But we are, again, expecting him to come down with some of those aides and advisors, with those lawyers, and head over to the courthouse. Im told by a number of advisors, they do not believe its going to be a long there he is. Theres the former president coming out. Stepping down. See if he walks over here and we can get any questions with him. Doesnt look like hes going to take questions, guys, so well wait on the other end there. We are going to get in the motorcade, so im going to drop off here and check back in. Kristen holmes traveling with donald trump as he made his way to Reagan National airport in virginia, and now hes on his way to the e. Barrett prettyman courthouse in downtown washington, d. C. Carrie, back to you. The idea of whether or not donald trump knew that the falsehoods he was sharing about the election were, in fact, falsehoods is something that his Defense Attorneys have suggested will be relevant and something that will be difficult for prosecutors to prove. What do you think . Absolutely, the burden is going to be on the prosecutors to prove it. I think they have demonstrated so far, just in the indictment alone, that they have a lot of information to go on, that they think theyre going to be able to make that case in court, but i also think that its important to point out that the indictment and the charges here are not about what donald trump said. Theyre about what he and the others did. And so, i think the indictment is clear that its not about speech. Its not about even if he whether he believed or not the things is he said, what matters in the terms of charged conduct is that they took actions to try to pressure different instruments of government at the state level, at the federal level, at the Justice Department and the Vice President himself. They tried to actually do things to overturn the election. And so, thats why, if we want to put this indictment in the context of the overall rule of law and the justice system, trying to hold people accountable for the events of january 6th, then we look to all of the cases, and we look to the hundreds of people who have been prosecuted for storming the capitol and engaging in crimes there. We look to the prosecutions of the oath keepers and the proud boys who were involved in coordinating that violence and now we have this other piece, which was the conspiracy to try to actually use instruments of government to overturn the rightful outcome. If youre just tuning in, youre seeing donald trump, the former president , his motorcade leaving Reagan National airport on his way to the e. Barrett prettyman courthouse in washington, d. C. , where he will be arrested and arraigned. One other note that i want to bring up, george conway, as we got some copies of Talking Points that the trump folks are distributing to supporters on capitol hill, and one of them says that donald trump was merely following advice of counsel in terms of what he thought he was allowed to do. We know, of course, that thats not the white house counsel, which was opposed to what he was doing, or the Deputy White House counsel. Its not the Attorney General, bill barr, or his replacement, the acting attorney, jeffrey rosen. It is a group of lawyers that Vice President pence yesterday referred to as crackpot lawyers. Thats the answer. He was told repeatedly by people in the Justice Department, by white house counsel, by Campaign Counsel that he had lost the election or the specific claims that he was making were false. And thats the thing about this. I mean, the whole, you know, the other big talking point, im sure, that was on there, i didnt see the Talking Points, is weaponization. This is weaponization. This is a democrat the democrats are weaponizing the Justice Department. The fact of the matter is, if you take this indictment and go through it paragraph by paragraph and look at the facts, figure out which witnesses theyre going to use, to have to use to prove these charges, each fact in the indictment, theyre all republicans. Republican appointees from the Vice President of the United States to the chairman of the joint chiefs to jason miller to, i mean, you name it. Everybody. And what youre going to see at this trial is, in the witness box, is going to be a parade of people who worked for and were beholden to donald j. Trump. Think of the danger, by the way, of setting up this adversarial relationship with your attorneys now. If you have these attorneys who youre saying, i was acting under the advice of, what is a prosecutor to do . Call those attorneys . Did you tell him this specifically . It makes them have to choose, either im going down for this advice. I may have known that it was criminal. Im being accused as criminal. Or im going to sprt you and say, yes, it was my tail that wagged the dog. Its a very contentious moment. Although, andrew mccabe, we should note that the socalled crackpot attorneys, again, im quoting Vice President pence, many of them are now coconspirators named in this indictment, though not yet charged. Rudy giuliani, Sidney Powell and on and on. Thats absolutely right. That collection of six coconspirators, whose identities were easy for anyone to figure out. Five of the six. Those folks are all in prime position to be thought of and recruited as cooperators to testify against the former president. On the other hand, theyre all in prime position to be included on this indictment in the form of a Superseding Indictment or a followon indictment that addresses essentially the next level down from the president. So, they are in each of those folks is in a very tough spot to determine whether they are going to, you know, ride or die with the president or come on team america and try to provide evidence against him to save their own skin. Jamie gangel, the response on capitol hill from republicans has been either complete silence, utter silence, or what george mentioned before, this argument about the Justice Department is weaponized and this is all just a political witch hunt. They are still on team trump. Thats where they think their voters are. Thats where they think the power is to get reelected. Thats where they think the money is. I do think, you know, as were watching this today, kaitlan said earlier about how its become routine. Donald trump has made being indicted normalized. We are now sitting here for the third time watching something that shouldnt be normal happen, and just really big picture, today is about one thing. No one is above the law. Donald trump is being held accountable. He is being arrested. He is being charged for his attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power. Lets check back in with kristen holmes, who is one of the only tv reporters in that motorcade that youre seeing right now. Which is making its way from can you hear me . We can hear you, kristen. Do you hear us . The motorcade making its way from Reagan National airport to the courthouse in downtown washington, d. C. Kristen, im just taking a perusal of mr. Trumps posts on his social media website, and he definitely seems to think that this is good for him. One of the things he posted is, in all caps, as is his wont, i need one more indictment to ensure my election. Does he really feel that this is good for him, or is this just bravado . Well, its both. So, when it comes to politics, and especially the shortterm politics, he and his team do believe this is good for him, and i want to be very clear that they view this indictment differently than they view the maralago indictment. Essentially for the seriousness of it. They believe this is going to help them politically more than the maralago documents case. They believe they have a big base of voters who do believe that the election was stolen, and that they will side with trump, at least in the court of public opinion. Obviously, were not talking about an actual legal trial here, but when it comes to january 6th. So, that is what i am seeing, and its part of the bravado, but we know for a fact, weve heard donald trump say this, did not like being indicted. He does not like parading around. He does not like being arraigned or arrested, and we know that to be a fact. Hes said that to his advisors. Hes said that in one interview, the only time ive ever heard him open up like that and be honest with the media that this is not the thing that he enjoys doing. As i continue to stress, they have been really pushing the narrative that this is all political, and they feel stronger in that argument, especially lately, given the fact that he is up in the polls. That recent polling has him leading the gop field and not by a little bit but by a big margin. I want to point out one thing here. I mentioned who was getting off the plane. One person i didnt mention originally is walt. He was seen getting off the plane with trump with they landed in d. C. Very interesting. All right, kristen holmes, traveling inside the trump motorcade, which is experiencing d. C. Traffic. Even former president s, when they drive, have to experience d. C. Traffic. Dana bash, Charactkristen Holme mentioning there that donald trump is doing better in the polls, and i suspect hes referring mainly to the republican president ial primary polls. Yeah. But without question, this is hurting donald trump with independent voters who, according to polling, overwhelmingly do not think that the election was stolen. And do not think that Donald Trumps behavior leading up to and on january 6th was in any way appropriate. We look back at the midterm elections and how people went and voted, there are obviously a lot of issues. But one of the issues that polled independent voters in particular away from republicans were was the fact that, in many of these cases, donald trump has endorsed election deniers, and they were able to win, and then they lost the general election. It is a very murky picture right now whether or not that will keep going into the 2024 election. Thats just the reality. There are a lot of factors, including whether or not these independent voters want joe biden to have a second term. That is a big open question when you look at the general election. In the shortterm, though, talk to republican consultants, people who are involved in other candidates campaigns, they are shrugging their shoulders and giving big sighs because he sucks up all the oxygen in a way that should be, in any regular campaign, a very negative thing has become a very, in the shortterm, positive thing for him when it comes to fundraising and when it comes to trying to get the narrative. And there isnt a lot that his republican opponents so far have been able to do. Only a few of them have been willing to criticize donald trump for his efforts to overturn the election, to say nothing of the classified documents case. Chris christie, will heard and Asa Hutchinson are the only three that i have really seen strongly go after him on any of those issues. Let me throw it to my colleague and friend, anderson cooper, in new york. Good morning. Security officials in the Nations Capital are on high alert for any threat to the d. C. Federal courthouse. Shimon prokupecz is following this. Reporter at this moment, im getting out of the camera because the shots are really tight. Im going to let our photojournalist get in here and show you. This is the area, anderson, where we expect the former president to arrive. Come in here on the backside of the courthouse. Were on c street and third street northwest. Just the backside of the courthouse. His motorcade is expected to come up this street and then turn here on to c street, and then there is a garage that he will quickly turn into and then go in, and as you can see, there has been an increase in secret Service Personnel here. Other Law Enforcement officials, the u. S. Marshals are here. All now waiting for the motorcade to arrive, and what weve seen around the courthouse are metal barriers, an increase in Law Enforcement officials, and then also, anderson, i want to show you here as much as possible where many of the photographers and journalists and media is all gathered just to try to get this shot. What happened was the police here moved in these snow plows as an extra measure of security, so they blocked many of our most of our opportunity to try and see the motorcade, so were kind of squeezing in these little areas here to try and get a shot, but at any moment now, we do expect the front side of the motorcade to come up this street, and then we can hear, i think, some of the motorcade now as its arriving. You can see some of the theres one motorcycle here, anderson, but we can hear more, and theres the park police now arriving and more vehicles here arriving here as part of the motorcade and you see there now, anderson, the vehicles turning in to the courthouse. That is the motorcade, and that is once the former president is inside the u. S. Marshals will take custody and he will be under arrest, and the process begins for him to go inside that courtroom, a courtroom for the third time, be arrested for the third time, and face a judge for the third time. We see the additional motorcades turning in. The former president , donald trump, now inside this courthouse as additional vehicles now pull in, anderson. Its almost become routine. Weve seen this scene play out several times so far this summer. Here with the team in new york as we continue to watch these images, ellie honig is in the building. Its not going to last very long. This will be quick. This is, in some sense, the most routine of court appearances. Of course, its extraordinary because of who the defendant is. What will happen is donald trump will go into this courtroom, and he will be processed, first of all, by the u. S. Marshals, by the court staff. Ordinarily, you would be fingerprinted, have your mug shot taken. It appears theyre not going to do that here. Hell then appear in front of the Magistrate Judge, not the judge who ultimately will hear this case, who will preside over the trial. Thats district judge tonya chutkin. Today is a Magistrate Judge, who tend to handle the more clerical aspects of this type of procedure. Hell likely be given a chance to enter a plea. The judge will make sure he has counsel, which we know he has his attorneys with him and the judge will set bail which almost certainly will be released on his own recognizance which means theres no bail. Bigger picture, this to me is the start on the road, the long road to potential meaningful accountability. This president has been impeached for this, sued for this, been investigated by representative kingsingers committee for this, but theres never been any meaningful consequences, potentially, until this moment. Karen, the former president s attorneys, defense lawyer, is arguing that the prosecutions not going to be able to prove that trump believed he lost. You think thats actually not essential that they prove that. I dont. Its not an element of the crime, right . That theyre going to have to ultimately prove. Even if he believed that he won the election, there is first of all, there is no good faith way hell be able to assert that given the number of times courts have told him that other people around him have told him that. His attorneys, white house counsel, advisors. Exactly. The Attorney General. Just about everybody. Everyone told him. I dont think theres any good faith. Anyone who wasnt from the land of misfit toys told him. But even if you have a good faith you believe that something happened, it doesnt give you a right to break the law in furtherance of that belief. It gives you a right to challenge it, to speak about it publicly, to challenge it in court, to even debate about it, but you cant then ask people to violate their Oath Of Office and, for example, pressure mike pence to not scertify the election or to ask the states to find votes that dont exist to make it up or to ask fake slates of electors to come out and forge documents, saying were the real ones and in one state, they said, im sitting in the capitol as opposed to, in the basement of the Republican National committee. Those are lies on documents on behalf of donald trump, so even if he believed it to be true, it doesnt give you a right to use that belief to commit a crime. So, i think this indictment will still stand regardless of whether you can prove Beyond A Reasonable Doubt that he i mean, he believes how many how many lies does he tell in a day . I think there was a New York Times study that its at least 21 per day when they look at the they analyze they factchecked 30,000 lies during his administration, which is 21 per day. So, his brain, i think, is different than the rest of our brains. He believes things to be true that arent. He lies pathologically, and i think that, so, maybe youre not going to be able to prove that his particular brain works that way. It doesnt matter. Its not an element of the crime, and theres enough criminal activity that he did that i think hell be able to be held accountable. Congressman kinzinger, do you think we would be here today, the Justice Department would have moved forward with this, had it not been for the work of your committee . I dont think so. You know, look, one of the things we noticed is going through this, and then we had that First Tranche of hearings where everybodys eyes got big, like, oh, they have some information, it was then that you saw the frenzy of the doj start moving, and im glad they did. I guess i dont want to sit here and begrudge them. I certainly wish they would have gone before us, because they have tools, and i think were going to see when this case comes out, they have tools that we didnt have, but i think absolutely it shocked them, and im g