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>> happy monday, thanks, nicole, welcome to the beat, everyone. we are tracking a major development in this criminal trial of trump. the judge today going farther than ever, warning defendant donald trump that he can be jailed if there are more gag order violations. let me show you exactly what happened. you may have heard about it, but we're going to walk through it specifically. the judge telling trump today he can face a, quote, jail sanction. that is the big key part, which is why we put it in big letters. jail sanction for defendant trump if he repeats these gag order violations. judge merchan drawing a line and directly noting why this is a big deal with the repeated violations of the gag order. other defendants have been jailed for less. you probably heard about that. but on the other hand, let's be clear, defendant trump has not been convicted in this case. and there are practical issues around the unprecedented prospect of jailing an

ex-president and current candidate for the white house. they are heavy issues. so the judge did not pretend this is just like any other case today. what he did is interesting and could be concerning for defendant trump. the judge bluntly addressing those facts that exist outside of court and maybe he's trying to -- a type of fairness or awareness if this gets to the point of jailing trump. that would come up again later if trump keeps pushing it and winds up in jail during this trial. here's what the judge stressed today to defendant trump. quote, the last thing i want to do is to put you in jail. you are the former president of the united states, and possibly the next president as well. that is not only judicious to use a word that applies here, it's downright friendly. i'm sure of all the things we've witnessed donald trump go through as a defendant in this case, and i've been in that courtroom as have all of our peers and colleague, that's one

of the nicest things anyone in power has mentioned to him. it's the most direct the judge has been on this point. donald trump's brazen violations of this gag order, designed to protect the fairness of the trial, is now at the center of the decisions the judge may make. and i want to be clear when we get to the actual violations, we're not talking about one or two close calls. this court has found trump broke the gag order ten times after warnings. he's landed himself in contempt again. he has made attacks on the jury here of civilians, the people who are not only, of course, spozed to be protected but will rule on his fate as a defendant. there are the small fines you might have heard about, $1,000 per, but today, again, in what i'm telling you was a big part of the developments, the judge tells trump, quote, the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent, and even though he does not want to propose a jail

sanction, i will, the judge told defendant trump if necessary and appropriate. so that is pressure on the defendant. the judge's written order puts it quite formally. i want to share it with you as well, because that's the kind of thing that would also be reviewed if we're covering the appeals process for this. he say, quote, the defendant is hereby put on notice that future violations can be, quote, punishable by incarceration. that's big. so okay, i showed you exactly what was said in court. i showed you how it was written, now what? well, this order is another step towards possibly jailing trump. if he starts complying more, then nothing else happens. if he breaks the order again, the judge can back down, reasoning it's more important to finish the trial, or he could order to put in place the jailing of defendant trump. could be for hours, could be one night or longer, and by the way, one reason people are jailed for

this is once you are in jail, behind bars, it's impossible to violate a gag order from there. there are strict rules on what you can do, what you can interact with, right, you're in the jail. you might have access to a lawyer, for example. the lawyer's not going to help you violate the gag order. your freedom of movement, your freedom of communication, everything is restricted even more. so that's one reason you jail people if they keep violating gag order, especially if they're attacking the judge's family or the jury. but to play this out, if trump were jailed or ordered to be jailed, it would be unprecedented, there would certainly be appeals. and the courts could pause that order. they would look to the judges response today. they would asession whether it was measured. did he jump into this, immediately try to jail the defendant, did it look somehow rushed or unjust. and that may be, again, why this judge is moving this way, because he can show it took ten

plus violations and written notice and another violation to get there if we were to get there. and after the judge issued this warning today, which i'm telling you is a big deal in the court today, trump was, initially, more quiet than usual when he left the hearing room. >> mr. trump, what do you think of the jury? >> any comment on the fine? >> mr. trump, what do you think of the gag orter? >> mr. president, how's the defense team doing? >> that is a process, and that's part of this, and it's not just a court thing. when you see candidates, nominee, or the president himself or former presidents you have barriers, you have reporter who is shout questions. trump has availed himself at that spot or near there many times of answering. what you saw there was him twice passing on the chance. but here's the thing about a trial or most news, the story keeps going. so what might have looked a little quiet in those first hours after the judge's warning today turned to donald trump, the defendant, complaining about

that very jail warning. i want to give you the context here. we're going to show this because it's his response in the case and it goes further than him walking by with the thumbs up, although you'll note these remarks do not actually attack the jurgen y again or seem to violate the order. >> this judge has given me a gag ord exer said you'll go to jail if you violate it. and frankly, you know what, our constitution is much more important than jail. it's not even close. i'll do that sacrifice any day. >> donald trump proclaims himself ready to do that personal sacrifice any day. and i want to be clear with you, legally and otherwise, both in the context of this trial and him running for president right now, he has every right to talk that way, to tribe himself how he wants. but as for the claim there, i can tell you factually, donald trump has rarely taken personal legal sacrifices in the many different cases and probes that

have ensnared him and others. he often lets even his former close aides get in trouble, get subpoenaed, pay bill legal bill, or even go to jail, and he's generally sat out those big fights. we covered one with his former aide peter navarro, where for months he wouldn't even affirm navarro's defense that he had invoked a type of prif leng which didn't apply, but whether he tried to invoke it for navarro. my point being it was not much of a sacrifice, and he didn't do that. but again, he has the right to say that. as for the political messaging here, which is part of this and why this is such a different type of situation, trump is leaning into a point that his own allies have been pushing about any potential jailing for gag order violations. >> they are threatening to throw the republican people for president in jail for talking, harris. for talking during an election. now, i'm not a lawyer, just play one on tv, but according to the

gag, you could have the loch ness monster as a juror and trump can't say the loch ness monster is real, that's $1,000, boom, right there. >> sorry, it's hard to fully follow what's being asserted. i am a lawyer, i also sort of play one on tv or at least do legal reporting, and again, it's important to understand that while this is not a light, easy call for any judge, this exact situation, it's not jailing for talking. this defendant talks plenty. people know that. he posts plenty. and he can speak about many different aspects of this, including even criticize the judge and the d.a. what he cannot do is attack the jury, intimidate the people who are going to be ruling on his fate or undermine this process. think about it, if you could get away with that too easily and too much, we wouldn't have very

fair court processes. john gotti was accused of witness tampering because he saw his route to getting through a trial as tampering with, messing with the witnesses and the jury. that's the clash, though, over the defendant's actions today. as for what went down in court, today was much more technical than, say, friday where we heard from hope hicks, the trump aide. today prosecutors wanted to use evidence and receipts to do something for the jury. a very familiar kind of argument. they wanted to show a way of looking at this whole history, what a famous set of investigators famously called follow the money. >> follow the money. >> what do you mean? where? >> i can't tell you that. just follow the money. >> just follow the money. well, with better lighting and fewer shadows, that's what

prosecutors tried to do today. they showed the jury the money at the heart of this case, trump paying for silence through reimbursements. the jury got paper evidence. a bank statement of the original $130,000 from late october '16 that went to stormy daniels. a handwritten note from a trump cfo in rikers jail, allen weisselberg, saying you'd have to gross it up to 420k. that is the kind of handwritten note of at least basic tax fraud you don't want to do, let alone write down. he's in rikers and can think about that. the jury saw the check, nine signed by trump himself. we've known about this plot for some time. still though, the jury is seeing it in black and white. prosecutors brought to the stand two insiders at that company, trump org, who confirmed the money came from donald trump himself from his personal bank account. they also saw an interesting

little detail that they had to then send stuff to the white house, the paperwork, the checks, so they could be signed by the president. and because he was recently lected, that was a, quote, whole new process, as one recounted. so that's what happened today. honestly, you never know what's going to happen in a trial. you don't know exactly who the witnesses are going to be. you didn't know hope hicks was going to have such an emotional day on friday. you didn't know today was going to be so dry and financially boring and yet weighed against that was something that the jury didn't see but we get to see. we're going see a lot of things the jury can't see, which is just how close to the jailing line this defendant seems to be getting. so as we weigh it all, a little bit of boredom, a little bit of following the money, and a whole lot of threats about going to jail, we're going to bring in our experts emily and joyce when we're back together in 90 seconds. we're back together in 9 seconds. shop... and i also have a non-profit. but no matter what business i'm in...

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it only works from the other side of the screen, buddy. you still got a land line in your house. order now in the subway app. how do i get my raised beds looking so good? i do have a secret, a very special secret. it's organic soil from miracle-gro. you're great too, ryan. not as great as the soil, though. okay... you said it. [ryan laughs] i'm visiting president trump in the oval office for the first time. he says to me something to the effect of don't worry, michael, your january and february reimbursement checks are coming. >> and they came. and we saw them today. that is part of following the money on a big day where there was also the clash over trump being warned he really could be jailed if he keeps attacking the jury and violating the gag order to the tune of ten plus times. we're joined by "new york times"

magazine writer emily and msnbc analyst joyce vance. joyce, let's start with the gag order skir mitch today, which was striking. i'm curious if you also found it to be a step or a sort of moderate escalation in what is a fascinating and difficult faceoff between this judge and trump, who've famously tests everyone he deals with. >> right, i think that's correct, ari, it is a step. the judge is obviously struggling. on the one hand he wants to protect the integrity of the trial process. and he called what donald trump is doing -- it doesn't help to have a judge accuse you of that when you're a criminal defendant, but he also has a realistic expectation, i think, about the consequences of jailing the former president. it could disrupt the trial. it could lead to arguments on appeal that might impair a conviction if the prosecution

obtains one. and the judge was candid with trump. he told him, i don't really want to put you in jail -- >> right. >> -- but donald trump may end up giving him no choice at the end of the day, right? i mean, whether he has the composure to withstand michael cohen's testimony and perhaps every store hawaii daniels testify, i think that remains to be seen. >> yeah, emily, i think this is chess. people from the outside who say, gosh, he's gotten away with a little bit more, throw anymore jail. it is not that simple. there are complexities to this outside of the courtroom and inside the courtroom, because it is entirely possible that the appeals process with this supreme court for this act could pause or delay the underlying trial, which is the one thing that donald trump and his lawyers have done to all other cases. so when i say chess, i just mean several moves rather than just one. i'm curious what you think about what was a fairly unusual stand-off today. >> yeah, i think it's always

important to think about how trump's conduct distorts everybody around him and we're watching the judge struggle with exactly that. the legal system has rules. it's really important for witnesses to be able to testify without being intimidated and especially for the jury to be free of that concern. trump keeps walking up to or crossing the line, the judge has to be firm. and yet at the same time, because of trump's status, of course it's a bigger deal to put him in jail than it would be with another defendant. and so that's the dilemma here, and it's always this testing that trump seems to be willing to do or he kind of uses his role as a former president to create disarray and to force everyone around him to figure out how they can remain the normal actors, how they can do their jobs, business as usual, this is the legal system operating. and i think we're seeing the judge try really hard to prevent something that is going to seem

like a huge headline, putting a former president in jail, even though another defendant probably wouldn't be allowed to get away with violating a gag order ten times. >> yeah, he's clearly testing it. if this was basketball, these are fouls and they've been called as fouls. they're not all flagrant fouls, right? the gag order issue is to protect the integrity, it's not as if he's published the name and address of every juror or taken it to some extreme level where it would flip and the judge would almost say, i got to put you in, and i don't think the supreme court's going to sign off on this, or our whole jury system falls apart, right? he hasn't done that. he's seeing how many fouls he can get. joyce, i say that knowing you know a heck of a lot more about basketball than me. so i'm on shaky ground myself, because i'm not a sports guy, but i did want to play for you what d.a. bragg said, which is the baseline context for the case they're trying to prove with the receipts today. take a listen. >> the first is new york state

election law, which makes it a crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means. i further indicated a number of unlawful mean, including additional false statement, including statements that were planned to evade tax authorities. i also noted the cap on contribution limits. >> bragg talking about the possible violations, joyce, how does that fit to what you observed in the receipts and the money today? >> yeah, i think it's all consistent, ari. this is what we've been hearing bragg say since that initial press conference. the logical violations here have always involved campaign finance and tax, and that's what the government will argue to the jury when they close. it's a good fit for the evidence here. it's consistent with the documents and with the narrative testimony from the witnesses as well as the law.

i think the one maybe asterisk here is whether or not maybe the federal law violation that he's talking about qualifies. that could be an issue on appeal, but there are plenty of state law violations here to substantiate a conviction. >> mm-hmm. emily, reading from "the new york times", your outlet on the magazine side, the paper says the challenge facing trump's lawyers is clear. they're doing a version of he didn't do it and even if he did it, it's not a crime. we've described some of those factual defenses in our reporting. trump never wants his lawyers to creed any ground. the defense lawyers are left with this jumble. i wonder what you think of that, because it's certainly true that if you had a different client who also wasn't running for president, i would expect the lawyers to focus more on the legal defense, and instead of having to deny everything -- and the burden is not on them -- but

instead of having to deny everything they could say, all right, maybe some really bad stuff seemed to two down, but this is not church or moral police, and focus on the theory. >> i've been wondering if they are risking a conviction, especially on falsifying the business records, but maybe on the felony charges as well under state law or even federal law. you risk the conviction, you hope the punishment is not that high. i mean this is a client who's already paying hundreds of millions of dollars in civil judgement, so if it's a fine, maybe it's not going to matter that much. daring the judicial system to put trump in jail even after his conviction would be a heavy lift, probably. and then you hope, yeah, for an appeal. and also the most important theater for trump seems to be the voters and the public and not necessarily what is happening in this courtroom.

and so that is hamstringing his lawyers in terms of making the argument that would probably be the easiest. but that seems to be what he's the most interested in. and so i think those are the tensions we're seeing. >> yeah. really interesting, emily and joyce, our trial experts. we'll be coming back to you. thanks for leading us off tonight. we look at the maga litmus test. how low can you go. something shocking, would have been shocking in the era before trump. a lot more coming up as well. our next guest, neal katyal, talk about whether these appeals will hit the scream court. he's back with me right after this break. k with me right afte this break boring does. boring makes vacations happen, early retirements possible, and startups start up. because it's smart, dependable, and steady. all words you want from your bank. for nearly 160 years, pnc bank has been brilliantly boring so you can be happily fulfilled...

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less than two weeks before the presidential election, michael cohen wired $130,000 to stormy daniels' lawyer. that payment was to hide damaging information from the voting public.

the scheme violated new york election law. >> d.a. bragg describing the charges against defendant donald trump, the one and only time he has held that announcement press conference. today we saw his team prove that case, they say, with receipts. i'm joined now by former acting solicitor general and msnbc legal analyst neal katyal. neal, we'll get to the case, but we did invoke appeals in the supreme court on the earlier jail issue. and while it is all very provisional, i'm curious if you had thoughts on that from an appeals perspective. >> yeah, i was glad to see the judge today finally warn trump explicitly look at trump and say, look, you do this again and you're likely to go to jail. i mean, it's high time for that to happen. i think this judge has been way too lenient on trump and his antics. it's not like donald trump is the first complainant to complain about the judge overseeing his case. i think most defendants do, that but they don't act this way with such disrespect and contempt.

and the idea of when trump goes foup the cameras and say, oh, i'm here to protect the constitution. i mean, give me a break. this is a guy who wanted a coup on january 6th. he gave us the muslim ban and so much other stuff. i don't buy that for a second. i do think if the judge did try and jail trump, as i suspect is going to happen, that there will be an immediate pause on that, what we call a stay, while it goes up to the appeals courts in new york for them to assess this. but there's a lot of deference given to a trial judge's determination, and here this judge has bent over backwards to try and accommodate trump xp his antics. >> and then to play that out, interesting to hear your view on this, given developments today, even if the new york court said okay, they would exercise an emergency appeal to the supreme court, could that slow the case itself? >> so correct. in our system you first would go through -- trump would go

through the new york state court, going all the way up to the new york court of appeal, which is the highest court in new york. then from there you can take a direct appeal to the u.s. supreme court. that could delay things. that's why i suspect one thing that this judge may do is impose the criminal sentence but suspend it so it doesn't have to be served until after the trial is over. that's a way for the judge to both send a signal that, look, what you've done is way past the pale, but at the same time, we're not going to slow this trial down and make this jury wait around for longer while you, you know, exercise your appeal. >> yeah. turning to the follow the money, probably one of the oldest, greatest legal scandal references out there, right, you would know maybe better than me, it's an oldie but a goodie. it seems to be what they were doing today. your thoughts on that. >> yeah, i mean, it's quite remarkable to have people like

jeff, who's a former trump official, who's testifying that the, you know, that basically these payments to michael cohen, the lawyer, had to be grossed up and that the cfo allen weisselberg ordered it. these are, you know, all of trump's confidant, and they're turning on him. hope hick, all of these things. it's very sordid. it's a bad feud. to put it in ari melber terms, i think you could say it's like drake and kendrick lamar and metro boomin coming at each other. and that's kind of the feeling right now in the courtroom is that they're all just attacking -- >> a one on 20 as drake said. >> nice, exactly. exactly. >> yeah, well, you're right, these are people, who as you say, are the upper echelon. i mentioned the other money guy's in rikers. jeff was there today. we have this funny thing that, again, if this were the oj trial and cameras in the courtroom, it might feel differently for the country, but here's the sketch

that we have of jeff. we want to be as accurate as possible. we had our folks in there today. i wasn't physically in there today, but it's an apparent fist pump. so this is elizabeth williams' sketch. this is a moment here. we'll show it far minute and then we'll keep it up while you speak, neal, where according to people in the room, trump seemed to want a level of solidarity or whatever a fist pump means to him. again, i'm trying to be fair in my reporting. even as jeff said things that were incriminating. >> yeah, i can't begin to fathom what that fist pump is doing. i mean, jeff was very bad for trump. i mean, he said that weisselberg ordered this grossed up payment, that it was $180,000 that cohen spent plus a $60,000 bonus for him. and the prosecutor even asked, hey, have you ever heard of a gross up anywhere else like this? and you know, he, of course, said no.

and the defense by trump's lawyer was atrocious. he ebasically said, look, payments to lawyers by the trump organization are legal expenses, right? and then he answered, of course, they are. that's not the issue, ari. of course, if you pay a lawyer generally, that's a legal expense, but not if you're doing it for other things that respect legal expenses. i mean, if i pay a lawyer to give me some cocaine, i can't say, oh, it's a legal payment and therefore it's all hunky-dory, of course not. >> yeah, i mean, i thought it was really striking there. we've got the fist pump up there, and it just speaks to how strange this is. you don't have a lot of people who worked around donald trump who are, i just want to be clear, testifying anything that supports his version of events. again, we'll get to the defense case and witnesses. i've been careful to say it's presumed innocent. but even on the d.a. side, you and i have been at trial where is you bring people up and it's

a mixed thing. or on a key question it becomes a memory thing. so someone says they're there because the d.a. called them up. they say something bad about the defendant on cross. you say, are you sure it happened that way? they go, i could have been mistaken. i'm not hearing a lot of that, neal. i'm hearing, we cut the check, trump did it in the white house. it was for reimbursement. we grossed it up, which is saying we lied to the tax authorities. it's bad. >> that's exactly right. it's what the d.a. promised he would prove at the beginning, that he would prove that trump made knowingly false business records with the intent to conceal another crime. and ari, every day every witness is furthering that narrative and so far i haven't heard a viable defense by donald trump -- >> right. >> -- except that maybe if we throw enough spaghetti at the wall one juror is going to be confused, and in our system if one juror is confused and says i'm not going to vote for

guilty, then trump will go free. >> yeah, and i'll remind viewers here, we will get the defense side of the case. we'll be covering that. we've had multiple trump lawyers on this broadcast, including john and tim. we are looking at the defense, but we have to call it as it's coming in here a couple weeks in how much damning receipts are piling up. neal, thank you. i'll remind everyone you can go to msnbc.com/openingarguments for this and other neal katyal specials here on the beat. up next, sit a day with donald trump and the maga litmus test when we return. maga litmus test when we return. yeah, most scented stuff gives me a headache, but this is just right. and i don't like anything. but i like this. get a light scent that lasts with no heavy perfumes or dyes. one in five children worldwide are faced

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we've been covering defendant trump on trial, but he is still a nominee for the republican party, considered the presumptive nominee, and he's openly refusing to accept the results of the upcoming election. we all know how he acted on wit the january 6th inser recollection. he caveated by saying if everything's honest, he'll be able to accept. trump is casting doubt on an election that is over six months away. and then what we see is important. it's not just that history repeats itself, history often gets worse, that's why it matters whether people in positions of accountability or responsibility draw lines and hold them or not. other republican who is often said the opposite type of things, whether it's about

elections in america or abroad, are now joining this soft authoritarianism. take tim scott, who wants to be trump's running mate. he briefly ran against him but was positive on him in the primaries. >> will you commit to accepting the election results of 2024, bottom line? >> at the end of the day, the 47th president of the united states will be president donald trump, and i'm excited to get back to low inflation, low unemployment, and high -- >> senator, yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024 no matter who wins? >> that is my statement. >> but just yes or no, will you accept the election results of 2024? >> i look forward to president trump being the 47th president. >> this is not acceptable. it is not democracy. we have a long tradition that actually dates to the founding

of having a peaceful transfer of power which involves not only the formal mechanisms of counting votes and having an appeals process and having the courts involved, which are independent from the politicians but also having reasonably honorable politicians from all the parties honor this tradition. for all the other things we talked about that haven't worked in american life, it was not until donald trump that that tradition was actually broken. you could count the civil war as well, but again, on the election front, on the peaceful transfer of power, in the modern era it was trumpism. now have senator cotton lying or minimizing about what we know and saw happened on the 6th. >> some have been held in pre-trial detention longer than the sentences of the crimes for which they are charged. anyone who assaulted a police officer or damaged public property, that's different. for people who just wandered into the capitol they thought was open, on the grounds, and

where's the charges -- >> wandering into a capitol they thought was open. that is a blatant lie. it's not just false if somebody you know that you talked to says, oh, i saw that on a podcast, i think it's the case. they just might be confused. that's how propaganda works, some people believe it. cotton was a part of bringing that level of violence. he was a part of trying to create the confusion around whether they could steal the election on the 6th, which wasn't actually going to be physically possible, but he fed that, he had his famous encouragement of it. and he was running with everyone else. why were they run something they were running because they weren't worried about people who wandered into the capitol as peaceful tourists. they were running because they understood that even those maga fans might assault, batter, beat, or murder them. is that literal? then you have laura trump, trump's daughter-in-law, a family member at the rnc. take a listen. >> you cannot have ballots

counted, maria, after elections are over. and right now that is one of the many lawsuits we have out across this country to ensure that just that happens, that we have a free, fair, and transparent election. so in nevada, as you pointed out, we are saying we want, on election day, that to be the last day that mail-in ballots can be counted. >> lara trump just making up new rules. senator cotton lying about who was there, echoing the hallway that we've had josh hawley and others pushing what we know went down on the 6th. it's all of a similar piece. we try to be very precise about who is doing what here, but this is part of undermining elections. other right wing figures are blatantly invoking nazi rhetoric. they're talking about other individuals or citizens or people in america being subhuman. we have one donor retreat here where vp hopefuls and other top republicans were there. this isn't just some random meeting we found. and the biden administration was

falsely likened to the gestapo. that is the people trying to overthrow elections and steal your vote and do worse, also conveniently accuse others of being literal nazis. for a look at this with some history and rigor, we have chai day here on the beat. a vet from the obama campaign and a thoughtful person, not just a cartoon. >> good to be here. >> good to have you. although you are also a cartoon here. >> i know. >> we are dealing with serious stuff. i like to keep it as reasonable and light as possible even as we have what we just witnessed there. >> right. >> how does this figure in to widening the number of people who are, in advance, softening the ground for potential attacks on the outcome of the election, whatever they may be. it's possible trump could win, possible he could lose. >> the republicans started with climate denial and went to vaccine denial.

then election denial. and now you have full scale democracy denial. and the reason for that is because that is trump's message. he is a strong man. he is a strong man who wins. he doesn't lose, so you can't admit that he lost the last election. every election he does lose must be denied. it must be shown as being rigged. any prosecution must be shown as being a witch hunt. it all goes to his strong man rhetoric, his strong man persona, and his strong man message in this election. >> so i have a deep question efor you. >> mm-hmm. >> but i think you can handle deep political questions. does it even mat who are believes the denialism versus who is just using it as propaganda? >> oh, it does. you know, what you just said brings up a very famous line by kurt von gut, who said, you know, we must be very careful who we pretend to be. you know, because -- >> i didn't know that one. that's good. >> it's from the book mother night. you know, and so, you know, the masks that we wear can turn into

our own faces over time. >> deep. >> and that is exactly what trump has done in transforming the gop. i mean, what you're seeing with tim scott is the equivalent of an induction ceremony. james comey said what you do in that ceremony is you have to convince the don, the mafia don, that you have what it takes to be a made man. here trump is saying, do you have what it takes to lie on my behalf? do you have what it takes to deny on my behalf? >> yeah. >> i think when you saw tim scott, he wasn't very good at it. >> it was clumsy. >> very clumsy. it was not smooth. but i think that's something he's aspiring to. >> all of this language, you know, i'm old enough to remember studying the actual nazis, their follower, the neo-nazis, the other adjacent hate theories which in an interesting but hateful way go after jews and

other minority groups. replacement theory is a cousin of it. it's not exactly the same. as we reported, tucker carlson and others have tried to popularize it. it says there's this threat of brown people coming into america and jews helping them. >> right. >> at the same time you see that propaganda, which is getting a lot more traction these days, you have what we just briefly showed -- i'm going to put it back up -- in "the washington post" on this gestapo language. also the other side is that trump escalates attacks on prosecutor, the rule of law, says democrats run a, quote, gestapo administration. we can put that headline up. what does it mean to have that normalized on the right? and how important is it to draw these lines because it clearly helps them if they can get everyone saying, well, everybody's a little bit gestapo. >> what trump is trying to do is move you toward an authoritarian frame of mind. he's very skilled at it. he says it in a way he has

plausible deniability. i didn't really say those things or say those in the way it's coming across. but he does still say them. he still sends the message. the best example is when he told the proud boys, you know, stand back and stand by. >> stand by, yeah. >> so he could basically have it both ways in terms of what he was saying. he uses nazi rhetoric and can have it both ways. ehe can turn on people who like that sort of thing but also deny it if he needs to. i didn't intend it to be an endorsement of nazism. >> yeah. well, you said something deep quoting, that your mask can become your face. the nicest thing you can say of some of these republicans were different in the past. there's a part of them that could be better than this. we have to be very factual about what they're saying when senators and senior people in government can't honor election

results in advance we are in a worse place than january 2, 021, the opposite of what we were assured. they're a party to it. we have to make sure people understand the facts. that's why we love chai day, it's always uplifting. when we come back, the doj has new charges that are very important. we're going get into that. stay with us. we're going get into that. stay with us ell ringing) limu, someone needs to customize and save hundreds on car insurance with liberty mutual. let's fly! (inaudible sounds) chief! doug. (inaudible sounds) ooooo ah. (elevator doors opening) (inaudible sounds) i thought you were right behind me. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, ♪ ♪ liberty. ♪ right now you can get a free footlong at subway. just buy any footlong in the app and get one free. just scan the qr code and enter promo code flbogo

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including everyone awaiting the supreme court ruling on the doj's jack smith case against trump. now another development. a texas congressman facing corruption charges. democrat henry quiaeroand his wife both indicted by the justice department late friday. they're accused of basically taking over half a million dollars in bribes from foreign companies. doj says they accepted cash payments and it was all part of a corrupt bribery scheme to basically advance those companies' interests inside the united states. the couple faces technically charges for bribery, unlawful foreign influence, and money laundering. the democratic congressman says he did not do anything wrong. >> i want to make it clear that my wife and i are innocent of this allegation. i'm running for re-election, and i will win this november again. >> it's pure fiction. there is no bribery. >> that is their response. you may recall that all the way back in 2022, there was reports

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so you know, i get to spend time with you here through this television screen at 6:00 p.m. eastern. sometimes we have extra stuff beyond what happens on tv. i want to share some of what we have been doing online. >> oh, my god, what time is it? >> time do the interview. put your phone down. >> there's a moment, a mood, a vibe. >> it's part of the trump m.o. >> he's a desperate man. >> michael and ari, like roger

and me. >> you ready? >> what do you got? >> i'm at the emmys. i'm waiting to hear. >> what we need most is not ideology. it's evidence. >> when are you going to call me? >> this week. >> okay. >> okay. >> yeah, you don't usually see the pets on air. you can find us at ari melber on various social media. or go to arimelber.com to sign up for my writing. newsletter, pick the free option. you can get my writing for free. tonight is an important time to keep it locked. joy reid has a very big interview. you may have heard about it, brittney griner, an exclusive here in the land of cable news. joy and britney talk about so many important issues. keep it locked for a very special edition of "the reidout" with joy reid. tonight on