good evening, everyone, i m abby philip in washington. and i m kaitlan collins in miami. this is cnn s continuing coverage of the arrest and arraignment of donald trump. there is really in a way to overstate the importance of this day in american history. it is the very first time that a former president of the united states has been arrested and arraigned. this time, 37 federal counts of allegedly mishandling classified documents. but in typical fashion, donald trump is downplaying the severity of those charges that have been mentioned against, and calling them fabricated and quote, an evil and heinous abuse of power. returning tonight to his golf club in bedminster, new jersey, where we should note that there was an audio recording of him talking about classified documents while he was there two years ago. tonight, holding a campaign fund-raiser and addressed his cheering supporters with a litany of lies. we begin the coverage with evan perez, senior justice corresp
brave face saying, oh, this is going to help us politically, we are going to raise a ton of money. but to elliott s point, they have a calendar problem as well. they have got cases some of them have not even come to fruition. and they also have primaries beginning in january. yes. and, i think, we saw today, though, that they are going to try to spin this into a win. obviously, it wasn t a good day by any measure. donald trump was arraigned. and federally indicted. and i think that, as evidenced by them taking into that restaurant in miami, they knew that there were no cameras in the courtroom. so, this was their chance to get him into front of a camera and to put on a brave face, as you said, and to show him, in a crowded room, full of supporters who were cheering him on and he was thriving. he seemed in good spirits, which is surprising given the day he had. but they are going to try to spin this into a win, as they usually do. and the message that we heard from him tonight, in
failing to hear from administration officials who have clearly relevant testimony to give here. imagine watergate without testimony from nixon administration officials. it took a while to get that testimony. sometimes this goes back to the calendar problem democrats have. they could use more time here to essentially let the court i mean i think they re filling their time pretty well this week, releasing transcripts, building a list of people not cooperating. they have got to be able to do both at the same time, but this is a problem that they have. it s a huge problem, but there s also a huge problem of the white house press secretary dismissing this as sham impeachment proceedings. what is sham about it? if there was a question about whether there were adequate procedures going forward, we now have procedures. explain to me what the difference is between the procedures that govern clinton and nixon and these procedures. so it s a simple just dismissal the procedures are jo
brought up. look at s.t.a.r.t., dream act, don t ask, don t tell. one is republicans and the other is the calendar problem. they want to be out of here a week from today. the procedure for just getting the tax bill done and then they have to fund the government, that could literally that s if there s moderate cooperation. that could take you to next week. how is majority leader reid going to get more cooperation and make things happen faster and play hardball with rules of the senate and get those things happen. not all can get done before christmas. the white house cares about s.t.a.r.t., nice to get dream act and don t ask don t tell repeal. s.t.a.r.t. is their priority. i heard some speculation they could squeeze s.t.a.r.t. in between the tax bill and the spending bill, and sort of force republicans hand a little bit. remember the letter republicans wrote to harry reid saying we will block anything that is no a spending bill or tax bill. however, s.t.a.r.t. is a ratifica