Politics the former president s pardon play. Donald trumps lawyers make a hail mary request for an april 2026 start to the 2020 Election Trial and try to make sure the case never sees the inside of a courtroom. Plus a game of risk. New reporting outlines how republicans plan to conquer a trumpless debate. How another republican warns his party appears poised to fulfill the textbook definition of insanity. President biden invokes the whole enemy of my enemy is a Friend Theory of Foreign Policy today pushing two neighbors to put aside a generation of bad blood and send a message to the country a couple blocks away, china. Im Phil Mattingly in for dana bash. Lets go behind the headlines and inside politics. Were going to start with this up first. Two questions. Do you know what youre doing on monday . Do you know what youre doing in april, 2026 . The answer is no for me on both of them. Donald trump, though, has plans for both. More specifically mr. Trump knows where he wont be on monday
Addresses posted on a far right website. Growing concerns about what might happen next. Also he promised a Big Press Conference two days ago claiming hed finally blow the lid off 2020 Election Fraud. More signs tonight he was, no surprise, just blowing smoke. And hawaii with a thousand people still unaccounted for a cnn investigation into why mauis Emergency Sirens stayed deadly silent. Good evening and thanks so much for joining us. We begin with Breaking News. The former president s attorneys have weighed in with what they want the trial date to be in the federal election sub version case. It is a long way off. The Justice Department had proposed january of 2024. The former president s attorneys now say the trial should not start until april, 2026. That is more than 2 1 2 years from now. If mr. Trump is elected president again, it is effectively never. The lawyers in their filings saying the Justice Departments proposed date denies them the ability to prepare for trial. Joining us no
so i want the other one. he doesn t really want any to go and the judges will see that. when you cry wolf at a certain point because this is what he does in all his cases i don t know the judges will let them get away with it. in the mar-a-lago case he also indicated the discovery was so much we can t possibly be ready but the government said there as large number but so much are things like e-mail headers or things that are irrelevant that really aren t the meat and potatoes and the government is handing over a road map to the discovery saying this is what is important and where you find it. there is really no reason why one defendant, four count indictment, can t be ready in january when jack smith asked for january 2nd. this is not a 2 1/2-year case. in the filing the attorneys say the government s objective is clear to deny president trump and his counsel a fair ability to prepare for trial. i mean, do you know a lot of cases that need nearly three years of prep? what sort of cas
you can tell from what she has been saying from the bench she does not think this needs to be delayed that much. and so i think one of the things you ll hear is she ll point out that for instance that graphic as snazzy and beautiful as it is is just deceptive. right? because a lot of those pages are e-mail headers. a lot of them are not really relevant to the case. a lot that was produced are not things they ll use as part of the trial and they know that. so that graphic is kind of bs for the purposes of really trying to make your argument to the judge. right? i mean, the fact is that there is a very small number of pages that are going to be relevant for this case and they know where to find those. as a matter of fact the justice department will provide a road map for ha and they don t have to buy it because they already know a lot of the allegations and testimony from some of the