prosecute gangs or mafia crime families sums up the entire coup plot. here is how district attorney willis puts it last night. >> the indictment alleges that rather than abide by georgia's legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn georgia's presidential election results. >> now, her indictment of this criminal racketeering enterprise begins with a very simple and clear statement, it goes like this. quote, depth donald trump lost the united states presidential election held on november 3rd, 2020. prosecutors allege that the entire coup plot was in service of reversing that one single, simple fact. they say that trump and his 18 co-defendants along with 30 unindicted co-conspirators, quote, constituted a criminal organization, whose members and associates engaged in various related criminal activities, including and not limited to false statements and writings, impersonating public officers, forgery, filing false documents, influencing witnesses, computer theft, computer trespass, computer invasion of privacy, conspiracy to defraud the state, acts involving theft and perjury. these very, very serious crimes are detailed in 161 separate and concrete and understandable acts taking place not just in georgia but in seven other states and washington, d.c. an extending well beyond the day of the january 6th insurrection, going all the way through of last september 2022. they are attempts at covering trump's defeat. 12 of the acts are trump tweets. those 161 acts fall into eight main categories according to prosecutors, lying to georgia state legislators, lying to state official to pressure them to break their oaths of office, setting up fake slates of trump electors, harassing and intimidating georgia election worker ruby freeman. legitimating baseless claims of fraud, pressuring mike pence to stop the certification, breaking into voting machines in georgia and other states and trying to cover it up by committing false statements and perjury. they have until until august 25th to turn themselves in. the ex-president says he will hold a press conference on monday. he's allowed to do that but here's are where it goes off the rails. he promises evidence, which we know doesn't exist, for his very baseless claims of voter fraud. brian kemp responded saying, quote, the 2020 election in georgia was not stolen. for nearly three years now anyone with evidence of fraud has failed to come forward under oath and prove anything in a court of law. making sense in digesting these sprawling, complex and vitally important case against donald trump and allies brought by fulton county district attorney fani willis. andrew weisman, i'll start with you. we were on together last night and i think in my seventh or eighth hour of live television said we have to go to andrew weisman, he's bursting! because i could just see your wheels spinning to try to help us make sense of this. i think we've all had time to read it, once i tried to get through it a second time. tell me what -- i mean, what seems to distinguish this one is that if this, then that. so if the intent was to overturn the election, then all of these acts were part of that crime. is that a way to understand what is inside this indictment? >> it's really interesting because i've had like an hour now to really reflect on this. you know, when you said we were on air last night, i was thinking wasn't that this morning? it was quite the evening/morning. so i had thought before this was brought it was going to be a subset. we talked about the georgia case being a subset of the federal case and in many ways that did not turn out to be the case. they both told in many ways the full story but this indictment really goes from top all the way down in a granular level to what was happening in a particular state. and it does allude to what was going on in other states as well. you got to see the piece that jack smith really focused on, which is the material that tim hafey put out. you saw breaking into the computer system there, you saw the real life consequences to election workers that, again, was revealed and, you know, was gripping testimony in the january 6th committee, that the details of that are laid out by fani willis' indictment. so that you see not just sort of the abstract serious crimes related to the overthrow of the democratic process but how that was carried out at the state level with all of the players. so to me, it was a really interesting companion piece that operated and operates at two different levels, the sort of big picture, democratic assault and this very personal level of what it did to actual people on the ground like ruby freeman and her daughter. so really quite a remarkable document. so that's sort of the way i've been thinking about it in the short amount of time i've had to sort of process what this means in relation to the other case. >> you know, i think it makes clear that there were real human victims. i mean, the victims don't stay silent and we've tried on this show to give some of the victims a chance to have their voices heard. i think the stories told, one satisfied the slightly obvious point that trump couldn't stay in power just by turning over his defeat in georgia. so she acknowledges and tells the story of the entire plot to cling to power, even though he had lost the 2020 presidential election, which is very satisfying to sort of the impulse to see logic prevail. but she also gives a voice back to the victims of trump's crimes. >> she absolutely does, nicole. the victims were not just people like ruby freeman, the victims were the entire american people and jack smith's indictment focused on that type of attempted coup, the thwarting of democracy that trump took. this one does that and as andrew says, much more. it was a sprawling indictment because there was a sprawling criminal enterprise that was basically harnessed to interfere with the election and throw out our votes. and so this indictment basically calls the trump operation a criminal enterprise, pure and simple. and, yes, it does indict a variety of individuals in a way that the federal indictment doesn't. the federal one was just named one person, donald trump, and had six unindicted, unnamed co-conspirators. jack smith, the federal prosecutor may decide to name some of those six in the days and months to come but that's a much smaller indictment than the 19 people georgia indicted. it's people like mark meadows, rudy giuliani, jeffrey clark, the untorrid official. but in a sense her indictment really does focus on one person. at yesterday's indictment, donald trump was named 193 times in it. that's say to me that who she's really targeting. she has done a really masterful job in painting a picture of this sprawling enterprise. >> jack smith made a strategic legal decision to simply charge and to solely charge donald trump. fani willis has charged 18 others. to andrew's point, trump is the main character. it is because we now have enough evidence and i think you and the congressional committee were the first to make that evidence public to the general public, that trump sat at the steering wheel, directed everything, the fake electors, the intimidation of public officials and something that rachel pointed out last night, the brazenness with which he sought to shakedown republicans, to get their behavior to comport. jim thome describes people around trump like a crime family, this thing we do for our side. the conversations between trump and the republican officials in georgia have a real echo to the evidence you developed about trump and rudy giuliani and the conversations republican officials in arizona. talk about how her indictment built on the work of the committee. >> the bones have been established for a while. the committee laid them out. i keep going out to liz cheney's very powerful opening statement in our hearings about the multi-part intentional plan that's laid out in this indictment. in addition, though, to the bones, there's a lot of meat that she adds. right, they're tebs messages, they're tweets that the president issues, there are phone communications, there are visits to ruby freeman's house. there's more detail in this lengthy indictment. we do keep coming back to the same core scheme. we dress this now in the sort of wrapping of a racketeering enterprise and a pattern of racketeering activity. i think that fits the facts here, nicole. as you were saying this is a criminal enterprise, a group of people that associated to commit a series of acts that are criminal with a common goal of preventing the transfer of power. so it fits obstruction of an official proceeding, it fits the georgia racketeering statute, it fits a lot of things. so it's just more reinforcement that what we're dealing with, the core set of facts, the president of the united states led a criminal enterprise to try to subvert democracy. we keep coming back to that essential bottom line and adding some meat to the bones. but here again, talking about that same set of facts in america in 2023, that that is -- we can't lose sight of that big picture. >> tim, just to follow up with you, the first few paragraphs are to me the gut punch. to read that any former president and the enterprise he directed was designed to corruptly overturn a defeat in a republican-led state is sickening. and i think vaughn hillyard is going to join us next, is covering him in his 2024 campaign. he hasn't stopped lying about the results of the 2020 election, and i wonder where you think the legal process takes on sort of more pressure and more import than it can handle in our system? >> yeah, really hard to say. we're in completely new territory in terps of what the system can handle. look, i believe in the system, though, nicole. we've talked about this before that january 6th in many ways is a spasm of cynicism about government. it is a lot of people that were angry, misled but angry about the sense that government doesn't work for them. holding people accountable for crimes, people like the former president, has the potential to restore confidence. maybe people didn't trust it when it came from a congressional committee because they think congress is political. maybe they don't trust it when it comes from msnbc or "the new york times". and maybe it finally has a chance to get through and restore confidence in the system. i certainly hope so. >> maybe some of the republican voices in the state who had backed trump have the potential to be impactful in this moment. i want to bring in vaughn hillyard. vaughn, take me inside the reaction today from republican governor brian kemp the and republican secretary of state brad raffensperger. >> brian kemp has been this steadfast figure here in the state. in a tweet just earlier today he was decisive in saying that donald trump lost the 2020 election. and he said that nobody has come and testified under oath with credible evidence of voter fraud that would have changed the outcome here of the election in georgia. and brian kemp, of course, was challenged by david purdue in the gubernatorial campaign last year and donald trump supported david purdue. i think for donald trump, this indictment is particularly of interest because of the fact that he is one of 19 defendants. the conversation you guys were just having, for donald trump, he remains the -- i guess the head of this power apparatus that is -- acts as a political party but as fani willis alleges is a criminal enterprise. for donald trump there is a reality that those other 18 defendants are the most loyal of individuals after the 2020 election to him. but who among those individuals will donald trump throw off the cliff? i san diego donald trump this weekend when i was in iowa here, ahead of this indictment, it was a very explicit question, do you defend and stand by the actions of your allies in the aftermath of the 2020 election? and part of his response to me was clear, quote, many of the allies i don't know because to be honest with you, i have so many allies so i don't know exactly what you're talking about. instead of outright saying i will have the backs of every one of these other defendants, donald trump is already setting up his legal defense here to separate him from the actions of some. folks who took very serious steps, including even tampering, allegedly, voting systems here. my question going forward is how many of these individuals ultimately strike plea agreements and undercut fani willis? >> this is where trump as to circle the wagons and mark meadows is a really good example. we know for a fact that he has now been indicted in the state case. what we don't know is what his status is in the federal case. it is possible that he was cooperating. if the indictment doesn't really look like sort of full cooperation, this is a possibility, it is possible he was immunized and sort of partially gave evidence and it's possible he's not cooperating at all. either way at this point the state charges are -- obviously this puts more pressure on mark meadows to fully cooperate. you know, one of the charges is his participation in the infamous brad raffensperger call. and we know at the time that he did not think that the republicans prevailed in georgia and that the election system was fair. he's on record contemporaneously saying that. so this is -- that i think the meadows case is the biggest sort of unknown as to how that plays in terms of is it additional pressure that jack smith can now use and fani willis can use? saying i did something wrong, i committed a crime just doesn't seem like something that would happen absent his being charged and absent real responsibility on his part and i could see him having to plead guilty to something if he wanted to be that kind of cooperating witness. that is the biggest question i see here compared to all the other unindicted co-conspirators in the other case. >> we're going to dig into that. i think since cassidy pulled the curtain back, mark meadows has been a part of it and loomed over every investigation from the federal to the state. and vaughn hillyard, i want to thank you for your coverage for not only the last few days but the last two and a half years. >> no one else is going anywhere. when we all come back, donald trump's coup plotter, chief of staff mark meadows was charged, indicted yesterday, in a sweeping indictment out of fulton county but not in jack smith's federal case and what does it tell us about one of the most critical witnesses in this story. plus, the indictment lists 30 unindicted co-conspirators involved in overturning the election. we'll ask who they could be and whether any of them have flipped. and did fani willis make that happen? don't go anywhere. don't go anywhere. why didn't we do this last year? before you were preventing migraine with qulipta®? 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[ cheers ] running up and down that field looks tough. it's a pitch. get way more into what you're into when you stream on the xfinity 10g network. weissmann. in the fourth criminal indictment of the twice impeached disgraced ex-president donald trump, his former chief of staff and right-hand man, mark meadows, is criminally charged in connection with january 6th for the very first time. he has been a key figure in various investigations into trump from the beginning, from the trove of tex messages he turned over to the bomb shell testimony from his former closest aide cassidy hutchinson to reports that he recently testified before a federal grand jury. now that meadows faces criminal charges at the state level, including conspiracy, what impact does that have and does it affect special counsel jack smith's case against donald trump? >> i want your theory and i wonder what you think the legal advice is that someone like mark meadows is getting to someone well known to washington and legal circles? >> i think the advice would be very much to operate. wilager is a great attorney and mark meadows seems deeply implicated, particularly by cassidy hutchinson. one assessment, whatever you're thinking about flipping and turning over to the state is, well, if -- a prisoner's dilemma will tell me if nobody tells the truth, we'll all go free. so is everyone else who is named in this indictment, are they going to stay silent and play on trump's team? i think the problem is that donald trump is known as a serially unfaithful guy who is only in it for himself. so if you're mark meadows and you've known that firsthand, you've seen firsthand experience of that, you got to wonder is trump ultimately going to point the finger at meadows and everyone else is making that same assessment. all the individual attorneys who are now being blamed by trump under this so-called advice of counsel defense, which goes, hey, i donald trump didn't know i was doing anything wrong, these attorneys are the ones who told me all this cockamamie nonsense. all of these are indicia of trump basically not be trustworthy, even by members of his own team, forget about the american people. that makes the cooperation calculus i think a lot more likely, not just for meadows but for any of the other 17 people that were named in yesterday's indictment. >> i mean, tim, to neil's point, we spent so much time talking about jack smith's efforts to get into trump's state of mutual fund. mark meadows is hanging all over the place. he's in the thousands of text messages you had. i'm trying, i'm trying to get trump to say something. we know pence is in danger. even on the allegation of fraud that trump keeps repeating, even though we know he knows it's not true, meadows is joking about it, "lol, maybe we can find 10,000 more." it seems his critical exposure is vast. >> absolutely, nicole. he's involved in so many separate prongs of this multi--part plan to disrupt the joint session. fani willis's indictment goes through the jeff clark story but it doesn't mention that mark meadows was the person who instigated with the help of congressman scott perry with the president the prospect of leadership change at justice that would have resulted in jeff clark and the issuance of that letter. so you're absolutely right. he's involved in so much. he's present for so many conversations. he would have tremendously valuable information. part of the problem, though, has been he's been kind of all over the place when it comes to his bottom line core belief. we developed evidence that he would say things to people like he's coming around, he's going to concede, we're working on him and then in text messages he right there on the days before and on january 6th saying keep up the fight. so it's really hard to discern what he actually believed during these relevant events. i don't think he's cooperating. i think any good defense lawyer advises you're in or out. the fact that he's been indicted suggests he's not cooperating with the special counsel. my guess is he's not out of the woods with respect to the federal case. as we've discussed, it doesn't mean that meadows or others don't have exposure there as well. >> andrew, let me read you this from the indictment. "on or between the first day of december 2020 and 31st day of december 2020, donald trump and mark meadows met with john mcentee and requested that mcelnee prepare memorandum outlining strategy for disrupting and delaying the joint session. the request was an overact in furtherance of the conspiracy. meadows is sort of the -- an ought democrat's proverbial henchman. i mean, he is at the hand trying to overturn the election defeat through any means possible. >> and i think one thing that is really useful that that illustrates is the discussion when jeff smith's indictment came out was whether it's a defense for the former president that he really believed that he won and obviously there was lots of facts that suggested and strongly pointed to the fact that he didn't believe that. but this is a really good example of that is just irrelevant. even if mark meadows thought that the former president won, even if the former president thought he won, these allegations and the ones in the federal case all are about crimes that are still crimes, even if you thought you won and just to be clear, the facts will be incredibly strong that they didn't think that. but you don't get to have a slate of fake electors. you don't get to make up fake stories about ruby freeman and shea moss. you don't get to send people to shake them down to get their stories to change, to falsely say that there was fraud in the election. you don't get to break into voting machines. i mean, there's just a whole series of things that you are not allowed to do. what you can do is you can go to court. and they did go to court and they lost. and that's the end of it. that was their legal remedy. so that is all extra judicial, which is a fancy way of saying criminal. and so whether mark meadows is, and i totally agree with tim that he's sort of all over the place, he is sort of the yes man to everybody, but he can be charged for what he is doing, what he is participating in and that is how he has been chrged in the state case. >> we need you all to stick around a little bit longer with us. coming up next, we'll turn to one of the president's co-defendants to that small army of unindicted co-conspirators. there are 30 of those people that feature prominently in fani willis's case against trump. that's next. ump. that's next. 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(announcer) change your life at golo.com. that's golo.com. so try to wrap your brain around this little fact. it was just two weeks ago that special counsel jack smith unleashed a stinging four-count indictment against donald trump for allegedly conspiring to subvert the 2020 presidential election, two weeks ago. so relatively speaking, it was as we're describing for various reasons a targeted and lean indictment, one defendant, four counts, six unindicted co-conspirators. in light of the sprawling new indictment out. fulton county, georgia, we're dealing with much bigger number of co-conconspirators. and then there's the sheer tonnage of unindicted co-conspirators. there are 30 in fani willis's case. the infamous oval office meeting that was described as, quote, unhinged. individual 20, unlike everyone else in the room, individual 20 was not charged, raising the possibility of the "f" word, did he flip? while we're on the topic of flipping, given the huge amount of pressure facing trump's 18 co-defendants, should we be watching to see if any of them flip? joining our conversation, former u.s. senator claire mccaskell is with us. claire, i want your reaction to everything we've seen and then i'm going to come back to neal, neil, who i swear moments after this came out, he had already honed in on it. let me get your reaction to what we learned last night in georgia. >> first of all, this is a tale of two very different indictments. we have one in the federal system that is lean and mean and targeted on the boss. and then we have georgia, where this prosecutor has decided that she needs to go after the whole enterprise and all of this evidence would come in, the whole barrel of bad apples got indicted. you can assume in the federal indictment that those unindicted co-conspirators may or may not cooperate, may or may not be charged. you just don't know at this point. on the other hand, in georgia since she indicted so many, you can assume a fair number of those unindicted co-conspirators have cooperated and testified in front of the grand jury truthfully. they did not take the fifth. i think the fake electors, there was a lot of talk of them getting immunity. i'm not aware of any -- i'm not sure how soon you have to tell people were given immunity. immunity is very simple. it just says we won't prosecute you for what you say as long as you tell the truth for the crimes that you are testifying about. and so you have to assume there's going to be a lot more evidence. now, the other difference here, nicole, that people need to remember is how quickly can these cases get to trial? the good news is we finally have rudy giuliani indicted. whoo-hoo! that makes me very happy. this could easily go to the supreme court as to whether or not this case is removed from the state court to federal court. it wasn't in manhattan but remember the acts when he was indicted in manhattan happened before the presidency. that's a pretty clear line it was an official act. these acts he's going to try to argue he was doing his duty as the executive to try to make sure the election was right and fair. that's what he's going to allege as his basis for trying to remove this to federal court. and those arguments could take a while. i think it's very unrealistic for fani willis to think she can try this case in six months. i don't think you can get to the supreme court and back in that time potentially, depending on how quickly they move. >> so, neil, i'm going to give you a two-part question and i want your thoughts on what claire has articulated about what will likely be effort on trump's part to have this moved to federal court. i also want you to take us inside individual 20's role in act 90. >> okay. so with respect to trump's ability to remove this to federal court, there is a statute that goes back to the civil war that allows in certain instances state charges, state trials to be moved to federal court. she would still be running the trial. it will be under georgia law but it would take place in federal court, which notably doesn't have cameras in it and so i think trump, who is afraid like a vampire of sunlight, will really want to move this into federal court. and for that reason alone i think it will fail and i don't think it going to the supreme court because in order to remove a case, the statute requires the performance of some official federal function, and while trump has -- any president has lots of roles over elections in general, there's one election in which our founders several places in the constitution made clear that the president doesn't have a role. and that's with respect to the electoral college. the president is entirely cut out of that process. and for the best of reasons. our founders understood that otherwise a president could engage in self-dealing. they have the most self-interest of any living individual over the way the electoral college operates and how it counts votes. so the founders cut them out entirely. indeed in the d.c. case called thompson versus trump, the court said there is no role for the president whatsoever. so he's not performing a federal function. there's any number of other problems with this removal claim of trump's but that's why i think it fails. with respect to individual 20, so act 90 says something really interesting. it says this wild oval office meeting on december 18th in which the conspiracy was furthered and it names several people as being in the room and then it says also there was unindicted co-conspirator number 20, a person known to the grand jury. so that person came before the grand jury, gave testimony but the district attorney is not indicting that person, at least not yet. the most plausible reason why she's not indicting at this point is because that person is cooperating, is turning over evidence. now, we don't know who that person is. there are any number of speculations. i can tell you who it's not. it's not cassidy hutchinson, which i know is being floated around a lot because the way m which act 90's language was written in the indictment yesterday makes clear that was a co-conspirator and cassie hutchinson under no definition is a co-conspirator. this is someone in on the plot. could be patrick burns, could be general michael flynn, maybe linwood or sidney powell. there was a lot of speculation at this point. so hard to say. these charges were brought under a conspiracy and rico set of charges in which that doctrine is tailor made to encourage flipping. that's almost half the point of these specific crimes is to force people to flip it. so she is wielding a very powerful weapon against whoever number 20 is, as well as the other 30 people who are unindicted co-conspirators in the indictment. so i think fani willis is saying today ours goes to 30. >> do you have any feeling about this unindicted co-conspirator, do you have any theories about who it might be? >> sure, nicole. first of all, trials are a series of stories and this is a good story. okay, this is where a lot of the roles people play dramatically are illustrated by the discussion in that meeting. you literally have team crazy in the person of sidney powell, mike flynn, patrick burns sitting in the oval office and team normal, pat cipollone, rushing in in front of the president and arguing. this is likely going to be in jack smith's case, even though it's not referenced in the indictment, likely to be dramatically developed. the way the indictment reads, it suggests that co-conspirator 20 is a conspirator, shares the agreement with the president to share the transfer of t issue ae voting machines, suggesting that there's some foreign interference that would justify that or appoint sydney powell as special counsel to investigating voter -- i don't know if that person has to have cooperated. it could be he or she, probably he, has been identified and has been named by other witnesses and the d.a. has decided you can't charge every single person involved in the conspiracy. that would be too wieldy. she's narrowed it to 19. some say that's too much. just because someone is named as a conspirator doesn't mean he or she is cooperating. could be, though not absolutely certain. >> all right. up next for us, no one's going anywhere, a conservative and prominent and highly regarded judge's warningthe damage done to american democracy at this hour today by trump and his enablers. don't go anywhere. s enablers don't go anywhere. and you can help take control of your symptoms - with vraylar. some medicines only treat the lows or highs. vraylar treats depressive, acute manic, and mixed episodes of bipolar 1 in adults. proven, full-spectrum relief for all bipolar 1 symptoms. and in vraylar clinical studies, most saw no substantial impact on weight. elderly dementia patients have increased risk of death or stroke. call your doctor about unusual changes in behavior or suicidal thoughts. antidepressants can increase these in children and young adults. report fever, stiff muscles or confusion which may mean a life-threatening reaction, or uncontrollable muscle movements which may be permanent. high blood sugar, which can lead to coma or death, weight gain and high cholesterol may occur. movement dysfunction and restlessness are common side effects. sleepiness and stomach issues are also common. side effects may not appear for several weeks. ask about vraylar and learn how abbvie could help you save. ♪ ♪ wake up, gotta go! and learn how abbvie c'mon, c'mon. -gracie, c'mon. let's go! guys, c'mon! mom, c'mon! mia! 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(vo) ultimate endless shrimp is here with a limited time flavor drop. new crispy dragon shrimp. one of seven endless choices for just $20. right now, only at red lobster. welcome to fun dining. i need it cool at night. you trying to ice me out of the bed? baby, only on game nights. you know you are retired right? am i? ya! save 50% on the sleep number limited edition smart bed. plus, free home delivery when you add a base. shop now only at sleep number. the first time you made a sale online with godaddy was also the first time you heard of a town named dinosaur, colorado. we just got an order from dinosaur, colorado. start an easy to build, powerful website for free with a partner that always puts you first. start for free at godaddy.com against january 6th and the former president's role in it has betrayed their oath. this is far above and beyond politics. and as we now know, it's literally crimes against the united states of america. but all of our politicians, especially the republicans, have regarded it as nothing more than politics. in that respect, they have failed americans. >> as important of a voice as there is at this moment, that was retired conservative judge michael ludig calling out his own party, elected officials in it. the republicans who have failed and are still failing to speak out against the expresident in the wake of january 6th. we're back with claire, neal and andrew. i say important because the right isn't going to, i think some of us at this hour, they won't necessarily listen to me even though i am an exrepublican. they used to listen to highly regarded conservative figures in their own party. what do you think, who do you think the judge is speaking to? do you think anyone on the right is listening? >> well, i don't know if they're listening or not but i know he's speaking to people like josh holley and ted cruz, highly educated lawyers that are republican senators that used to say his name in a hushed voice. the judge was the deal among all the conservative republican senators. he was like a north star to them. and the idea that he is looking them in the eye saying, you've all betrayed your office ought to be a wake-up call for some of them. it won't be, nicole. it won't be. but it shows you the power of leadership, simply and cleanly. if all of them would just stand up and say what they really believe, we would be in a much better place going into 2024. >> that's really important. i want to put the judge's voice to some of the rest of you. i have to sneak in a quick break first. we'll all be right back. safelit, and we could see exactly when they'd arrive with a replacement we could trust. that's service the way we want it. >> singers: ♪ safelite repair, safelite replace. ♪ my active psoriatic arthritis can make me feel like i'm losing my rhythm. with skyrizi to treat my skin and joints, i'm getting into my groove. ♪(uplifting music)♪ along with significantly clearer skin... skyrizi helps me move with less joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and fatigue. and is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. skyrizi attaches to and reduces a source of excess inflammation that can lead to skin and joint symptoms. with skyrizi 90% clearer skin and less joint pain are possible. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. thanks to skyrizi, there's nothing like clearer skin and better movement... and that means everything. ♪nothing is everything♪ now's the time to ask your doctor about skyrizi. learn how abbvie could help you save. 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(vo) for a limited time get nfl sunday ticket from youtubetv on us. a $449 value. plus, get a free samsung galaxy z flip5. only on verizon. neal, on the voice of the judge? >> it is impossible to be unemotional on this. he was a guy i didn't apply to to clerk for because he was so deeply conservative. yet he was the co-counsel on the the case that just rejected the theories. i think what he did on january 6th and the days before january 6th, then the hearings, he did more to safeguard our constitution than any justice. and i know that he wanted to serve on the supreme court. he has protected our constitution in a way that is so important. when i think about the rule of law, when i think about the words over the supreme court, i think of this judge. he is speaking truth and what our constitution, our country is all about. >> it is hard to explain to someone who has never had the experience of coming out and publicly condemning a party or a part of what that is like, and he obviously operated at a much higher level than i ever did. it is remarkable. we can talk about it much longer. we'll do that on another day. thank you all for being part of our coverage on this historic day of news. claire sticks around with us a little bit longer. much more ahead including details about that wild oval office meeting in the weeks after trump lost the election. don't go anywhere today. ion. don't go anywhere today. somedays, i cover up because of my moderate to severe plaque psoriasis. now i feel free to bare my skin, thanks to skyrizi. ♪(uplifting music)♪ ♪nothing is everything♪ i'm celebrating my clearer skin... my way. with skyrizi, 3 out of 4 people achieved 90% clearer skin at 4 months. in another study, most people had 90% clearer skin, even at 5 years. and skyrizi is just 4 doses a year, after 2 starter doses. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine, or plan to. thanks to clearer skin with skyrizi - this is my moment. there's nothing on my skin and that means everything! ♪nothing is everything♪ now's the time. ask your doctor about skyrizi, the #1 dermatologist-prescribed biologic in psoriasis. learn how abbvie could help you save. the group showed up at the white house including sydney powell, mike flynn and patrick berman. after gaining access from a junior white house staffer, the group made their way to the oval office. they were able to speak with the president by himself for some time u white house officials learned of the meeting. what ensued was a heated and profane clash between this group and president trump's white house advisers who traded personal insults, accusations of disloyalty to the president, and even challenges to physically fight. the meeting would last over six hours, beginning here in the oval office. moving around the west wing and many hours later, ending up in the president's private residence. >> hi again, everyone. it's 5:00 in the east. it was a wild meeting even by trump standards with even wilder theories discussed. an explosive oval office showdown that moved into the residence, as jamie raskin described there, on december 18th, 2020, between trump's accomplices and the white house lawyers. they were fighting over unsubstantiated, unproven claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, and crazy conspiracies designed to use those conspiracies to keep trump in office. it was one of the turning points, one of the pivotal moments in the attempted coup. it is now listed as one of the criminal acts in that criminal enterprise that the district attorney has laid out in her sprawling indictment. as we mentioned in the last hour, act 90 is of particular interest and it reads, quote, on or about the 18th day of december, 2020, trump met with rudy giuliani, sidney powell, and others at the white house. the individuals present at that meeting discussed certain strategies and theories intended to influence the outcome of the november 3rd 2020 election including seizing voting equipment and appointing sidney powell, special counsel, with broad authority to investigate allegations of voter fraud in georgia and elsewhere. this was an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy. what we see in this indictment from fulton county, bjork, is an even broader array of allegations against the expresident and his allies. she is describing the events of this december 18th meeting is an example of trump and his team trying to gain access to voting equipment and data. a piece of the puzzle not mentioned in jack smith's federal indictment west already know a lot about what went down during that fiery meeting on the night of december 18th. that is thanks to the january 6th select committee's extensive interviews. let's remind ourselves a little of what took place. >> i walked in and i saw general flynn. i saw sidney powell sitting there. i was not happy to see the people in the oval office. >> explain that. >> well, first, the overstock person. i didn't know who he was. i walked in and i said who are you? he told me. i don't think any of these people were providing the president with good advice. >> they were working with hugo chavez of venezuela and whoever else. at one point, general flynn took out a diagram that supposedly showed all over the world, who was communicating with the machines and thermostats being hooked up to the internet. >> what response did you get when you asked -- >> the variety of responses based on my current recollection, including, i can't believe you would say something, things like this. what do you mean where's the evidence? things like that. or, you know, i just remember i would say a general disregard for the importance of actually saying the facts. >> and she said, the judges are corrupt. and i was like, everyone? every single case that you've done in the country you lost? every one of them is corrupt? even the ones you appointed? i'm being nice. i was much more harsh to her. i think it to the to the point where the screaming was completely, completely out there. when you get people walking in, it was late at night. it had been a long day. what they were proposing i thought was nuts. >> it was nuts. trying to make sense of the latest indictment of the expresident by looking back at some of the evidence developed by the select committee's investigation is where we begin this hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. mark harris is here. senior investigative counsel for the house select committee on january 6th also joining us. the former deputy assistant attorney general. and the former assistant director for counter intelligence at the fbi, frank figliuzzi is back with us and lucky for us, claire mccaskill is still with us as well. mark, i want to start with you and ask if if you were surprised that fonnie willis had this meeting. >> i'm not surprised at all. the one piece from the portions that raskin was reporting, and mr. cipollone, when they were talking about a disagreement and a fight. some of it was over what evidence there was to back up the claim of election fraud. the guts of it, the main battle over many hours was whether the president should sign an executive order that was presented by general flynn, miss powell and the others that would allow the seizure of voting machines. that's when he says in that clip he thought it was completely nuts. that's what he's talking about. that ties into the allegations in the indictment, in the georgia indictment, talking about accessing machines in coffey county, and a series of accounts and overt acts that reference the efforts being made to get access to those voting machines without seizing them but through the voluntary cooperation of a county clerk by the name of miss hampton who is named now in the indictment. so that's where it ties in. and there's a lot of discussion in that crazy meeting about whether it was appropriate to seize the machines. i would point out that giuliani during that meeting said, well, at some point late in the meeting when they had moved to the official residence upstairs. he said, we've got something else going on. we think we'll be able the on get those machines voluntarily. and that ties directly to the claims in the georgia indictment about the shenanigans and the misdeeds. >> so you've given us a perfect place to dive into some of the evidence. let me present some of that to our viewers. this is from last night's indictment about sidney powell and others interfering with the voting equipment. it says this. on or about the seventh day of january 2021, sidney powell, cathy lien latham and others committed the offense of interfering. in coffee county, georgia, by willfully and unlawfully tampering with electronic ballot markers and tabulating machines. this was an overt act of furtherance of the conspiracy. talk about this, where giuliani talks about in his deposition, how bad was it? it was so bad, rudy was against it? rudy says in a deposition, i told the president that he could not, he could not possibly sign these. that's the affidavit using an argument that foreign interference in the election would justify the use of the military. so rudy says you've been innocent until now to trump. why don't you stay that way? and he said well, if you tell me no, i don't want to do it. this was a fascinating thought experiment where rudy giuliani's line is. in the coup plot. take us inside the importance of these facts. >> well, first, those are direct quotes from rudy giuliani's deposition testimony that he gave to the january 6th committee. and his pitch during that deposition was, i was against this crazy idea, this thing that eric hirschman just said. i was against this idea of an executive order allowing the seizure of machines. so the portion that you read, mr. giuliani is claiming pedal the president in this meeting, this is crazy. you can't do it. this would really get you impeached. this would be a basis for impeachment. what's interesting is that rudy giuliani was intimately involved in drafting the executive orders and the january 6th committee uncovered emails back and forth between the people drafting that, those executive orders before they were presented to the public at that december 18th meeting. in fact, he was on the phone with the white house while those drafts were being circulated and he sent a draft on december 17th to the president's executive assistant with the same language that he then claims in his deposition would have been so crazy, it would have gotten president donald j. trump impeached. it's quite a tangled web involving rudy giuliani's involvement with the seizure of the machines. >> he's been charged by fonnie willis. he's not charged by the federal government. we understand he went in and shared some information with the federal government, which is insane, considering his former jobs in government. what do you make of his indictment yesterday? and as you said, your intimate knowledge of his instrumental role in aiding trump and being the tip of the spear, trying to overturn trump's defeat? >> mr. giuliani? >> yes. >> yeah. so he was as noted, he was involved in drafting the executive orders, claiming that he had nothing to do with it. i noticed that his lawyer was quoted this week as saying with respect to coffee county, when there was reporting that trump's team was intimately involved in the seizure of the voting machines, that mr. giuliani had nothing to do with sidney powell's crack pot ideas, was his quote. but we know from witness testimony that at that december 18th meeting, mr. giuliani, as i said earlier, made reference to the fact that he would be getting access to voting machines voluntarily so there's no need for this executive order. we also know that there was some follow-up emails and discussions where miss powell was complaining to mark immediate bows the fact that mr. giuliani didn't come through with that access to the machines. later, probably two weeks later that the coffee county crew gets in to get access to the machines and that is what is spelled out in the indictment. so really involved in that process all along the way, mr. giuliani was on steve bannon's podcast on the 19th. then on the 22nd of december, talking about the machines, that's the key that will turn it all around. once we get access to the machines. to say that he had nothing to do with sidney powell's crack pot idea is belied by the facts. >> frank figliuzzi, i want to be sure that i don't press my nose too quickly against the glass to miss the bigger picture of all of this. the idea that chris krebs, lifelong republican, is fired, because he goes out and publicly announces that he has done his job and he has overseen the most corrupt election in u.s. history. and then trump's allies including his top campaign official, rudy giuliani, are the ones breaking into voting machines is off the charts bonkers. >> these are not the same things. the narrative was not helped by the assertion that this was the most secure election in history. and look, we're all familiar with the phrase, you're only as strong as your weakest link. the weakest link here was about to be coffee county, georgia. 200 miles southeast of atlanta because of a cooperative gop chair in that county and a cooperative elections clerk, or head of elections there. and that is all they needed. and here comes sidney powell with her hired guns, this forensic computer firm, to come in, manipulate software, steal software, and make it appear that there was something horribly wrong with the systems there, and that weak link, in that little county, could have caused complete disarray for even legit people to give pause and say, holy cow, if it happened in that little county, maybe it happened everywhere. that is how fragile this was. that's how experimental this democracy is. one bad link, a couple of bad officials in a little county south of atlanta. >> it's a remarkable and sobering point. harry, i want to read a to you from the damt about this section. members of the enterprise including several of the defendants corruptly conspired in fulton county, georgia, and elsewhere. in georgia, members of the enterprise stole data including ballot images, voting equipment software, personal voter information. the stolen data was then distributed to other members of the enterprise, including members of other states. exactly what frank described was the plan, right? to take this manufactured data and use it to sow doubt in other states. whether it was the work of the congressional select committee, the indictment that jack smith revealed two weeks ago, whether it was what we learned last night. it scares the you know what out of me to think how close they came. and we cover the trump folks rightfully and just fayebly as incompetently, that they came very close to achieving their aims of sowing enough doubt in the 2020 election. >> that's exactly right. what you read now as well as famous act 90 really shows how fonnie willis is using the rico statute. the meeting itself, as you say, even for the trump team, this was the tsunami of crazy. the whole meeting, they storm in, unannounced. and they're talking with trump. cipollone, you could see him exercise in that deposition, right? a pretty, calm, cool-headed guy. you could see, he was like what the hell is happening here? and so it's used both to illustrate and he'll use it at trail when it comes, to illustrate the real crazy kind of length to which, the length they would go and the breadth of it. but then also as frank would say, the specific overt act as this ties, marc made this point. the vestiges of all the crazy plans is the little mini scheme that trans paired in coffee county with a cooperative clerk. we talked about this yesterday. that could have been the little linchpin that would have given trump rise to say, georgia is in trouble. let my republican colleagues do the rest. we didn't know it at the time. but everything was riding on a very, very thin read at that junction. >> and claire, we know how willing and trigger happy his aides in the coup plotting part of what he was doing those days were to use the insurrection act. we know that jeffrey clark invoked it. we know that from jack smith's indictment, and we know, this is pat cipollone answering qu aut this executive order, this drafted executive order on seizing voting machines from the january 6th committee. >> on a broader scale, why is this a bad idea for the country? >> to have the federal government seize voting machines? that's a terrible idea. that's not how we do things in the united states. it is an illegal act tad that. and there is a way to contest elections, you know, that happens all the time. but the idea that the federal government could come in and seize election machines. i don't understand why i would have to tell you why that's a bad idea. it's a terrible idea. >> so is cipollone getting a little splug? i don't know why i have to tell you. here's why. to the point that fonnie willis makes, they were going to take this pro trump county, this county trump won by a whole lot. hack into it. rudy giuliani is in contact with those actors. they've all been charged criminally now in georgia. and that was going to be the predicate for seizing voting machines and throwing our entire democracy into disarray. again, wlag fonnie willis does with story telling as well as illustrations is show every person in this country how close they came to doing that. >> yeah. we've talked a lot about the january 18th meeting. i look at the january 18th meeting as that moment where trump decided, at a fork in the road, he would take band of crazies, lead them down the yellow brick road of criminal conspiracy, and abandon all the people around him who were telling him this is illegal, this is wrong. you've lost in court. there is no evidence. hey, there's no evidence. hey, there's no evidence. and now here we are. the criminal conspiracy has been charged in a couple of different ways, a couple of different jurisdictions. i think we need to pause for a moment and not be gleeful that we avoided disaster. because remember, they succeeded in convincing a huge number of americans. millions and millions of americans that they can't trust elections. that the election was a lie. that donald trump really won. he is winning the nomination for president rate now after going down the yellow brick road of criminal conspiracy. so he succeeded. he succeeded. he's the number one guy in the republican party and all the republicans are bowing and scraping and hiding from him. we're a long way from putting this chapter, this ugly chapter in american history, we're a long way from it being in the rear view mirror. >> well, i think you're absolutely right. and to the contrary, he's not running on this. i think even two and a half years ago, he was cajoled and convinced to put out a video telling the insurrectionists to go home. he's now running this time on a message of pardoning the insurrectionists. he recorded a song for them. so you're absolutely right to bring our focus back tom. everyone sticks around. marc harris, thank you for starting us off this hour. everyone else sticks around. ahead for us, a closer look at fonnie willis. she's the latest prosecutor to bring charges against donald trump. why even her legal opponents say she is a force to be reckoned with. plus, the ongoing nature of the crimes willis has charged. it is something claire just brought attention to. and with the focus today on fulton county, there are some big developments to tell but in jack smith's classified documents case. she runs and plays like a puppy again. his #2s are perfect! he's a brand new dog, all in less than a year. when people switch their dog's food from kibble to the farmer's dog, they often say that it feels 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>> sure. >> her experience, i've looked into her record. i mean, i had her job in kansas city for many years. i understand if you're a state prosecutor, you must deal we the press every day. you're responding to the violent crime in the community and you must be accessible to the press. so i've admired the way she's handled this. i'm curious about the case she tried. did she actually try the rico case that dealt with all the teachers cheating scandals? if she did, how many defendants she have in the courtroom at the same time in. >> she had multiple defendants at the same time. this was a very controversial use of the statute. she chafd the atlanta school system as a criminal enterprise to use these charges. from members of her constituents, members of the legal community. she was successful and it was one of the biggest criminal cases in metro atlanta history. >> frank, i want to show you something she said. it was interesting to me because republicans will say that their reason for not getting involved in states lake georgia who want to pass voter suppression laws. all elections should be local. describing the laws on the books in states to protect election laws. let me show you. >> the state's role in this process is essential to the functioning of our democracy. georgia, like every state, has laws that allow those who believe that results of an election are wrong, whether, because of intentional wrongdoing or unintentional error to challenge those results in our state courts. the indictment alleges that rather than abide by georgia's legal process for election challenges, the defendants engaged in a criminal racketeering enterprise to overturn georgia's presidential election result. >> frank, you don't gloat but i'll do it for you. you've had your eye on the power of this law to potentially hold trump and his allies accountable for a while. talk about her use of her state's racketeering law to do just that. >> you and i on this show talked back in march of 2019 that i felt a rico was coming. that's long before the election lie before us. it happened. it happened with a different set of facts. look, fani willis, think about this. she was willing to designate all or parts of the atlanta school system, the fulton county school system as a corrupt organization. claire can tell you what that means politically when you're the d.a., right? many d.a.s are concerned about am i going to get reelected? she's not upset by b that at all. she sees the facts and the law and she's going to do it. one of the things that bombs out. she keeps emphasizing the facts and the law. we've heard it from merrick garland, from jack smith. had a are the exact opposites. the die metric opposites. the 19 people she's just charged in fulton county. they are diametrically opposed to the facts and have undermined the law. it is a stark contrast. there is a larger issue here. with the facts, line by line, what strikes me in this indictment. she goes page by page, line by line, and shows the lie that trump and his cohorts have kept spoon-feeding many americans throughout this period. she goes line by line, date, times, hears what he said about dead voters. here's what he said about people who put their p.o. box down when they registered for votes. she gives the lie in all of those. and if you just read it, you will see, he's been lying for years. >> harry, i want to read you something she said in an interview with the "washington post." quote, the government has only two responsibilities if you live in a democracy. quote, the number one thing that needs to happen in a free society is that you have got to keep people safe. the second thing in a free country is the importance of the right to vote. she has made clear this is not partisan. but she's also not hiding from the fact that in a democracy, these are as serious of crimes as you get. jack smith hassle made clear that the right to vote, being attacked by donald trump, violated laws on the books in a federal contexas well. >> there is a broader philosophical grounding. that she jumped in it within a month of the raffensperger call and her very use of rico here. she's known for using it and there have been creative uses of this law that was passed for the mafia. as frank just mentioned, she used it for the cheating teachers. it is really a bit of a breath-taking notion that the entire election apparatus was a criminal enterprise. she's unafraid to do it and i think it dove tails with what you're saying. it is such a fundamental right. when you're twisting it in that nature, you are akin to an organized crime enterprise and given the importance of the right to vote, doubly dangerous to the country. >> so there is some news that has broken on this case since we have come back on the air at 5:00. we have to fit in a very short break. we'll tell you about it on the other side. other side (ella) fashion moves fast. setting trends is our business. we need to scale with customer demand... ...in real time. 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(vo) learn more. it's your vision, it's your verizon. your shipping manager left to “find themself.” leaving you lost. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire hey, dad. i got an a on my book report. that's cool. and i went for a walk in the woods and i didn't get a single flea or tick on me. you are just the best. -right? i'm great. -you are great. oh, brother. this flea and tick season, trust america's #1 pet pharmacy. chewy. if you have moderate to severe crohn's disease skyrizi is the first and only il-23 inhibitor that can deliver clinical remission and endoscopic improvement. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. control of crohn's means everything to me. ask your gastroenterologist about skyrizi. ♪ control is everything to me ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. ♪ limu emu & doug ♪ what do we always say, son? liberty mutual customizes your car insurance... so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ this is our breaking news. one of donald trump's most publicly known and recognizable co-defendants in the case brought last night by fulton county district foreigner fani willis is former chief of staff mark meadows has filed this afternoon to move the case against him to federal court. an attorney for mark meadows said in a court filing that the proceedings should be moved because meadows was acting in his capacity as a federal official. the attorney says, nothing meadows is alleged to have done is criminal per se. arranging office meetings, contacting state officials on the president's behalf, visiting a state government building, and setting up a phone call for the president. one would expect a chief of staff to the president of the united states to do those sorts of things. nbc news reports that trump is also expected to file to move the case to federal court. i'm not a lawyer but even i know that is ludicrous. saying because he was chief of staff, he had to help trump plan his coup because that's what his boss wanted tad is asanine. >> it won't work. it shouldn't work for trump who was going to do this. we've had different holdings from different krts saying, huh-uh, the stuff you're doing doesn't even reach the outer perimeter which is the test. but look what meadows is doing in there. do you characterize them in the same way as trump? as, you know, basically doing a plot to steal the election? or he's the chief of staff. do you characterize them as following the orders of the president? the argument for him is, a, different, and b, i think, stronger than it is for trump and this could go, well, not federal officials. he's the really most important defendant who could raise this. he's a very interesting figure in this indictment generally. on the one hand, he shows up in jack smith's indictment. so you thought the attorney, an excellent lawyer, a former attorney general, had done a great deal with him. but it couldn't be because he's now subject to criminal indictment in georgia. he is the man of mystery. as to his motion for removal, it is less, i would say, loser out of the box than for trump himself. the question is, how do you characterize the acts's doing? is he acting as chief of staff to a madman? is that what do you when you're a chief of staff to a madman? >> let's me press you on this. isn't there a xhn sense breaking point when the president is asking you to do something illegal. rudy giuliani thought seizing voting machines was illegal. do you just cover it under the boss told me to do it? i've worked in the white house. i've never heard that before. >> but again, follow what meadows is doing specifically. he's playing all sides. it will matter how you characterize his conduct. yes. he can't be following legal orders and still say i'm acting under color of my office. look at the way the attorney is trying to frame it. i'm not saying it is a dead bang winner. i'm trying to underscore the distinction between meadows who is at least more doing what a chief of staff does than trump who is obviously out of the outer perimeter of how presidents act. it will come down to how you characterize. i agree. there are things far afield, come on, meadows. you're basically holding up a bank. but other things where he's acting as chief of staff. it is less of an easy case for him than it is for trump. >> amazing legal ground being broken when you're plotting out a coup. thank you so much for being part of our extraordinary day of news. stick around. when we come back, the ongoing threat of trump's big lie and how it tends to do the kind of thing he's been charged with doing in georgia, could it continue even years after the election up to today. continue even years after the election up to today wait in line. see the mona lisa. smaller than you expected. check in. see your room. bigger than you expected. join one key, where gold and platinum members get travel perks, like room upgrades. your record label is taking off. but so is your sound engineer. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire my cpa told me i wouldn't qualify for the erc tax refund, so i called innovation refunds. their team of independent tax attorneys will work with your cpa to determine if your company is eligible. 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( ♪♪ ) constant contact delivers the marketing tools your small business needs to keep up, excel, and grow. constant contact. helping the small stand tall. this latest indictment, the fourth, laying out the criminal enterprise by the expresident and his allies to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election in georgia not only nods to how that effort extended well beyond georgia's borders to other states, it shows the unrelenting effort underway to knowingly and willfully change the results of our elections, despite any evidence of widespread voter fraud in any state. for example, less than two weeks ago a federal judge tossed another lawsuit by republicans in michigan seeking to rerun and overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state where president joe biden won by more than 154,000 votes. the judge wrote this. this lawsuit appears to be yet another brought by misguided individuals who reject the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. many of the plaintiffs' allegations rely on tired examples of alleged malfeasance that have been debated for several years. most without proof or reason. what's amazing to me. the origin story for the disinformation about 2020, of course, is about trump's inability to lose. it is also a story about mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy's weakness and i tense to say up is up and down is down. for every house member, they were on every ballot that trump was on. they all got sent back to congress and none of them questioned their wins or their defeats. where are we to live in a fact-based society if the lies are never broken? >> this is far more about the preservation of power than it is about the preservation of our democracy. that seems to be taking a second chair to getting reelected and getting your base to show up. and not only getting your base to show up but getting the other side to not show up by disenfranchising them. and i think within the last 48 hours, the court in texas has called time-out on governor abbott's attempt to literally eliminate the harris county election office. harris county is like, they don't like that in austin. they don't like the way houstonians vote. they tried to eliminate the office. it came very close. the court has called time-out on that. we'll see where that goes. there's a constant death by a thousand cuts being attempted against our democracy. and eventually when you do that, somebody bleeds out. in this case, it could be our democracy. it requires constant vigilance. it requires courts that care about the constitution, and we are seeing evidence of that. thankfully. it is a daily, daily fight to just preserve what got us so far and keep it in place. >> frank, i think a lot about the fact that we focus so much on the criminal investigations. but they're not the mechanism that we should rely on. right? like like, a functioning healthy political party would purge the corrupt actors, the one who is break the law so often that they have been indicted four times since april. what is sustainable and what is not sustainable about that moment? >>, so, we've got to stick to what got us here, and that is a number of things -- the rule of law, the constitution, three equal branches of government. that does work. but one of the things we've learned over the trump administration is if you put all your eggs in one basket -- oh, the criminal system's going to do this. when is he going to prison? a lot of that, but not enough of the other potential solutions, like civil courts. look what happened with fox news and the dominion lawsuit. that's a lot of money, and there's more coming. it does change behavior. if you do it enough it will create liability concerns on behalf of the people who do it. it takes all hands on deck, whether we're talk about teachers trying to educate students to become better consumers of social media. you're right, don't put all the eggs in one basket, don't rely solely on the criminal courts, solely on elections, because they can be -- it's got to be every member of society rowing in one motion. >> we'll endeavor to have more of those conversations with your help. thank you so much for spending the hour with us. another break for us. we'll be right back. other breaks we'll be right back. we have champagne taste... on a hard seltzer budget... wayfair's got just what you need! what... y'all this is nice. salad plates? 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[narrator] learn how the inflation reduction act will save you money. it is certainly a first in our country's history, an ex president facing not one, not two, not three, but four criminal indictments and 91 -- 91 -- criminal charges. today in the mar-a-lago documents case, one of donald trump's codefendants, carlos deoliveira pleaded until the in a florida courtroom. he's charged with four counts, including destroying or concealing evidence. also in the documents case, special counsel jack smith yesterday pushed back on trump's request to have a sensitive compartment rised information facility often referred to as an scif. used to view classified materials installed at mar-a-lago. the special counsel's office wrote this, quote, trump continues to seek special treatment that no other criminal defendant would receive. in essence, he's asking to be the only defendant ever in a case involving classified information, at least to the government's knowledge, who would be able to discuss classified information in a private residence. another break for us. we will be right back. new projects means new project managers. you need to hire. i need indeed. indeed you do. when you sponsor a job, you immediately get your shortlist of quality candidates, whose resumes on indeed match your job criteria. visit indeed.com/hire and get started today. 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"the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi again, ari. >> hi again, nicolle. hang with me again for a minute. i know you're working late, but so am i. i just wanted to ask you, we lived through it today, and we have this saying at the passover, the seder, why is this night different from other nights? and basically i was curious how you felt about it the other night. we've all gone through the indictment and arraignment process several times. did feel to me partly because we were discussing because we could see so much. >> first of all, hats off to you. i was on three sets yesterday. i think you were on even more, helming even more hours. >> thank you. >> what's so extraordinary