joyce vance is next. also, a key trump ally is calling for martial law to overturn the election and joe biden responds to those attacks on her credentials plus, we'll talk live to the major of atlantic city auctions off the right to demolish this trump hotel for charity. all that and more when we're back in just 30 seconds. and moe back in just 30 seconds. let's be honest. quitting smoking is hard. like, quitting every monday hard. quitting feels so big. so try making it smaller, and you'll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. art class. it's abstract expressionism. when you start with a better hot dog from oscar mayer, you can do no wrong. it's all for the love of hot dogs. >>> welcome back. trump's wave of pardons could come as soon as tonight. a source with direct knowledge tells axios trump wants it done before christmas. we don't know who could be next but there reports he's quote obsess the with the power interrupting conversations to st

attorney and msnbc contributor joyce vance, good to see you, thanks for joining us on this.et to this, i want to ask you about this breaking news we've been following that president trump called the governor of georgia to, in fact, pressure him for help in overturning joe biden's win in that state. is that not the definition, joyce, of election interference? >> it certainly is an effort to interfere with the outcome of the election, but yasmin, i would caution our listeners. we don't know all the details of this call. theoretically conduct in this area could be a crime. there could be a conspiracy to interfere with rights. but without knowing more about the details, the specifics, what the objectives were, i think it's difficult to definitively call it a crime. it's certainly odious conduct. if it is lawful, it is still awful. but too early to designate a specific crime. >> i also want to be clear that nbc has not independently confirmed this reporting. as soon as they do, we'll make sure to make you aware of that as well. let's move on to this bribery for pardon scheme. wha

joining me is "new york times" columnist michelle goldberg and former federal prosecutor joyce vance. jason, let me begin with you. big picture here, your take on this chaotic 24 hours that a lot of people are bracing for could get worse over the next 12 to 24 hours. >> well, the big issue is that what is actually at stake, which is millions of americans in food lines and starving and have no idea what their futures will be in addition to the evictions we're facing. that's at stake. as far as chaos, i got to be honest. how is this different from the last four years? we could literally play whack a mole with the number of times the last four years that the white house has been in chaos and leaks that the president's behavior is e rat the i can arr democratic and spending his time doing anything but going after personal revenge for people. this is normal, unfortunately. the real issue is we are now at a point people are facing a crisis moment that we will not be able to recover from economically or demographically or public health-wise and we hope maybe a decision can be made. i'm not s

that will, i think, be an essential piece. >> yamiche alcindor and joyce vance, thank you for starting off our discussion tonight. thank you. >>> up next is the one and only rachel maddow right here on "the last word," maybe in her pajamas. rachel maddow live, here, next. for skin that never holds you back don't settle for silver #1 for diabetic dry skin* #1 for psoriasis symptom relief* and #1 for eczema symptom relief* gold bond champion your skin gold bond ♪ you're still the one ♪ that i love to touch ♪ still the one ♪ and i can't get enough ♪ we're still having fun, ♪ and you're still the one applebee's 2 for $20. now that's eating good in the neighborhood. when why are we alwaysiful hair, shown the same thing? where's my bounce? my glamour? my fire? all hair is beautiful. these dove shampoo and conditioners are custom formulated for different hair types. find the right dove care for your hair. save for being a new customer. save more for adding drivewise. save even more for driving safely. take another look at allstate - and start saving. ♪ a livcustomizeper iquickbooks for me. an

attorney joyce vance. let's go back for a second and dig deeper into the coup thing. dea that donald trump, one of his last-ditch ploys to try to stay in power, naming sydney powell, qanon conspiracy theorist, as some sort of special counsel, that cannot happen, right? can you just explain how special counsels work? that doesn't sound like that's something he has the authority to do. >> well, sure. special counsels are actually governed by regulations that specify that when there's an investigation being conducted by the justice department, and there's a conflict of interest, the attorney general might know someone who is involved or we could have the situation that we had with bob mueller, where the president has just fired an fbi director, so you bring someone in to avoid the conflict of interest. that's the first big hurdle to appointing a special counsel in this -- any of these situations, really, that the president is talking about. any investigations that are being conducted right now are being conducted presumably by trump's political appointees. so, there reall

attorney joyce vance who spent a quarter century as a federal prosecutor. good evening and welcome to you all. peter, in your paper tonight the former homeland security adviser to this president, tom besser, writes this in an op-ed. president trump is on the verge of leaving behind a federal government and perhaps a large number of major industries compromised by the russian government. he must use whatever leverage he can muster to protect the united states and severely punish the russians. headline, i was the homeland security adviser to trump. we're being hacked. peter, to review, we are under an active electronic attack from the russians. we have over 300,000 of our fellow citizens dead in an as yet uncontrolled pandemic. we have millions in need of relief and waiting on congress. what has the president been up to? >> well, you know, the answer of course, brian, he's been focused still on his election, the fact that he has lost, the fact he doesn't want to admit that he lost, the fact he is still trying to punish those who said he lost. he is angry at s

. >> joyce vance, before we go, let me get your reaction to nbc news reporting tonight that outgoing alabama senator doug jones is at the top of the list in the biden short list of possible attorney general -- for the post of attorney general in the biden administration. >> well, the reporting tells us that president-elect biden has had no shortage of talented people to consider for the attorney general role. doug jones, who i worked for when he was the u.s. attorney in the northern district of alabama during the clinton administration, is very talented. he obviously has experience as a u.s. attorney, but he was also a line prosecutor for many years and worked as a defense lawyer. so he has that 360-degree world view that we need from an attorney general. he also is relatively unique and maybe poised for the moment where criminal justice reform is important because he commands respect from both law enforcement and the civil rights community. that will, i think, be an essential piece. >> yamiche and joyce vance, thank you for having this discussion tonight. >>> up next is our one and

attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor. and dr. louis havel teen, a founder of the yufrpt's cancer and hiv/aids research department who now serves as chair and president of the access health international think tank. good evening and welcome to you all. phil rucker, one of my favorite books over the last couple of decades by walter isaacson and evanatom evan thomas is "the wiseman." it's about the ininformal advisers to the president, east coast establishment types who guided the country in the post-war era. assuming a new title should be produced, circle of sycophants around the president currently, what is as your reporting tells you the state of play tonight on this fight which the election result shows he lost? >> well, brian, what you have right now is a president feeling under siege and wanting to reverse the outcome of this election. he has exhausted every legal avenue and failed there. he has exhausted political avenues and failed there. he now is looking for solutions and, you know, many of the senior officials left in thi

leading off our discussion tonight, joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama and a professor at the university of alabama law school, and michael schmidt, washington correspondent for the "new york times." they are both msnbc contributors. good evening to both of you. good to see you. michael, let's start with the news. there was some sense this was coming. obviously manafort and stone are the big names that we were expecting. it's not a big surprise. the question is, particularly with charles kushner, donald trump is getting closer and closer to family, and he's still got more than three weeks in the white house. what are the indications about what happens next? >> well, that's sort of the big question, how much further will the president go? he has now pardoned several people who wouldn't cooperate with these investigations that looked at his campaign's ties to russia. he has done this with jared kushner's father, he has done this with allies, with folks that have ingratiated themselves with the president. he's d

joyce vance, what do you see as the legal significance here given how heavy it is to take a pardon? >> so i think you're right, ari. your baseline assessment that you don't need a pardon unless you're guilty of something is dead on the money, but what we should all be concerned about here is the way the president will spin this narrative and how he will use it to convince people who are still in his base, still his supporters that joe biden will be the one who will bring on board a corrupt legal system so he has to protect his children and himself with pardons. this will make it important joe biden's justice department sets a high standard for integrity and works hard to regain the trust of the american people. it's not fair they have to do that, but this is just, i think, indicative of the type of damage that the president will continue to do to our fundamental institutions on his way out the door. >> but if you're ivanka trump with your whole life and career ahead of you, what do you have to consider before legally taking something like this? >> you know, i think the calculus peop

unlike joyce vance, neither did bill barr, most recent attorneys general did have experience as a prosecutor sessions, for example, so his time in the law has fwhn civil law, private practice mostly. i think that my guess is that his goal will be to super intend the justice department through the inauguration day and try to keep as low of a profile as possible. >> do you think that rosen might? >> we don't really have a good crystal ball on rosen. whether or not rosen has the backbone and the case. the white house should not be communicating with rosen. so the question is will he push back or not? he is certainly surrounded by career staff. we don't know what kind of damage could happen in the next o 30 days. >> i think you pointed on something, too. he said he didn't see a need for a special prosecutor to look at the election case or the hunter biden case. you could argue whether or not he should appoint the case, and that is a whole sprat deal. >> good to see both of you, thank you both of you. >> the holidays are fun and festive, but they can also be dangerous. in fact, the next two month

joining our conversation is joyce vance. eugene is still with us. at what point are they breaking the law by sending nooses and threating officials. >> that is a matter of state right. an assault on individuals. but there is a line at which there are federal crimes that involve impinging on election operations. i don't think that we're seeing conduct yet that rises to that level. i could be wrong, nicolle. there could be investigations underway. but typically free speech writes give folks the ability to make comments and engage in conduct that is relatively obnoxious and offensive, once you have nooses involved or racial threats being made or other sorts of threats to people over the smooth administration of elections, you could conceivably see some form of federal criminal investigation. >> that is where we are. determining if the hate speech and the death threats are enough to exceed the vast protection of the first amendment. let me read you some of the threats from "the new york times." this is under a story with the head line here are the threa

joining me now is joyce vance, also a u.s. attorney.estigation into over overcrowding and violence. she continued her work in the area advising members of law enforcement. also with me, the professor of global health and social medicine and a physician at the division of global health equity. he worked on preventing trance mission of airborne diseases in prison. welcome again to both of you. many months ago we had our first conversation about this. joyce, let me start with you. we have a few choices here when it comes to prison. we can do better at keeping prisoners safe from airborne infections, we can incarcerate fewer people, or inoculate them as a priority. that third one is having trouble. people are not interested in prisoners getting inoculations before other people. you end up with people dies that didn't get a death seasons. -- sentence. >> we have to have an all of the above strategy. we need to reduce new entrance to prisons. better health measures for people who are incarcerated, and we need to speed early release of medical

attorney and msnbc contributor, joyce vance. and former fbi special agent clint watts, he's an nbc news national security analyst and the author of "messing with the enemy." thanks to both of you joining us. clint, in your fbi days you were part of one of those joint terrorism task forces where if something happens, you know, it's sort of a post-9/11 world in which local police and fbi and atf all sort of join forces to figure out what is going on. in this case, we know the fbi has taken the lead. but it appears to be a joint investigation. what do we know so far about it? >> it's really fascinating because the bombing didn't seem to go after killing people. that brings in the question about the motivation. we heard about this at&t switching station that's right there. but at the same point usually when we see this sort of a bombing or attack, it would be at a specific target or we would see some sort of manifesto or ideological manifestation to justify why they do this. manifestation to justify why they do this. it drew the att

joining us, joyce vance and jim is still here. e voice of the courts telling us, other than in each instance there is no evidence in the cases get thrown out. it seems like they're telling a larger story through all of these opinions. basically rebuking the effort. >> the republican party had one last chance in this post-election conundrum to choose country over party. and they have stuck with trump. but in the courts it is a different story. we're seeing these judges painstakingly and meticulously rejecting the president's cases. and, nicolle, i think that is for this very simple reason. trump and his allies aren't filing these cases because they believe he won the election. they're not trying to reverse the results in any meaningful way. what they're seeking to do is to undermine the integrity of our elections. to cast doubt in the minds of so many american people that the future of our elections is really in doubt. and when you stop to think about that, there is no doubt that that is reprehensible. the judiciary understands what

i want to bring in our experts, joyce vance, libby casey from "the washington post", as well. a political reporter. good evening to all of you and gene, how do you take in the duality of the system in this way working amidst all of this ridiculousness. >> absolutely. i think tonight you literally can say to the extend there was actually a game, you can say game over. i mean, the supreme court. there is no mention of descent by the justices to deny on this or deny the motion for injunktive relief and just sort of bat it away end of story and this certainly means to me at least i'll refer to joyce who is my expert at all things legal and you but it certainly means that ridiculous texas, i don't know if you can even call it a lawsuit, is with texas suing to overturn other states election results will meet a similar fate because it's absurd. this pennsylvania case is one that ted cruz, senator ted cruz who clerked the supreme court thought had such merit to deliver the oral argument in this case but there is no argument to deliver this is ridiculous and the supreme court made that

joyce vance is a former u.s. and federal prosecutor and will walk us through what we can glean from the little information we have what the u.s. attorney in delaware is doing and david corn knows his way well around all of the substantive issues regarding the history with hunter biden, impeachment and what donald trump demanded. thanks to both of you for having this conversation on a breaking news topic. >> good to be here. >> tank thanks for having me. >> joyce, on the legal road, what does it mean when we learn that a u.s. attorney's office there in that state is according to mr. biden conducting a tax affairs probe of some kind? >> we really know very little at this point. in fact, there is no clarity on whether this is a criminal or a civil investigation although i think the assumption at this point seems to be that it's criminal. the sparse detail we know this case was opened at some point in 2018. actually, before bill barr was at the head of the justice department in that brief period of time when matthew

joining success pete williams and msnbc contributor joyce vance. good to see both of you. "the washington post" put it this way. the 20 people who received clemency tuesday only seven were listed in online justice department records. give us sort of a big picture of these pardons and how normal or not normal the numbers and the ways they're going about them are. >> for the trump administration, this is normal. the president tended not to base his pardon decisions on recommendations from the justice department. for 125 years there's been a system that if somebody wants executive clemency, they apply first to the justice department to make their case. the justice department reviewed them and makes recommendations to the white house and the past presidents have basically made their decisions based on the recommendations with tote notable exceptions. in the trump administration the president tended to give pardons to people he knows or responds to people that he knows for whom he is sympathetic with their pardons. he has not used the office of pardon attorney very much. some e

attorney joyce vance.mp's legal troee veils. >> the manhattan de da. has been conducting this investigation born out of the stormy daniels hush money payments during the 2016 campaign and what it has begun to focus on now it looks like the possibility that the trump organization in trying to get insurance coverage and loans committed fraud with deutsche bank and possibly with aon, the insurance brokerage and they're looking at the fact that trump in seeking these financial services, dramatically overstated the value of some of his assets. in deutsche bank case we understand that bankers were seeing the numbers that was presenting to them and writing down the value of the assets by as much as 70%. so there is -- it is an open investigation. we don't know whether there will be a find of criminality or criminal charges. but it certainly is something -- it is a very serious investigation. and it is seems to be intensifying. >> so let me read another section of this on this topic specifically. you write employe

we have from the northern district of alabama and legal analyst, joyce vance and dave aronberg from palmth the legal challenges, perhaps not that one. but we have seen a flurry coming from president trump trying to invalidate the results of the election. let's start at the end of the year. give us your sense of the importance of -- at least to this point, the failed electoral challenges by trump and his people. >> we have seen an awful lot of losing to be honest, jonathan. something like 89 judges have had reason to consider one of trump's suits, one of his supporters' lawsuits and they have all ruled against the president, including the supreme court. the legal theories have gotten crazier and crazier. this is the stuff that bar grievances are made of and some of the lawyers have damaged their credibility. but i think the most important takeaway is that the courts have held. trump appointees have ruled against these specious challenges. they have refused to overturn the voices of american voters. and we will ultimately have the courts to thank for a smooth -- sort of smooth transfer of

>> joy vance is with me and a professor at the university of alabama school of law. great to see you both. joyce paul manafort and jared kushner and the black water guards, your reaction to these pardons? >> it is a real parade of horribles. no one would survive the pardons. everyone he wants to pardon applies those cases of systematically form merit and i cases the president feels he can do justice, then pardons are granted. here every candidate who receives a pardon seems to be close to the president or the president seems to be trying to send a message as he did with the previous pardon for the governor. nothing in this pardon is being used rightfully. >> who do you think is up next for a pardon? >> i think that raises an interesting question. it is going to be sort of an insight into the kind of person donald trump is. one would think he's going to pardon jared kushner or vaivank or don jr. if he does pardon those people that means they can't claim self-in crimination, they can't plea the fifth which means they may offer evidence against donald trump should the justice decided to prosecute h