Vows not to dilute, dither or delay that legislation. The white house focuses today on immigration as President Biden prepares to sign a series of executive actions, including Assembly Task force to reunite families separated at the border during the Trump Administration. Welcome to tuesday, its Groundhog Day, the longest Groundhog Day any of us have ever experienced, isnt it, anyway, it jen psaki will hold her briefing the house Impeachment Managers have filed their pretrial brief this morning as well. Well get to both of those in a moment. The Daily Briefing comes after President Biden met with ten of the most moderately minded Senate Republicans, not necessarily an ideology but perhaps in tone last night at the white house. The that meeting they proposed a covid relief deal that they probably knew biden could not support and biden probably knew they wouldnt be able to stay united on that anyway. Case in point, its not every day you see Mitch Mcconnell publicly renouncing or praising
the coverage. the new yorker cover with donald trump portray thed as a metal-wearing, goose-stepping nazi e soldier. trump continues to dominate the coverage as he did by doing an iowa town hall with fox news overshadowing at the same hour the ron desantis-nikki haley slug fest on cnn. and the former president generated wall the wall coverage by showing up in washington on his claim of immunity for actions in office; namely, challenging the last election. trump s presence in that courtroom which took him off the campaign trail just days before the iowa caucuses underscored the vindictiveness of the lawfare if being waged against him. why s he in court instead of campaigning? because donald trump being in court is the greatest bully pulpit for him where he can plaw fake. howard: trump wasn t required to be in court then or on thursday when he denounced the judge in his new york civil fraud trial, but he drew attention from his rivals whose iowa events are being buried by s
the country, including a former president, was the subject of a hearing today in a federal courthouse in washington, d.c. attorneys for donald trump and federal prosecutors argued over trump s claim that the federal election case against him should be dismissed because everything he did in the postelection period was in his official capacity as president. the three-judge panel that is hearing the case appeared spectacle of that claim. the ex-president and jack smith were in the courtroom today. trump has been claiming that president joe biden has been forcing him to appear in court, which is not true, he did have no obligation to appear at today s hearing. trump s attorney argued that allowing the prosecution of donald trump would, quote, open a pandora s box, but the judge has pushed back on that and many of the arguments he was making. trump s lawyer also argued that the president could only be prosecuted if he was impeached and convicted by the senate first, no matter what
convicted. but his attorney said quite the opposite in his last impeachment trial saying, well, this is the a political process, but he could certainly be pursued by law enforcement. so which is it? [laughter] well, that s a good question. [laughter] lawyers can find a way. there you go. listen, ultimately they re make a strong argument which is unless you really want and you heard jessie say it in your montage, unless you want to open up pandora s box, be super careful about what you can charge a former president is. it is to say be careful what you wish for as we ve seen play out i think of the old harry reid, you know, 51 versus 60, be careful. decisions made today can have lasting impact, and i think the courts will probably consider that. howard: right. there is a legitimate debate about setting a precedent for future presidents. you know, the other, the civil fraud trial hearing in new york, trump did get to speak, and he insulted the judge to his face.
cited, there were others that were cited as well says, didn t essentially you argue the exact opposite when you were in your in your impeachment trial saying, don t convict me here. you can always have criminal prosecutions later. and mitch mcconnell made that exact point as well. in a normal case, as lisa knows well, this would be you would be viewed as waiving or forfeiting the argument that you have to have been impeached and convicted if you tell that tribunal no, no, no, you don t need to. i can still be criminally prosecuted. it s complete inconsistency and the judge was all over that and there was no good response from donald trump s counsel today on that issue. lisa, i want to hear from you on this. one of the things i heard you and chuck talking about today was that, you know, if that s true, if you can t be if you