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Top lawyers stood outside the courtroom at trump s arraignment on thursday and said this in front of cameras, recording her. i think everybody was made aware that he lost the election, but that doesn t mean that was the only advice he was given. oh. everybody was made aware that he lost. there goes the insanity defense. but trump and his supporters in the gop and on fox have not given up with their nonsense defenses. they ve spent the past week straw manning, what about, -ing and straight-up lying in response to jack smith s latest indictment of the former president. tonight, let us start by debunking the top five desperate defenses of donald j trump. and number, one this is the most popular one, this indictment of the former president, they say, is a criminalization of free speech, of political speech. donald trump had a first amendment right to say he didn t lose. how dare the doj violate that? listen to the folks on fox. they are criminalizing ....
A number of advisers, including chief of staff mark meadows and conservative attorney coletta mitchell. if we could just go over some of the numbers, i think it s pretty clear that we won. we won very substantially georgia. reporter: at the time of the election, gabriel sterling was the voting systems implementation manager. when did you learn that that call was taking place? about 60 seconds before the call took place. and what was your thought when you learned he was about to be on the phone with the president at the time? i was kind of irritated i wasn t on the call. and then i heard the call the next day. i m like, i m so thankful i was not on that call. it was an hour, of which 55 minutes the president spoke. and it was the greatest hits of all the stuff we d been debunking for two months. giving oxygen to this continued disinformation is leading to a continuing erosion of people s belief in our elections. reporter: trump appeared to threaten the secretary of state. ....
Rigged. i want to give you a shot at the debunking that for us. walk us through why that is just nonsense. i think what happened was they prepare their talking points when this indictment was going to come thinking it was going to be about the ellipse speech and the following insurrection. and that is not with the indictment is. but they never really had a chance to re-jigger their defense. and so they went with what they had, which doesn t really make any sense given this indictment. and, fact the indictment says he is perfectly able to have his first amendment rights to talk about the election and say anything they want. here s the thing, here s the example that makes it most easy. if you are in a fight with the bank over your money, and you think the bank owes you money, you can stand outside the bank and scream and holler and you can write them emails and you can do all kinds of things. but you cannot involve yourself in a conspiracy to rob the bank. and that s essentially what j ....
i would like them to try to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that donald trump believed that these allegations were false. that s gotten a lot of attention. most of it appropriately dismissive. even trump s former attorney general, bill barr, believes defenses like that are nonsense. i ve come to believe that he knew well he had lost the election. they are not attacking his first amendment right. he can say whatever he wants. that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy. we re looking at the tip of the iceberg on this. you think jack smith has more? oh yes, i would believe he has a lot more. let s bring back my panel. anthony coley, cynthia alksne, and olivia troye. cynthia alksne, let s start with a legal argument. this so-called free speech argument that trump is a lot to say whatever he wants and believe whatever he wants. trump s lawyers are saying jack smith is criminalizing trump for saying the election was rigged. i want to give you a shot at the debunk ....
Of advisers. we could just go over some of the numbers. i think it is clear that we won and we won substantially in georgia. reporter: at the time of the election, gabriel sterling was the voting implementation manager. when did you mccall was taking place? about 60 seconds before the call took place reporter: what was your thought when you learn he would hop on the phone with the president? i was irritated i was on the call. and then i heard the call the next day. and i was so thankful i was not on the call an hour that the president spoke. it was the greatest hits of all the stuff that we ve been debunking for two months. giving oxygen to this information is leading to a continuing erosion of people s belief in our elections. reporter: trump appeared to threaten the secretary of state. you know what they did and you are not reporting it. that is a criminal offense. ....