the d.a. has a clear path to bringing these kinds of charges. i think the key question is going to be whether the district attorney can know that trump was trying to influence the election, and that he knew that s what he was doing when he signed those checks. that seems like the real test here right and, again, we have to see what they unseal. josh, we do know that he will be booked his lawyers say they re preparing for that next week so that s a cooperative booking process, which is what you would expect from someone in this situation. i suppose, josh, the political and public question is, how much of that becomes another test and polarized america? you can see him getting booked and say no one is above the law or you can say oh what he wants people to say is they should be ashamed that this political prosecution is going forward, josh.
happening. you really laid that out, and that s the intangible part of all this josh, thank you very much. i am ari melber. as we follow the indictment of donald trump, huge breaking news msnbc has got you covered with joy reid continuing our coverage now. aware, we have major historic breaking news tonight. for the first time in our country s history, a former united states president is facing criminal charges. the manhattan grand jury has voted to indict donald trump for his role in the hush money payment to adult film star stormy daniels during his 2016 presidential campaign. again, this is the first time in history that this has happened in the united states two sources familiar with the situation told nbc news that trump s attorneys have been
yeah. look, we live in divided country. people are going to see things in different ways. one thing i think we should resist, and you can kind of see it in that whole debate that you referenced a few times over the course of, you know, during this hour, you know, should this case go first it s not the biggest of the cases, and is it is it big enough to be the first indictment you know, all these kind of second guessing. i think what we should recognize is, in some sense, that has all of us living within donald trump s drama. there is, of course, a prudential element to this, indicting a former president is a big deal you shouldn t do it frivolously or with a marginal case. but in some ways, donald trump, through all of his drama and threats, through saying ah, this
don t know we don t know exactly how this is going to play out, and that s good to remember you know, last week, we had this everybody was set for this the nypd was putting up barricades then it didn t happen. i believe it was just yesterday that there were news reports that the grand jury basically was going to be on hiatus for a month. so not only was it not the next day or the day after that, it was, you know, it was a month away i don t know if that was some kind of misdirection or something changed. but we all tend to, you know, collectively, we create stories, fables to fill in the gaps of what we don t know and yesterday, last week, when, you know, everybody was expecting these indictments and then it didn t happen, some people are saying wow, i guess
joining us now is josh marshal. thanks for being here. thanks for having me. let me start with a question that confuses me, and that is which republican party do nikki haley and larry hogan think they are running to potentially be the potential head of? because it s hard for me to imagine and mike pence for that matter, it s hard for me to imagine any of them having any base of support. is this a fools errand or do you think they might be onto something? i can t imagine nikki haley would win the nomination but at least she s somewhat in line with the politics of the republican party. hogan he s certainly considered an honorary democrat by a lot of republicans, so they re not going neither of them are going anywhere. what really strikes me most about if you can call it this kind of incipient primary