a number of people, as our colleague ryan riley has noted in his reporting, as defendants on january sixth characters have said i was useful idiot. i was a pawn in don trump s larger game. i did not understand what was going on that day or i felt that i was called by the president to come to washington on january 6th and that he was essentially excusing if not directly calling for all the things that went down that day, including the violence. trump himself obviously can t say that, because he is with a dozen former and chief. he s the person on whom these useful idiots were prayed, essentially. so in his case, he can t use the defense. but i want to point out, alica, to you and our viewers, there is a close cousin of that argument the former president might be able to avail himself of. that is the advice of counsel defense. donald trump was scheduled to have to tell judge chutkan and jack smith s office, later this month, whether he ll advance a defense that he was solely
which i think is so interesting, because donald trump was obsessively watching fox from his white house dining room. he saw earlier than the one pm hour there was an attack underway. and later, after a fox report of the truth today, they could push the again to the audience and talk accountants breathless lies about it being a false flag operation. so once again, fox is caught between the truth and what the audience wants to hear. to underscore, there is a subset of the audience that has not totally fallen for this. in a persuasion effort that now needs to be underway. that s what president biden is due, and by the way. biden has to provide offerings. democrats have to provide offerings for independents, moderate, casual republicans who don t want to go full truth or. who do want to get the deranged conspiracy theory wrote. and have a path towards a more saint, realistic view of what happened that day. off-ramps, promotion structure, something that allows him to come back into the fo
castro breaking down the stakes for the party and country. but first, to richard louis the other big stories we are tracking this hour on msnbc. orchard? thank you. an update. in the last, outside of defense but also releasing a statement about his hospitalization this week. austin saying he understands the concerns about transparency is running his elective procedure and the subsequent forest days in the icu at walter reed medical center. a u.s. official confirms to nbc, the pentagon did not overrule the president or senior officials at the nsc for four days. austin pledged to, quote, do better in the future. the pentagon has often resumed his duties for the evening. he remained hospitalized so they. and a strong winter storm burlington on the northeast. new england and mid-atlanta expect around a foot of snow. other parts could see high winds and freezing rain. officials warned residents to stay upright and prepare for possible power outages. more american voices right after this b
supposition that donald trump will be the republican nominee. but even if you lived in some fantastic, often reality, president biden knows he will be running against trumpism. that is all but guaranteed. so the argument about democracy itself, it holds, regardless of who the candidate would be. it absolutely does. that was a very smart speech. it was a well-timed speech. i thought and impassioned speech, and an effective won by president biden yesterday. and it really led at the stakes and a way that makes what the decision in november, very clear. and you re right, alica, even if it s trump not. let s say it s haley, let s say it s desantis bicep maricle. i don t think it s going to happen, but let s say it. it all of them have already embraced trumpism. all of them have made excuses towards the january 6th crowd. all of them have spoken at different points in the same fetishistic, dictatorial way, although not as extreme.
in the end, two things can be true at once. we can go on and have this legal process unfold, as i think it should. and at the same time, rely ultimately on the voters who will go to ballot boxes across the country and november to make your choice for president, whether donald trump is on that ballot or not. and so, i think this is part of the process that is difficult to really kind of get your head around. because you have so many things compressed, in one instance going on at the same time. and the question is exactly how folks are taking all of this. in that remains to be seen at the ballot box. but right now, what we do know is donald trump is trying his level best to waken it enough, create that doubt, so that one juror and some of this upcoming cases gives him the past he