plus, authoritarian watch, trump and his allies are laying the groundwork for an even more extreme second term. if he wins in 2024. and then, ignoring the will of voters. how republicans are trying to circumvent our democratic institutions to get their results they want. i am ayman mohyeldin, let's get started. donald trump attacks his perceived political enemies almost nonstop. it has become too routine. and breaking just a short time ago he attacked a judge overseeing his civil fraud trial, new york attorney general letitia james. and the law clerk on the case, smearing her by name in a deranged social media post. there was reasonable cause for alarm this week when a new york appeals court pause the gag order that had barred trump and his lawyers from speaking publicly about court staff in that case. just hours after the ruling, trump began attacking george are judge arthur engoron law clerk, calling her a quote, trump hater. -- said it was a partisan attack dog, and a democrat operative. these are, as i said, just part of a much broader escalation of the ex president's attacks on his perceived political enemies. it follows his vowed to target groups he characterized as government in america. -- now, the rhetoric prompted the washington post to describe trump's language as echoing the dictators hitler and mussolini. for the record, a trump campaign spokesperson called the comparison a ridiculous assertion from snowflakes who entire existence will be crushed when president trump returns to the white house. also this week, trump re-posted a social media comment suggesting laetitia james and judge engoron should be put under citizens arrest. this all happened, as i say, just in the last week. it's important to note here, as we have, frankly way too often, that there is an established pattern of action taken by donald trump's followers when he targets his perceived enemies. in the two days after trump posted if you go after me, i am coming after you, on social media back in august, a man from alabama, and a woman in texas sent disturbing, violent threats to both the fulton county district attorney fani willis and her office. donald trump knows his supporters listen to him. but he doesn't stop. on monday, federal peels court will hear oral arguments on the gag order that judge tanya chutkan placed on trump in the federal elections interference case. that gag order also has been paused while the appeal is being considered. in the 67-page document filed this week, special counsel jack smith's team argued that trump's attack in that case were part of a pattern, stretching back years, in which people publicly targeted by the defendant are as a result of the targeting, subject to harassment, threats, and intimidation. prosecutors added that trump is implicitly, but unmistakably encouraging his supporters to act against the very people he targets. now, trump won't stop the attacks on its own, so the courts have an obligation with this mountain of evidence before them to actually make him stop. joining me now are michael steele, an msnbc political analyst, former mc chairman. and former maryland lieutenant governor, christina greer, and moynihan public -- at cc and. why and david henderson, former prosecutor and msnbc contributor. great to have all three of you with us. michael, i will start with you. it is not surprising that trump has gone after judge engoron, or his law clerk. i think anyone in this country would not have bet against him doing it yet again. but talk to us about this danger again, given how we've seen trump supporters reacting to these attacks before. >> it's enormously dangerous. i just, i am shocked that we have allowed this to get this far. i'm just going to use my best analysis that i can give you at this point, on this situation with trump, and the attacks on the judges. put his assets in jail. that's how you ended. that's how it stops. now, yeah, people will be mad, they will be upset. but there is no other person on this planet, certainly not in this country, who would be given the kind of grace that donald trump has been given to run his mouth the way he has. attacking clerks, attacking judges, attacking the prosecutors personally, threatening them. we've shown the evidence when he does that. how his base responds. and so the system is getting pulverized from within by trump, and is being pressed to the up teeth corner that you can go in trying to appeal, appease him, and allow him to be free while he is still behaving this way. so, if he wants to continue in this vein, then use the system the way the system would be used against all of us on the show right now. because you know dang well, any one of us, if we said half of what he said, we would not be on air tonight. we would be in a jail cell. we would be shut down. >> people have been in a jail cell for a lot less i would argue. i was saying, i was saying, people have been in jail for a lot less. >> a lot less. >> for violating gag orders and such. david, speak to that point that michael raise their, that he should be put in jail because of all of the violations. and yet somehow, those two parts to this. there is the constant attempts as a legal strategy to challenge everything that comes out of the court, and just delay, delay, delay. we're now seeing this will take time to play out. at the same time, the real life changer that is being posed to these officers of the court. >> ayman i'll repeat something i told you before, at the end of the day, he's calling their bluff, because he knows that they won't do, it that's why he keeps engaging in this behavior. it is an understatement to say that if anyone threatened a judge, or member of the judges staff, they are leaving that courtroom in handcuffs, period. i've seen people get locked up for far less than this, for violating these types of conditions. this is what it becomes when you don't do that. because legal decisions, when you're actually in a trial, they rest between law and common sense, sometimes it feels like never between they shall meet. this is the legal equivalent of cher noble. i mean you have someone on the ground making decisions, are being second guessed by people in high -- are directly exposed to the problem. as a result, you'll have an explosion, and the aftermath will be just as bad, if not worse than the explosion itself. you have judges who institute a gag order, so they're not only thinking about the first amendment, they're also saying, listen, i am in the courtroom. i see the looks. i hear the exchange is happening at the bench. i say the way people are behaving in the hallway, in council tables, i'm telling you, the situation is going to explode. -- who stop those gag orders because they're saying, well, from an academic point of view, maybe you should have the right to say some of these things. but it brings us back to the first situation, when when you're doing things like endorsing citizens arrest, that's not just complaining about your circumstances. you are inciting people to take action that will lead to violence, when there is an established pattern of having seen it happen before. we have a responsibility to not let this get further out of hand. at this point, we are as much of the problem is he is. >> we're a society that has become complacent to this, and that is the dangerous part of this, christina, because no one has stopped trump before. despite the documented history of his supporters taking action when trump speaks. we have seen it time and time again. and yet, nothing changes. >> no, and we have to remember, donald trump is not new to the courtroom. he has been in or out of courts ever since he's been in our political imagination for decades now. because he's been lying, cheating, stealing, drifting, all across new york, and now it has gone national. i think we need to expand the point. it is not just about speaking out of term against the prosecutorial judges and churches, and clerks. also the attorney general. the racist, sexist comments. and the call to action is actually a called arms. we have seen donald trump incite his supporters. he wants this. he wants to be televised. he wants to make sure, in the court of public opinion, he seen as the hero and victims simultaneously. as was said, the horse has left the barn. it is, so far away from us at this point. because donald trump is now controlling the narrative. he knows that he probably won't be put in jail for contempt in court. so he just keeps pushing the envelope. he has done it with policy, conduct, norms when he was in the office. and now that he's no longer in office, he's doing the same thing in courts all across the country. so i don't know how we put this, dare i say, genie back in the bottle. but i don't know how we retract sort of what donald trump has pushed us into. all that he's excavated, all of the negative vitriolic, sexist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, anti-muslim's enrollments. as he said, in some ways we've become numb or immune to it, which we cannot expect the democratic republic to in any shape or form. >> michael, to david's points about not just threats to the officers of the court, but in jack smith's team in making the argument for reimposing the gag order, they are saying this actually amounts to witness intimidation. so it's not even just about the gag order for the safety of the people, it is actually the assault on the judicial process in our country, that a weakness in his trial will feel intimidated by what donald trump is saying right now. and that could impact whether or not the wheels of justice actually spin as they are supposed to down the road. >> absolutely. what you are seeing is sort of a trifecta of moves all simultaneously. one, the first order is the attack on the judge and the clerks. the second is the attack on the prosecutors, and those who are bringing him to court. those who are bringing these charges against him. and the third is everyone else. that everyone else involves a pool of people who will be called, and brought into a courtroom to serve as judges, or as jurors. and also, the witnesses that may be participating. but more to the jurors, more to finding that one person who in all of the cases would say, no, he's innocent, and throw the whole thing out. so donald trump has been, from the beginning, very much, and i love this idea of his trying to be both the hero, as well as the victim, that is what he is trying to do. he is trying to use the system against itself. and by the time you get into that jury room you will have that one person who is so hell-bent on freeing donald trump, like freeing willie that you wind up with these mistrials, and again, he will be the one who will be saying i told you so. but this i told you so is based on all of the crap he is doing right now. because if the system doesn't clamped down on it, the back end of this looks incredibly ugly. >> mike, i can let you invoke free willie in this. that's a great movie, and that will does not deserve to be compared to donald trump. in any case -- >> fair point. a whale is a whale, so. >> i have to ask david from another point. which is what we heard earlier this week, judge engoron rejecting this attempt by donald trump's team to seek a mistrial. that kind of had me wondering a little bit. the judge, i should say, they were arguing that the judge and his clerk are biased against team trump. is that part of the strategy here, that i can assault this judge of horribly, if i can get under his skin, if i can provoke him to do or say something irrational, i can then use that in my appeal to say, look, look how he talks to me, look how is trying to curve my rights. look how insult me. look how he's voting against me this trial is not being dismissed. >> ayman, i'm inclined to say yes, but i'm not gonna say that i think he's that intentional about the way he goes about this. who i say that, is because i was a prosecutor, especially crimes prosecutor, i've dealt with lots of people who created, to committed acts of domestic violence, similar crimes like sexual assaults. i've seen how people bully and intimidate behave, i'm not willing to say they're always necessarily thinking about what they're doing. but with that in mind, goading a judge under these circumstances, where not only is a judge taking actions, where it's only intended to keep people safe, you're dealing with someone who's going down a hallway, talking about you, talking about people who work with you, you are taking steps to keep people safe as best you can. then you get second best by a higher court that says let's stop this gag order for right now. and who they may in fact overturn it. everyone has a point in which they will break. so yes, i could see that being part of what someone may have in the back of their mind. if a judge snaps and says something, maybe at least kisses freeway, leeway to cause an additional problem that it further comes up the works. >> that's the fear, he can point to, it or's team can point to it, and say the judges bias against me. to your point, i'm not sure donald trump is not part. maybe maniacal, but not that smart on that front. david henderson thank you very much my friend. michael steele, christina greer, think you so much, stick around off the. rake new reporting -- in even more radical dangerous second term. in order for small businesses to thrive, they need to be smart, efficient, savvy. making the most of every opportunity. that's why comcast business is introducing the small business bonus. for a limited time you can get up to a $1000 prepaid card with qualifying internet. yep, $1000. so switch to business internet from the company with the largest fastest reliable network and that powers more businesses than anyone else. learn how you can get $1000 back for your business today. report pulling back the curtain comcast business. powering possibilities. on donald trump's plans for a second term. according to the outlet, the disgraced ex president and his allies are currently spending tens of millions of dollars to prescreen ideologies of thounds of potential footsoldiers, as part of an unprecedented operation to centralize and expand trump's power should he retake the white house. their goal? rip off the restraints imposed on the previous 45 presidents and help trump carry out his radical second term agenda. it is an agenda that is come more into focus over the last few weeks, thanks in part to several bombshell reports from the new york times. , here is just some of what we could expect from a second trump trump presidency. the disgraced ex president wants to use the justice department to carry out his own personal revenge missions, using the power of the federal government to take vengeance on his political adversaries. he also plans to carry out an extreme immigration crackdown, including erecting sprawling camps to hold undocumented detainees. to accomplish these goals, trump and allies are looking to purge career civil servants from the government, and replace them with trump loyalists. they will also want to install more aggressive and ideologically aligned legal gatekeepers throughout the government, who will carry out trump's plans with no questions asked. a second trump presidency truly runs the risk of ending american democracy as we know it. that is not hyperbolic. let us bring back michael steele and christina greer, also joining the conversation -- ruth -- and an expert on authoritarianism. it is great to have you with us. ruth, let me start with this axios report. that this trump allied machine that is beginning to spin has the most power over the formation of a potential future government of any group in u. s. history. just put this reporting into perspective for us. is this effort from the ex president and his allies something that is unprecedented as it seems on the surface? given the fact that our country has not had presidents who have lost and then come back to win reelection? >> yeah, well, you know, trump is an autocrat, not a democrat. what he is doing here is straight out of the history of authoritarianism. it is not just the content of what he wants to do, mask importation,'s mass detentions, and also if you get into it, he says he wants to expand psychiatric institutions, to put people in their. that is what authoritarianism always does. he mentioned jack smith, interlocking, declaring investigator is exactly what authoritarians do. communists in the ussr routinely put dissidents in psychiatric institutions. it's not even just all that, it is the method. because autocrats need a compliant bureaucracy to implement their repression quickly, and so they need a long list of corrupt people who will not have -- conscience. that's what happened the first time, he's learned from that, too many civil servants who actually had ethics. too many lawyers. so this time, he's not making that mistake. and it's like, it's like seeing the corruption chapter of this book come to life. because i wrote about this, that you must have lawless and corrupt people in government in order to have an autocracy. >> you break up such an interesting point ruth, but tell me, you are certainly more of an expert on this than i am, there is a false perception i think in our society, that we have such strong democratic institutions, and we have such strong guardrails that our democracy has survived for 250 plus years, that is sam can't simply be undone in the span of four years by one man and his cohorts. but the truth is, our institutions are vulnerable. they can be co-opted by a handful of people. am i wrong and making that assessment? or do you think our institutions are resilient enough? >> no. no place is immune and perfect in terms of that we had january six because he already did a number of corrupting the gop, and all the other people that contributed to that coup that almost had success. it came far closer than people know. so we are already cry along the way. and he intends to pick up and accelerate indeed everything that he was doing. it -- [inaudible] which leave us by 2026, looking on the road to looking like robots, hungry in ways that americans are not prepared for. >> michael, nbc news is reporting that donatis ve surged two groups linked to 2025, which is seeking to create a government in waiting for the next republican presidential administration. does it worry you the sheer amount of energy and power these conservative groups are putting behind this effort to fill the white house with an army of, in army of yes men who fundamentally are undemocratic? >> yes. it does. in fact actually it does. and it does for a number of reasons. the first being, people need to listen to ruth. they need to read her book. they need to listen to what she is telling us. and what those in this space who are looking at this democracy from the inside out are trying to warn us about. because it is real. these folks, they learned a lot from january six. they are not going to make the same mistakes again. i'm sorry the revolution will not be televised, nor will it appear on facebook. they have learned. they are not going to tweet about it. they are going to create the institutions, and the infrastructure away from your face. away from your prying eyes, so you are caught by surprise as much as possible. groups like this, this project 2025 that are planning, they are raising money. and that money is going to be spent. and it is going to be spent against the american people, against the very institutions you think have been safeguarded against what is about to come. and it hasn't. and it isn't. our institutions are only as strong as we are. and the fact that we have a significant number of americans who are more worried about, you know, the price of gas and inflation, not taking away from the importance of that, but relative to the democracy and the threat that is in front of us, tha