attorneys, chuck rosenberg and joyce vance, and new york times chief white house correspondent peter baker. so lisa rubin, this was largely symbolic, a symbolic sentencing. but it does cement donald trump as the first convicted felon to become president of the united states. explain judge marchand's decision as he explained it today. >> judge merchan was really titrating. andrea, i think between two polls. one was he tried president trump when he was, as he said today, an ordinary citizen, an ordinary criminal defendant, not entitled to any presidential immunity protections because they didn't exist at the time of the trial. and yet, by the time it came to sentence him, the voters themselves, ordinary citizens, as he said, had made a decision to return donald trump to office and given his status as the president elect, given that he will take office ten days from now. judge marchand felt that the only lawful sentence, and he emphasized that today in court, the only lawful sentence was one of unconditional discharge. that was his way of honoring the jury's verdict, preserving it. it w

. >> joining us now, chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and former senior fbi official. catherine christian, former assistant district attorney at the manhattan da's office, msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin and charles coleman, civil rights attorney and former brooklyn, new york prosecutor. also with us today, misty morris, a defense attorney. great to have all of you here with us. and let's get right to what happened in that courtroom, lisa, i mean, inside. >> that's exactly right. >> i was and i'm really grateful that judge mashon allowed people to hear his voice, in large part because i heard that voice every day for seven weeks. and i'm glad that the american public can now hear what we heard. judge merchan was today, as he was during the trial, calm and measured, never nasty, always wishing criminal defendant trump well, including at the very end here where he said, sir, i wish you godspeed as you assume your second term of office. but the thing that i found most remarkable, anna, was that while merchan was not changed, trump and blanche were slightly different

. >> i want to bring in chuck rosenberg, former u.s. attorney and msnbc legal analyst. al defense attorney and former manhattan prosecutor. good to be back with you guys. so, chuck, donald trump has 30 days to appeal, but in about ten days, he's going to be president of the united states once again. what is this even going to look like? >> well, in some ways, it's going to look like most appeals. look, chris, i mean, you have 30 days to note your appeal and then you appeal in this case to the appellate division in new york state and ultimately to the new york court of appeals. what does it look like? i think he has some issues to raise. i don't know conclusively that he wins. i don't know conclusively that he loses. i think there's there are several non-frivolous claims he could bring. >> and by the way, what's his strongest claim? what's his strongest point of appeal? >> so i think judge merchan tried a pretty clean case. i don't know that there was that was infected with error because of rulings that the judge made. but remember, the ground shifted under the judge's fe

attorney and senior fbi official chuck rosenberg. are you hearing from the prosecutors who were involved in these cases as well as the victims? some of these police officers who were injured that day? >> yeah, there's definitely a lot of shock about the extent of them. i think, you know, it was sort of written in that there were already going to be pardons, probably hundreds of them for certainly misdemeanors. but there is this thought that at least maybe someone would prevail behind the scenes and that individuals who assaulted law enforcement officers on camera, on video, beyond a reasonable doubt, not in any reasonable dispute, would actually be pardoned. but everyone was pardoned. this was a massive pardon action against people who really viciously assaulted law enforcement officers that day. i actually talked with a sergeant gonell this morning, and he was one of the individuals who was assaulted, probably definitely in the top of the assaults that he suffered that day. >> and he needed surgery, right? yeah. his injuries. >> yea

let's bring in msnbc contributor chuck rosenberg, from palm beach county florida dave aronberg, and a, judge merchan has already told us he is leaning to unconditional discharge meaning a sentence of no sentence. that is unusual. highly unusual. in all of my years as a federal prosecutor i've never seen anything like it. almost always there is incarceration or at least supervised release, community service, a fine, something attached. but judge merchan said there will be no sentence. what that means too, which is important, the underlying criminal case is over. the judgment is final. mr. trump, of course, has the right to appeal but the sentencing puts an end to the underlying case and make mr. trump a felon before he assumes office for the second time. i am looking for whether or not he has anything to say. i don't imagine he will be apologetic. >> chuck, any tangible consequences? when and if we do hear from donald trump, he will say this is political persecution and a witchhunt. he will not take ownership of it. >> reporter: no. >> so he wins? >> reporter: well, he is still convict