This is the beat. In a moment we have The One And OnlyJames Carville here and hes been making some news lately. But we begin right now with Breaking News. Atlanta d. A. Fani willis has scored her first conviction. A guilty plea in the Georgia Trump Coup rico case. If this sounds new to you, not just Breaking News but a first, it is the first plea deal in that case. That is significant. Were going to get into why. The individual, not that famous. And if youve ever followed any of these kind of cases, you know that you dont always start with the big fish, you work your way up. So this is the whole list of rico defendants. Well leave this on the screen for you. You remember some of them. You remember the mug shots. You see trump and giuliani up high. Some of the lawyers to the right there. Well, down on the bottom you see what this means. The first conviction there of defendant hall, now a convict. This is the first rico conviction. Hes a bail bondsman. He was a trump codefendant. The crimes hereelate to a Voting Systems breach. Five counts of conspiracy to commit interference with election duties. Do you still wish to waive those rights and go forward with this plea . I do, sir. And do you understand that youre Pleading Guilty today because you believe there exists a factual basis that supports the plea . That youre Pleading Guilty because you are in fact guilty. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. This is what it looks like. Now, if youre counting, it is d. A. Willis 1 and the other side zero. That is how this works. You have 19 cases and theyre going to count them all up. Some might be dismissed. Some might be acquitted. We talk about legally presumed innocent. That applies to everyone except mr. Hall, whos now legally guilty, Pleading Guilty, convicted. So were going to be tracking all of this and whether this is the first domino to fall in what could become a very effective rico case in America Or Whether ultimately in the future this turns out to be an aberration, that they got the little guys, so to speak, but not the big guys and gals. Sidney powell, one of the big gals, one of the big important trump lawyers, she goes on trial next month in this same courtroom. Now, hall will serve five years probation, pay 5,000 in a fine and 200 Hours Community service. He will be barred from going anywhere near an election, and that includes the polling booth. Its a big step. And we might be seeing other plea deals. And i say that not as an observation or an analysis but as a report from what were hearing from the prosecutors themselves. They told the judge plural, they expect to be making plural offers. What the defendants do is their own choi. The first trial, as i mentioned, next month. A judge has asked prosecutors about that, are you in a position to make pleas in the future, and Prosecutor Says quite clearly i believe that we can. Meanwhile, trump is not trying to get this case transferred out of this federal into Federal Court and out of the Georgia Court system anymore. And today exdoj official Jeffrey Clark lost his bid to try to get a transfer out of Georgia Courts and into Federal Court. You may recall Donald Trumps top aide during the whole Coup Activity mark meadows he also lost on that point, although he is exercising his right to appeal. Those are the updates. I want to go right out to a prosecutor who has brought cases like this, former sdny chief and i should mention my former boss david kelley. David, this was one of those stories that hit here good to see you. Hit late on a friday. We said oh, my gosh, here we go. First question to you as someone whos wrapped up larger cases than this. Do you sometimes see the smaller obscure plea come early and build to bigger things . Yeah, absolutely. The dominos are undoubtedly going to start falling here. Completely no surprise here. And youre going to you know whats interesting about this particular plea is its most relevant to i think the first trial of Sidney Powell because she is involved in the whole kind of, you know, getting into the Election Process in georgia and so i think this is really relevant. And which also i think the other defendants begin to say geez, if he pleaded hes going to Say Something about me and maybe i dont have such a good chance that i thought i did. So its going to be interesting to see how this unfolds. But no surprise because when you bring in a 19defendant case 19 defendants dont go to trial. Yeah. So you know, its going to keep i think this is the beginning of the this is the first domino. First domino. Do you think that he is getting a type of legal reward for going first as opposed to fighting this all the way had he been convicted of everything and then later sentenced to perhaps something heavier . I think the answers clearly yes. Youre going to reward your cooperators for among other reasons showing contrition. Theyre admitting that they did wrong. And they should be rewarded. Yeah. I want to read a little bit from what we learned about the case against him which as you say is going to be very relevant in october to what i was calling the bigger fish, the bigger guys and gals. Here is the reference here, discussing halls request to assist in a, quote, unlawful breach of election equipment. Overt acts in furtherance of the larger rico conspiracy. How important is it if you bring a case to a jury to have things that feel really concrete . Because you and i and others have talked about the eroding of democracy, the certification on the 6th. Some of those things while i have argued are important id be the first to admit they can sound vague or ephemeral if youre not versed. Going in and trying to actually physically mess with election equipment feels like something that any juror could understand. You nailed it. And you know, the more you can get more concrete for a jury the more they can kind of visualize what youre talking about. The more its going to resonate with them. And when you connect on an issue like that then youre much more likely to be able to connect on bigger, more ephemeral issues as you suggest. And it helps also to build the prosecutors credibility with the jury when they can show things concrete like this and then they can build from there with a more you mentioned ephemeral things. That fit into a conspiracy, Amorphous Type they can come closer to visualizing it because they have the credibility that youve built as a prosecutor, the foundation to get them there. Yeah. Really interesting. So were talking about mr. Hall, who i dont know, do you ever play chess, david . I do. I get beat but i play it. Yeah. Well, i think its fair to say with no disrespect or great observation, and we can put the 19 defendants up there, you know, your king in chess or your queen would be donald trump, who lost the election and was trying to run the board. Then youve got your bishops and your nights to his right, some of those lawyers. I think its fair to say mr. Hall, now the first convict in this case, is a pawn. And so my question to you is what you alluded to earlier. What does it do for prosecutors and of course ultimately the jury to have this pawn, having pled guilty . Basically, there is a crime. One thing i can express to viewers today is that the state of georgia now has at least one crime proven and convicted here in court which they didnt have as of yesterday. What does it do to the case of what im calling those bishops or knights surrounding the queen that you have a convicted pawn . Well, i dont know if youre referring to the former president or Rudy Giuliani as the queen, im not sure theyd accept that. But i do think the first two i think the first two the queen is im only going to intervene to say because i know a lot of people play chess but maybe not everyone. You know i always explain things, david. Queen is the number one on the board. So whether trump likes it, in this analogy hes the queen if he wants to have power. Four that he lost. But go ahead, sir. I think most of that first row is going to go. I think most of the second row, at least three of them will probably go. If i was going to guess in terms of how trials cases like this usually play out. They just youve got to think about what are the odds of me walking out of this with a better deal than if i plead guilty early on . You know, if you just think through what the evidence is and what the climate is, you know, youve got to make some good guesses here as a poker player as to how its going to really work for you. And if youre a Defense Lawyer youre going to say to them, look, theres some really good evidence here and, you know, its not going to work well for you if youre on trial with the guys in the top row because the mud thats going to be flying is going to splash on you. Yeah. Its all fascinating. Im Running Out Of Time with you with a couple other things coming up. My last quick point, dafld, is this a normal speed or does this feel relatively fast to land this when its all kind of been recent . Not fast at all. I think that the time within which this has been first indicted and when its supposed to go to trial, he think this is like normal timing. This is what you would expect. I see the news earlier today and im like oh, big surprise. And i do think youll see more dominos fall. Certainly before the trial. So thats what, ten days away. But i would expect there to be more. And if theyre not its not a big deal. If i was the District Attorney i wouldnt worry about it. Particularly when you get to the trial of Sidney Powell and cheseboro, i think that will give the other defendants to start to see how this plays. And when they see how it plays and if it comes out as we expect it will, i think theyre going to start saying this isnt a good gamble for me. Yeah. Youll likely really interesting. Yeah. And as i remind viewers, sdny is known for finishing cases, not just starting them. So its interesting to get your insights. And i will say, david, i believe we covered chess, dominos, and at one point poker. So weve run the gap ut here of classic games. Well, you know, ari, it is interesting because when you get into stuff that is a bit of a board game. Trying to figure out and you need to think about whats the next move. And you need to be thoughtful about it. And theres a lot of factors that go into it both from the prosecution side and from the defense side. Yeah. And this was a win for the d. A. , the prosecution side today. Well see what comes from it. David kelley, thank you very much. I want to tell folks whats coming up because this is one of those days where were doing a lot. This was big news, obviously. Changes everything. First conviction in the trump rico case. Defendant trump remains legally presumed innocent but this changes things. Theres also talk of a shutdown. You probably heard about that. That could arrive this weekend. We have James Carville on that later. Theres also some interesting stuff coming out now about republicans in the elite circles looking at these debates and seeking some other new trump alternative. I have a special breakdown with lessons from reagan, up ahead. R lessons from reagan, up ahead. But shingrix protects. Proven over 90 effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. Shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. An increased risk of guillainbarre syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. Fainting can also happen. The most common side effects are pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. Ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today. Kind of a political complaint that its not fair that hes treating them and their debate tonight like it doesnt matter. That was the one thing that more than one of them criticized. To our colleague aris point from earlier this evening you would think in hearing todays candidates talk about donald trump that the worst thing he ever did was not appear at this debate tonight. Sometimes rachel says it better than really anyone could. Thats the worst thing . So number one, we have a lot of evidence skipping these debates that people are tuning out of is not the number one issue for voters in this economy with everything going on. And two, i want to share with you tonight there is historical evidence skipping debates used to be a drag on a candidate. Especially when its seen as snubbing, for example, a state or voting bloc. It definitely hurt reagan to skip the des moines debate. Many say its why he plummeted and then fumbled iowa. You see the numbers there. Now, trump is not known as a history buff. And he seemed to repeat that reagan mistake in the same state in 2016. Remember, he then lost the state to ted cruz. It was a memorable error as the times put it for the normally prfocused trump. And he had blustered about skipping other debates but he then changed gears. He participated in New Hampshire and stayed in those remaining debates when he got a lead in that first primary. So this is what i want to talk to you about as we end the week. Trumps running a kind of rose garden strategy without a rose garden. Hes posturing as basically kind of incumbent who views these candidates the same way biden might view a cornel west debate offer, as really not necessary to do. And the polling does back that up. A recent effort even by a conservative group to damage trump, who leads all these others by a lot, found republicans rationalize trump behavior they would oppose in others and theres data on a potential ad that was going to go after trump for the insurrection and it showed according to these conservative critics running that ad actually helped trump, so they didnt even bother. So history can be instructive. But it has limits. Former president s rarely run in primaries. You have to go back to herbert hoover, who tried for his Party Nomination again in 1940, years after he lost the presidency, and lost. So in this modern era of tv and internet and these debates you dont have any examples of this. Direct comparisons are limited. Trump is combining his white house cred on the right with a kind of a Strongman Streak in a party that increasingly welcomes it. And this is where the Political Science meets the kind of ethics and democracy crisis we face as a nation. Because just as donald trump defied democracy in the general election, we all lived through that and there was a conviction around that today, donald trump is not even pretending to value democracy in a party primary. Pull back from the data and Political Science and i leave you with this. His argument out loud, not only to the debates but to the entire gop primary process, is not voters can weigh options, may the best republican win. No. His argument increasingly is donald trump telling republicans hes not only the best but hes the only option. That is a long ways from traditional democracy. Were going to fit in a break. 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Most common side effects are headache, nausea, diarrhea, trouble sleeping, tiredness, and anxiety. Detect this i stay undetectable with fewer medicines. Ask your doctor about switching to dovato. James carville is here. And james, im really excited to get you in on a couple things. Let me show you what weve worked up. A primer on the shutdown. The deadline, just so everybody knows, to make a deal is midnight tomorrow. And it has turned from an attempt to complicate bidens life to republican infighting. Take what happened this afternoon. Gop conservatives defying their own republican speaker, and they tanked what was the speakers funding bill. House republicans publicly blaming each other and casting this as everything from a dumb republican strategy to a destructive republican strategy. Also some of the demands have shifted, which has led to a public criticism that we are going back towards the era of seinfeld with a shutdown about nothing. Some of it looks personal. Matt gaetz, who we recently heard from, clashing with mccarthy, and theres no secret about their personal tensions. And gaetz always threatening to take mccarthys job, not unlike some st of political Lunch Money Issue in the Bullying Halls of congress but one that would affect a lot of peoples lives. We all remember the never kevin efforts in january that led to all those extra votes. Meanwhile, Top RepublicanMitch Mcconnell says shutdowns are losers for the Congr