from obesity world headquarters in new york. welcome, everyone, to alex witt reports. we begin this hour with the growing concern over china s posture on the war in ukraine. three u.s. officials telling nbc news new intelligence suggest china is considering sending artillery and ammunition to russia. this could be the latest in a series of insults. here is an exchange between my colleague, chuck todd, and white house national secretive of jake sullivan on meet the press today. we re sending more troops to taiwan. that shine is ignoring calls from our defense secretary. secretary blinken to cancel his trip. the president wants to have a call with xi, there s no evidence that anything it s been scheduled. this like a communication, how dangerous is the situation with china right now? we have said repeatedly that we need to have military communications channels to avoid escalation, to avoid surprise, to avoid mistake. it is unfortunate that the chinese defense ministry has d
ukraine. one of the most important story lines of 2023. the divide in the republican party about ukraine. alexi buchanan, thanks very much. and thanks for getting up way too early with us on this wednesday morning. morning joe starts right now. a dictator, building an empire, will never be able to ease the people s love of liberty. brutality will never ground down the will of the free, and ukraine, ukraine will never be a victim for russia. never. president joe biden marks one year of war in eastern europe with an impassioned speech promising continued support for ukraine and laying out the stakes of the conflict. meanwhile, we re were learning more about the special grand jury that investigated potential 2020 election interference by former president donald trump and his allies. we ll play for you new comments from a key juror in the case, as some republicans are still trying to figure out their messaging on donald trump and his third presidential campaign. als
welcome to our continued coverage. the new york criminal trial of former president donald trump. i m rachel maddow joined by my colleagues. also, lawrence o donnell is with us pick we are going to be joined by the star witness for the prosecution in this trial, michael cohen. he will speak to us exclusively. his first reaction to this verdict tonight. michael cohen will be joining us in one moment live. 4:20 p.m. p.m. and it is we, the jury have reached a verdict. 45 minutes later at 5:05 p.m. the jury was back in the courtroom and is seated. the defendant donald trump was seated as well. the judge addressed the four people. and the judge. without telling me the verdict, how s the jury? and yes, they have reached a verdict. take the verdict, please. with the foreperson please rise to the members of the jury agreed upon a verdict? yes. and how say you to the first count of the indictment, charging donald j trump with the crime of falsifying business records in the first degre
Guilty. a unanimous verdict on all 34 felonies. that is how donald trump became the first american president ever convicted of crime. he became the first president ever convicted of a felony. and just seconds later, the first president of two felonies. and he kept breaking his own brand-new old record. for the most crimes any american president has been given. here is the signed verdict sheet filled in by the jury. 34 handwritten the check marks in the guilty column. signed at the bottom by the prosecutor and by the defense attorney and by the floor person. where they are identified only as a number. and he was the district attorney. alvin bragg . and they performed a fundamental civic
Suggests to me that they are there to vote, and to try to wrap this up. and there s no reason for them to stay well, well past five pm, which is sort of the normal court hours if they were planning to vote tonight. and there has been reporting that they are voting. that could take some time. if there are multiple counts, the person, floor person will go through each count. they will look at the elements of the offenses. they may discuss some of those. they may decide to indict on some counts and not on others. but if there are multiple counts, it could take, you know, sometime. it could take an hour or more as they go through all this evidence. so, we could be late into the night. now, i can t see if only willis thought that they are going to be there for hours and hours and hours, she would not keep them up. so, it suggests to me that they think it s coming, you know, relatively soon. you know, i would never want to overly paraphrase the careful, careful exposition you gave us. but