Saturday, april 13th, and you are watching velshi on msnbc. I am filling in for my friend ali velshi. In two days the country will witness something that literally never happened before the first criminal trial of a former president of the united face of america. This coming monday, it is the beginning of Donald Trumps hush money trial. It may also be the only case it goes to court before election day. The man who was widely expected to be the star witness in the trial Michael Cohen sat down exclusively with the morning cast of my colleagues from the weekend and he had this to say about how we should be thinking about the case. The prosecutors are going to put forth their case and im just the narrator and rest assured, alvin bragg and the prosecutor a team over at the District Attorney of new yorks office would not have brought this case unless they thought they were going to be successful. So far, trumpet his legal team have been pretty successful in their delight. There is no trial s
she should be locked up. tell you right now. she should be locked up. she should. that s right, lock them up. you should lock them up. lock up the bidens. lock up hillary. hillary clinton, i didn t say lock her up, but the people don t say lock her up, okay. donald trump s getting a bit desperate ahead of his sentencing making the ludicrous claim that he never said hillary clinton should be locked up. it s on tape, donald. plus, michael cohen s reaction to trump s guilty verdict and the potential of prison time. and the far right continues to embrace authoritarianism with politicians and commentators flocking to el salvador to attend the inauguration of the man who calls himself the world s coolest dictator. it s a big warning sign for the type of government they want to run if trump becomes president again. but we begin tonight with the real meaning of law and order. as the reality has set in that their soon to be official nominee is a convicted felon, republican
he s even calling on his favorite justices on the supreme court to intervene before he s sentenced in july four days before the republican convention. the supreme court has no case meddling in a state prosecution, but the reality is given what we haveen from the conservative men on the court, the idea they would do it anyway doesn t feel much like a fiction. what makes it even more insulting is trump and republicans have recruited some dignitly free black men besides claire whoons are willing to pretend his impunity would ever apply to them. these people think so little of black americans that they believe trump s criminal record is the thing that will endear him to black men, who when they get convicted, do not have a cult army to demand that they not be locked up. they simply lose access to everything. from jobs to the ability to rent an apartment or travel, or in red states, the ability to vote. something donald trump has been assured by the james crow
governor of florida that he will not lose either. i m joined now by joyce vance, former u.s. attorney, professor at the university of alabama school of law, cohost of the sisters in law podcast, and an msnbc legal analyst, and charles blow, new york times columnist and msnbc political analyst. thank you both for being here. joyce, you re the daughter-in-law of a judge, a former prosecution. how do you feel when you hear people who have been banging on about crime and how about how we have to stop this crime wave in america suddenly think that crime is a-okay when it is donald trump who is convicted of one or 37 counts of one? yeah, i don t think we have to be very sophisticated in our analysis to appreciate that this is no longer the party of law and order. if in fact it ever was. i think you make a powerful argument here, joy, that it was less about law and order, more about controlling people, and part of the work that was done during the obama administration