the beat starts with ari melber. has it ever happened to you a tickle in your throat? i was going to say, real quick, do you want a lozenge? i just chewed one. my dentist will be so mad. i don t know if i should share this but i used to do a show on msnbc, and one of my coanchors would get on me about putting the cough drop on the paper in the commercial and then back and forth. i was like, i m going to conserve it. it was here a second ago. i chewed it up to clean up for you. america appreciates your voice, i think, so let s keep it. thanks, ari. have a great show. nice to see you, nicolle. you re welcome. welcome to the beat. i m ari melber. notwithstanding our voices and whether we keep them or lose them, i can tell you i m going to use my voice to tell you about two legaling aments surrounding president trump. we can tell you the wall street journal and cnn are reporting that trump s chief of staff mark meadows has been officially subpoenaed by spec
starts today. we love getting nightly news with lester holt backs appeared we love your work, and the diplomacy. indeed. have a good weekend, you, too. welcome to the beat. let me start with something serious. law enforcement sources still us that alvin bragg has received a formal death threat, through a letter that was a littled to him that set, quote, alvin, i m going to kill you, end quote. it contained a white powder. it s been deemed by authorities as nonhazardous. this is what s happening. we talked about last night why it s not a drill, why these threats don t work historically, but why donald trump, who is under investigation for abusing power, for inciting an insurrection, is now back at the same playbook. he is out online, using his plate form. talking about depth and destruction and posts violent imagery. the probe is part of a much larter legal storm. and we re going to report on these always. we have to understand he s moving from a position of extrem
talking about depth and destruction and posts violent imagery. the probe is part of a much larter legal storm. and we re going to report on these always. we have to understand he s moving from a position of extreme weakness, even perhaps fear or terror. so let me walk you through. in the criminal coup probe, a federal judge has completely shredded executive privilege claims. that means donald trump s top aide, who was at the center of everything, he must testify, something he evaded in these probes. that s a win for the counsel jack smith. we ve seen them use executive privilege as a way to not cooperate whatsoever. other top trump aides also being compelled under oath.
meadows has been officially subpoenaed by special counsel jack smith. i credit those scoops by those but want to you know msnbc has not independently confirmed this story. but it is according to that reporting that smith is getting tough and aggressive from the criminal coup probe. that s part of our stop story tonight. i m going to get to that in a moment. it is in the same set of issues, though, that relate to the other big story, a direct link to the other criminal probe at the state level. totally different prosecutors, different system, because we have two sets of prosecutors, and is the country is run federal and state. this is down in georgia. you probably heard about all the anticipation about this report or excerpts from it. now, the stolen election plot was of course a help center in georgia. wasn t the only state but it was a pig big one. trump and his allies have not faced penalties in georgia. the d.a. there has been more
even somewhat tire offend hearing about how much mike pence and donald trump are almost maybe somewhat in trouble. we re talk about special counsel jack smith s subpoena in the criminal coup probe. politico breaking the story. pence using the constitution s speech or debate clause which shields members of congress from law enforcement scrutiny over very specifically when they speak or debate. pence was vice president, so he had that ceremonial role in the tie to break the senate. it s a ceremonial thing because he s not a senator. now in some uncharted legal territory. many legal experts say that this argument could succeed. it really depends. there are questions about how far it might extend. might have a debate for the time he was on the floor, which is