the beat with ari melber starts right now. our top story is this democratic resurgence we re living through this week, brought to you by the voters of the united states of america. republicans are straight up reeling because voters, including in often more conservative leaning states, are rejecting this version, today s version of the republican party as measurably unpopular. as something that these voters oppose, and they oppose the policies, and i m not talking about opinion, i m not talking about speculation or polling. i m just reporting for you on what we re learning from the vote this week and the party that is now dealing with what has clearly a brand. that fed weeks of chaos in replacing a speaker, shows the candidates running for office right now against the very creator of maga, trump, while he skipped this debate they did last night, and they were clearly still split over how to challenge him and each other against the backdrop of these new losses. all of it
versus donald j. trump. we re getting live updates from inside of the courtroom. we re going to do our best to watch them together and bring out and interrupt our conversations and bring you any and all significant moments as they re happening. over the last few hours the prosecutor has been going through the claims made by trump s lawyers in their closing argument this morning. steinglass, the prosecutor, pushed back against trump s lawyers claim from this morning that porn star stormy daniels was extorting donald trump. prosecutors saying this, quote, extortion is not a defense to falsifying business records. and if you have any questions about that, you can ask the judge. after putting on the stand, just two witnesses, one of whose credibility completely crumbled during cross-examination, donald trump s defense team today closed by arguing essentially that there was never any criminal conspiracy to conceal the hush money payments. trump s attorney todd blanche also went af
We will not talk about numbers of troops. That is new for the american presidency. At no point tonight did the president clarify anything about what would actually change militarily for the United States in afghanistan. If this speech is meant to be interpreted as an increase in Troop Strength in afghanistan, its the first time a president has announced an increase in Troop Strength without actually announcing an increase in Troop Strength. As commander in chief, i have determined that it is in our Vital National interest to send an additional 30,000 u. S. Troops to afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative while building the afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of afghanistan. And here is how president george w. Bush described the Military Surge that he ordered in iraq. So uch committed more than 20,000 additional american troops to iraq. The vast majority of t
Reports and interviews that give viewers a look inside the corridors of power in Washington, D. C. All this is ken vogel of the New York Times and also the law firm of butler rocca and dershowitz, former federal prosecutor Georgetown Law 0 professor and legal analyst paul butler. Former assistant u. S. Attorney for the Southern District of new york also an msnbc legal analyst mimi rocca, and Professor Emeritus at harvard law school, Alan Dershowitz. He is the author of the book the case against Impeaching Trump. Thanks to all of you for being with us on this sunday night. Ken vogel, i want to start with you just in terms of what weve been seeing out of the white house from this president today. What prompted this flurry of tweets . Well, clearly hes fairly under a lot of pressure. Michael cohen is coming out publicly and releasing the tape of the conversation regarding a payoff to a woman who alleged he had an affair with her, has seemed to set him off in a way we havent seen him reall
Wolf Blitzer looks at politics, breaking news and international stories. Trump Campaign Manager facing off against the Russia Investigation special counsel robert mueller. You cannot understate just how big this is, no matter which way it goes. On one hand, if, for example, mr. Manafort is found guilty, that makes it a real problem for the president of the United States to continue to call this a witch hunt. Now, what about this case . We have 18 charges in the indictment, Something Like three dozen witnesses. The former partner of Paul Manafort, rick gates, could testify. The trial could last up to three weeks. At the end of the day, though, a big deal for Paul Manafort himself, who was a huge power broker in washington, d. C. He has another trial scheduled later this year, wolf. And theyre accusing him of taking about 60 million from prorussian politicians in
Wolf Blitzer looks at politics, breaking news and international stories. On the job. Now that seems to have changed, and we go