claims about michigan election the indictment says. the philadelphia enquirer, what to know about the pennsylvania fake electors mentioned in trump's third indictment. the criminal conspiracy alleged in this new indictment of donald trump has the bagest and gravest national ambition, to hold onto the presidency against the will of the voters, but the conspiracy itself played out in localities across the country in what we now call the fake elector scheme, the scheme in which republican electors in states that joe biden won signed their names to forged documents pretending that it was actually donald trump who won the presidential election in those states. at the time as it was actually playing out in december of 2020, it mostly looked like sort of sad theatrics from a bunch of pro-trump dead enders in a handful of states. there was trump electors in michigan kind of pathetically trying to talk their way into the state capitol even though the real electors, the biden electors were inside certifying their vote. in georgia while the real electors were certifying their vote in the capitol the trump electors were finding themselves somewhere else in the building to cast their fake votes. and in arizona the trump electors proudly posted video of their fake signing ceremony to twitter. in the words of "the washington post," at the time the gathering seemed a slapdash desperate attempt to mimic president donald trump's refusal to concede. but what now appears to have taken place according to jack smith's indictment was not something that was slapdash. it was not just mimicry. these efforts were the culmination of a complex and very deliberate plot described in great detail in this new federal indictment, a plot that was devised by two lawyers referred to the indictment as coconspirators. john eastman seen in that fetching hat riling up the crowd before january 6th. john eastman started out by trying to convince republican state legislators to overturn that biden had won. eastman and his coconspirators and then-president trump according to the indictment, they came up with a new plan. if they couldn't get election results overturned in state legislatures, they would get the results overturned in congress. instead of getting republican lawmakers in these states to replace biden electors with trump electors, eastman advised they could create their own slate of fake trump electors. and then when vice president pence presided over the national certification of the election results that would happen on january 6th, well, then pence could use those fake slates to claim that trump had won. to implement that plan they turned to another alleged coconspirator, wisconsin lawyer kenneth chesbro. he drafted memos basically fake electors for dummies memo. and thee drafted those are each of these electors to follow in targeted states. as he started to distribute these fake electors for dummies memos to the states, some people on the ground with weren't sure about this plan. one arizona attorney thought the plan was wild, creative. and while he guessed wrongfully it was legally harmless, he recognized the plan was essentially exactly what it was. we'd just be sending in fake electoral votes to pence. in pennsylvania and elsewhere the electioners themselves were getting nervous about this proposed plan, so rudy giuliani allegedly lied to them, telling their fake elector certificates were just a fail safe. they would only be used if trump managed to win the election in court. now, he worried the fake electors might be getting cold feet and drafted new memos, memos that removed references to the actual plan, which was deliberately overturning an election. internally, inside trump world this plan was so obviously illegal that no onen on trump's campaign staff wanted to touch it. trump's deputy campaign manager said, quote, here's the thing, the way this has morphed, it's a crazy play so i don't know who wants to put their name on it. the fake elector plan was very clearly not a fail safe to be used only if trump prevailed in court, and that was clear because in at least one state in new mexico they were gathering fake electors even though trump had no pending litigation challenging the election in that state. so to prop up the fiction that these electors were a fail safe, the trump campaign filed an election challenge suit in new mexico court six minutes before the deadline for the fake electors vote. and i guess you have to hand it to them for the hustle. after all of this on december 14th the fake electors voted, and then all that remained was for john eastman and president trump to convince everybody including and especially mike pence that mike pence had the power to use those fake electors to hand the election to trump on january 6th. we know what happened from here. pence rejected that idea, trump launched a pressure campaign against pence, and that all culminated in his speech on january 6th, and trump supporters attacked the capitol to try and stop vice president pence from certifying joe biden as the winner of the 2020 election. and now donald trump and john eastman and kenneth chesbro are all alleged criminal coconspirators in the landmark legal case of the modern political era, which rests in large part on a detailed description of the fake elector scheme that puts -- that all of these men put into motion. as much as we have thought about the crime here being the insurrection, being the capitol attack, one of the central crimes of this indictment played out in public. it played out in state capitols across the country, sometimes on television, sometimes on twitter. when it first appeared to be a series of strange and sad theatrics turned out to be an alleged criminal conspiracy of the most serious kind. joining us now is andrew wiseman, one of the senior prosecutors from robert mueller's special counsel investigation and co-host of the podcast "prosecuting donald trump." andrew, thanks for being here tonight. >> great to be here. >> as the dust settles, the way in which jack smith wept about and his fellow prosecutors went about constructing this indictment seems more and more brilliant to be honest in a way that it automatically refutes some of the defenses we were starting to hear from trump land. first i'd like to talk to you about the idea of structuring the indictment around action not words, effectively leaving the insurrection itself kind of almost an aforethought and really focusing on the conduct of the fake electors, of john eastman, of donald trump and the actionable things they did to steal an election. that seems very, very purposeful. >> luteally. there was a lot of focus when this first happened on the ellipse and what happened at that moment. and everyone was very focused on the first amendment issues on that which is it incitement? will it meet the supreme court standard of the whole back and forth, and people like me were like that is fraught in terms of a criminal case, and they avoided all of that. one of the things i was reading this was with an eye towards those kind of decisions and keeping this very focused on conduct and not buying into a lot of legal issues knowing where the courts have been solid, where the courts have raised issues and avoiding all of that. so i completely agree this is really well thought through. it didn't stop "the wall street journal," the national review and people saying, oh, this violates the first amendment. and let's just be clear, that's wrong, that will not prevail in court. the first amendment does not make it legal to -- the first amendment makes it legal to speak. it doesn't make it legal to take, you know, actions that are illegal, so you can say i want to rob a bank, but if you don't do anything about it that's fine. but if you go in and we agree and talk about robbing the bank and then do it, we're robbing a bank in the same way mob cases people talk about you can say they were afraid to speak. that doesn't make their language any less illegal. here they really focused on specific conduct at issue, so i think they're going to be steering way clear of personal issues. >> yeah, i want to play a bit of sound from john lauro speaking on the "today" show with savannah guthrie this morning. this is what he said. let's take a listen. >> this is the first time that the first amendment has been criminalized. it's the first time that a sitting president is attacking a political opponent on first amendment grounds and basically making it criminal to state your position. >> i just i don't get -- is this a defense othey've prepared and loathe to let it go given the indictment? >> this is a talking point. this is a defense in the court of public opinion in terms of his base that is not legally something that is going to past muster. i think the reliance on counsel, it still doesn't work. but that was the other thing that john eastman -- >> that john eastman basically said, well, you could do this, sir. >> exactly. that is something that people are allowed to rely in good faith on their counsel after they've told their counsel all the relevant facts. that happenalize the time, and you can have a good faith disagreement. there are so many problems with that issue here, for one thing is there really going to be the president of the united states taking a stand and saying i relied in good faith on these people, they weren't part of the conspiracy? if that's true, why did he say that mike pence, you're being too honest? why did he threaten mr. raffensperger with criminal prosecution if he didn't go along with the scheme? those are not things that a lawyer says, by the way, i think it's okay for you to threaten criminal prosecution but it's the secretary of state who said there's no fraud. >> yes. >> so there's just going to be a lot of issues if they go down that road in terms of saying they rely on counsel. i really do think the things we're hearing now are -- they're defenses for the court of -- >> public opinion. >> not for a court. >> you in your must-listen to podcast interview judge michael luding this week and one of the things in a way sort of de facto counseled mike pence not to throw away the election, he said trump's best defenses have already been tried in court. do you think that's true? the privilege things are even litigated. the best things he has to mount a defense have already been tried and failed. >> one of his points i think is really relevant and so appropriate to raise right now, and i'm really glad you're raising this is that he was saying that in the context of a question to him about given your experience as a seasoned federal judge in the fourth suckt do you think it would be consistent with due process to any defendant including donald trump to have a trial before the general election? remember, the rule of law requires people to have enough time to mount a defense, to look at discovery to make motions. that is required by our rules, and he said absolutely. and one of his points was that the issues that were raised have already been dealt with, executive privilege, attorney-client privilege. those are all things the president has had an opportunity to litigate fully. and also to john lauro's point today where he said is it fair to rush us to trial, remember the president has all the material from the january 6th committee as we have. this isn't suddenly surprising him that he's been charged. so if i were a judge i'd sort of listen to what judge luding said and listen to how much discovery is new to the defendant as opposed to material already in his possession. >> one last one. in terms of the appeals process here, if, for example, former president trump is convicted, what is the appeals process look like? this could be a four-yearlong struggle. >> appeals can take a long time. the one thing i would say is we have actually in the trump cases seen the appellate court act very quickly in connection with aileen cannon. we saw the 11th circuit act expeditiously twice. we've seen in the d.c. circuit which oversees where this trial would be dealing with executive privilege and attorney-client privilege. obviously they have to take enough time to understand the issues and et cetera. it is fair to say while it may not be four years, it could be a good amount of time. by the way, it doesn't mean if the judge sentences somebody to jail, that they will be out pending appeal. that is an issue that the district judge can decide. >> wow, that's an important thing to be decided potentially down the road. andrew wiseman, i have a thousand things i want to talk to you about. thank you as always for your time. we have a lot this evening including an inert view with the top prosecutor in one of the states at the center of trump's 2020 election scheme, michigan attorney general dana nessle. we'll bring you the details next. e details next goli, taste your goals. major indictment that you might have missed yesterday. it was about the 2020 election, and it was brought by a special prosecutor, but it wasn't jack smith. it wasn't d.c. it wasn't even fani willis in georgia. it was michigan. and i'm not talking about the 16 trump fake electors who were indicted there last month. i'm talking brand new indictments in one of the wildest attempts to overturn the 2020 election that we saw anywhere in this country. in early 2021 investigators who were working with the barry county, michigan, sheriff's department started making unannounced visits to the office of election officials. they then allegedly used their roles with the sheriff's department to convince those local clerks to hand over their voting machines. the clerks said these investigators used scare tactics to get their way. they also started to get calls from michigan state legislator dare rendon. she said the house at the state level was doing an investigation and that they needed the clerk's voting machines. but the statehouse was not doing an investigation. a group of nine trump allies were. they allegedly went around michigan successfully convincing clerks from three different counties to hand over a total of five voting machines. they then allegedly took these machines to hotel rooms and to airbnbs where they allegedly broke into the voting machines and ran what they believed to be forensic tests. they were looking for evidence that somehow these voting machines might have thrown the election to biden. there are a lot of bonkers details in this story. i'll treat you to just a few. for instance, how this group of trump supporters told the clerks they would only take their voting machines for a few days, but then those days turned into weeks. and the clerks started understandably freaking out asking repeatedly where are our voting machines, and how when that equipment was eventually returned, it was handed off at malls and at carpool drop offs which was a totally normal way of conducting business, pulling up to a mall, dropping off a voting machine. even just a cast of characters involved in this alleged plot is not to be believed. for instance, there was this guy, jeffrey lindbergh, an alleged member of this plot as you can see here quote-unquote testing voting machines in michigan. that's the test. you can also see him in surveillance footage on his way to inspect voting machines in coffey county, georgia. in fact, five of the 11 people involved in this plot in michigan were also involved in a similar plot in the state of georgia. and that georgia plot is a key part of fulton county d.a. fani willis' investigation into trump's attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in her state. that's a plot in which trump attorneys like sydney powell and rudy giuliani allegedly coordinated the repeated breaching of voting equipment in that state. and lo and behold a couple months later five of the people involved in that georgia plot through this incredibly similar thing in michigan. what a coincidence. i should state none of those five individuals also involved in the alleged georgia plot, none of them have been indicted for any of this or at least not yet. so far only two members of this alleged michigan plot have been indicted. ter dare rendon, and a man named matt deperno. for the record he ran for office after allegedly playing a key role in this scheme and while he was already in the news. as in election conspiracy pushing republicans running for the highest law enforcement position in the state, matt deperno still managed to get 45% of the vote. now, because of that history that deperno tried to unseat the democratic attorney general, dana nessel, because of that this case had to be handled by a special proskrurt. and that prosecutor has been quite clearly very busy. that special prosecutor wrote in bold this process is still ongoing and not over. there very well may be more to come here. michigan attorney general dana nessel joins us live coming up next. nessel joins us live coming up next when i first learned about my dupuytren's contracture, my physician referred me to a hand specialist. and i'm glad he did, because when i took the tabletop test, i couldn't lay my hand flat anymore. the first hand specialist i saw only offered surgery. so, i went to a second hand specialist who also offered nonsurgical options - which felt more right for me. so, what i'd say to other people with dupuytren's contracture is this: don't wait —find a hand specialist trained in nonsurgical options, today. i found mine at findahandspecialist.com. the invitation reads "free the 16 electors pool side party, snacks provided, please bring drinks to share." proceeds will be used for the 16 electors fighting the politicized attacks. dana nessel indicted those 16 last month for felony charges for their roles designating themselves duly elected and qualified electors for the president in 2020 when they most certainly were not. they will appear in court next week. but before that pool party, to which one might imagine attorney general dana nessel is not invited. joining us now is michigan's top law enforcement official, attorney general dana nessel. thank you so much for being here. i'm not going to even comment on the pool party, but i will ask you about the indictment that was just released. jack smith special counsel's indictment in which michigan is a major focus. i think michigan appears 39 times in the indictment, and i'm sure you've read it. given the work you're doing on fake electors and that plot, do you see overlap between what is in the indictment at the federal level and what we're doing at the state level? >> well, yeah, absolutely, alex, there's overlap. a lot of the information that was in the indictment that was information obviously that was in the january 6th report, and that was already well-known to us. there were a few things here and there i think that were sort of newly discovered pieces of evidence that we didn't know about, but for the most part we were operating under the same set of facts as the special prosecutor was, and to answer your question, no, i was not invite today the pool party, but i will say this in my many years not just being a prosecutor but also doing criminal defense work, one of the things i generally advise my clients is don't call the prosecutor evil. it's not ever going to be favorable for you in your case. but, you know, that's what we've come to expect now, and that's just how criminal defendants talk about their cases. but it's unfortunate for the entire country i think as all of this plays out. >> yeah, i -- it's a hot legal protip not to call the prosecutor evil. let me ask about the voting machine indictment that came out yesterday. it doesn't seem like it's coincidence that some of the people who have not been charged but nonetheless we know have been involved in the plot to seize voting machines and run forensic tests unlawfully on them, those people were also involved in the plot to do the very same thing in the state of georgia. do you think this all goes -- including the michigan efforts, do you think this all goes back to trump and potentially rudy giuliani who oversaw a lot of that election machine interference? >> well, clearly this was a coordinated effort that started at a very top, involved all these same actors that we've been hearing about all the way throughout the course of these investigations, and it shouldn't surprise anyone that they had attorneys and many other individuals that were operating at the state levels as well. so this is all coordinated. it truly is the definition of a legal conspiracy, and i think that, you know, before the special prosecutor is done whether it's federally, jack smith or the special prosecutor who's working in michigan i think we're going to see a lot more indictments generated. >> yeah, i've got to ask on that level because we know at the state level fani willis may be gearing up to indict trump, and if in fact the michigan plot does go all the way back to trump does it foreclose the possibility the special counsel in your state might also indict trump? >> well, i will say this. you know, i'm not going to foreclose any possibility. i don't know what the special prosecutor has planned or doesn't have planned. i will say that, you know, one of the reasons why in the very beginning i initially referred our false slate of electors case to the government is because of the issues. in michigan i as attorney general have statewide authority. i can charnel in any county. i can execute search warrants in any county in the state of michigan, but, you know, i'm limited. it's much more difficult when you're talking about reaching actors that operated outside of the state of michigan, and that's true for most of the state a.g.s. so that's why you really rely on the federal government to do their job because of course their jurisdiction is the entire nation. >> i have to ask about this because at the state level, states have been pretty clear about the malfeasance that was occurring at the state level and standing in deference to the feds to wait for that indictment. i sense there's been some amount of frustration at the pace at which the feds have been working, and now we are running into the calender for campaign season. i mean what do you make of the time line with which the doj has operated in terms of issuing this indictment and completing at least the initial stage of its investigation? >> well, i will say this, that it's inescapable that the vast majority of the evidence that we've seen in indictment i think was work frankly done by the january 6th commission and perhaps prior to the special prosecutor really getting involved in any part of that and then running with the j6 committee had already done. for me here in michigan i think it was just very important that as we moved along that there was a sense that when people had committed to crimes, obvious open crimes, many of these individuals had openly bragged about, that there was some feeling of accountability. and that when you commit certain crimes -- crimes we as prosecutors regularly charge each and every day here in the state of michigan, that you not be treated differently because your crimes were committed in behest of this scheme to have the person of your choosing re-elected as president of the united states. you're left culpable of these crimes because you did it for that purpose. that was one of the messages i think needed to be said. if you committed these crimes you're just as guilty as those who committed similar crimes. the only difference is these crimes would have resulted in the overturningf a lawful election in which 5.5 people voted in my state. >> i want to ask real quick on that question of accountability, there's some sense at the federal level there are options for trump to derail all of this should he become the nominee, should he become president again in 2024 and once again the onus may return to the united states. is that something you think about as you move forward, if all else fails it will be the states that hold trump and his allies to account? >> alex, quite honestly if we get to that point if we have a station where donald trump becomes president again irrespective of all these many different indictments and then a person like, for instance, jeffrey clark in as attorney general, we're going to have a whole lot of problems much worse to think about than whatever the accountability is or isn't for what occurred during the 2020 election. so my hope is that people will be probably held accountable in these current prosecutions and that is not going to be a concern for us. >> michigan attorney general dana nessel, thank you so much for your time and your thoughts. we will be following everything you're doing. >> thanks for having me. >> when we come back, what one of the new federal criminal charges against donald trump owes to history, specifically the rise of the ku klux klan. we're going to explain coming up next. ku klux klan we're going to explain coming up next [ tires screeching ] jordana, easy on the gas. i gotta wrap this commercial, i think i'm late on my payment. it's okay, the general gives you a break. yeah, we let you pick your own due date. good to know, because this next scene might take a while. for a great low rate, go with the general. i need it cool at night. you trying to ice next me out of the bed? while. baby, only on game nights. you know you are retired right? am i? ya! save up to $500 on the new sleep number® smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add an adjustable base. shop now only at sleep number®. attention... are you suffering from hearing loss? the fda has finally approved hearing aids to be sold over the counter. and now, rca, introduces their revolutionary otc hearing aids... starting as low as $99. delivered, free...right to your door. they're affordable, they're not the cost 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hear what you've been missing. no doctors. no tools required, and no batteries to fumble with! it's not worth waiting. oh my gosh if i had only known, i would have gotten these years ago. you cleared up decades of frustration in a second. i hate that i waited this long. order now for the low introductory price of just $99. you get a carrying case and accessory kit, plus free shipping. add a second hearing aid and we'll include a bonus deluxe charging cradle free! order now...call this number, or visit rcahearingaids.com in 45 pages special counsel jack smith takes us on a tour of all the places where former president donald trump knowingly and repeatedly lied to pressure state and local officials to change their election results. in detroit trump allegedly claimed there had been a suspicious dump of votes after polls closed. the whole city was totally corrupt, he said. in philadelphia trump publicly maligned a city commissioner for saying there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in philadelphia. in atlanta trump and coconspirator one, rudy giuliani, repeatedly pointed to the state farm arena as the locus of voter fraud in the state of georgia. giuliani accused these two black election workers of passing around vials of cocaine. most voters in those places are black and brown. at the heart of trump's alleged plot to overturn the 2020 election is an unrelenting effort to disenfranchise black and brown voters specifically. and as it turns out, that is a felony. yesterday special counsel smith charged trump under section 241 of the u.s. criminal code, the ku klux klan act, the kkk act. the act dates back to 1870 when the klan was on the rise harassing black people and preventing them from exercising the right to vote including the right to have their votes counted. now, count four of this too indictment accuses trump of violating section 241 by conspiring to injure, oppress or intimidate one or more persons in the free exercise or enjoyment of the right to vote and to have one's vote counted. joining us now is maya wily, president and ceo of the leadership conference on civil and human rights. there's no better person to talk to about this. i was very fired up about this yesterday because to me it did not seem a coincidence there's a distinct racial project at the heart of the kkk act and there seems to be a distinct racist project at the heart of trump's efforts to disenfranchise votes. this is not a coincidence black and brown votes he was trying to get discounted. >> look what trump had to do to steal the election from joe biden and kamala harris. he had to go to places where he had to find votes or get folks to say, no, no, no, those weren't the votes. we won't counter certify those, we've got our own electors. trump was not going to win a lot of people of color, and that's why we have georgia. that's why we have detroit which is in the indictment. >> maricopa county. i mean -- >> maricopa. remember that in arizona he kept saying all these aliens, all these undocumented immigrants, which is another code word for people who are mexican and living in the state. so this is something we have seen from trump and heard from trump. it is critically important to understand that frankly all the big lies which is not even a new lie, it's an old lie. donald trump just kept pulling it out, dusting it off and using it for his own ends was always to make it harder for black and brown people to vote and people in indian country because they were predictably democratic voters, and so if you didn't have the numbers the way you could get them, make it harder for the brown folks and the black folks to vote. >> yeah, 92% of black voters in the 2020 election voted for joe biden. that's a political reality donald trump was aware of but also the trump project centers on white grievance. it's a snake eating its own tail to some degree. i kind of wonder whether there's something -- whether this can be talked about explicitly. i think right now it's in there as a statute and i think it's generally depriving people of rights and having their vote discounted. because of the history of this law and because of the reality of what trump is doing in term of targeting communities of color can we connect those two dots and do you think that was the intention of special counsel smith? is it an easter egg of sorts sitting in that indictment? >> i can't speak for jack smith, but i will say the legal defense fund where i used to work back in the day that thurgood marshal, the first black supreme court justice founded filed this suit and called it out explicitly starting in wayne county, starting in michigan saying donald trump is actively trying to prevent black votes from counting. that was very explicit and they expanded it to philadelphia, to georgia, to other cities. that lawsuit is still moving forward in the courts. the district court, federal court and washington, d.c. would not allow it to be thrown out. so they have been explicit about it as a civil rights litigation and as a member of the leadership conference on civil and human rights. we're really glad and grateful, but i think to your point, alex, it's one of the things we've been trying to make clear about the importance of this indictment is that we have constitutional rights more perfected in this not so perfect union because we have fought for civil rights for black people, for mexicans, for people who are native-american, for people who are asian, for all kinds of people who actually deserve to be protected in their right to participate in our democracy because they're lawfully allowed to vote, but it protects everyone. and this is the point about accountability in this indictment and calling out that this was about stealing voters voice but also the fact that we have a statute that comes from the need to protect the voices of black people because they were being killed or beaten up or threatened just because they were trying to go to the polls and vote or hold onto their elective office. >> and i would say this is not the first time a trump ally has been i think charged and in this case convicted of disenfranchising black votes. in 2023 a trump supporter was found guilty of a scheme on twitter telling black voters to vote for hillary clinton by text in 2016, which of course you cannot do. and this person explicitly wanted to limit black turn out. this is a strategy employed i'm not going to say at the highest level, although it seems like we have some evidence to that end, but it's part of a trump project to explicitly disenfranchise black voters. >> there are fine people on both sides, alex. didn't you know that? and proud boys, stand back and standby. >> they say the quiet part out loud. maya wily, thank you for your time and expertise as always. when we come back, it is a tradition that started with george washington and it's a tradition that almost ended with donald trump. we're going to have more on that coming up next. we're going to ht coming up next i gotta wrap this commercial, i think i'm late on my payment. it's okay, the general gives you a break. yeah, we let you pick your own due date. good to know, because this next scene might take a while. for a great low rate, go with the general. when i first learned about my dupuytren's contracture, my physician referred me to a hand specialist. and i'm glad he did, because when i took the tabletop test, i couldn't lay my hand flat anymore. the first hand specialist i saw only offered surgery. so, i went to a second hand specialist who also offered nonsurgical options - which felt more right for me. so, what i'd say to other people with dupuytren's contracture is this: don't wait —find a hand specialist trained in nonsurgical options, today. i found mine at findahandspecialist.com. goli, taste your goals. the central point of special counsel jack smith's latest indictment against trump is trump refused to cede power. it started with george washington who was the first president of the united states, something i think everybody knows who set the precedent of voluntarily stepping down after two terms. and then it was john adams who set the precedent of peacefully conceding and transferring power after losing his bid for re-election. he was a one-termer, and he stepped away from the mic. but for much of the world in the 18th century that practice was uncommon. as peter baker writes in "the new york times" today, it was a fairly radical innovation in a say, an era when kings and emperors generally gave up power only at it point of natural deaths or at the point of a weapon. joining me now douglas brinkley. doug, thanks for being here. just to give us a little bit of context about this moment we find ourselves in, how novel was it for a fledgling republic to say you know what people aren't going to kill each to gain power, we're going to have a peaceful transition. >> george washington everyone wanted him to serve a third term because he was cohesive for the nation, he's what kept everybody glued together in washington. really his greatest achievement and impressive was abdicating power, stepping down, saying i'm going to be a citizen in virginia, going back to mount vernon and allowing this democratic process to unravel. and nothing was a sure thing. i mean, you know, to adams, jefferson and monroe, and pretty soon it became the great tradition of free and fair elections in the united states, and the fact you didn't cling to power, you served the constitution it's what made america such a special place in u.s. presidential history an envy of other democracies around the world. >> when adams basically ceded power to jefferson was it considered weird at the time or the pres dependent washington had set saying i know when enough is enough? >> it was weird. remember john adams and thomas jefferson really had a great dislike for each other. now, later in life wanting to send a unifying message they began an incredible correspondence about the american revolution and kind of became friends. but just cut to the election of 1,800, it was brutal as it is now with trump and biden. the fact is we just kept turning it over. we just kept turning it over. and any time a group does election monitoring in the world today, that's what we tell countries the key to democracy is. if you lost, you lost admittedly. otherwise you're an authoritarian regime where you're running a dictatorship. the first president that's tried to be a dictator is donald j. trump, and it's now trump vs. the united states with jack smith's four felony charges this week. >> the other word for it may be king. and the judge who is overseeing this case at trial has already issued a ruling in which he said presidents are not kings. and speaking of trump -- speaking of someone else not trump, and plaintiffs -- i'm sorry, the plaintiff was trump. the plaintiff is not president. presidents are not king and plaintiffs are not president. this is in his post-presidency. she issues a ruling effectively calling trump a wannabe king. his behavior is, yes, autocratic, but is it king-like? it is almost a monarchical sense of the presidency he has, that everything he says about it and his power which he sees as uncircumscribed seems to be in the way king george thought was the end-all, be all. >> trump's great journey to meet the royals to him that's the epitome of world leadership. the problem is it's not just the monarchy, it's the fact of putinization of trump. remember all the moments of his -- just admiring putin and he doesn't have to step down. you know, the writer norman mailer used to say sometimes american politicians have castro envy because they have have to leave where castro can stay and stay and stay. take trump as a combination of king and putin-ite, and add to that the fact he's been hawking, you know, snake oil forever in america and one of the worst being the trump university scam, and he had a recipe for a disaster in the making. donald trump has no fidelity or loyalty to the u.s. constitution. it's only to himself, and if you get in his way, he will destroy you. and there's a road of bones everywhere with everyone who does business with trump or interacts with him. abecause at heart he's anti-democratic and small "d" in spirit. >> well, doug, it feels like -- and i'm not a historian, but we may be an at inflection point where the concept of a peaceful transfer of power may actually be in jeopardy for the first time since john adams. that's where we are. >> at least vice president pence stood up and is standing up right now, and he is going to be quite -- in the courtroom be quite a menace for donald trump because pence is speaking the truth. >> pence on the witness stand, we'll see it when we see. douglas brinkley, thank you for your insight tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. as a legal matter i don't see -- i think it's not an abuse. the department of justice is not acting to weaponize the department by proceeding against the president for a conspiracy to subvert the electoral process. >> donald trump's former attorney general sharing his opinion of the former president's federal indictment for attempts to overturn the 2020 election. we'll have more of bill barr's comments and a preview of trump's arraignment j

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