welcome to the beat. i m ari melber. we are tracking several stories tonight, including another supreme court ethics scandal, tying gop appointee samuel alito to another billionaire on a fishing trip. we ll get into that later. it s a big story. but our news program begins tonight with not only the criminal trial of donald trump, now slated to begin on august 14th buck the broader ongoing threat of right wing individual lantyism and authoritarianism. tonight we begin with a special report on that very challenge, and trump s efforts to hijack the criminal justice system that now is trying to potentially hold him accountable. we re talking about a range of actions that has prompted already fear of violence over the violent rhetoric and whether that could turn to action. we re about one week out from the federal arraignment that trump did try to prevent. we remember he was forced to sit silently in that miami courtroom. outside cameras showed a very small crowd. the scene was
criminal trial and how much he has incriminated himself. now, we all know a lot s happened this week, but there continues to be new reporting and developments including trump s focus on the boxes. the new york times reports trump was attached to the boxes of documents even while he was in office. a white house official said trump would notice if somebody rifled through them or they weren t arranged in a particular way. that s how his, quote, mind worked. those boxes were found ultimately in the bathroom and other unsecure areas in mar-a-lago. so trump has continued to lash out, to publicly bemoan this process, also in a way to give prosecutors evidence. trump has written that he is, quote, totally exonerated. he s asked, when are they going to drop all charges against him, apologize, and return everything that was, quote, illegally taken. he is basically saying out of court what his lawyers have not been able to prove in court that somehow this was an illegal search or s
and fingerprinted a federal court appearance captured by a sketch artist. you re seeing one such example. these moments you re looking at here are that which donald trump has blatantly tried to overshadow with this is own series of events and speeches and recent pr programming. well, we can all see how this case is different right now. the early reporting is focused on how it will follow a traditional trajectory. the new york times puts it that way. next up we have a date for trump codefendant walt nauta to enter his plea, june 27th. and then traditionally, the status conference hearings that you would see over a course of couple months, the government supplying evidence to the defense. and that material can then inform the defense lawyers strategies. trump s lawyers may try a kind of more serious investigation of this odd defense that trump has been publicly mounted that the de the classified documents he says were secretly or magically declassified before he left offic
i m ana cabrera reporting from new york. at a start of a historic week for our country. later this morning donald trump is expected to travel from new jersey to florida where he ll be arraigned tomorrow, set to become the first former president ever to enter a plea in a federal case. but there could be a wrinkle in the proceedings. we ll explain that. this as some of trump s closest former allies are warning the facts are against him. if even half of it is true, then he s toast. it s a pretty it s a very detailed indictment. it s very, very damning. security in miami ramping up ahead of the former president s arrival. we ll have the latest on the massive effort to keep everyone safe. plus a travel nightmare. a fire causing a section of the very crucial interstate 95 to collapse. this is near philadelphia. we ll have a live update on the repairs and the investigation repairs that could take months. later, a miracle in absolutely every sense of the word. four missin
for both the prosecution and defense the security perhaps and the impact it all could have on the 2024 election. our expert panels are here to break it down. as the 11th hour gets underway on this monday night. good evening once again i m stephanie ruhle. donald j trump is now hours away from his first court appearance as a federal criminal defendant. earlier today he traveled from new jersey to south florida ahead of his scheduled arraignment tomorrow on charges of mishandling classified documents and blocking efforts to get them back. the government s hearing 49-page indictment lays out more than three dozen counts against the former president including what prosecutors say is evidence of where trump kept america s most sensitive national security secrets in a bathroom, a ballroom the storms in mar-a-lago. trump was asked about his upcoming court hearings in a radio interview earlier tonight. the judge is going to ask you tomorrow how you plead are you going to see anythi