state of the union address. our special coverage begins two hours from right now. the beat with ari starts right now. hi, nicolle. see you soon. see you soon. welcome to a special edition of the beat on state of the union night. you know how it works. we re looking at the capitol where people will be gathering soon. this is the final state of the union of the president s first term. they could not be sure that these primaries would be over or what else would be happening in the country when they scheduled this, but the primaries did functionally end yesterday, as nikki haley dropped off republican race, so tonight, the president speaks to the a largest audience. as that reality sets in for many, you watch the news, but a lot of people don t follow this every day. they re hearing this week, we got a rematch, yep, trump has cleared the field, yeah, it s going to be this, and at this pivotal moment that, like it or not we ve seen on both sides not a ton of excitement
with joy reid next tonight on the reidout it angered me but i turned to my daughter, who was standing there by me it doesn t take courage to break the law, it takes courage to uphold the law the president s words were reckless it s clear he decided to be part of the problem mike pence back in november with about as much anger as pence is able to muster. today, the former vice president presumably said much more to the grand jury in the doj s january 6th probe. also tonight, you can t beat me up for not screaming. the chilling words of e. jean carroll who was back on the witness stand today, facing cross-examination in trump s civil rape trial and we begin tonight with the breaking news that former vice president mike pence testified before the d.c. grand jury investigating donald trump s role in the january 6th insurrection the path to pence s testimony was cleared yesterday, when a three-judge panel rejected trump s emergency bid to prevent pence from testifyin
do you feel vindicated? this isn t a question of vindication. it s not a question as i stated before about revenge this is a my position is that at the end of the day, donald trump needs to be held accountable for his dirty deeds, if, in fact, that s the way that the facts play out plain and simple this is not about him. this is about holding accountability, truth to power, and everything else in between michael cohen was back before a manhattan grand jury today could an indictment of donald trump be imminent? michael cohen joins me live in just a moment. also tonight, remember the republican party of ronald reagan demanding that the soviet leader tear down the berlin wall? well, today s republican party is parodying the talking points of the ultimate soviet nostalgic, vladimir putin. and offering to hand over ukraine to him as a reward for an illegal war. plus, today s high-stakes hearing in texas, which could result in women losing even more reproductive freedom
the beat with ari melber starts now. you were speaking to donald trump s former lawyer, now grand jury witness last night i spoke to his current lawyer, who blames everything just about on the former lawyer. i m curious what you think of it all, including your skills as an established political communicator what we re hearing coming out of this team? well, first of all, i m so glad to get to talk to you i described you behind your back as masterful it was a brilliant interview i watched it when i got home i think that what he is doing is what you said. he was engaged in political communications his defense as he described it to you was that he would have paid it either way because melania would be mad well, the federal crime isn t being charged by sdny. this is a state investigation. it doesn t seem like an apples to apples kind of comment. what i think is about to happen in this country is a giant debate about whether this was just a foot foul, sort of a b.s. kind of t
youngstown, jd vance got back on stage and started shaking his hands, taking pictures saying aren t we having a great time here tonight? all the former president s men. jd vance, herschel walker, adam laxal, it s an odd ball field of maga candidates running this year with our democracy on the line. congressman tim ryan, who walloped the hillbilly elegy hedge fund guy on the debate stage last night, joins me live. also tonight, our reedout democracy defending has a warning about the infiltration of election deniers as poll watchers and judges and what needs to be done to fight back. plus, new developments in the trump documents case. the doj filed its response to trump s request for the supreme court to intervene. we begin tonight with what mitch mcconnell euphemized as candidate quality. just a few months ago, the republican party was crowing about a red wave. today, with a month left, the election really is a jump ball. honestly, though, if you look at the field of r