months. lauro just wouldn t concede any of that. i think they really lost her by refusing to engage with her on terms she found reasonable. ken, you were at the hearing yesterday. what was the tenor? just reading through it, it certainly looked like there was a lot of back and forth between judge chutkan amonishing lauro at several moments in the hearing. what was it like in there? so, willie, full disclosure, i was actually standing outside doing live shots for msnbc, but i was reading word for word as our colleagues inside were typing what she was saying into the google doc that i was looking at. i was really wishing we could all watch it on television because it was a remarkable hearing. the sort of reality distortion field of the trump defense in this case, you know, kind of came crashing on the shoals of this hard-nose judge who wasn t taking any nonsense. she made a number of statements that would have been beneficial for the public at large to watch her say, for example, tha
all four of these separate trials, plus the civil case you mentioned. there s some overlap between the legal teams, some people are different. it s just mind boggling. then you have donald trump who is going to be trying to run for president even as he is devoting some resources because a defendant has to be involved in his own defense. you know, there are certain things only the defendant knows. so we are in for a real show next year to see how this all plays out. you know, frankly, donald trump, from where i sit, doesn t appear to have enough lawyers and enough legal resources to really successfully defend all these cases in this compressed period. that s really part of the argument his lawyers were making. they ve made it in both florida and in washington before these federal judges, that, look, we need more time because we just need to get more legal resources onto this. he s at a real disadvantage here, and that s not something
might make one list. if you re talking about cases with very serious crimes, you might make another list. but let me assure you, i wouldn t want to be a defendant in any case, state or federal, compelling or otherwise. i mean, he is facing four separate criminal indictments. all of them, elise, all of them carry the potential for jail time if he is convicted. you know, not a good day to wake up on the wrong side of a state or federal criminal case. chuck, as we look at this calendar that we ve been showing this morning, it is just extraordinary. if we can put it up here. you just see what his docket looks like next year. we re talking about these four major cases. by the way, georgia is not yet on that calendar, so you can add that in. a couple of them in march, including the stormy daniels case here in manhattan. then in may, you have the mar-a-lago documents trial. throw in earlier in the year the e. jean carroll defamation suit, the pyramid scheme, the class
tuesday. obviously, a very busy day on the eve of that big super tuesday primary and caucus event. what is your reaction to the timing of this trial? well, look, willie, you know, as you know, i served seven years as the u.s. attorney in the fifth largest office in the country. we did over 130 public corruption cases during my seven years there. we were 130-0. i understand the way these cases work. this is a relatively straightforward case. it s just one defendant. it s essentially four charges. the idea that they have another six months to prepare for trial would be a normal situation in the district of new jersey. i think in probably almost any federal district of any size in the country. usually, you know, this is the way these cases work, so i m not surprised by the date. i thought the 2026 request was ridiculous. when your lawyer is going in
what arguments he is going to make in this case. what d you take away from that long day? yeah, it was the first big test of fani willis case here in georgia. it also underscored the surprise testimony from mark meadows. underscored just how badly he wanted to win this motion. you know, legal experts did not expect mark meadows to take the stand, but it is important, as lisa mentioned. i mean, first of all, he can advance that argument that he was immune from prosecution pause he was acting under the color of a federal official. but beyond that, you know, it changes the jury pool. it means the jury pool is not just driven from fulton county, which joe biden won with 72% of the vote, but also from a broader pool of ten counties in the metro atlanta area. and for us viewers at home, likely, we will not be able to see the proceedings on tv like we would in fulton county court. greg, what did we learn from brad raffensperger yesterday? we sat for about an hour, the georgia secretary o