john king here in for anderson tonight. thanks for your time. the deal that might have been. some breaking news, new reporting of a trump attorney who wanted to try to settle with the justice department, and keep his client from facing charges. the catch, his client. also tonight, cnn gets frontline access to ukrainian special forces. on the hunt for russian commanders, to corner and kill. and later, a father a speaking out about nearly using his children and their remarkable story of surviving 40 days in the colombian jungle. but we begin with the new reporting on what you might call the exit ramp not taken by the former president. one that might have kept him off his current road to trial in the documents case. it just hits the washington post, quoting one of donald trump s new attorney s proposed an idea in the fall of 2022. the former presidents team could try to arrange a settlement with the justice department. just aussie of the post shares the byline on that story. h
my first conversation with would be a part of my banned book club, and when i should talk about literature and writing and the pressures that it is under in america. let s do that another time, but thank you for being with us this morning. i appreciate it. tony kushner is a tony award winner in a pulitzer prize-winning activist. thank you so much for watching, alex witt reports begins right now. a very good day of all to you from msnbc world headquarters here in new york. welcome everyone to alex witt reports. it is noon here on the east coast. six pm in gaza, and we begin with breaking news on the israel hamas war. here s what is new at this hour. there you hear it. israel s grinding retaliation in gaza bringing new claims of attacks on schools, refugee camps, and ambulances. and new calls for humanitarian pauses. israel s military temporarily shut down a main highway to allow evacuations in gaza, but israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu says a big no to secretary o
the colombian jungle. but we begin with the new reporting on what you might call the exit ramp not taken by the former president. one that might have kept him off his current road to trial in the documents case. it just hits the washington post, quoting one of donald trump s new attorney s proposed an idea in the fall of 2022. the former presidents team could try to arrange a settlement with the justice department. just aussie of the post shares the byline on that story. he joins us on the phone. now josh, walk us through this reporting. one of the presidents attorneys wanted to turn down the temperature, went to the former president of the united states, wanted to make a case for the justice department, tell us more. right. so john, the goal of this story was to outline all of the ways that the former president trump could have avoided being indicted, according to his own advisers. one of those ways has been a 2022, he hired chris who was a former florida solicitor general.
it s always a possibility. but then the former presidents team would be able to say, look, we tried. we try to work this out with the justice department and they rejected our overture. so it would have given them even another point there even if it wasn t successful. now, this indictment has been filed, it has been brought by a grand jury, and he is stuck with it. and so yes, they can approach the justice department and try to see if he could plead, but there would be no way other than a guilty plea following that revelations of all the information that s continuing in that indictment. you ve seen this movie before, haven t you? in the sense that experienced political people, experience policy people, in the trump administration come up with a plan, and they think they have the former president or then president or then candidate even, if you wanna go back to the 2016 sign off but then others in his circle who have a different approach. josh mentioned specifically boris epstein. we v