families have been protesting. they wrote an open letter that i read earlier today. enormous consequences for the civilians and rafah. there's not many places to go and israelis are directing them from one place to the other. it is going to be very bad if there is a full invasion. it's unclear what will happen next. hala gorani who has been reporting from cairo, some thank you so much. that is all in on this tuesday night. y night. right now. >> good evening, my friend we have a very special line-up and i'm going to get right t tonight like i said is a very specialis night. we have so much news about donald trump and his legal troubles that i'll be h joined my colleagues rachel maddow and -- to break this all down.

first we've got huge news from this classified documents case. if you remember that case was set to kick off may 20th, less than two weeks from today. we've been waiting for judge aileen cannon to set the trial date since march. but today we got the news the judge has postponed that trial indefinitely. this means the odds donald trump will end up in a florida courtroom before the general election, those odds are slim to none which is very good news for the former president. but less apparently good news for the former president is the fact trumpde was back in manhatn criminal court. today was day 14 of the hush money case against him and it was by no means a normal day. today we got testimony from the central figure at the heart of this case, adult film star stephanie clifford, who you probably know better as stormy daniels. as far as the spectacle of this trial goes today was a blockbuster. a lot of theay testimony really

sounds like it was ripped from the tabloids, which makes sense because the story at the case is about the allegation donald trump paid to kill stormy daniels story in the lead-up to the 2016 election because the sleazy, salacious details of that story could have hurt trump's presidential campaign. and on that front we heard a lot of salacious details today. some of them are old, some of them are new. but because of how trump's defense team responded to these details today, they are all now material to this case. and because these are statements in the public record and because donald trump is the presumptive republican nominee for president, this is all relevant for the coming election. now, if you have small children in the room or are otherwise uninterested in hearing about donald trump's sex life, now is your chance to mute the tv. don't say i didn't warnth you. the story here centers around daniels and trump meeting at a

celebrity golf tournament in lake tahoe in 2006 when stormy daniels was 27 and donald trump was 60. the encounter was one year after trump married his third wife melania and a few months after the birth of their son, baron. daniels claims trump invited her to his hotel suite for dinner and when she arrived he was wearing a suit -- and claims she then spanked him with said magazine in part because his conversational skills was so lacking. which is okay. daniels then said trump asked her lots of suggestive questions about the adult film industry like whether she'd ever tested positive for any sexually transmitted diseases and if any of the girls from her production

film company ever hooked up off camera. daniels claims at some point in the nearly two hour conversation trump told daniels the adult film star, that she reminded him of his daughter, ivanka. and then daniels described going to the bathroom only to return toto find trump on the hotel be in nothing but his boxers and t-shirt. daniels described that moment as a jump scare. that's the moment in a horror movie when things are so surprisingly terrifying that you literallyat jump out of your se. daniels then alleges she and trump had sex without any form of protection. like i said today was salacious and i apologize to anybody out there who did not want to visit those chapters of donald trump's personalch history. but materially for this case all of it matters for a couple of reasons. number one, all these details could help a jury understand why trump would be so worried about

it coming out in the lead up to an election. and the details matter because of the way trump and his defense team reacted to them. shortly before they started their cross examination today trump posted this. they claimed daniels gave extraordinarily prejudicial testimony in particular they were concerned where shoe allegedly blacked out and there was a bodyguard outside the room, testimony that conveyed certain power dynamics. trump's lawyer says there's no way to unring that bell. though the judge denied the defense's motion for a mistrial, saying i agree there were things that would have been better left unsaid, he does not believe we're at the point where a mistrial is warranted. that doesn't mean that's the end of that line of argument.

so put a pin in that one. in addition to reminding the world about how tawdry this thing is, stormy daniels testimony also seemed to buttress one of the prosecution's central claims, that donald trump wanted to hide theed story not to protect his family but to ultimately protect his political career. on the stand today daniels testified in the weeks and months following their liaison, trump didn't seem at all concerned about people finding out he had sex with an adult film star while his wife was taking carehi of their newborn. daniels testified at after the alleged affair trump didn't ask daniels to keep the interaction confidential nor did he express any concern about his wife finding out. the hush money arranged for stormy daniels in 2016 wasn't about protecting trump's wife melania or his own reputation personally, it was about donald trump the candidate, the

candidate who is once again the presumptive nominee for the republican party, boxer shorts and all. joining me now are my wonderful colleagues rachel maddow host of the rachel maddow show and lawrence o'donnell, host of the "the last word." thank you both for beak here. rachel, let me first go to you in terms of what we heard. today some of it we knew before, some of it is new. we're two months out from the republican domination where donald trump is expected to be officially named the republican nominee for president. >> and now you've given me that nice, pretty word picture with thed t-shirt and boxer shorts. >> i'm sorry. >> rachel was hoping to do something more exalted with her life than talk about donald trump. >> weren't we all? but here we all are.

>> yes. like jimmy carter almost lost the 1976 election. gary hart was like that's it, you're gone from politics forever. but in this case we get the sateen pajamas and the boxer shorts and not wearing the condom and spank me with the magazine, and we're just going to move on and have it be like a quasi-religious wing for donald trump. before the boxering shorts distraction which is very upsetting, you landed on something very important which is theymp elucidated today from stormy daniels that there was no sign from trump, no indication,

no gesture from trump at all that she should keep this tryst with him, this encounter with him secret at all ever, under any circumstances. not about embarrassing his family, not about embarrassing him personally, not about it being false, allegedly false. none of these things. there was never a claim she would be quiet about this until the election. and that is important in terms of proving the criminal allegations here, and it dove tails neatly with the other testimony we got which indeed the other hush money payments arranged throughey the national enquirer, the people the subject of those hush money payments, they were released from those agreements once the election was over. in both those cases what this means is that this hush money system between trump and michael cohen and the national enquirer and all these folks, it was specifically disciped to influence the election. and when you combine that testimony with the false

business records evidence that we've got that the defense isn't even contesting, that kind of both elements of the crime that you -- that you need. >> yeah, and i mean that's why we wanted to highlight it because of course we're talking about the salacious details. it's impossible not to. they're meaningful in terms of the narrative of this case, lawrence. but there is the anecdote donald trump's parading stormy daniels around trump tower. there's not an attempt to hide his -- i'm not going to call her a mistress because it kind of sounds like a one off, but there was no shame in that game as it were. you were in the courtroom today. can you tell how the testimony felt in the room. >> it is -- and rachel's been ib the room. i find it an extremely difficult courtroomxt to describe because it's so intense. what's difficult about that is i've been in courtrooms where it's a murder trial, i've been in courtrooms with much, much worse alleged crimes, mafia

conspiracy trials, and they're intense. this is this other planet of jurisprudence in which you have this former president on trial. and just to get to the analysis i think the best review of stormy daniels testimony today was from todd blanche. and the argument heod made for mistrial, he presented her testimony in the morning session as so damning to donald trump that they can't possibly recover, they can't possibly wia the case. effective he thinks her testimony ffwas, and he was fighting for that mistrial like he was fighting for his life, like he was fighting for donald trump's life in thatli courtroo. and the stormy daniels testimony i saw was a calm and steady presentation consistent with what we'd heard before in so many of those television

interviews. i have no intention of getting into the details of what -- >> you don't have to. i did it for you. >> by the way, that was the incident. that was what the mistrial was about, was that the judge wanted to eliminate as many details as possible of what happened in the bedroom. and more of those details got in not because ofe the d.a.'s questions really but because of the b expansiveness of stormy daniels answers, which is something not easily controlled in the courtroom. there were objections, the judge sustained pretty much all of the defense's objections to the testimony. the judge said he's going to issue a limiting instruction to the jury about how to use her testimony when they're evaluating the case. >> i do want to talk about the mistrial piece of it, rachel, because this seems the piece with the -- walking right up to the line of getting judge merchan to sentence him to some ort of jail time for violations of this gag order. it seemshi trump and his defens

team are trying to build some pressure cooker in and around this trial and dare the judge to cross the line or be able to wave the specter of a mistrial to his supporters and say, see, this is kangaroo court, the justice system is rigged against me. for people who read the transcripts and under what transpired ipcourt today, i don't think that holds water. but for trump supporters who want to believe in the injustice and grievance donald trump has stoked for eight years now, is it effective? >> yeah,ow and it's a good poin strategically, alex, because we did have judge merchan considering that j mistrial motn from the defense. and he said to them i was expecting you guys to be objecting a lot more than you were. if you weret really objecting u could have piped up more. you sort of have yourselves to blame here which raises the prospect they were letting her say things, they were not objecting, they were not drawing attention to it in the hopes that she might speak in such a way that might raise the

prospect of a mistrial. now, judge merchan in addition to questioning thaer strategy and the fact they hadn't raised objections themselves, he also said, no, you're not getting the mistrial i think it's warranted at this point. donald trump has the same righte as any defendant, and defendants have lots of rights, and that motion for a mistrial was not granted by the judge. they can appeal that. and if they think there really were grounds for a mistrial, there really was something fundamentally that went wrong in the trial, they can appeal his ruling. i doubt they'd get anywhere with it, but it would certainly be an additional delay tactic, and they love that. reason this is a sight for accountability like no other is this is rule for court and you can't bluster your way out of

them. >> speaking of confected fury we've got the transcript before our show time, which is bonus, and there were some details about the s sidebars that were happening, lawrence. great.y're >> you can appreciate this having been in the room, but i'll read one between judge merchan and trump's attorney tom blanche. i understand your cliebt is upset at this point but he's cursing audibly and shaking his head visibly and that's contentious. it has the potential to influence the jury. and after that point he shook his head and looked down, and later i think he was looking at you mr. blanche. later when we were talking about the "apprentice," at that point he uttered a vulgarity and looked at you.

reminds me when someone says your kid is misbehaving in class, can you do something about it. >> g yeah, that's the judge sayg i watched him in contempt of court in his seat, in the defendant seat in this courtroom and he said he's not going to hold him in contempt, but he said that's contemptuous behavior. and as you say in the transcript we read about an hour ago, but laura was watching those and wondering what was going on. every time i walk out of that courtroom, every single time i always think i'm walking into why i thought donald trump would never run for president. because he was living this life, and i knew he was living this life and new yorkers knew he was living this life. he was at a golf tournament where one oft the holes in the golf tournament was sponsored by

wicked pictures, the leading porn producer in america at the time. a that's the golf tournament he wantshe to be in. no other future presidential candidate wasut there. no presidential candidate has ever gone to a golf tournament whereon there were, you know, pn stars there at one of the holes, and stormy daniels describes that encounter. she met him at the hole that wicked was sponsoring. that's where they met. and so think about the dozens upon dozens upon golfers who passed through that hole, greeted stormy daniels, got some water from her, and that was the end of it. they are all still free to run for president without having a big stand in their lives because of what they did at the golf course. >> i will say -- i'm sorry, again to anybody who doesn't

want to hear this. the manwa invites the adult fil star to his room and within a matter of minutes allows her to spank him with a magazine that he's on the cover of. that's the beginning of the conversation. that's where we're at. that's the front runner for the republican nomination. just say, again, like i'm a little -- i feel a little bit like i'm on safari in this culture. what do i know? >> we all are. >> but do you want to go to dinner with mr. trump, and she shows up and she's like where's dinner? also put on some clothes. is this -- again, i'm a stranger in your land. i don't know if this is a normal thing that happens when you meet -- >> no. in what land? no land. >> rachel, first dates normally do not take place in the hotel room. there's usually a restaurant involved. >> you don't start in there pajamas. you don't start by dropping your pants and letting someone spank

you with magazine you're on the cover of. just putting it out there, not normal. don't go anywhere. so muchn' more to talk to you about and the other one down in florida. that's next. out and the other o florida. that's next. you brush, it could be the start of a domino effect. new parodontax active gum repair breath freshener. clinically proven to help reverse the four signs of early gum disease. a new toothpaste from parodontax, the gum experts. shingles. the rash can feel like an intense burning sensation that can last for weeks. shingles could disrupt work and time with family. over 50? the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. don't wait. ask your doctor about shingles today.

ings. don't wait. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly. if there was one moment today that explained the thinking of anyone who has ever found themselves unwittingly entangled with donald trump, it was this moment right here. prosecutor -- can you tell the jury again what trump's bodyguard told you. stormy daniels -- that mr. trump

was interested in having me join him for dinner. and what did you say at that time? "f" know. who did you discuss it with, daniels, immediately my then publicist whose name was mike. and this is the prosecutor again -- could you tell us a little bit about the conversation with mike and what it led you to end up doing. daniels, he said, wait, this is amazing, you should totally go to have dinner with trump. if nothing else you'll get a big story. he's a business guy. like what could possibly go wrong? what could possibly go wrong? i am back with my colleagues rachel maddow and lawrence o'donnell. rachel, it feels like what could possibly go wrong is the refrain that i don't know jeff sessions and rudy giuliani and mark meadows and bill barr probably had the what could go wrong

moment in their lives, and it all pretty much wept wrong. should that be the lesson that all those in trump's orbit take away from this? >> i feel like it's movie cliche versus movie cliche. what could go wrong? the death of the republic. that's where this goes. and not because it ends up being a sexual encounter. the sex is immaterial here apparently to everybody involved, buts the crime to cover it up then puts us in this incredibly precarious position for the republican, which our democracy and rule of law is pushed to the breaking point because we have to hold a former president and presidential nominee -- presumptive presidential nominee to account in the criminal justice system for the alleged crimes he committed to cover this thing up to allegedly help himself illegally get elected president in part by using donations that he shouldn't have been able to use. it just -- it starts this cascade of events that really

screws up stormy daniels' life. the sexual encounter with trump doesn't screw it up. the effort by trump to shut her up about it and cover up that effort screws up her life, and puts us ultimately as a country in a position of having to know all this stuff which is its own level of pain particularly for those of us who blush easily and don't want to think about these things. but it also has brought us to the point in the country where we can't figure out how we're going to get to the other side of trump being held accountable for his own alleged crimes. and that's his fault. that's what could possibly go wrong. >> yeah, that's what could go wrong. i do wonder, lawrence, when you talk about the question of accountability, there's a lot of i think armchair psychoanalysis about what makes him feel the most amount of pain or in that way accountability, certainly financial pain is a real pain for trump. but i do wonder if there's

emotional pain inflicted in this moment. the fact his son was in the courtroom with him, his wife decidedly conspicuously is not. as someone who sort of spends time trying to understand the sort of animal that is trump and his basic instincts, what do you make of the toll this is taking on him? >> eric is the designated family member to show up in the family bench, which he occasionally has occupied. and you get the sense especially anyone who's looking at donald trump through the frame of sociopath that he's the least embarrassed person in the room for all the things that are being said about him and his body and his behavior. i think he just thinks, well, i'm the star of this room, aren't i, therefore i'm the most important person in this room. so, no, not when you're the

defendant, you're not the star, you're not the most important person in the room. and i want to go to one detail that i think is actually quite important about the mistrial that todd blanche asked for. he quoted a few things that stormy daniels said that are worthy of a mistrial. and one of them -- the one he thought was most damaging and most worthy of a mistrial were these words "not wearing a condom." now, those are the words that i hope get from that courtroom today to trump voters. this is donald trump, 60 years old, not wearing a condom, having sex with a 27-year-old woman. there was a distinct possibility of pregnancy in that situation. what do they think donald trump would have wanted to do about that pregnancy if a pregnancy

resulted from that encounter? we know he talked about this with howard stern about how when he first discovered that someone was pregnant, the second wife was pregnant, he thought what are week go to do about it, are we going to get an abortion? it's exactly what he has made impossible for 27-year-old women like stormy daniels who grew up in louisiana to do at any age. >> such an important point actually. this is woman who was 27, louisiana, now florida. abortion is not an option. rachel, i've fought to ask you as we're talking about the broader picture of health of a democracy and accountability what transpired down in mar-a-lago today with the delay of that trial and your reaction to that news? >> yeah, i mean it's disheartening. when this classified documents case -- again, this is the espionage act case, was assigned

to judge aileen cannon, she's a brand new judge appointed by trump in the very last days of his presidency. there were two worries. and one was that she had absolutely zero experience in doing anything like this kind of a case. very little courtroom experience and supervised very few cases at all. but also there were worries that she might be partial toward the man who appointed her particularly given her political involvement that led up to her nomination for the bench. and there's nothing that has transpired since she has been on the bench that has disabused anybody of either of those concessions she might do. so it's just -- i don't like focusing on individual justices. i don't like when justices or judges become famous for their behavior on the bench. i would hope the judiciary is professional enough it's essentially someone who's seen like a referee or umpire.

in this case the only thing you need to know about that case, that very serious and document driven sort of very cut and dry classified documents case, really the only thing you need to know is that judge cannon is the judge and it should never, ever be that way. i don't know if she'll keep this case forever. i imagine there'll eventually be an effort to try to remove her for her incompetent handling of it. it feels transparent what she's done there. >> we're going to talk about that specific part of it later with neil katyal coming up later in the hour. my friend who blushes easily, i apologize. i'll send you roses -- >> not roses even. >> like a bouquet of whiskey. i apologize for what i put you through. lawrence o'donnell, you -- you have a higher tolerance for these things so -- >> rachel will be more comfortable when we're talking about michael cohen's testimony. >> sure.

come back please, my friends. please come back. thank you for your time. thank you for pulling double duty. i appreciate you. coming up, while most of today's trump legal developments took place in a courtroom in lower manhattan, just like we said the federal judge overseeing trump's classified documents case down in florida decided to get in on a piece of that action. that is going to be coming up. stay with us. that is going to be coming up. stay with us i still love to surf, snowboard, and, of course, skate. so, i take qunol magnesium

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and they're all coming? those who are still with us, yes. grandpa! what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly.

okay. this was an exchange between trump's defense attorney and stormy daniels. susan, am i correct you hate president trump. stormy daniels, yes. and you want him to go to jail, right? daniels, i want him to be held accountable. necheles, you want him to go to jail, right? >> if he's found guilty, yes. >> if you are watching this program you probably made up your mind about stormy daniels some time ago, but how did the 12 jurors understand what they saw today? did the prosecution risk anything by putting stormy daniels on the stand? or did this all work to their

advantage? joining me now is josh gerstein and christy greenberg, former federal prosecutor. both were in the courtroom today. the bigger picture of stormy daniels. we went into a lot of detail early in the show about what she divulged in terms of an affair with trump. but on the cross it was a pretty heated exchange between her and susan necheles, trump's attorney. >> it's still continuing and at the same time she opened by saying you rehearsed your testimony and so prepared and went through what you were supposed to say. she said, no, i didn't rehearse, and the you're allowed to prepare, the prosecutor goes through that with you. is she too rehearsed or doing it on the fly?

i think it's in her testimony even direct she doesn't have fond feelings for donald trump, that she doesn't like the guy. to be clear her testimony the main import when we're talking about the fact he made these payments because of the campaign that was established by the friendly trump witnesses, by david pecker and hope hicks and now we're hearing the same thing from stormy daniels. we're hearing this consistent theme whether it's from witnesses who liked him or witnesses who didn't like him. i think that's why the order of these witnesses is so important. >> yaugs, you were in the courtroom, and i wonder, you know, from what you could glean from the jury, how is daniels testimony landing? >> well, some of the jurors were clearly uncomfortable with parts of the testimony, which you were discussing earlier with rachel on this program. there were certain comments that were made when she started getting into detail about the sexual act with trump, some of the things that were sort of blurted out that led to

objections and a lot of argument back and forth. i can see some of the jurors sort of looking away particularly one female juror holding her head in her hands. >> cringing. >> yeah, they were cringing and uncomfortable as wer any sort of sentient creatures in the courtroom at that point. >> that doesn't seem like a good defense. the judge brought this up, why aren't you guys launching more objections? is this all sort of a long game to try and call for a mistrial on appeal? >> it is interesting, but it's also been pretty consistent they haven't been objecting as much as i would have expected them to. but there was a line -- there were certain things she said in her testimony that it got to -- got right up to the line of coercion where she was saying things about she blacked out at one point, there was a power dynamic, their heights were different. she was shaking when she left. at one point i think she said something to the effect of i

couldn't say no because i couldn't say anything. and it started to feel -- again, we're getting towards dangerous territory. this isn't a sexual assault case. this isn't what he's being accused of, and if it were it would be more serious than falsifying business records. that's what todd blanche is saying this feels much more prejudicial and we want a mistrial. the court was objecting on his own because they weren't, to try and make sure they weren't getting into details that were, again, going to be far too prejudicial to the jury. >> do you feel -- i mean i do ask about -- to the point of how consistent a witness stormy daniels was, there -- at one point she's talking about this threat she receives in a parking lot in 2011. and they really pressed her on that, josh. can you talk a little bit more about that moment and how

meaningful it was in terms of trying to i guess get at stormy daniels and undercut the voracity of her testimony. >> well, i thought the early testimony in the morning and the early afternoon when she was on direct examination, her story was very formidable. i mean she had incredible amounts of detail about an event that took place something like 18 years ago. she could remember details about trump's hotel suite at this golf classic including the type of tiling on the floor and that there were flowers on the table. now, granted she has written a book about it, she's given interviews in recent years about it, but she had a lot of detail, and she recited it without any apparent fear in a way that someone concocting a story would have, that that might not have the details exactly right. that said when we came to the cross-examination you're talking about, i do think there were moments she seemed to be if not shading the truth a little bit, she seemed to be engaging in

some kind of lawyerly hairsplitting. she tried to deny that she'd engaged in a mock cross namination before the trial, and she had these very fine disfingzs like she said she hadn't lost a lawsuit against trump because it had been dismissed. at one point she said she hadn't tried to sell her story anywhere but not in the united states. and again these kinds of things it seemed like she was shifting around a little bit, and i do think some damage was done to her credibility, but in no way did it negate her overall rapport. >> stormy daniels is not the only person to testimony, though it might seem like that in the coverage today. there's also a book publisher, a book editor -- a book publisher who was there at a witness to talk about some excerpts from trump's own books. this is meaningful because one of the central things the prosecution needs to prove is

donald trump was aware of these hush money payments being made, that he was involved in the paper trail, if you will. he was witness to it when he was president. these are some of the excerpts presented to the jury today. in think like a billionaire, every dollar counts in business. this is according to trump's writing. every dollar counts in business and for that matter every dollar, penny pinching? you bet. i'm all for it. this is from a billionaire as well. when you sign a check yourself, you're seeing what's really going on inside your business. and if people see your signature at the bottom of the check -- pay attention to every detail. you're setting yourself up for unwelcome surprises. i thought that was actually really kind of important, right? this is a central part what they need to prove next. >> the defense department is trying to argue he went to the

white house and wasn't involved in what the trump organization was doing, any of their business records. they don't have to show he was the one looking at the ledger entries. they have to show he caused these injuries to then happen. and of course he knows about this arrangement because he knows about his finances and all the checks he's writing. he's writing a check monthly for 30,000, he knows what it's for and not for future services for michael cohen in 2017. he knows it's to reimburse him for what he's already done. in fact, there's already a piece of evidence signed by donald trump saying i'm reimbursing michael cohen for his expenses before in 2016. so you have that in the record and then you have in addition to these statements, his own words, you have witnesses like jeff mcconnie who told me he's going to fire me. and then he said, no, i'm not going to fire you, but you

better pay my bills and negotiate those bills down. those kind of anecdotes in the book like these, the state is trying say you can't attribute these statements to trump. trump is the executive assistant and there are anecdotes with his father and employees. these are his words. >> it's hard to imagine an executive assistant being like let's say you've got to pay attention to the paper clips. that seems straight from the mind of donald trump. important witnesses to what transpired today. thank you for your time tonight, guys. >> thank you. >> coming up we will check in on another one of trump's criminal trials where today the former president and current nominee got some very big and very favorable news, the mar-a-lago classified documents case is next. classified documents case is next

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holding me back from being as beautiful on the outside as i am the inside. once i saw golo was working, i felt this rush, i just had to keep going. a lot of people think no pain no gain, but with golo it is so easy. when i look in the mirror, i don't even recognize myself. golo really works. shortly after donald trump's hush money trial adjourned today in manhattan a significant development emerged in another one of his cases, the classified documents trial down in florida. today the judge oesh seeing that case, judge aileen cannon, postponed that trial start date indefinitely. it was originally set to begin in less than two weeks on may 20th, but now it is unlikely to happen before the 2024 election. joining me now is former acting solicitor-general neil katyal. thank you for being here. i'm so eager to get your expert

assessment about the reasoning behind judge cannon's ruling. she sites critical document issues. are you buying it? >> i'm not, alex. and this is a very unfortunate decision today because i think we've lost any hope of seeing this trial take place before november, and this is a trial with very serious allegations. before i was in this trial at the solicitor it was office i was at the justice department. anyone who did the stuff trump's accused of would lose their job immediately, go straight to trial and go straight to jail. and i'm not going to characterize the motivations of this judge but this decision and the handling of this case from start to finish have been atrocious and the judge tossed overboard our right, the right to the public of a speedy trial. and she says there's complex pretrial motions. this is not a hard case.

it does not require the amount of delay that we've had. the case is pretty simple. it's, alex, a guy stole some documents, he hid them. when the government came and looked for them, he lied about it and hid them. again, so that's it. it's not rocket science, and yet this judge has slow walked this thing to death. >> it seems quite obvious that she appears to be slow walking and delaying it. what are jack smith's options here for trying to get a new judge assigned to this case? >> yeah, i don't think that there are many options. i think that judge cannon is not going to have the case. the just department -- andiest faced with these requests a lot of times. prosecutors around the country would say authorize us to move and switch judges and try and seek the disqualification of a judge and you almost never do it because the justice department's long-term litigating interest is to not, you know, cast

aspirations on any particular judge. and also here thfs an appeal standard which is really high standard under the law. it's just not going to work. i don't see the appeal here despite the fact this is so atrocious. just by way of contrast, alex, the sam bankman-fried trial for crypto currency that guy was indicted december 2022, convicted january 2023 from start to finish. the crypto currency case enormously more complicated than this thing. something a little afoot is going on here, but unfortunately i don't see jack smith as having a remedy. the one thing i will say that's a positive is that if the supreme court allows jack smith's other trial for trump in january 6th to go forward, judge cannon's decision today is now cleared the docket for trump. he's obviously got his hush

money case right now in new york, but that'll be over in a month or so, and then the coast is clear for donald trump to be tried for the crimes he's alleged today have committed on january 6th. >> are you optimistic about that time line in terms of the january 6th trial? >> i think it's possible. i know after the supreme court oral argument many observers said it's going to be tough but i don't think it's very possible, and judge cannon's decision today makes it more possible. i to think again in both of these cases, alex, whether it's january 6th or trump's tailoring of these documents, the american public have a right to see this. this is one of the most major decisions we make as people, which is who our next president is going to be. here you've got a person who a grand jury, not just some prosecutors but a grand jury of trump's peers have said it was probable cause meaning it's more likely than not that trump committed these crimes. and yet this judge has made a

decision that's going to hide that from the american people before we vote. and i sure hope the supreme court doesn't allow that same kind of conduct when it comes to the january 6th trial. >> john roberts, neil katyal also sounding a bit of hope in the darkness. thank you, my friend, for your wisdom tonight. we'll be right back. friend, forr wisdom tonight we'll be right back.

and they're all coming? those who are still with us, yes. grandpa! what's this? your wings. light 'em up! gentlemen, it's a beautiful... ...day to fly.

with absorbine pro, pain won't hold you back from your passions. it's the only solution with two max-strength anesthetics to deliver the strongest numbing pain relief available. so, do your thing like a pro, pain-free. absorbine pro. that is our show for tonight. and a reminder you can listen to every single episode of "alex wagner tonight" as a podcast for free. scan the qr code on your screen or search for alex wagner tonight wherever you get your podcasts. "way too early" with jonathan lemire. the jewish community, i want you to know i see your fear, your hurt, your pain. let me reassure you as your president, you're not alone, you belong. you always have and you