Up 10 points. That has now evaporated. Interesting to see who turns out, a testament to the excitement level. Thank you all. That is all for this evening. The Rachel Maddow show starts right now with ari in for rachel. Good evening. Rachel has the night off. We have a pretty big show. Today was day two of the federal criminal trial of the campaign chairman. The witnesses were several people who sold the defendant clothes and houses that he bought through secretive International Wire payments. One important thing we learned from what happened today, this judge is holding muellers prosecutors to the line, limiting their questions and how they present key evidence to manafort to the jury. A former prosecutor who tried these kinds of cases and inside that courtroom today joins me to explain if what the judge is up to could hurt muellers case. There are reports tonight about the russian woman charged with trying to carry out the government influence campaign through the nra in the u. S. And
Rachel Maddow takes a look at the days top political news stories. Whether a person is too close to the subject of the probe, whether Jeff Sessions would beak be more of a Trump Campaign surrogate who happened to be Attorney General rather than acting as an independent Law Enforcement officer. If sessions didnt recuse after that statement, it would have made him look even more like he was doing trumps bidding. And trump apparently didnt know that making that statement would also as just a general matter of embarrassment, make him look weak and out of the loop about a decision that was already done. Because there were reports that show the Internal Doj Process had already resulted in sessions accepting that nonpartisan Recusal Recommendation from the career staff earlier that week and that Jeff Sessions was already working with doj officials op writing the very rationale they would soon release to the public. In fact, it was barely an hour after trump put that public pressure on session
of manafort s very expensive suits as evidence. grand names basically greek to this judge. ica can t recognize these names. if it doesn t say men s warehouse, i don t know it. that got something of a laugh in his courtroom and then this did not. these pictures of manafort s very fancy suits may never get to the jury. the big curveball came when the judge started questioning other evidence pertaining to rick gates, mueller s former deputy they got to cooperate. it has the potential to be the most riveting part of this trial and maybe the whole prosecution at this point because we re talking about the deputy campaign manager for donald trump who flipped. look at this. judge ellis says, quote, you will offer up mr. gate, aren t you? mueller s prosecutor say, your honor, we re not sure if we are. he may testify in this case, your honor, he may not.
whether the prosecutors can use photographs of expensive suits as evidence. there were brand names that were greek to this judge. the judge said if it doesn t say men s wearhouse, i don t know it. that got something of a laugh. then what happened did not. we re showing you this because it matters legally. judge ellis hinting these pictures of manafort s very fancy suits may never get to the jury. the big curveball came when he starred questioning other evidence that pertained to rick gates. that s manafort s former deputy who mueller got to cooperate. gates testimony has the potential to be the most riveting pivotal portion of this trial. maybe of the whole mueller prosecution up to point. we re talking about the deputy campaign manager for donald trump who flipped. but look at this. judge ellis says you re going to offer up mr. gates, aren t you? . and mueller s prosecutor says your honor, we re not sure if we are. he may testify in this case, your honor.
won over. there are a lot of different cat gather categories. we don t know how john mccain is feeling today. unspecified. this is where the rubber will hit the road. it will be later. they will be able to get it through to the senate. the first year of the ronald reagan presidency, they cut taxes. the bush presidency, they cut taxes. that s the first thing they do. they want to find a way. whether they will be happy they do that, it could raise taxes on suburban voters in the place where they are most in trouble already. i do think they want to get the big curveball. they will need to impose some kind of trigger to get it through to the senate that says we will raise taxes if it doesn t produce as much revenue as we expect. it goes back to the old way.