break it down. as the 11th hour gets underway on this monday night. good evening once again i m stephanie ruhle. donald j trump is now hours away from his first court appearance as a federal criminal defendant. earlier today he traveled from new jersey to south florida ahead of his scheduled arraignment tomorrow on charges of mishandling classified documents and blocking efforts to get them back. the government s hearing 49 -page indictment lays out more than three dozen counts against the former president including what prosecutors say is evidence of where trump kept america s most sensitive national security secrets in a bathroom, a ballroom the storms in mar-a-lago. trump was asked about his upcoming court hearings in a radio interview earlier tonight. the judge is going to ask you tomorrow how you plead are you going to see anything beyond not guilty? are you going to make a statement in court tomorrow? i did nothing wrong, presidential records act it s not even a cri
bring ryan riley, i want to thank him as well, and everyone who was here tonight. i want to throw to another big gun, chris hayes. i toss it to you, my friend. this is one of the biggest nights i think for any of us who are in this business. it is a night of pathos not joy in the sense that the american republic is having to witness this integration of the presidency or the former presidency in the form of the apparently now confirmed indictment of donald trump. now c there is something so different about the manhattan district attorney indicting donald trump for actions that he took in the run up to him becoming the president in in that hush money payment scheme. we have a multi jurisdictional form of justice. they re from different jurisdictions for different crimes. the united states department of justice, this is the sort of republic at its, defending itself against itself in some senses here. it does feel like we are at the, you talk about all the clichés we is about g
it cannot be more perfect. also, call about a secretary of state, jena griswold is going to join us. colorado is headed apparently to the supreme court without trump. the only thing all those people have in common is that they would like to supreme court to actually weigh in on this thing and get it moving. i am excited to hear the conversation. it s going to be the year at the supreme court. thanks, ali. tonight, 77-year-old donald trump is asking a court where he appointed three of the nine judges to save his presidential campaign. donald trump s lawyers have filed an appeal, asking the united states supreme court to overturn the decision by the colorado state supreme court to ban donald trump from the presidential ballot in colorado. colorado supreme court s decision is based on the 14th amendment, which is ratified in 1868. it does not allow officers of the federal government to be elected to office again if they have engaged in insurrection against the united state
will they be indifferent about authorities seeking to recover classified materials? that s today s poll question, which i ll share in a moment. it may depend upon responses by trump s gop opponents. most weren t quick to weigh in before the indictment was unsealed. ron desantis tweeted, the weaponization of federal law enforcement represents a threat to a free society. mike pence used the same word while calling for the unsealing of the indictment. the american people should be able to judge for themselves whether this is just the latest incident of weaponization and politicization at the justice department, or if it s something different, he said. ditto for tim scott on the weaponization charge. the committing to pardon trump immediately upon his own swearing in. chris christie kept his powder dry initially saying we don t get our news from truth social, trump s account. let s see what the facts are when an indictment is released. asa hutchinson called for trump to withdraw
let s get right to it. we begin with the actually unprecedented collation of politics that america is facing in 2024, whether we like it or not, whether we re tired or not, which i get. but the nation has never actually put a former president on trial. several prosecutors are working on that for a task, even as donald trump s civil fraud trial stretches through december of 2023. and in 2024, as you probably heard, if you d watch the news, defended trump faces several criminal trials in different districts while running for president again. procutor jack smith separately, the stolen intelligence documents case in florida. the atlanta dea pushing ahead of convictions 2023. and then you ve got over 90 felonies changed. that is not normal, even if it has been normalized. the first trial initially slated from march, well those schedules can change facing more serious warnings from people who know about this, from actual legal experts. discussing a very real possibility t