ringleaders get a free pass. >> then, the anatomy of a collapse. >> we've become a party of losers at the end of the day. >> rebecca -- on the ongoing rejection of abortion restrictions across the country. >> across the state, we are going to bed knowing that we own our own bodies. >> plus, what is joe manchin's announcement means for the effort to defeat trump. >> i don't think that democracy as we know it will withstand another trump administration. >> and is israel announces intermittent pauses in their strikes, the -- on what we know about what is happening in gaza. when all in starts, right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. good big development today. the case of the fallen off the radar over the past few months. special counsel jack smith's federal election interference case against donald trump. even as the ex president dries to wriggle and bully his way out of accountability for his various misdeeds, to lash out at the judge, the prosecutors, special counsel's office is looking to bring some justice and hold trump accountable for attempting to overthrow the 2020 election by making the insurrection the key focus of their federal criminal case against him. politically, i think, and i don't think i'm seeing anything profound here, that is not great for trump. remember, january 6th was both the lowest point of his presidency and substantively and more old terms and also politically in terms of political popular opinion. it looks like voters will be reminded of that dark moment in american history in the lead up to next year's election. right now it is not exactly front of mind for voters. in fact, donald trump in general is not front of mind for voters. his strategy, whether intentional or not, he has sort of backed into it since he left office, has been to kind of silo i'm selves off in a maga bubble. the people around donald trump understand that he is unpopular, that the more voters see of him the less they like him. he's no longer on twitter or x, or whatever it is called these days, instead he preaches to the choir on his own social media platform. he is increasingly unhinged at rallies. not just unhinged, he seems confused. he warned about a starting world war ii. those are really only carried live by the most die hard maga networks, so a lot of people aren't seeing those. he skipped last night's republican primary debate, like he skipped the two before. in that time trump has only increased his lead over the republican primary field, without ever showing up. so why would he show up? republican primary voters want trump and they are keyed into his closed of media ecosystem. i don't think the same could be said for the average american voter, though. the news cycle his crowded trump out of it, particularly in the wake of a war in the middle east. but in the background, day by day, we are heading towards what we will be one of the most consequential trials in american history, and the biggest political event in the century. donald trump's role in the attempted coup. to that and, today, we have new reporting that gives us an idea of how donald trump might face justice for the most egregious of his crimes. according to a new court filing, smith's prosecutors are looking to make the case that trump's various criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, quote, culminated and converged when, on january 6th, the defendant attempted to obstruct and prevent congressional rtication at the capitol. as my next guest reports, smith's officeis effectively casting, quote, casting trump as one of the 1200 plus riot defendants who have already been charged. in other words, when trump goes to trial next year, he will be treated the same as the hundreds of rioters who stormed the capitol, assaulting police officers and trying to overthrow the results of a free and fair election. smith's seen team seeks to highlight the actions of the to the jury through testimony, photographing, geolocation evidence, establishing that many of the defendants supporters responded insurrection on january 6th. that's right. testimony. so smith's team is apparently planning on having some general six insurrectionists testify against trump at trial to make the case that, yes, it was that guy, obviously, the ex president, the one whose name was emblazoned on our hats and on our science and our gear who told us to go to capital, remember that? guy the guy who is there sitting at the defendants table in the trial? that guy is the one responsible for the riot. that's the guy who convinced me, us, to storm the capitol through his words and actions. so next year, one on trump goes to trial, just one day before super tuesday primary, jack smith gets his way, jurors, by extension, voters, will not only be reminded of the lengths donald trump will go to in order to an american democracy, they will be told that he is no different. the hundreds of people already found guilty for their role in his attempted coup. kyle cheney's is senior legal affairs reporter for politico, reporting on jack smith's court filing, and he joins me now. kyle, just this is all working off the filing from the special prosecutor's office. what is the filing? why didn't have to be filed? and what does it say? >> to everything you just said, donald trump is basically arguing, jack smith,'s team, they shouldn't even mentioned the riot at the trial, in their filings. it's in the indictment kind of glancingly. we should strike that out of the indictment because i'm not charge plunged with the violence that occurred in the capital. a reasonable argument that maybe jack smith wasn't going to feature that at the trial, but jackson with made the opening statement where he will reference the violence we weren't sure what was gonna happen with that in the course of these proceedings. jack smith did tip is. and he said not only are we going to mention the violence at trial, we are going to focus on. it we will make it a feature of the trial. we will show how it occurred there, the danger, the threat to democracy, the violence, the attacks on police, were inspired by, stopped by, and allowed to occur by donald trump himself. >> so it's filings back and forth about what can and cannot be addressed in court, right? and i want to read from your piece here. the description of the case he plans lay out was a response mp's demand the mr. chutkan strike references to the riot from the indictment. arguing the charges against him are not related to the riot and references to the attack were inflammatory surplus. this is the first time when we have an uninformative argument made in a court filing by smith's office this is, yes, what happened on that day, the violence of that day, the people that were there on that day, those are intimate parts of the case we are going to bring against the defendant. >> right. this is not just some ancillary part of the story. this is the story. this is donald trump using, not only stoking the riot inflaming it further by attacking mike pence while the violence was going on, he used it to try to continue to obstruct the january six section of congress. he knew what was going on. he didn't intervene. and then he actually use that time to try to call members of congress to continue to try to delay the certification of biden's victory. >> one of the things, i mean, when we were getting reporting from jack smith working on this indictment, whether he would be charged with incitement or insurrection or one of those, he ultimately wasn't under those. but the conspiracy to obstruct a proceeding, which hundreds, a folks who either pleaded or been convicted of, you can't separate that crime from what happened on that day. >> right. little trump is charged with 15 12 seat, a stretch of code of obstruction in an official proceeding, hundreds of january six rioters are charged with the same crime. what chance with the saying that the charge for the same reason. everything about the riot is central to that charge, whether against on trump or against a guy who tried to breakthrough the police lines that day. it was sort of with the same goal in mind, and though they are not coconspirators linked to the crime together, they essentially were operating in parallel. >> this filing comes as an interesting thing developing, where judge chutkan his kept things on the schedule for that march trial date. she has given some latitude to trump in filings farther emotions around different things. contestation of a protective order, some other sort of briefing this happened. but that stuff, as i understand it, now is parallel to a trial schedule that essentially remains locked in for now at least. >> yes. judge chutkan has made one thing clear, that march 4th trial, that is not moving, and it will take something extraordinary for her to move that. she said it will not yield to the election calendar, which to trump's frustration and his lawyers frustration. they keep saying we should just push everything back a little bit to have more time and she is saying, i'll give you a little time with in the window between now and march 4th, but not gonna move that ultimate date. >> all right, kyle cheney without reporting on the briefing the came for the special prosecutor's office for politico. thanks a lot. appreciated. >> thank you. >> now to a former federal prosecutor who served as senior investigative counsel to the jerry six committee. he's a justice reporter and an author of a great new book, sedition hunters, how jarry six broke the justice system. they both join me now. ryan, let me start with you, because you have covered so many of these trials and so many of these cases and a lot of them please and not trials, in which people are playing to or being convicted of climbs along the line of conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding. i'm curious, from that standpoint, how you understand this briefing, and what it means about tying trump together with the dozens if not hundreds of people whose cases you have reported on. >> there's a lot of opportunities for the special counsel's office to look to these other cases, these are the january six cases, and point to the suspect own evidence or the defendants own evidence about what they did was what they did. one of the stories i was referencing in kyle's great piece involving dj rodriguez actually the sort of sucked me into this whole sedition hunters world, the first story i reported out on, and he's the individual who drove a stun gun into officer mike's neck. after some legal filings we ended up getting this video, and it's really remarkable because he sort of explain to the fbi why he did when he did. to him it was obvious. the commander-in-chief was calling him and he needed help. so that's why he went. there he said trump called a. sees almost sort of like a little bit like in front of the fbi yes, trump called. us we were supposed to do this because we thought we were gonna save the country. at some point it snaps and he realizes, it talks about how don this was, they're actually going to be able to overthrow the government on their own and sort of set up this new system. but that's really what this. is it's a number of defendants who have talking about what they did what they did, which it's obvious when you have a bunch people trump hats on, storming the capital because they thought the election was stolen. but that is what the prosecutors are gonna look at and say hey, this is what they said, here's the evidence of, it listen to them say this themselves. with rodriguez, easement someone i would imagine would be willing to cooperate. he's now in prison for 12 and a half years. but the last thing he said when he went out the door to serve that next decade behind bars was, trump won. >> i want to play, actually, a bit of that exchange, that really agree rodriguez had with the fbi. let's take a look at what he had to say. >> how do you get to january six? what else happens in that period of time? >> trump promised -- >> tell me about that. >> how did he let you guys know to come to d.c.? >> if he's the commander-in-chief, the leader of our country, and he's calling for help. i thought he was calling for help. i thought he was [crying] i thought we were doing the right thing. >> you knew this case as well as anyone. you worked on the committee senior counsel. let me just talk about the legal sicknick significance, the back and forth, in the filing by jack smith's office. do you think they are likely to win this particular point in front of judge chutkan? >> yeah, i think they. i think in a legal question, i don't think it's that complicated. judge chutkan is going to throw this to the side i think what's more important is that he's introducing most of the defendants and to the judge the narrative of the case which you want the defendant to be a notice for the para defense. you don't wanna hold their hands too long because that makes the trial less equitable. but i think what is important about this filing is that the concern that i hadn't seen jack smithson done indictment in first is that there is one charge that the jan six committee recommended there wasn't a, or inciting an insurrection. when we look at the georgia case, we look at jack smith indictment, there's a lot of talk about documents and false electors, and he starts to make it sound like a purely political coup. and i think what this filing does, it shows that it was a political coup that was intentionally turned into a violent coup. the former president was at the core of that. it changes the framing. >> that's the interesting thing. let me read from smith's filing. the defendants actions advance of during and following the right demonstrate he did not act unwillingly or in good faith. information about the actions of the capital of which the defendant was well aware there for relevant approving the defendants motive and intent to his statements actions and inaction on regarding the -- >> trying this fake case in front of a jury, that if you're talking fake electors, we're talking, will they sign this document, but that document wasn't real. here's a man on when these people had a meeting. it can sound bloodless and inert. as opposed to violet and dramatic, which is what it was. >> exactly. to get to the former presidents mind, you have to, i think the imagery that will show the what we did at the healy hearings, under an 87 minute hearing that show that while the capitol was under attack the prisoner wasn't trying to stop it, wasn't trying to call people off, he was still trying to subvert the election. that kind of injury and proof of intent is gonna be powerful here. another thing about trump is that he commits crimes in the opener makes them hard to believe. but he publicly told his supporters to come there on the sixth, be there, we'll be wild. he told his supporters to go to the capitol that day. he told them that this was basically the last stand, the fight to go. a lot that is evident is out there in the open, and we don't at times want to believe it because the idea of a former president sending people to attack the capitol is disheartening. i am happy to see that check smith plans to show that to the jury. >> a lot of people have noted, including veterans of the committee on which to work, but the echoes of the case are validation of thwork of your committee, that the words and smiths filings are almost verbatim the case that committee vice chair liz cheney made the channels first hearing. ryan reilly, temidayo aganga-williams, and ryan reilly's book is out, it's a great read. coming up, the democratic most old control of the senate in 2024 takes a major hit. so what is senator joe manchin is planning, and what does it mean for the biden campaign? that's next. that's next. meet the jennifers. each planning their future through the chase mobile app. hellooo new apartment. one bank for now. for later. 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you cashback? chase. make more of what's yours. and long conversation with my family, i believe, in my heart of hearts, that i have accomplished when i set out to do for west virginia. i have made with the toughest decisions of my life and decided i will not be running for reelection to united states senate. but what i will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there isn't interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring americans together. >> democratic senator joe manchin west virginia, a state that donald trump carried by 39 points, says that he will not be running for reelection to senate and west virginia. the surprise news seriously complicate the democrat effort to hold on to the senate majority next year. there are 34 seats up for reelection, only 11 of those are republicans, 20 are democrats, three are held by independents who caucus with democrats. senate republicans reacted to manchin's announcement with a single sentence, quote, we like our odds in west virginia. kind of funny, actually. instead of running for reelection, manchin says he plans to spend next year exploring, quote, if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle. he got a warm welcome into town hall for the no labels group, a third party bipartisan presidential ticket. as well as the -- nothing is off the table. jamelle bouie opinion columnist for the new york times worries written about joe manchin's lawyer political unity in our clashes with the reality of democracy. he joins me. now first there's a sort of top line reaction to this announcement in both its component parts and not running for reelection may be flirting with some sort of presidential -- >> now ready for reelection doesn't surprise me too much. i think manchin probably has the sense that he's not going to wait and reelection, even a chooses to run as an independent, the state has become so republican, so hostile to democratically elected officials. now he might run a t