didn't work, and the people of our country got to see this firsthand. and then they voted

and i won. >> the jury found him guilty of doctoring business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star before the 2016 election. but jail time was always unlikely, given the low level nature of the crime. mr. trump's attorneys, vowing to appeal the conviction. >> let's bring in former new york prosecutor and civil rights attorney charles coleman jr. harry litman joins us, former u.s. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general and former republican congressman david jolly of florida. harry, let's talk about this unconditional charge. i don't know what that means in legal speak, but in my plain vanilla jersey talk, man, this brother seems to have been hooked up. >> you're exactly right. >> what it means is what it sounds like. nothing at all. >> he walks free. >> on the other hand, merchan makes a big distinction between trump the person and trump the president. so what it means is the very important sort of scarlet letter that the

conviction is finalized. you needed sentencing to make that happen. and he enters, as you say, the presidency as the first and only felon, something he fought mightily to try to avoid and he's going to try to appeal from. so even though for him, there are no consequences. >> and merchan understood that he had to do it that way, or he might have been reversed on appeal. >> that's one of the things that the supreme court mentioned in letting it go forward. still, the big first top line news, steph, is he becomes a felon. he is the first felon to enter the presidency, even though no personal consequences for it. >> charles, what do you think? >> and so what? and so what what judge marchand did today with his decision was something that was a function of what he had to do because of the other decisions, like the immunity decision that came from the supreme court, i get that, but what he also did was a difference without a distinction. there is a

difference between donald trump, the candidate, donald trump, the president, and donald trump the civilian. and i think that when judge marchand explained that as far as history is concerned and the record reflects, that's accurate. but to the naked eye, donald trump walked out of court or would have walked out of court today, a free man, he was on zoom. this, if anything, is exhibit a in what you are talking about with respect to america having a two tiered justice system, the power, the privilege, the resources, over $100 million have been spent in terms of donald trump's overall nexus of legal entanglements over the last couple of years. >> yeah, and donald trump supporters would say, what a horrible waste of money this was political persecution. sure. >> and at the same time, those are also the same people who would argue that this is a country of laws. we're a law and order people. we respect the system because the system does what it's supposed to do. and quite frankly, in this moment,

we have seen the system and where it's flawed and where it's broken. but those people that you just mentioned are quite okay with that. >> david, donald trump and his supporters are going to shake this off. they're going to say this makes him even more of a g. i'm sure they're fundraising off of it. but our next president is a convicted felon. what do you think about that? you're a former lawmaker. >> yes. >> stephanie, look, this is a dark day in american history. >> the nation has elected a criminal president. >> a criminal president ten days from now will be sworn in. >> and i think to those on the right, i would suggest it wasn't alvin bragg that convicted donald trump. it wasn't mershon. >> it was a jury, a jury, just of regular people who convicted the former president for 34 counts of fraud. >> and that is not something that simply gets undone. >> i think you're right to kind of recognize the moment, as well as being one in which for half the nation is reflected. in november, they found this moment inconsequential to their support for donald trump. >> they found the legitimate,

credible allegations of january 6th to be inconsequential to their support of donald trump. and what does it say also, then, about other leaders, republican leaders mike johnson today calling it a sham for supreme court justices who suggested in their their efforts yesterday to obstruct this, to say maybe the former president doesn't need to face accountability. >> it's in these dark chapters where we really expose kind of the cultural rot within not just republican leaders, but in some sense among the american people who support the president. >> that's not to say these are these american people are bad, but they find all of these matters, all of this criminality to be inconsequential to their support of the man, donald trump. that's not something that just gets fixed in a courtroom that takes a generation to undo. >> but it reflects what donald trump has done to the republican party in the last decade. >> charles, if he appeals this, how will it work? >> he's basically going to use the language from the supreme court's immunity decision to try

and appeal it, basically to say that with respect to hope hicks and other witnesses that were called by the prosecution in this case, that you are now involving the actions of someone in the executive branch as well as other witnesses that should not have been called. i actually think that there's a decent chance that it might be. there is a thing in the law called harmless error, in which case prosecutors will rely on most of the times to say that wasn't intentional, that that was a simple mistake. but the landscape of what it is to try someone in that office literally changed throughout the course of this trial, with the immunity decision coming down. and so there's a decent chance that the new york court of appeals might decide there's a problem here. and if they don't, there's an even better chance that the supreme court will, in which case his conviction will be vacated. >> my goodness, david, here's the thing. after sentencing donald trump, it was no surprise said that the democrats lost this witch hunt. but at the same time, he is still considering

appealing. so which one is it? is it a witch hunt? it didn't mean anything. or is it worthy of him appealing? >> look, when you have unlimited resources and power, you can play this out as long as you can and hope for the result. >> that's how he got escaped accountability on january 6th and on the documents case. and he'll try to do this, as charles said, to ultimately try to have this vacated because he has to prove out kind of a revisionist history. >> he's going to try revisionist history on january 6th, maybe as early as his inaugural address. so he will chase this. >> but at the same time, he has built his political career on being a victim, the wealthiest victim in the in the history of the country, i suppose. >> but again, it goes to a party that has elevated him and supports him. >> donald trump, excuse me, didn't hijack the republican party. >> he walked through the front doors to their open arms. >> and so, yes, donald trump himself deserves scrutiny, but so does mike johnson in today's republican party, who has gone along with this and said, this is the leader of our movement.

>> it's a dark, dark movement in the country tonight. >> it's an unfortunate chapter. >> they chose him and then they chose him again. harry, slightly different topic. we're still waiting for the 11th circuit to weigh in on the release of special counsel jack smith's election interference report. what's your take on that situation? >> yeah, i think basically the law here, unlike in the state situation with mayor chen, doesn't really matter much. >> basically, in three days, the unfortunate, probably illegal canon injunction will just evaporate of its own accord. the department has said they're going to issue volume one the january 6th, and they are not going to do anything with volume two. >> as long as nafta and de oliveira are still in the case, which raises the very interesting point, whether in the last week they will try to dismiss them from the case and then release volume two. i just want to very quickly if i can, steph answer charles and david, i think they're totally right on

the one hand. on the other, we are playing on two fields now. >> one is contemporary, one is, as david says, in a generation it's history's playing field. and had he not been convicted, that would have made that game a lot harder. he is, in fact, and you know, it. >> it rankles him. a convicted felon. we can only hope that as we come to see reason in the country that will come home to whoever is making the judgments, not today, not next month, but in the next generation. >> charles two parter. do you think we will see the jack smith report? and if we do, what will the impact be? >> yes, and not much. i think that we are going to see the jack smith report come out, regardless of what's going on in the 11th circuit now, but because jack smith put out so meticulously speaking indictments and everything else that we've seen with respect to the evidence, i'm not expecting a ton of blockbuster material to

be as part of these reports, we know more or less what we would need to know for these indictments to have moved forward and for jack smith to move the case. i don't necessarily think that as part of this report, there's going to be information that was held back from the public or not included in the indictments, because jack smith already knew that he needed to put forth his best foot in front of the court to even keep this thing moving as long as he did. >> all right then, charles. thank you. harry. david, thanks for joining us. yep. 10s to you, 10s. >> one thing we may find out is why he didn't bring charges. that's part of what he has to do, why he didn't charge certain people and certain crimes. that could be news to us. and important news. >> all right. i'm here for that news, harry. thank you, david. thank you as well. when we return. as wildfires rage across la, some of the most vulnerable are left behind, are trapped. we're going to talk about the (tony hawk) to talk about the i still love to surf, snowboard, and of course, skate, so i take qunol magnesium

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1-800-290-7477 now or visit us at gofundme.com. >> donald trump plans to reshape the u.s. government as we know it. >> democrats have wasted no time in laying the groundwork to fight the incoming trump administration. >> the conversation right now is like, oh, we have to win back

working class voters. but who are people talking about? >> it's no surprise that this is a time of reflection and reassessment for democrats. >> donald trump wants a presidential cabinet full of loyalists that are going to push through his extreme agenda. >> don't miss the weekends, saturday and sunday mornings at 8:00 on msnbc. >> go beyond the headlines with the msnbc app. read, listen and watch live breaking news and analysis anytime, anywhere. go beyond the what? to understand the why. download t msnbc app now. >> it's friday, january the 10th and welcome to our hoda bration. >> the last thing before we go tonight a hoda after 17 years. this morning my dear, dear friend, a hero of mine, hoda kotb, signed off from the today show as anchor for the last time. her farewell was emotional for all of us, especially when

she shared her goodbye letter. >> this is a love letter, a love letter to you. it's actually kind of a thank you note as well. so how do i say it? how do i say thank you for more hugs and more love than one person deserves? as i sit here today in my final moments on this final day in this chapter of my career, i want to say thank you from the bottom of my very full heart for the ride of a lifetime. >> i love you and i just want to say i love you and i thank you to hoda for the love, for the light that she brings to this building, to this business every day. news is a hard business, and hoda finds the good and the light in all of it. and everyone, i have been honored to share a desk with hoda every now and again. but more than that, blessed to be her friend. lucky

for all of us, she will still be around the today show family even if we don't get her every single morning. instead, every morning she will be waking, waking up and walking her daughters to school with a cup of coffee and zipping around the burbs. you see it right there in her new white minivan. i could not be happier for my friend hoda or her beautiful girls hope and haley. and on that beautiful note, i wish you a very, very good night from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news. thanks for staying up late. i'll see you at the end up late. i'll see you at the end of monday. matt harvill: sherri was an extremely devoted mother. [faint speech] why would she go missing? this case took on a life of its own. because you knew her? absolutely. you can't sleep. you can't eat. it's just worry. where is she? we had various witnesses that saw her getting into this car.