hello and thank you for joining us. it is 10 a.m. eastern. i m ana cabrera with jose diaz vallart. special breaking news coverage today. for a man with a lengthy and varied history of high stakes court battles, this will be a legal saga unlike anything donald trump has encountered before. the former president has now been federally indicted on seven criminal charges related to his handling of classified documents. nbc news has confirmed one of the charges is related to the espionage act. all eyes now turn to tuesday at 3 p.m. eastern, the day before the former president s 77th birthday when we expect trump to appear in court in miami and unless information is released beforehand, that s also when we expect to get the full detailed list of charges from the special counsel s team. for his part, trump has denied any wrongdoing. they can t stop because it s election interference at the highest level. there s never been anything like what s happened. i m an innocent man. i m a
case that it would meet a high standard necessary to justify the unprecedented federal indictment of a former president of the united states by the current president of the united states justice department and by a potential rival. reporter: the question i have for a former vice president is what would meet that standard. when the indictment is unsealed and when the american people do know what is in that indictment, will the tone then change for him and his campaign and for some of the others? what will happen once we know the facts? will he stay with the same line or will things change in this race? susan, what we re hearing from the other candidates are
from voting from him? they may not but they may not come out and vote at all. he may be teflon to some extent, but to asa hutchinson s point and susan s point, he is a drag to the party and the ticket. he s a fighter and so he is just embracing this indictment it seems. he s holding a fundraising indictment birthday party and we re seeing the fundraising emails, jose. one of the things i m wondering is what breaks him? donald trump has always treated his legal problems as a pr problem and a fundraising opportunity, of course. he will continue down that path because, frankly, he doesn t have any other options. he can t defend himself against clear actions he has taken just in his own words we know that. but i think he it s not so
first time since news of donald trump s indictment broke. this is something all of his republican rivals will be forced to confront. joining us is dasha burns. and republican strategist susan smyrkal. dasha, to you first. pence was scheduled to be on fox news last night but canceled. what can we expect to hear from the former vice president today? reporter: well, we do expect as he addresses voters here, he will mention the indictment. you re right, he was supposed to be on fox news with hannity last night. a source familiar tells me that the show turned into as we know fully about the indictment. they agreed to mutually find another time to talk. he went on to hugh hewitt s show
his benefit now? to susan s point, the democrats have been weaponizing the justice department and committees particularly around impeachment. heretofor that s worked for them. the challenge for donald trump or anyone who wants to support him is let me steal a phrase from the washington post. breadth and simplicity of this case suggesting that all of what we know about the about what donald trump did, what the process has done, it suggests that it is difficult to look away from this. it s difficult to outright dismiss it. you have to pay attention to it. i imagine that the majority of his supporters are going to stay with him. but if you are an independent voter or a disenfranchised republican, how does donald trump or any one of the gop leaders rest those individuals