mr. trump s fingerprinted through a digital figure consistent, but his mugshot, they used an existing photo. special counsel watches from the front row as the ex president pleads not guilty. for donald trump, america had never before had a president twice impeached. america had never before had an ex president indicted, let alone twice indicted. today, on the day of his federal harassed, america starts yet another new chapter. joy reid, nicole wallace, chris haines, lawrence o donnell, already melber, alex wagner, stephanie ruhle, jen psaki, plus our legal experts and reporters, all here for msnbc s special coverage of the first federal criminal indictment of a former u.s. president. good evening, and thank you for being with us for our special primetime coverage, of a day that will go down in american history as unimaginable, inconceivable, unthinkable, and also equally hey, what took you so long? i am rachel maddow here at msnbc headquarters with joy reid, chris area
trump was being arraigned in florida not only were fake electors from trump s plot to overturn the 2020 election, not only were those fake electors testifying before special counsel jack smith sent january six grand jury, but at the same moment congressional republicans were holding their own bizarro hearing about january 6th. at the exact same time of former president was arraigned on federal criminal charges related to unlawfully hoarding documents. witnesses were testifying in jack smith s other sprawling federal investigation into that same former president all the while that former presidents congressional defenders were hard at work whitewashing the january 6th insurrection. all the same time. that sort of wild convergence belongs in the history books. and while the arraignment and investigation of a former president is clearly of utmost importance here i think it is worth paying attention to the fake story from tuesday as well. the thing that was happening in congress.
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
is critical. it really is. look, you know, to the survivors and families, jill and i, my wife jill is not here today with me. she is in delaware right now. she had to go back up. jill and i have gotten to know many of you over the years. some of us have become friends for a long time. we ve kept in touch. mark, it s good to see you again and your family, and the losses may be different, circumstances, but we ve shared before us something that s helped our family. when my wife and daughter were killed in a tractor-trailer struck them, just after i got elected, my two boys weren t expected to live, and then later when my son beau, who was the attorney general and volunteered to spend a year in iraq died, stage 4, glioblastoma. my daughter ashley taped a message to the mirror, the way everything gets to me through my wife and daughter now is they know i have to shave in the morning, so they ll tape on the mirror, for real. so i see it when i m shaving. one day she left me a quot
campaigning for president even if he were convicted. now, that is not entirely shocking to be honest. trump never admitted defeat after losing the election in the 2020 election. he s not going to tap out of the 2024 race when it s just getting started. but there s more to this move. it s not about politics. it has a bigger strategy at its core. as axios explains, the 2024 campaign is more than a race to return to the white house. this is a fight to stay out of prison. legal experts believe it s unlikely trump s criminal trial will be resolved before the 2024 election, so whoever wins the presidency could be in a position to influence trump s case, and if trump is the gop nominee, he could essentially be campaigning for his freedom, an unprecedented scenario in this country. according to axios, winning the presidency would give a chance for sympathy or even pardon himself if convicted. his political rivals trying to beat trump, they have signaled they would pardon him or bring