this. good evening. i'm rachel maddow here at msnbc as we begin special coverage of the arrest and booking of former republican president donald trump at the fulton county jail in atlanta, georgia. a historic, historic moment in american politics and american life and for all the worst reasons. he was indicted two weeks ago. he was given until noon tomorrow, noon friday to surrender or face arrest. he's expected to surrender tonight to be fingerprinted, to have his mugshot taken at the county jail. one of the unexpectedly convenient things about having official business to conduct at a jail is that they're open 24/7, 365 days a year. your local jail, they never close. so tonight's events were effectively scheduled at the convenience of the former president himself. he could have come in at any time, as long as it was before noon tomorrow. for whatever reason, he chose tonight. perhaps not coincidentally in primetime, less than 24 hours after all the other candidates running against him for the republican nomination for president held their well watched first debate. the former president is facing a felony racketeering charge and a dozen other felony counts in georgia, all related to what the indictment described as a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the 2020 election in favor of trump. now, if you're keeping track at home, that's a republican presidential front-runner who has been impeached twice, whose business was found guilty of criminal tax evasion and fraud, who paid $25 million to settle a fraud suit about a fake trump university, who had his fake charity fined $2 million and shut down for fraud, who was ordered to pay $5 million to a woman that a jury found he sexually abused. and there may be more to come there. this fall, he's facing a $250 million civil lawsuit for additional alleged business fraud, and he is personally facing 91 felony criminal charges in four jurisdictions including this latest one where for procedural reasons no federal or state pardon can save him from this case. we're watching as his private plane approaches the tarmac in atlanta. defendant trump left his home in new jersey this afternoon. he motorcaded to the airport in newark. took off from newark, flew to atlanta. you now see his plane approaching the airport in atlanta. he's now arriving in atlanta, roughly on schedule. he'll then the fulton county jail where he'll be arrested and fingerprinted and photographed and booked. he will post bail like any other criminal defendant, and he will then be released. he may at that point make remarks. he may not. the terms under which he negotiated bail prohibit him from directly or indirectly menacing anyone involved in the case, including witnesses or unindicted coconspirators. we shall see how he handles these new restrictions which will be binding on him and for which in theory at least the cost of him violating those conditions would be his liberty, him being locked up at the fulton county jail. it should also be noted today, the day of his arrest and booking, the former president replaced his lead lawyer. his previous lawyer called himself hashtag billion dollar lawyer on social media and had represented waka flocka flame and gucci mane. it didn't work out with donald trump as a client, so the former president has a new georgia based lead defense lawyer as of today. should also be noted that after one of trump's codefendants, lawyer kenneth chesebro, invoked his right to a speedy trial in fulton county, fulton county's district attorney fani willis, the prosecutor in the case, today told the court that she's ready to take this case to trial right away. she told the court that she's ready to start a trial of all 19 defendants including trump together 60 days from today. on october 23rd, 2023. and i'm no lawyer, but just under the laws of physics, that seems definitely impossible. but we really haven't been here before. so who knows if the restrictions that we think of as applying to time and space still hold here. these are live shots right now of trump's plane on the tarmac at hartsfield-jackson airport in atlanta. we do expect that after he gets off this plane, we're not expecting remarks, i don't believe, from him. although again, anything could happen. we do expect that the motorcade that he's going to take from the hartsfield-jackson airport to the fulton county jail should take less than an hour. and we think that there will be a pool camera in the motorcade with him. so we'll have some images of what happens there. we believe we'll be seeing him as he goes into the jail, as he arrives at the jail. and heads in to be booked and fingerprinted. we do not believe that the pool camera will be allowed to go into the jail with him. i say we don't believe that because again, anything could happen, but our expectation tonight is our images of him on the ground in atlanta at the fulton county jail will be of him entering and leaving the facility. he'll then motorcade back to the airport. again, he may make remarks to the press or to passers-by at any point. we'll have to see. we're watching this live. but this is new. i'm joined by my friends alex wagner, nicolle wallace, joy reid, ari melber. these are live shots. this is the fourth time that we have covered the arrest and booking of former president trump. it doesn't get less weird. i know that you all have been covering this today for your shows that have happened around and your shows that are about to happen this evening. i feel a little bit of suspense in terms of what's going to happen here, in part because of the presence of cameras, in part because this is the last time as far as we know trump is going to be arrested and booked. and he's very aware of the media impact, the television impact of these sorts of moments. i feel like his actions, his potential remarks tonight are unpredictable in an interesting way. >> i feel like this is the culmination of trump as spectacle. if trump did anything to our politics besides corrupt them fundamentally and corrupt our democracy, he really did solidify a trend that had begin with jfk, the kind of, you know, became famous before he became president, the father funding that film, and his being a sort of young, you know, gallant celebrity sort of president and then obviously ronald reagan and even the way the bill clinton playing the saxophone. we have increasingly expected spectacle from our presidents. president obama hao had a hip-hop kind of connection, et cetera. he is the culmination of that trend in american politics in the worst way. this is spectacle, reality tv. he's a reality tv star still even as a former president, and this is both a pathetic and sort of sad moment for the country. it is, i think, a good moment for the idea that justice is equal, we're equal under law, even a former president. i think it is his comeuppance, but it also to me says something really terrifying about our politics that i don't think we can fix. you know, this is spectacle. this is gross. >> it's interesting, though, because all the -- i think it's a really good point that you're making. i am sort of seeing a subtlety in it than i didn't see before you said it. all those things you described in the ways different presidents have portrayed themselves, have gone out of their way to position themselves in that celebrity, it was all under their control, and trump has been good, for all the other things as a politician, he's been very good at getting the media to do the things he wants, getting the kind of coverage he wants and the quantity of media coverage he wants. this is a case where it is a spectacle, but this is one of the very few things that is absolutely out of his control. >> he created it. >> he had to be there before noon to avoid arrest, but he's got to be there for the court dates now. this is being imposed upon him in a way that he's going to try to turn to his advantage, but it's not in his control. he's a subject of the criminal justice system now, not a man pulling the strings. >> you know that, i know that, and we know that on earth one. he has so completely co-opted the process, vaughn hillyard reported today he's not the guy who wanted to fire jeff sessions because he was so afraid of criminal exposure. he now things he controlled everything including this process. he teased this, he wants this shot broadcast. he has co-opted it. to his 30% of americans, he is the producer of this show. >> and he also produced it in the sense that he could have just accepted the peaceful transfer of power. it's what every other president did. hillary clinton i'm sure was devastated at losing an election to this guy, who was the most inadequate human being to ever be president of the united states. she accepted it, she congratulated him. all 45 previous presidents have managed to do that very simple thing. george washington didn't even have to do that. before there was a 22nd amendment, everyone did it. he created this in the sense that we did not have to be here. our democracy didn't have to be here. we didn't have to be in a position where the former president of the united states is now going to be booked like a common criminal and have a mugshot. that is his fault. he did it. he wanted the spectacle of being president for life. he wanted to not leave office. he wanted to be this. he decided to be king. and now he is the king of scandal and disrepute. >> i have to say, coming out of the plane just now, the lady with the frosty hair, suzy wiles, who is a trump campaign manager, and also a witness on the bedminster tape, she's apparently riding air trump with the former president. i gotta say, as i think about this moment, we were here last night at the desk talking about another indicator in terms of our democracy, and that was the republican debate. i can't get the sort of part one, part two nature of the last 24 hours out of my head, which is last night on stage, without trump, all the leading nominees for the republican presidential field raised their hands and said pre-emptively, i guess if you count out asa hutchinson, that they would pardon donald trump before any trial has been under way, if there are any convictions. >> they would support him. >> they would support him. that tells you a lot. you can't separate that moment from this one right here. and his thorough co-opting of the republican party, his degradation of the republican party, his attempt to destroy a two-party system of politics which is what is unfolding before our very eyes. we're going city the mugshot presumably of a former president. >> since we have been on the air, we have crossed another never happened before moment for the american presidency. which is we have just for the first time ever in u.s. history had word from "the new york times" that this president, this is now confirmed by nbc news, has chosen his bail bondsman. it's just bizarre, but trump is going to use a commercial bail bondsman, charles shaw, foster bail bonds in georgia, to post his $200,000 bond. this has been confirmed by the bondsman himself. trump will pay the bondsman 10% of his bail amount, so his bond was set at $200,000, so he'll pay him $20,000 cash, presumably out of a big bag marked with a dollar sign on it. with a bandit mask on. and that should expedite his release. >> rachel, this is why we have been reaching for mobster movies and gangster stories and hip-hop of which there are many in atlanta. it's not a coincidence. it's relevant. mr. sadow represented rick ross. as we await donald trump walking out, rick ross said, i kiss you on your head and tell you everything is great. even though i'm out on bond and facing eight. this is what career criminals talk like and face, and the fact that he needs a bail bondsman and needs to show up and he can bring his money in his plane. other rich people have, of course, tried to buy up a better deal in our system. we have all covered those stories. but it doesn't always work. i think tonight is very different because this is the case that hits the most people, that is federally unpardonable, even if remanded to federal court, even if it's removed over there, it's still a state case with state punishment if convicted of any defendant. so i don't see a good way out for him if convicted. it is possible that he could beat the case. we talk about how everyone is legally presumed innocent. donald trump is in such command of these details as we watch him walk out, he knows this is the worst case, i think. >> and it's funny that you make that point, ari, because big meech, pretending, portraying larry hoover, like a major drug dealer, but it's an artifice of hip-hop that you sort of portray the bad guy, you portray the big criminal. well, who else has been mentioned, what, a few dozen times in hip-hop songs that people used to portray that they used to say is the stand-in for wealth and ostentatious wealth? donald trump. donald trump before he was soon to be criminal defendant donald trump, was a hip-hop figure. he was somebody, people i respect like nas were talking about donald trump. he was a stand-in for the idea of wealth, of having, of gold, of bling. now, he's the stand-in for what? destroying democracy, destroying the electoral system, stealing the votes of people of color, intimidating an elderly black woman who just wanted to help her community vote. he's the antithesis of who somebody in hip-hop should respect. he's still hanging out with kanye west, but when he's a degrading ye. he's essentially the degradation of that part of culture that he broke into before people understood what a vile, racist, buffoon he was. this should not be happening, and i think while we should be glad that the criminal justice system works the same for him that it does for a group of rappers in atlanta, who the same lady, fanny -- what is her middle name, fani tiefa willis. if she was going to treat a group of hip-hop artists like a gang, she needs to treat them like a gang. because they are a gang. >> and they're sharing lawyers. >> there you go. >> one of the things that's important on this point about wealth and being a symbol of ostentatious wealth, the big plane is part of this and his self-proclaimed billionaire status is a major part of his political heft in this country as well as his just celebrity. with 19 codefendants in this case, we're starting to see the sort of bluff called in terms of the financial aspects of this. like, among other things, this is a lot of legal fees for a lot of people who are involved here. this is him being tried alongside 18 other people including people like rudy giuliani who we believe owes lots of money to his existing lawyers who has his house on the market in new york and at wit's end in terms of his financial status. another trump lawyer, jenna ellis, pleading for money because she's not getting any of the trump donor money that he is using to pay his own defense. trump legal defense is being funded by trump small dollar campaign dollars. >> 30 cents to every dollar donated. when you say private plane, it's not a private plane the way some rich business tycoon's plane is a private plane. it's a grifter plane, a plane that is paid for with the small dollar donors, in some cases donors who are scammed into donating every month. so it's the trappings are awful. i'm hung up on your point, alex. these two days do go together, because you had a field of candidates that stand for nothing because everything they said, attacking cities, attacking america's urban centers, attacking immigrants coming over the border, is moot if they don't uphold a conviction for this guy, should he be convicted by a jury of his peers. so it starts from such a place to both of your points of sort of a fraudulent nature of the whole spectacle. >> that's why this case is different and this d.a. is different. it really is. as we try to explain this and make sure everybody is on the same page of the facts. there's trump, and then there's all the other enablers. the political enablers we know is a political process, and it will play out. that's just freedom. the legal part, the coup enablers, team coup, right, this is the first d.a. that's charged anyone other than trump. >> that's right. >> as you so clearly put it, joy, she has experience bringing racketeering cases. these are group cases. you treat it like a racketeering influence organization. >> a gang. >> or a gang. right? it's a gang. >> the young thug rico trial started with 27 or 28 defendants. by the time it got to trial or heading to jury selection now, people got severed from the case, the thing got broken up, got down to eight or nine defendants. taken a very long time to do that, but weirdly, it's not just being making a cultural reference. it's the closest analog to what this case is going to look like. the young thug trial. >> and legally, mr. sadow, the new lawyer brought in now for mr. trump, he got gunna and other artists severed out of the case. that's part of the work you do. when we talk about legal and justice accountability, no matter what happens to donald trump as a political force, it's this d.a. among everyone in america, including jack smith who has done a strong case and has a strategy and i think it has to do with speed, a federal case, but this d.a. who said, took these 18 other people, if you try to use racketeering and gang activity to illegally steal an election, you're in trouble. and even if donald trump would be president again, these cases would be open, even if they take a long time. there's no legal federal way to stop that. so i think we are witnessing, again, there's the trump of it, and we watch him get booked and that's a huge deal for that reason. and then there's the 18 other people who until this week were not booked for anything. >> and by the way, i think the other way that this d.a., and i think she does stand out in the history of all this, because she charged them all, and she said, i don't care who you are, mr. chesebro, i don't care who you are, mr. meadows. you were a former congressman, the chief of staff to the president. that's real cute. you're going to come down here, walk in that jail just like any other person accused of being a criminal in my jurisdiction. you're going to get that mugshot. meadows tried real hard not to get the mugshot. everybody gets the mugshot. >> she won. she's been winning in court. she had to go to court two or three times already and prevailed on the date for chesebro, should he cleave himself off. she proposed october 23rd. the judge today, i think some time between 4:00 and 6:00, ruled in her favor. she's prevailed so far in the meadows case. he wanted to wait until his proceeding to move his case to federal court. she's already, i mean, it's a long, long process, but she's batting 1,000 in front of judges. >> we don't know, you can't tell what's going on inside a prosecution or inside any criminal investigation except for what they say in court, except for what they publicly put out there, which is the way it should be, part of due process, but there was a sense with fani willis' investigation that she was telegraphing a very long time in advance that this was coming and that she was prepared and she described it as imminent a long time before she finally brought the indictment. probably gave people a lot of, like -- what's the definition of imminent. but i think it gave people a lot of boy that cried wolf feeling about this. is it ever going to happen? but part of that may have been that she was getting ready to try the case. not just to start the process of indicting and start the process of motions. because she knew this was going to happen. we're going to talk later on this hour about the other sort of ace in the hole that republicans have given themselves in georgia, a potential way to remove fani willis from this case, something they signaled they're going to try to do as early as october. so that may also be part of why she's thinking about the clock ticking here, and why she may be ready to move faster than anybody else was expecting for all of this process. >> she's absolutely coming to play. there's a hearing on monday in which the same judge that basically dismissed mark meadows' plea to not be arrested is going to rule on whether he can move this out of state court into federal court, and fani willis is calling in brad raffensperger to be a part of that hearing and two other lawyers on the infamous january 2nd call with donald trump. she is amassing her people to make the case that mark meadows was absolutely not functioning in any sort of federal role when he was involved in the whatever we want to call it, the potential racketeering down in georgia and he very much belongs in a state court. you can see just with the speed at which she's called these witnesses to toich in this hearing that's happening on monday, that she's not messing around. >> and by the way -- >> and she has it locked and ready to go. >> and most of the people who have come in have bonded out immediately and get their mugshots and they're all over social media. one guy did not bond out immediately. his name is harrison floyd. he is the blacks for trump guy, he lives in maryland. he was part of the ruby freeman part of the scheme. he, it turns out per "the washington post," turns up in the jack smith case as well, and there was an attempt to serve a warrant -- or a subpoena to him, and he allegedly assaulted the officer, so he actually did not get a bond agreement. these cases are intersecting in a lot of interesting ways. he's going to have to spend more time in that notorious jail in fulton county, because he could not bond out because he's got another case that is the now surprise, he's also figuring into jack smith's case. >> he was subpoenaed to testify to the grand jury in the january 6th federal grand jury meeting in d.c. the subpoena serving went very poorly. he was arrested that day, actually, in february i believe, but then hoe was federally charged in maryland in may. so he's got pending federal charges against him for allegedly assaulting those fbi officers. and so i think that made it very unlikely that anybody was going to offer him a bond deal. he did not negotiate -- he did not successfully negotiate for one, but we don't know how long he'll be staying in the fulton county jail. what we're looking at here is a live shot. this is a little weird, but what isn't? this is a live shot from the motorcade. you can see that this is -- there should be a lot more traffic traveling through this part of atlanta this part of day, but they have cleared the roads. they have the overpasses blocked off as well. and this is trump's motorcade heading from the airport to downtown atlanta to go to the fulton county jail. while we're looking at this shot, i would like to get a little expert advice here from robert james, the former district attorney from dekalb county. now a criminal defense attorney. thanks for being with us for this live coverage. >> thank you for having me. >> can you explain to us and forgive those of us who aren't lawyered and don't know this stuff even at a basic level, but what is entailed by the booking process and how the bail part works. i feel like i'm still not totally clear on why a $200,000 bail means you only have to put up one-tenth of that, only $20,000. >> sure, so let's start with the booking process. the booking process is, you know, look, it's very simple, it's very plain, no ceremony. he's going to walk into a booking area, a small room. he'll be fingerprinted, most likely going to be electronic. then pursant to georgia law, there will be a mugshot taken. after that, i expect he'll be released soon thereafter. not like it is normally when a person gets arrested off the street and they have to go sit in a jail cell for six, seven, eight, ten hours or maybe even a day and a half or two days before they see a judge. in this case, the bond has been preset, so they're going post bond, the bondsman is going to be there, and he'll get out, you know, he's going to be released right away. a bit of a revolving door as it were. >> can i interject for a second to ask you about the role of the bondsman? again, for those of us who don't cover this type of criminal law on the regular, why is a private business, a bail bondsman, involved in this for somebody -- for a defendant like president trump? >> sure, so there are a couple ways you can, you know, get out you can pay a cash bond, which means you can take $200,000 in cash and give it to the court and they'll hold it to insure your return. you can put property up, and if you don't return, that property is taken. or you can use a bondsman. and that bondsman essentially goes and pays the $200,000 and you pay that bondsman a percentage of it. typically, it's between 10% and 13% of the amount of the bond. and that's for the bondsman to put the money up as a security as it were to make sure that you return if you're a criminal defendant to court. >> is there any reason why we should be surprised that mr. trump is using a bondsman rather than just using some of his own money? >> it's routine. you know, it's normal. not many people unless they have a cash-only bond, at least in georgia, even if they are wealthy, come in and just tie up $200,000 of their own money. so i don't know if there's anything unusual about it. it's sort of surreal that it's him and that he's doing it, but in terms of the process, it's normal. >> can i also ask you about something we were discussing earlier? which is the decision that i think surprised a lot of people today, after one of the codefendants asked for -- invoked his right to a speedy trial, district attorney fani willis said i'm ready to go, 60 days, i'm ready to try all 19 defendants. that struck i think a lot of people as very soon, and also a very crowded courtroom. you're a real expert on these matters and a former practitioner yourself. what did you make of that today? >> well, you better be careful what you ask for because you just may get it. right? this is a stunt that defense lawyers pull on prosecutors all the time, and they ask for speedy trials, and oftentimes they'll catch the prosecutor unprepared, and it will benefit the defense attorney. however, in a high-profile case like this where d.a. willis took a year or two in this investigation, you know, look, when she indicted this case, she was ready to go. if you're not ready to go, then you shouldn't indict a case like this. so you know, the defense lawyer and the defendant that asked for the speedy trial, they're the ones at a significant disadvantage because they're going to have to go through god knows how much evidence in a very short of time to be ready for trial. >> in terms of the sort of servability and whether or not all 19 defendants will be in the courtroom at the same time, we have seen indication from president trump's new lawyer today in a filing that he does not, if kenneth chesebro wants to be tried that fast, then trump doesn't want to be tried alongside him. am i right in surmising it's all up to the judge whether or not the cases are separated from one another or whether in fact they're kept in tact as a group of 19? >> look, it is up to the judge. that's correct, and there will be motions to sever. i would be shocked if anyone else asked for a trial in october. discovery or the state's file is not turned over until after the arraignment calendar in georgia. and they have even longer by law, they being the state, so they're asking for a speedy trial, and they haven't even see the state's filing. look, defense lawyers are going to ask for this case to be severed, and i expect the judge will grant that request. >> robert james, former district attorney for dekalb county, georgia. invaluable to have you with us tonight. thank you. thank you for talking to us. >> thank you. we continue to watch this live image of the motorcade, secret service motorcade for former president donald trump, as he speeds from the atlanta airport to the fulton county jail. no matter how many times you say it, it doesn't get less weird. this is happening. he had to be there before noon tomorrow, he chose now to surrender, to be fingerprinted, have his mugshot taken, and to start the process that will next result in his arraignment in probably a week and a half or so. joining us is vaughn hillyard, who is outside the fulton county jail in atlanta for us tonight, as the president's motorcade approaches. vaughn, what's the scene where you are, what's it like there now? >> reporter: right, we're expecting, i'm watching the same footage you are. we're expecting him to arrive any minute. i'll have our great photog show you the scene, we're on jefferson street, outside the fulton county jail where the streets, there is a perimeter that has been set up around this facility. typically, the jail is open for 24 hours. but over the course of these hours in which the former president was expected, they have put this facility here on lockdown. to give you an idea, i talked to a gentleman yesterday, late yesterday evening. he walked out of jail and told me, i saw rudy giuliani. he said, as he put it, he was in the slammer with 40 other individuals when the former new york city mayor walked by through the booking process. this is exactly what we expect donald trump to go through himself. we also expect that mugshot to be taken. the sheriff here in fulton county has not suggested otherwise at this point. this is really the beginning of donald trump's georgia journey. at least the legal one. just today, he brought on a new attorney, ousting his previous attorney, drew findling, who had been working for more than a year on building what would amount to his potential defense in the case of an indictment. but today, he brought on this new attorney, donald trump has made it clear he wants this trial to begin after the 2024 election. but one of his codefendants, chesebro, kenneth chesebro, filed a motion today which was approved by the judge to have his trial begin on october 23rd. really showing the fact that these codefendants are at odds about their way forward in the trial. when you guys were talking about the money of his campaign here, i think it's notable there was a last moment email sent out earlier in which donald trump told his supporters over email and also text message, this is my last email. let us watch this scene unfold as the motorcade of donald trump here pulls up along jefferson street in the heart of atlanta. this is the former president's motorcade pulling into the facility here. this may be the exact opposite of a pride parade if i have ever been to one. >> my culture reference point is called dikes on bikes, the start of the pride parade, you know things will get fun. this is a different feeling, but similar number of wheels. >> we have rendered vaughn speechless. >> one thing we're looking at, and vaughn will pipe back in, but one thing we're looking at is the two sides at issue in the alleged coup. and in today's proceeding, that you do have federal law enforcement involved in the protection of a former president. most people do not. he's what we call a protectee for life. that he did have people who were able to respond to lawful orders while president. this continues now. this is -- i knew we were going to watch this tonight, but i'm almost seeing it like this, it's really surreal because it physically shows the combining of the two arms of authority here. this is a federal authority protecting the former president. and the state authority that is booking him as a defendant, with rights, but as a defendant who could be convicted and forceally incarcerated if convicted. we're seeing both of these things in the motorcade entering. >> a striking image. you can see the jail itself, recognizable to all of us who have ever driven past the urban jail. you see that at the top of your screen there as the motorcade pulls into the parking lot which has presumably be cleared for this moment. we do expect we may see the former president exit the vehicle and walk into the jail. actually, forgive me. in the center of your screen there, that's a sort of sally port, so a covered area. so presumably, he will enter through there, which means we may not see him physically get out of the vehicle. we'll have to see in terms of how this goes. >> can i say something about his pathetic email? it's not an innocent man walking into jail. you know, it depends on the forum. that's a fund-raising pitch to pay for the gas to get the campaign grifter plane home. he is not denying the conduct. he does not deny the greatness of january 6th. i mean, this is about exploiting and endangering his own base of support. it's about using them to pay for a defense for crimes he doesn't even deny committing. the whole thing is a scam. >> there has not been a defense mounted either by him or by any of his republican supporters. >> or lawyers. >> based on -- >> well, findling has said he -- he told ari he didn't commit any crimes. i think that's the only time i have heard anybody say that in the context of this case. the defense is not he didn't do it. the defense is he should not be charged no matter what he did. that what he did shouldn't be charged as a crime. despite premma fasciae what he admits to in terms of his behavior. let's just underscore what this moment -- this is the county jail in fulton county, georgia. which is a jail that is under federal civil rights investigation. it is a notorious jail. there have been horrific deaths in custody there, including a recent one, a high-profile one of a prisoner, i don't like the term inmate for complicated reasons. but a prisoner who was found on the psych ward effectively, inside the fulton county jail, dead and with a terrible insect infestation. this is a facility that is decrepit and the fulton county, georgia, sheriff has asked for $2 billion effectively to build an entirely new facility because this place is such a disgrace and it's so dangerous. donald trump is likely to have a very quick pass through in his experience there, but that is the facility that he is in. and they did not put him somewhere tidier for this part of the process. and that itself says a lot about what it means to be subject to the criminal justice system and treated like a citizen rather than a vip. >> the point you were making, just to amplify it, it is actually kind of remarkable to wamp a former president have to submit to state authority. have to submit to, you know, it is sort of a federalist kind of triumph that no matter how high you are, no matter what sort of rung of power you achieve, and he achieved the highest one in american politics, in the end, you're just a citizen and you have to go through the fithy jail if you're accused of a crime. >> you're a citizen. we're looking back and forth at the shot rachel was describing and inside the other pool from inside one of the vehicles. sometimes people ask us what's going to happen in the future. is he going to be convicted? i always say i don't know. i can tell you to rachel's point earlier, i know about past rico cases. they almost always involve some pleas and some convictions among the group. i cannot tell you the future. but it is rare to have a rico case in this district or any other where there's 19 people and zero are convicted. so that goes to that collective accountability. one question we might all have is what's going through this rico defendant's mind, donald trump as he walked in there. i'm not aware of reporting on that, but i'll tell you this. i don't usually talk about the bookings i used to do, but when i worked at manhattan public defenders, you go into that booking room. i don't care who you are or how tough you are, whether some people feel they're tough because they have been there before or known people who go there or they're from a higher station in life and they think tat station will ultimately in the end bail them out, i gotta tell you all, just thinking about this right now. i haven't seen a booking where people didn't look scared for a minute, sometimes they cover it up, sometimes it comes and goes. in my past experience, i can't tell you what he's thinking, it is a scary process because the physicality of it is those people through that process are very aware that the jail is over there, the bailiff is over there, people with weapons are in charge. the judge feels way more powerful flanked by the people with weapons. and you start imagining even for a second what if this was your long-term reality. >> and i was actually commenting the last thing he thinks donald trump thinks of before he goes to bed at night is the clang of the jail cell door shutting behind him. i just do wonder what happens, because as you point out, this is the state protecting the integrity of its elections. but when you look at the severability of this and the fact that chesebro is going to go first and likely this is going to come apart into different pieces, i do wonder if we're not ultimately going to be turning our eyes to washington, d.c. to the supreme court, because i think donald trump is going to do everything in his power to push this as far as he can. and you know, there are going to be real questions about federal versus state, depending on what happens in the next election. there are a lot of open questions about whether conclusion will be seen anytime soon. but man, it is a real stress test of democracy to see federal protection and state protection intersecting in this particular moment. >> the pool reporter who is with the former president as the process is happening has just confirmed donald trump is inside the fulton county jail now. we saw his motorcade arrive at the jail. we surmised he had gone in. he's in the vehicle that we believe he was in, we think is under that covered portion of the entrance at the jail, so we can't see it directly, but confirmed he is out of the vehicle and inside the jail now, which means in all likelihood, the booking process is under way as we speak. ari, to a point you were making about seeing this visual, about seeing a federal -- a lifelong federal protectee of the secret service brought to state authorities for his bodily surrender, he's now in state custody. as a criminal defendant in the state of georgia. one of the other things we may ultimately get to here is the question of whether or not his secret service protection itself means that even if he's convicted and sentenced to jail, they won't put him in yale. they'll say the secret service believes you can't be adequately protected in a prison so you're going to serve your term in house arrest or some modified -- >> it's very possible. >> modified custody that that is effectively a downstream from his status as a federal protectee. that's absolutely untested territory. it may be something that makes even the prospect of prison time, a prison sentence, a tolerable outcome for donald trump in terms of thinking about what he's willing to stand. >> i would say two things. one, the precedent under american law are not good for defendant trump there because governors who are the chief executive of their state, although they don't have as you precisely pointed out, necessarily the lifelong protection, governors oversee sometimes the attorney general and definitely the chief law enforcement officer, and when convicted, most of them have wound up as democrat rod blagojevich did, in prison. there are extra measures taken. tucker was asking donald trump about jeffrey epstein, who had -- who did die in a prison. there were measures taken. i use that as a recent example. there were measures taken for extra protection. either you can have a federal facility created for him, you could have a solo scenario where he's alone and therefore not in the general pool population and the secret service agents take shifts to be around him. they in effect become his guards, or you could have home confinement. >> i should mention officially as of now, donald trump is under arrest in the state of georgia. we had confirmation earlier that he had entered the yale, and as of right now, former president trump is in custody. he has been arrested. landmark moment and as i said before, for all the worst reasons. >> i just happen to have been with somebody earlier today who actually knows donald trump. we were talking about this very thing, the thing you were talking about, how he must feel. isn't a close friend but knows him. and you know, said to me that he's a much better actor than people give him credit for. that he actually is good at portraying a kind of bravado that to the point chris christie made isn't necessarily real. he is somebody who when i was researching the book i did on him, the people who know him will say that what donald trump has always benefitted from is stronger men that can protect him. whether it was his father or whether it was an attorney, you know, whether it was michael cohen, he always had a bulldog. and they did the fighting. he didn't even like firing people, for all his you're fired being his thing, he didn't fire anyone. the producers decided who got fired and he would say the words, you're fired. he's good at delivering the line, but he isn't good at actually doing the thing, firing people. he even hesitated with jeff sessions. >> he never fired mueller. this is so important and so true. and i think the other part of it is how afraid he was when michael cohen became ensnared criminally, because he knows the people who have protected him have all the goods on him, and the reason he's always -- i think people close to him describe it as a fetish for roy cohn. he spent his whole time as president looking for an taerg that was more like roy cohn. he has always seen himself as criminally exposed enough to need roy cohn. >> what did bill barr do for him when it came to michael cohen? he reincarcerated him for the offense of insisting on writing a book that trump was afraid would expose him. so barr did his roy cohn for him. >> go ahead. >> i was going to say, we believe this process may be coming to a close. again, what we have just seen is that we have seen trump's motorcade has arrived at the fulton county jail. we had confirmation he had entered the jail, he was arrested and in custody. we now have confirmation that he has been released. so this is a brief period of custody. he was in fact under arrest. he is now released on his own recognizance. we know the terms of his bail. he's posted $200,000 bond. we believe that with the help of a bail bondsman, he had to put up $20,000 cash to that bondsman and he will put up the remainder to insure he doesn't flee. donald trump has on social media sort of joking about fleeing to russia. >> not a great time. not a great time. >> like making a bomb threat in an airport. >> if i can quote rachel on a big news night, when we live through this whole era, you always said watch what they do, not what they say. and he can joke about being above the system. we'll see what face he makes if there's a mugshot. he can do all the theatrics joy was talking about and we'll cover and fact check it, but the act is to go down to georgia by the deadline, and the reason is if he waited past tomorrow, the d.a. said she would send the police to apprehend him, and he understands the the secret service will not interfere with a standing lawful arrest warrant. they would step aside and he would be taken in the back of a cop car or perhaps a flight, but however the distance back, and so watch what they do. what he is doing as i think we're really seeing, kind of hitting me in the moment. he is, again, in the physical and legal sense, surrendering. >> submitting. >> and submitting to the power of this d.a. and this process while he says and does a lot of other things. >> that's your first point, that he's not in control. he is going to act like he is. he's acting like hugo chavez, but he's not. this is not on his timeline, not his venue, not his lighting i'm sure, unless he carried a ring light with him. this is not produced -- we'll see. tbd. >> nicolle, you played the video of him saying, you know, when people do than arrest, when he's at his rally. you played it on your show. don't be gentle. don't be gentle putting them in the cop car. rough them up. >> isn't that the irony of all this in the law and order party. giuliani who spent years perp walking people in the new york city streets, claiming so incensed yesterday about the fact that he would have to -- that he was going to be part of the ignobility of the perp walk and the mugshot and the party of law and order that is now attacking prosecutors and our system of justice and the party of law and order that, you know, is trying to defund the fbi and defund the special counsel's office. the irony is just so thick. >> i think given how unprecedented and how unusual all of this is, it's worth taking a moment to think about the things that didn't happen. he didn't flee. he didn't decide he was going to have a standoff between federal and state law enforcement. when he was first indicted it was another state indictment, it was in new york. and he was at mar-a-lago at the time, where believe, and ron desantis, governor ron desantis came out and said, florida law enforcement will not facilitate any extradition request. setting the table so that if trump wanted to not voluntarily surrender to the first indictment in new york, donald trump was going to be barricaded add mar-a-lago while florida law enforcement would be protecting him. that could have -- this is crazy, but we could have been at crazy times x. >> totally. >> we haven't seen that. and that's worth, i think, it's worth noting where we are, keeping perspective on that. i would also just say, and this may seem like a small point, but had it gone the other way, it would mean something very different. this is a very orderly scene. i think those are three sheriff's department buses that are pulled up in front of the sally port essentially to create a smaller corridor and also to block the view, also presumably for security. they had this planned out. the motorcade had a clear run from the airport to the sheriff's department. you saw they had cleared the streets. there were, you know, not a ton of protesters but several dozen protesters around and some people on both sides and lots of media around at the fulton count a jail today. you're not seeing disorder around this. i was worried about that. when we saw rudy giuliani yesterday, the day before yesterday? yesterday. when he turned himself in and then tried to make remarks to reporters, and there was a physical crush around him and chaos, that is not at all an entertaining thing to see and there's no justice in that for anybody. that was not good, and it did not bode well for this much higher stakes moment. >> what you're describing requires a lot of communication. i mean, it doesn't just happen that they were talking all, day every day. trump has advanced people. they were talking around the clock to fani willis's team. >> and fani willis made public facing statements to the authorities in fulton county about making sure there weren't other trials in the courtroom. talking about the court staff and district attorney staff working from home, setting up a timeframe well in advance so they could do this planning. when we saw that screamer on giuliani yesterday i was worried i was worried that they had not planned well. but they have clearly planned well. it's an important political part of the process. this is law and order. this is the orderly, calm, bloodless, efficient prosecution of the law in a situation where the president is not in control but is nevertheless is being treated in accordance with due process as any american has as the right. >> it is important to note that that happened despite the fact that as we have all been covering, the atmospherics before today have been deeply disturbing. the kind of messages that fani willis has been getting, the threats that her staff have been getting, the threats that everyone involved in this have been enduring have been terrifying. those barricades have been up for weeks in front of the courthouse. they have been preparing. trump has been all but calling for civil war. he has not gotten any of it. he's calling for massive protest, massive resistance, and all the rest. it hasn't happened. the atmospheric leading to today, it's a relief to see that it is calm. because it has been so ugly and frightening. >> i was surprised when he used one of his social media accounts to re-post a call for protest today. somebody who said they were going to be traveling from out to atlanta, to fulton county today, and they gave the actual address, the street address of the jail. trump re-posted that himself, effectively calling on people to turn out and protest for him in fulton county, which you might expect would have a big effect on his followers, particularly the way he has attacked fani willis and the prosecution and the number of people prosecuted alongside him. the turnout, again, was none to say the least. he is not able to turn out people on the street to defend him. that doesn't mean we haven't seen people so doing other things. a lot of people were arrested. a few instances of violence where people say they are acting in his name or out of anger in terms of the way he's being treated. but in terms of him threatening to make the streets run with blood or to see that the biggest protests america has ever seen, america's gonna be sorry of the criminal justice system is ever brought to bear against him, he talked that game but he has not been able to walk that walk. >> you have to give mark garland's justice department some credit. i watched the testimony or the jarry six collapse like committee, hearing and seeing the accountability that the insurrectionists have had to face is not enough until everyone at the top of the chain faces accountability. but there are a lot of trump supporters in jail or awaiting sentencing for their roles in the insurrection. >> also people, i think, have followed this and see there is consequence and the proud boys, the militias, the so-called tough talk, a lot of people are in a lot of trouble. we talked about it last night. the potential nominee, donald trump, the defendant, is in a lot of trouble. these other codefendants are in a lot of trouble. so it is one thing to play games on the internet or even to go to one or two rallies and dabble in what you think is trolling the other side. it's another thing to gamble your whole life. and since the doj started its thing, we talked about that, the physical trespassing and worse, insurrection that day, that was one piece, those are the troops, we saw less of the shock troops style, and as joy and i were discussing tonight, the codefendants are getting hit for the first time. giuliani's pretty famous. meadows is a known figure in the tea party, sort of maga world. eastman and others maybe a little less so. these are big mugshots. they're going around the country. people understand. then you have jan ellis, as rachel reported, we're not even being funded, which creates the notion of a fissure, then you have the legal precedent which is large-scale rico cases usually involve some convictions. so we all understand why it's so significant to watch here, this rico defendant donald trump get his booking, the fact that people understand and know that there is, shall we say, consequence and likely more on the way, i think it definitely chills, or, as former prosecutor giuliani would say when he brought do rico cases, that it deters crime. >> we do have confirmation here. as you see on your screen, the former president did have a mugshot taken inside the jail. you see the motorcade start to move here. trump has been taken into custody and released in fulton county, georgia. this is his federal motorcade, secret service protection and an inordinate number of motorcycle escorts. good for him. he is leaving the fulton county jail here. these are live images that you are watching, that we are watching along with you. see, there is the start of the parade. we do not know when we will have access to the presidents mugshot, but we do expect that that will be released alongside the ones that we were describing, for these other high-profile figures. our friend chris hayes joins us at the table. chris, as we watch this live shot, i have to ask, what seems, what do you think is memorable at this moment? >> what ari was saying before, there's a few things going on. there's the story all it eta it. there's the strangeness of this be a thing we get together and do every few weeks, which is bizarre. also to your point of the protests, attenuates a little bit the desire to go. maybe we'll get the one in september. [laughter] i think ari, the point you made is important. trump, i don't want to collect joe is the guy, but i think he has a unique ability, i think it's largely a silvio pash vic impulse, he's never going to face -- i think he lives in a world where, i was talking to someone about this. just thinking for myself, if i woke up tomorrow, you've just been indicted, criminally, in fulton county, i would be like freaked the hell out. i would be, it would be the worst day of my life. i would be super scared and upset, and i would be worried about paying for a lawyer, worried about what was gonna happen to my kids and my family. all of that feels weirdly remote because of the strangest of trump and because he kind of, like, the road runner floats above the cliff without falling. but to the jen ellis of the world, you've got to have some pretty dark nights of the sole getting booked in fulton county and then looking at like you're not gonna be president and you're not gonna get out of this. he might have some scheme to get out of it, but you, jen ellis and the rest are not getting out of it. the reality really sets in as you watch him go in with his big feelings and how different that is than julie rudy giuliani the other day and everyone else. >> and one of his codefendants, it should be noted, is not getting out. has been booked and is in the fulton county jail. we do not know how long harrison floyd will be held in jail, but he did not negotiate a bond agreement. he has another federal charge against him for allegedly attacking the fbi agents. at least one of them is not getting out of jail already. and there are 18 folks who are charged alongside trump. >> trump knows how he was treated before he was president. he was notoriously bitter about what he thought was mistreatment and disrespect in new york circles. he was notoriously upset about being completely lampooned and laughed at at a white house correspondents gathering. and, as nikole and others have documented -- >> by obama. >> by obama, and how the republicans treated him. don trump knows in his fiber of his aggrieved being that if he loses the presidential election, he goes back to a lower place in many ways in 2015. you could say, he saw all this narcy national hard-core fans, but all the republicans who once spoke openly against him, are now ready again. i'm not predicting, i'm saying in that hypothetical. so he knows how that goes down. he also has always had a keen sense of legal peril. his obsession about it has actually made him a harder person to pursue. but again, not to over this type of interview, but i watched it in prep. he was naming off the individual names of u.s. attorneys, of the inspector general of the justice department, is as you have to look at what horowitz found. he is well versed in the legal things that bring him peril. i think in georgia he is well versed in threat. >> one of the interesting things in these shots, i should reiterate that this is live footage footage, which is why you sometimes see signal loss and other glitches, but with these views, both from the motorcade and from overhead, one of the things, i mean, one of the things that's interesting is that this is atlanta. this is driving through neighborhoods. this is not some all just highways are closed off from him. and you see these tiny smatterings of people. we saw i think one person holding a trump banner. is he a lot of neighborhood folks watching it go by, having this happen in their neighborhood. you are not seeing the streets teeming with anything or the country being turned inside out. this is a traffic anomaly in atlanta. but this is not some sort of end of the world. lots of other countries, lots of other advanced democracies that we think of as pure nations, have gone through the process of prosecuting presidents and prime ministers and first ministers. politics doesn't and,