convicted of 34 felony counts in his new york hush money case, eight republican senators vowed to oppose all biden nominees and all democratic legislation as retribution. today six republican senators led by trump vice presidential short lister jd vance put oppose all nominees into writing. anyone who endorsed trump's guilt, anyone who supported organizations that celebrated the indictment of donald trump, and anyone who supported manhattan s district attorney alvin bragg orn supported law fare or censorship in other ways, which is just vague enough to include basically anyone president biden's nominated. now, these republican senators say their blockade will last until election day, and in practical terms that means the u.s. government will not be able to appoint representatives to thingsep like the u.n. general assembly or the world health organization or even to the not particularly seeming places like the international civil aviation organization and the public buildings reform board. what exactly did any of those organizations have to do with prosecuting donald trump? nothing. this isn't about policy. it is about retribution. you might remember that last year senator tommy tuberville pulled a similar sort of stunt. tuberville became the first u.s. senator in history to do a long-term blockade of u.s. military appointments. senator tuberville kept more than k400 qualified u.s. servi members, 400, from being appointed or promoted for ten months all because of a department of defense abortion policy that had nothing to do with those service members. the blockade was such a blatant misuse of power, it wasn't just democrats who were appalled by this. here were somed of tuberville' fellow republican senators on month nine of his stunt. >> no matter whether you believe it or not, senator tuberville, this is doing great damage to our military. >> this power is extraordinary we're given as individual senators, but it's incumbent upon us to use it in a reasonable way. >> everybody is using holds, i certainly use holds. but the key is you put a hold on someone who typically has some sort of control over the issue you're trying to fix. >> there is notin one senator i here that could not find a reason to object to an administration policy, in the military, none of us. we can all find something. iin just hope we don't do this routinely. >> i just hope we don't do this routinely. does two times count as a routine? because if so, this makes it routine, and this time it isn't about a policy disagreement. it's just so republicans can protest trump being found guilty by a jury of his peers. today we also saw 29 republican senators sign onto this letter disparaging the rule of law and saying agtrump's conviction was nothing sort of the evisceration of the american judicial process. so it is safeca to say that pro now until november the u.s. senate is effectively going to be at a standstill and unable to govern not because of policy disagreements, but so republicans canee perform an ac of retribution on donald trump's behalf. as for the house where republicans actually holdse the majority, well, things are looking even worse. politico isen out with new reporting today sayings that i thert days after trump's conviction, trump t made an f-bb filled call to speaker of the house mike johnson. trump's message to johnson, we have to overturn this. and now a few weeks after that call it looks like speaker johnson's mission is not just to grind the government to a halt like his republican colleagues in the senate, it is to actually use the power of the government to make trump's criminal concerns go away. by way of an example yesterday house republican leaders spent the daybl whipping votes for a bill that would allow presidents charged at the state level to move those cases to federal court. let me just check my notes here. how many presidents have been criminally charged at the state level again? oh, only one. what an interesting use of congressional power. politico also reports that speaker johnson is in talks with house judiciary committee chairman jim jordan about using the appropriations process to target specialap counsel jack smith and to defund his investigation. now, neither of those have the votes to pass which really helps put into context why donald trump went back to capitol hill today. it wasn't for any lusquitimate legislative concern, it was for what republican congressman matt gaetz called a pep rally for president trump, a pep rally complete with p an early birthd party for donald trumpir himsel. >> joining me now are dahlia lithwick. are you surprised that the -- theu pledges of allegiance as they are are so explicit, so undisguised on capitol hill? >> i'm not. i'm notl? surprised by it, righ? this is something we've seen for yearsin now. watching that package, the thing that struck me is that republican are a little bit like parents on an airplane with a crying child, right? they have this source of noise and frustratione and everyone' sickn of it and there's nothin they can do with it. they're stuck on this plane. they've got to figure out how to calm this kid down. and the kid here of course is trump. and he's mad about having bep ben convicted, and mad about the fact he's not in power currently. and mike johnson is like i'll do everything -- that's what you see with thisat demonstration o the mohouse, with this demonstration of the senate. they're all trying to keep him happy, keep him quiet and get through this until november. >> they're terrified of him and they adore him and they must cater to every whim. i do wonder, dahlia, as usee the machinations of the republican conference and the republicans in the senate just openly trying to undermine the rule of law, does it not just throw out the notion of the justice system in america as we watch the legislative branch do itsh wor? >> yeah, i think that's a feature not a bug, right? i think we are seeing a systemized attack on the rule of law. i think even if we hadn't had the conviction in the new york trial, we've seen a long-standing set of attacks on judges, on juries, on, you know, prosecutors, on witnesses. i think the whole zeitgeist here is -- and it's not a surprise this is a sort of classicala authoritarian play is just foment doubt in institutions. and if foment enough doubt in institutions people look lovingly atst the strong man whs going to save them when institutions crumble. so no part of this is new or unfamiliar. i think what's interesting is seeing a lot of republicans who might have at one point, you know, felt hinky about donald trump but stood fast on the principlet that judges and jurs and statutes and the constitution actually have somea meaning, the degree to which they have abandoned that and seen no value in it i think is the part that is new and chilling. >> to that point, philip, the idea they're going to with hold these nominations and confirmations across the government, right, the tuberville blockade wasn't grea politics for the gop, and yet they survived it and they're replicating it on a different level. it's o not the u.s. military an certainly the w.h.o. and u.n. are not favorites of this republican party. but nonetheless they're stymieing the basic work of governance, and they think it's good politics for them? >> i think they do think it's good politics from the standpoint the republican party's political focus at this point is retribution against joe bidenet and putting your finger finger in the face of elites. mitch mcconnell doesn't wake up in the morning to say that's what he wants tong do, but he understands that's what the base is doing. it's mitch mcconnell back in 2016ne holding open the supreme court seat, so we've seen this in the past in the republican party, and it is very anti-institutional, but it is fundamentally but sending a message to the american public that d.c. doesn't do what it's supposed to do, and we need to get trump in there to get these calves to heel. >> to make us do our work again. >> that was the singular focus at least from now until election year. >> i bet republicans are betting their voters won't punish them for this, and this is part of the swamp, partth of the dysfunction of thear capitol. you make an important point in one of your pieces about our normalcy bias, right? americans have a normalcy bias. it leads them to believe anyone who tells them that everything is awesome and that a system is holding -- leadsem them to belie that everything is awesome and a system is holding even if that system is holding together by way of dental floss. you're talking about the system of justice here, but i think it's extended even to our dysfunctional government, people -- because it still exists, because there's still a congress that occasionally passesha laws, people can sort derive dysfunctionality, but they don't thinkal that the u.s democracy is in danger of actually falling apart in the same way they hold up trump's criminal conviction. things aren't normal right now, dahlia. i wonder if you can talk more about your level of panic in this moment. >> i try not to tease the word panic because it makes my parents super scared, alex, but i guess i would just say think about where we were in 2016, what wast deemed disqualifyingn that race. and think about the fact that in the intervening time we have civil juries finding trump guilty of being a sexual abuser. we have these 34 felony convictions. we have january 6th. we have donald trump who ran in 2016 we forget in the fog of memory, but as a family man, as a businessman who's going to drain the swamp, now he's just running as a straight up caughto crat.as he's running under the banner of violence, of suppression of rights, ofpr suppression of speech, of deporting immigrants. this is really scary what's happened, and it seems as though people a are almost less dialle up nowle than they were in 2016 where therapy like, oh, that "access hollywood" tape sounds pretty bad. now every single day you get this drum beat of what i think is really distressing, you know, saying some of the quiet parts out loud about wanting to create a sort of authoritarian state. and i thinkar we've normalized because we want to fill our prescriptions and we're raising our kids and we're tired. i think this normalcy bias allows us to wait until some adult saysti break the glass. i don't know when break the glass happens, alish, but i think what we have metabolized as normal is deeply frightening. >> philip, you write about the way in which republicans were very incensed, pretty incensed about the trump conviction. democrats were notnv pretty incensed about hunter biden's conviction and as a result republicans are up in arms of the trump conviction. what i find staggering in all this the number of people who acknowledge the donald trump was a right call, it's not moving them at all in their support for trump. right, this is new monmouth polling out today. do you agree or disagree with the o jury's verdict finding trp guilty? 47% agree, 34% disagree. and then you look at the numbers of people who are definitely or probablyar supporting each candidate. biden 43, trump 44. the numbers are not moving even in the face of people saying this conviction was the right thing. what does that tell you? >> it tells me two things. first, it tells me we should have expected this from the standpoint even a fifth of trump supporters said they thought he committed the crime. he's done a very etive job of inoculating his base against this. it was inse 2016. as soon as the russia investigation came to the public consciousness, he started saying it's a witch hunt, it's a hoax, it's thet' deep state out to ge me, and that pattern has continued and continued. this indictment, they look at like this is what he had. att some point rational people step back like, well, it's hard to believe the deep state came up with all these different crimes. but they don't thinkl di about . they're like they're all out to get trump. >> calling it inoculation is right ironic of a group of peoplef skeptical of vaccines. dahlia, because we had some breaking news in thehl vein of e abnormal tonight, i want to get your thoughts. clarence thomas, who is a key part of our system of justice and rule of law, found to have three additional undisclosed trips that he took from his billionaire friend harlan crowe. this is news from the judiciary committee in the senate. these are trips he did not disclose. this on top n of the hundreds o thousands if not millions of gifts he has taken thus far and only lately come clean about. what does this tell you about the danger we're in terms of a completely corrupted high court and the lesson it sends to lower courts? >> i mean i think you put this under the bucket of -- and it's the same bucket philip's just been talking about, you know, law is forki suckers. law is for the little guy. you t may have disclosure statutes, you may have ethics rules, you may have all sorts of obligations on the supreme court not to take gifts, but if you take gifts to disclose it. this iso not a surprise. and they're coming out in drips and drabs. last week we got a partial disclosure of some of the trips that were paid for so clarence thomas could go but not all of them, andbu here's three more trips that were never disclosed. so i think this is kind of a piece within this larger trumpy theory, which is we have monarchicha leaders who do not have to answer to the rule of law, and, you know, when the little guy fails to get his death penalty paperwork right, he goes to the death chamber. but when clarence thomas again and again time after time after time doesn't file disclosures or amends disclosures but only partially, that's okay because the lawut is for the little guy. and i find it part of this sort of very, very systemic devaluation of the rules that everyone is supposed to r abide by. and it's a very systemic effort to i think normalize the notion that some people are just too cool and important to follow the rules. >> yeah, everyone is supposed to abide byve the laws especially supreme court justice. dahlia lithwick and philip bump, thank you both for your time and thoughts tonight. really appreciate it. we have much more ahead tonight. do you haveni any summer travel plans, cross-country road trip maybe? today former president trump singled out one, quote, horrible american city that at least he might recommend skipping. but first the supreme court upheld thefi primary drug used most abortions for now, but that doesn't mean the fight is over, not by a long shot. i'll talk to nancy northrop at the center for reproductive rights coming up next. the center for reproductive rights coming up next. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. a slow network is no network for business. that's why more choose comcast business. and now, we're introducing ultimate speed for business —our fastest plans yet. we're up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds... at no additional cost. it's ultimate speed for ultimate business. don't miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! in a unanimous decision today the united states supreme court maintain adaccess to the primary pill used in most abortions, mifepristone. the court rejected a bid to severely restrict access to that drug on procedural grounds. justice brett kavanaugh wrote the plaintiffs a collection of anti-abortion doctors and dentist and unlicensed retirees, calling themselves the alliance for hippocratic medicine, kavanaugh said they had no legal standing to challenge the drug it was fda approval, so this case is dead, but the group of doctors representing this alliance they said they are not done. >> the court said we don't have standing in this case. we're grateful the case will continue with three states hoping to hold them accountable for its actions. >> they're continuing to challenge access to mifepristone using the same legal argument used in the case the court rejected today. this time, though, they're framing access to mifepristone as challenges to state rights. there are still restrictions on this pill at the state level. last month louisiana where abortion is already banned, became the first state to classify both drugs used for medication abortion as controlled, dangerous substances, effectively shutting down access to this pill, both pills through the mail. joining me now is nancy northrop, president and ceo at the center for reproductive rights. nancy, thank you for being here. i'd first sort of like your general reaction to the supreme court ruling today. was it one of optimism, anxiety, pessimism? how did you see it? >> well, it was huge relief because if the supreme court had upheld the ruling of the u.s. court of appeals for the fifth circuit, then availability of medication abortion by telemedicine, receiving it by mail, things have made it much easier for people to get access to medication abortion, if they do not live near a clinic, if they can't take that time off, could have it taken away. so relief but also frankly anger because we shouldn't have been here to begin with. as you can tell by the fact that nine of these justices agreed with each other, this case had absolutely no merit. it had no merit in the law and had no merit in fact. so while breathing a sigh of relief today, really a concern. you just showed us, you just heard it, the campaign against medication abortion by those who are opposed to abortion is far from over. >> yeah, and it seems very clear that the adf, the alliance defending freedom, a legal organization that defended these doctors, is out there ready for the next wave of this, which involves the states. chris kobach said states did not. >> i'm concerned because we have lower court judges who believe in this case they had absolutely no merit and threw it out. you cannot just go into court because udisagree with a ruling based on science by the fda. and let's be clear. why are they going after medication abortion? because it's the method of choice by almost two thirds of women who have abortion in the united states today are choosing medication abortion, and they want to cut that off. they want to cut it off in states where abortion is legal, in states like illinois and new york and california and beyond. so we need to be concerned because trying to keep coming in with the junk science as they did in this case and really baseless claims, they're going to keep ongoing. >> yeah, they can't ban medication abortion in blue states, which obviously is the end goal here, there is a noncourt strategy, which is for states to independently take it upon themselves as louisiana did to say this should be a controlled substance, we're not going to use it here. is that actually the most sort of pernicious strategy here? is that the one you're most concerned about, or do you still think the whole ball game of banning it nationally is where the right's going to focus most of their firepower? >> oh, they're going to do both. and let's also remember that abortion is already banned in louisiana, and so, you know, where we are today is the same status quo, which is wholly unacceptable and harmful where we were yesterday, which is that 14 states have banned abortion with really severe criminal penalties, and for people in those states, you know, that status quo is completely unacceptable. >> in the meantime, nancy, you know, as this is debated at the state level, the federal level and the courts and so forth, there is an anotomy of people seeking abortions and health care in this country. "the new york times" has a stagger math of the number of people who are traveling across state lines to seek abortion care. 171,000 people traveled for abortions last year, which was more than double the amount in 2019. i mean what is the picture you can paint for us about the reality of abortion care and reproductive health care in the united states right now? >> right. it is completely unacceptable that in 2024 for people in those 14 states that they have to travel out-of-state to get care they should be able to get in state. you know, we were just in congress yesterday. there was a hearing in the subcommittee of the judiciary on the forced travel out-of-state. and lauren miller, one of our clients in texas, talked about how because she was denied a medically necessary abortion in texas what would have taken 15 minutes and turned around her health in those 15 minutes, she had to spend three days and thousands of dollars going to the state of colorado. that's the reality for so many women. and not everybody can leave their states. they don't have the means or the child care or the time off from work. it is really a health care crisis that's happening in the country right now. >> a completely self-inflicted crisis. more complicated, more expensive, more dangerous. nancy northrop from the center for reproductive rights, it's great to have your perspective on this. thanks for your time tonight. >> thank you. we have more ahead this hour. survivors of the sandy hook massacre reached a major milestone this week, and tomorrow could bring another measure of justice. but first donald trump's new election strategy to compete against joe biden in the rust belt, insult the wisconsin city hosting the republican national convention. we'll have more on that coming up next. convention we'll have more on that coming up next. well, if donald trump wants to talk about things that he thinks are horrible, all of us lived through his presidency, so right back at you, buddy. to insult the state that's hosting your convention i think is kind of -- kind of bizarre,tually. it's unhinged in a way. >> that was mayor cavalier johnson responding to donald trump's comments made reportedly behind closed doors where trump called the city of milwaukee horrible. milwaukee, wisconsin, of course, is the city where in a little over a month donald trump will officially become the republican presidential nominee at the rnc. meanwhile, first lady jill biden was in green bay, wisconsin, today kicking off a health care initiative. since biden's re-election campaign in the fall his campaign has made ten trips. there is a logic to this. nbc news reports that biden's most likely path to victory at this point lies in pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, and a single electoral vote from a nebraska congressional district. joining me now is the founder and executive director of a more perfect union and former manager of bernie sanders' 2020 presidential campaign. thank you so much for being here. i do wonder, you know, obviously this white house is -- is thinking of all 50 states, but the campaign is increasingly looking at a very specific reality for biden's re-election, and it's those three states. and as on lookers to all of this, should we be looking at those three states as the prism through which we understand everything else joe biden does from that -- between now and november? >> it's not the end-all be all but it's absolutely critical for biden if he's going to maintain the presidency another four years, alex. when you look at wisconsin i appreciate donald trump trying to dig a hole and keep on digging. but you and i know what he's trying to do is setup an urban and rural divide by going after milwaukee. flash forward four years later biden wins that state by 20,000 votes. 300,000 more people voted in the state of wisconsin, and that helped deliver a margin for biden. and for those who are playing along at home with us, what are you expecting and assuming will turnout in 2024? and if it's closer to 2020, biden's in a great place. if it's closer to 2016, trump's in a better place. so it boils everything down, generating excitement and enthusiasm in these core states to win. >> how do you think of biden's words and actions and his priorities in terms of what he talks about tailored to those states? i mean how much of an effect do you think that's going to have on the man, the president in the coming months? are we going to see a focus on certain issues over others because of this reality? >> yes, the geography matters. you're absolutely right on there. when you think about pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, what defines these places? these are states that are factory towns, that have lost jobs, lost jobs due to manufacturing that went away from the united states. these are towns that were proud, that built trades and apresenceships, proud to say they built cars and part supplies and made crayons and cereals, all the stuff we like. and we see the bad trade deals move abroad, and joe biden comes and says we're going to mick it in america, we're going to invest in industrial policymaking and we're going to bring jobs back here. the priority is not just getting you a cheap good, it's getting a quality good made here in the united states. that's an investment he's now making. in the sale of donald trump in 2015, 2016 was to say you're pissed off, everything is going terribly, drain the swamp, and here's joe biden doing it. you can see in the way trump is campaigning he duntd have the same ability to go to these towns and argue somehow he's going to do something to rebuild these areas when joe biden's come along and start today do it. and the goal of the next few months is to educate people about the fact this choice has been made and do we stay on the track that joe biden's offering? >> do you feel like there's any tension, though, within some of these states? and i'll pick pennsylvania because you have a more urban and suburban electorate clustered around philadelphia that he's got to keep in his ledger and perhaps even expand his support within. and then he also has allegheny county and he has kind of the rust belt part of the state, which is much more the sort of scranton joe persona. is that a delicate balance to maintain? because those are very different voters, very different levels of income, very different levels of information, very different levels of education. how do you see his battle to strike a balance between the two? >> i think joe biden does it well but the spur situation audience, the people who haven't modup their mind about either candidate, the ones concerned about joe biden here or donald trump there, those are working class people who often define by not having a college degree, holding down a job, making an income under $100,000 a year. that to me is really where you got to we laser focused. and to my mind the argument they haven't heard and they need to hear over the next few months is you have a billionaire and ceo class and speaking on a day which donald trump went to cater to the ceo class round table and tell them you're going to get tax cuts for the rich or i'm going to come back and you're going to be so happy with me. they've got to know there's a choice. scranton joe who's been trying to take on the billionaire class, going after uncompetitive mergers, right to repair rules, things that speak to your pocketbooks. and here's this guy literally promising every single day i've got your ceo backs, i'm going to deliver you tax cuts. and that i think will be decisive. and if you hone in on that working class audience, i believe they're the most important of all these audiences we need to persuade. >> mike johnson i think was on another cable news network tonight saying he didn't hear trump say that, i think other republicans don't think that is a great strategy if indeed it is a strategy. you know, is -- >> alex, i will say maybe i blame myself for this. i listen to every donald trump speech, and at every single one of them he tells you about the decline of american cities, they're terrible. and he'll list every -- he'll go after san francisco and new york and wherever he is he'll pick a place nearby, it's terrible, everything you know it's terrible. it's no slip of the tongue. this is intentional by design, he's just realizing, oh, shoot, the politics of this might not play exactly how i wanted it to because i'm going there to court those votes. this is what he believes. this is the carnage of the 2016 state of the union, he believes in american decline, everything is terrible, let me sell you everything is awful here. >> well, maybe he forgot the rnc is actually in milwaukee, which is entirely possible in the strange brain of donald trump. faiz shakir thank you for your wisdom. coming up today was the deadline for donald trump to file motions in his hush money trial before sentencing next month. what did we hear from his legal team? that's coming up. stay with us. gal team that's coming up stay with us hi, i'm amanda and i lost 37 pounds with golo. so i'm a hair stylist and i'm on my feet all of the time. with golo i have more energy. i'm able to work and stand on my feet 10 hours a day and to me golo means a happier life a more successful life. dealdash.com, online auctions since 2009. this playstation 5 sold for only 50 cents. this ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. go to dealdash.com and see how much you can save. it was december 14, 2012, when a 20-year-old man armed with an ar-15 style assault rifle entered sandy hook elementary school in new town, connecticut, and killed 26 people. 20 of those victims were children between the ages of 6 and 7 years old. the events of that day left a scar on the nation, but no one found the trauma than the families and survivors and the children who witnessed the deaths of their classmates. last year the sandy hook survivors officially graduated high school. >> going into graduation very mixed emotions, trying to be excited for ourselves and this accomplishment we worked so hard for, but also those who weren't able to share it with us who should have been able to. >> the shooting was like our most core memory growing up, and i think that took away a lot of the joy that we could have experienced. >> even going to prom you think, well, what if they were my prom date, or, you know, what if -- what if they were my significant other, or what if they were able to walk the stage with me, and who would i still be friends with now? >> seeing those children enter adulthood is where this nation is 11 years later. america has experienced more than 4,800 mass shootings in the past decade. in 2022 the nation mourned the death of another 19 elementary school students killed in the mass shooting at rob elementary school in uvalde, texas, another american community that will now be remembered as the site of a horrific tragedy. in the wake of that shooting, president biden passed the first bipartisan gun reform legislation in generations, but republicans have resisted the president's continued calls to ban the very assault rifles used at both sandy hook and robb elementary. for years the sandy hook survivors and families were re-victimized by right-wing conspiracy theorist alex jones who pedalled, the appalling theory the sandy hook shooting was fake. they sued him for defamation and eventually they won. and tomorrow the judge is moving forward to liquidating alex joan's assets to pay down the $1.5 billion jones owes the sandy hook families day after their children would have graduated high school. over the past few years there's been no shortage of discourse about how this next generation of kids will experience the transition into adulthood. could kids have a normal graduation during covid? could kids have a normal graduation amid protests over the war in gaza? but a very real challenge still faced by america's children is will they survive long enough to make it to graduation day? in 2030 the children of uvalde, texas, will become the next class of elementary school mass shooting survivors to graduate high school. maybe they can be the last ones to get their diplomas with so many missing classmates. issing . choose advil liqui-gels for faster, stronger and longer-lasting relief than tylenol rapid release gels because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. it's hard to run a business on your own. make it easier on yourself. with shopify, you can have your inventory, payments, and customers in sync across all the places you sell. start your journey with a free trial today. hi, i'm gina. i've tried so many things to lose weight. none of it worked. i would quit after a few days or a week at the most. golo is not like any of those. with golo and release i not only met my goal i've surpassed it. and i'm keeping it off. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. everybody is saying is no crime, and there's still no evidence whatsoever connecting trump with any criminal wrongdoing. there is an insufficient amount of evidence. no crime has been shown. no crime has been committed. rigged evidence, it's woefully inadequate. there's no evidence and there's no crime. there's no crime. >> throughout donald trump's criminal trial in new york the former president citing legal experts argued there was no evidence to convict him. the jury that unanimously found trump guilty of 34 felonies disagreed. but under new york state law trump does have one more chance to prove that there was no real evidence of a crime by arguing that the judge should set aside the jury's verdict. and today is the deadline for trump's team to file that motion. joining me now is kristi greenberg, former federal prosecutor who served for over a decade in the u.s. attorney's office for the southern district of new york. kristi, by my clock, which is fairly accurate, it's 9:55 on the east coast, is there time to file this? >> absolutely. this is their last ditch to make a legal argument before filing an appeal. they're filing a fulsome motion. >> you say fulsome motion, what is that? like everything and the kitchen sink? >> yeah, i think we'll see a lot of the same recycled arguments you've seen before that you you heard, there's no crime here, you can't use state laws to deal with federal election crimes. you can't -- the judge is biased, the prosecutors are vindictive, and instead you're going to take those arguments and cite for the trial record. but the problem is the trial record doesn't support their arguments. this judge, yeah, they'll point to a number of places where the judge ruled against them or reprimanded them, but there's also plenty of example wheres the judge ruled in their favor and also kept out evidence like playing the "access hollywood" tape, like hearing about sexual allegations -- sexual assault allegations against trump, you know, after that "access hollywood" tape came out. like none of that came into the trial, and so there are any number of even evidentiary rulings, things that went in trump's favor. this judge is really fair. i think their attempt to use the trial record to regurgitate a number of these arguments is really going to fall flat. >> it's going to be presented to judge merchan too, right? >> yes. >> so is there a down side to doing this? do you further erode sort of confidence in your argument? the appeals court doesn't look favorably to a cockamamie argument sent back to the same judge? >> no, i think if anything you're preserving the record and adding to the record, right? this is a judge who's already told trump's legal counsel he's lost all credibility with the court, and that was before the trial even started. >> they're not that concerned. there was -- we got new information today as well on the gag order. on monday i believe trump's legal team introduced a new motion for judge merchan to lift his gag order. the reasoning in part being that trump would like to be able to speak freely presumably about the judges, witnesses, and prosecution during the presidential debate. do you think judge merchan moves at all on this? >> i do. and he's moving quickly and more quickly it seemed from the papers trump filed then from the schedule proposed by the prosecutors, which tells me he actually is looking seriously at this. so i think there are three categories as you mentioned, and there's one category where i think the judge is going to take a close look at it, and that's the statements that trump can make about witnesses. now, we know -- we've seen the appearances from stormy daniels and from michael cohen where they're talking about the case, they're talking about the election, they are talking about trump going to jail post-verdict. so i think there is some merit to trump's argument he should get to respond to those kinds of attacks. and i think that the prosecutors even in their initial letter seem to suggest they would make some amendments to the gag order to allow for that. that's the one category where i can see some shift, but trump's motion says really nothing about why he should get to now attack the jurors after the verdict or why he should get to attack the judge's daughter. none of that really has changed, and if anything we've seen from nbc news reporting ryan riley talking about the threats on jurors, people trying to identify who these jurors are, trying to threaten them with violence. and now that we're leading towards sentencing if any of that is revealed and he keeps ramping up these attacks on him, that's only going to intensify. the need to protect these jurors and protect the court staff, the prosecutor's staff and their families is not going away. this case is still pending. >> and i should say from the stage of presidential debate a lot of people are tuning into does thought keep anybody any safer. kristi greenberg, thank you for helping me understand the machinations of trump's legal team. i appreciate it. that our show for tonight. and a reminder you can listen to every single episode of alex wagner tonight podcast. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. the u.s. is key allies are once again showing unity and support for ukraine with a massive loan backed by russian assets. we're going to bring you live the latest from the g7 summit in