the. i am ari melber. i will be joining you now for the next two hours of a special holiday edition of the bee tonight on this friday december 29th. donald trump s criminal trial several looming in 24. that s where we begin tonight, and we ll do it a little different tonight here for the holidays. i have former federal prosecutor joyce vance, already with me to start the show. we are looking at this legal heat coming up. i want to get into this with the, joyce, but first show you and every something we put together to consider the historic indictments on the road that donald trump has already been on. donald trump has been indicted under seal of the new york grand jury. 34 felony counts of falsified business records. we have one set of laws in the country that we apply to everyone. this will now be months if not the next year of our lives. the former president was placed under arrest on charges brought by the government he once led. the guy running for president
good evening. happy holidays. welcome to the beat. i am ari melber. i ll be joining you the next two hours for a special holiday edition of the beat. donald trump has a criminal trial problem. he has several trials looming in 2024. that s where we begin tonight. we ll do it a little different for the holidays. former federal prosecutor joyce vance with me to start the show. we re looking at this legal heat coming up. i want to get into this with you, joyce, but first show you and viewers something we put together to consider tonight, historic indictments on the road donald trump has already been on. donald trump has been indicted under seal by the new york grand jury. 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. we have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone. this will now be months if not the next year of our lives. the former president was placed under arrest on charges brought by the government he once led. the guy who s running for
word with my friend katie phang in for lawrence, good evening, katie. tie phan good evening, alex, hope you have a great weekend. and to all of you joining us tonight, our broken ooze. $148 million, today, a washington d.c. jury ordered rudy giuliani to pay 148 million, $169,000 to the two atlanta election workers who were falsely accused of election fraud, after donald trump lost the 2020 presidential election. the case began on monday of this weekend, despite very vocal promises to do so, in the end, giuliani did not take the stand in his own defense. that left the jury with a little to consider of the harrowing and compelling testimony from ruby freeman and miss moss. many met during the house select hearings. i stayed away from my home for approximately two months. it was horrible. i felt almost. i felt, i can t believe this person has caused just much damage to me and my family. to have to leave my home,, i lived there for 21 years. lady ruby and her daughter descr
ruling against rudy giuliani, a sum that will bankrupt the former mayor of new york city. his attorney said it is basically a death penalty for him, an economic death penalty. plus an update from capitol hill on foreign aid negotiations, the package which would provide critical funding for ukraine. it s been held up by republican demands for stricter immigration policies. but it looks like there s progress there. might be some. we ll get analysis on the biden administration s push to get israel to scale back its war in gaza, what s going on there. with us, we have the host of way too early, white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. former state department official, elise jordan. politics nation reverend al sharpton. and presidential chair at vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham is with us. so let s get to it. at a rally on saturday, donald trump again used the language of 20th century authoritarians while separately praising this country s
nicolle wallace. all of the president s men, or in this case, four times indicted ex-presidents with notorious outliers and enablers. rudy giuliani is in court, a jury is deliberating for a second day on that right now, as soon as there is news from the courtroom, we re going to head right to our reporter in washington. and, of course, mark meadows, trump s former chief of staff turned codefendant in the interference case. he s he heart of the sprawling, high octane racketeering case brought by fanni willis, a case that s spooked meadows so badly, that he s using every oce of his firepower to get it moved to federal court, arguing everything he did was part of his official job as chief of staff. specifically, he s trying to dust off a 234-year-old federal statute which allows officials charged with state crimes to transfer them to federal court if the alleged criminal behavior was carried out as part of that person as official duties. meadows argues he was acting as trump