said she wanted to go to law school and become a prosecutor. she didn't even tell me. i feel like i am doing something good. at the end of the day i am a positive example, where before i didn't want them to come into the courtroom for the first trial, but the second one i really wanted them to see what it looks like to face adversity and to have faith and to have strength in the face of adversity. >> would you advise prosecutors to go as hard as you did, vacating nearly 800 criminal cases, would you advise people to take those progressive steps and what would you say to the risks of doing that? >> justice is always worth the price paid for its pursuit. i know god does not forsake the righteous, so i know he will have the final say and i am confident that this administration will see past the political sort of attacks and why i have been convicted. >> marilyn mosby, thank you so much. i appreciate you being here. that is tonight's "the reidout". "all in with chris hayes"

starts now. tonight on "all in" -- >> this week in an interview he said states have the right to monitor pregnant women to enforce these bands. >> donald trump's american dystopia. >> it is really working out well for people and they are very, very happy. >> it is a devastating day in our state. >> people are thrilled with the way that's going on. >> for the south, this is truly a horrific day. >> tonight, our special report on the man who killed roe v. wade. >> this truly is a healthcare crisis and donald trump is the architect. >> then with another gag order hearing on deck, a potential nightmare brewing in the supreme court. >> the january exception is an invitation to our founder's worst nightmare. and as protests over israel and gaza disrupt colleges

nationwide, what is being lost in the way it is covered. "all in" starts now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. today one of the nation's most punishing and restrictive abortion bands went into effect. in the third largest state in the union. in the state of florida it is now a felony to perform or actively participate in an abortion after six weeks gestation. that is just two weeks after a missed period, before many women even know they are pregnant. the band is at least statutorily provide exceptions for rape, incest, and human trafficking and to save the woman's life from physical impairment. what we have learned from the exceptions from other states and what providers in florida say is that they don't work. that there will be serious consequences. a florida doctor telling nbc news it will cause delays in care that will cost women

significant health hazards or risks. as of today, 17 states then all or most abortions including the entire south, that block from texas to florida. three more states ban the procedure after 12 or 15 weeks. one of those three, arizona, recently upheld a civil war era law banning nearly all abortions. today, just to republicans in the entire state senate joined all democrats in the state senate to repeal the 1864 law. it is still expected to go into effect for a limited time over the summer before reverting back to that 15 week ban. in all in this country in 2024, as we had towards the selection, one in three women of reproductive age lives in a state with an abortion ban. that is a reality in america and the man responsible who has a 50-50 chance of getting back in the white house next year believes he did the country a

great service. >> it was always the plan from the great legal experts of this country and even the world. they wanted to get abortion out of the federal government. so what has happened is now the states decide and they are going to vote in different states and it has been an amazing process, but basically the states decide on abortion and people are absolutely thrilled with the way that is going on. >> you can keep saying that, but it's not going to make it true. the majority of this country is not thrilled with what donald trump did to reproductive rights. not thrilled with women having to bleed out in parking lots before they can get to hospitals, being medevaced out of hospitals in states like idaho. they are not thrilled with that. he has not been getting anywhere near the level of blame that he deserves. today in florida, vice president kamala harris gave

trump full credit for the abortion bands. >> at the stroke of midnight, another trump abortion ban went into effect in florida. as of this morning, 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night. this is the new reality under a trump abortion ban. >> in a statement president biden was even clearer, saying there is one person responsible for this nightmare, donald trump. and in politics, people exaggerate all the time, but on this it is true. there is no question about it. donald trump is the man responsible for the abortion ban. he is responsible in florida and arizona and 18 other states. he is responsible for every woman who has to suffer awaiting care they desperately need who is turned away.

all of the states restricting the rights and threatening the lives of millions of americans. eliminating the federal right when abortion was donald trump's plan from the beginning. he ran for president the first time on appointing supreme court justices that would overturn roe v. wade. >> in your selection as president, what criteria would you use to pick somebody? >> pro-life. they will be pro-life and we will see about overturning, but i will appoint judges that will be pro-life. >> do you want to see the court overturn roe v. wade? >> if we put another two or perhaps three justices on, that will happen and that will happen automatically, in my opinion, because i am putting pro-life justices on the court. >> again, there was lots of stuff donald trump was hazy about, foggy about. there was misdirection. there was not on this issue. it was clear as day, he said it

over and over. in fact he released a list of the antiabortion, anti-roe judges he would choose from. people on the list were chosen by conservative groups including the veritable arrest -- including the federalist society. donald trump had no clue who they were, just that they fulfilled the requirements of the antiabortion far right. >> so what they've done is they say what happens if he appoints judges and what we did, we just took judges and i thought what i would do is put this forward and this would be the list that i would choose from or pick people very close in terms of the spirit and the meaning of what they represent and i came up with a list. the federalist society was very much involved. various people were involved. >> it has gotten very good reviews from its immediate release. >> it has gotten great reviews. if you want i will do it now. you can read them.

i hope your people are not going to fall asleep as i read them. >> here are the list of names. again, this was a huge issue. people thought trump maybe wasn't a stalwart conservative. he had skepticism from evangelicals, so the idea was, black and white, like you're getting the judges and justices. he continued to add to the list and eventually again, maybe the only promise the man has kept in his life and i honestly mean that. he did what he said. he chose three names from the list. neil gorsuch, brett kavanaugh, amy coney barrett. now at the confirmation hearings all three trump appointees on the list to he said would overturn roe were coy when asked about how they would rule on abortion rights, describing roe as settled law. >> roe versus wade, decided in 1973, is a president of the united states supreme court. it has been reaffirmed. >> i understand the importance of the precedent set forth in

roe v. wade. >> i have no agenda. to try to overrule casey. i have an agenda to stick to the rule of law and decide cases as they come. >> amy coney barrett got up there under oath and is like i have no agenda to overturn roe. sure, right, of course. donald trump's aims and intentions in nominating the three justices were always clear. >> under my administration, we will always defend the very first right in the declaration of independence and that is the right to life. >> a tremendous record including two new supreme court justices, neil gorsuch and brett kavanaugh. they will be making tremendous and important decisions on abortion. >> the president also as opposed to roe v. wade. that is on the ballot as well,

in the court. so that is also at stake right now. >> you don't know what is on the ballot. why is it on the ballot? why is it on the ballot? that's not on the ballot. i don't think so. there is nothing happening there. >> there is nothing happening there. donald trump, 2020. the guy who told us all along, you are getting roe v. wade overturned. we are getting antiabortion justices. when he gets it, all there, what are you talking about? then in june, 2022, donald trump's six year-long plot succeeded. he had justices on the list we guaranteed would overturn roe v. wade, overturn roe v. wade, eliminating the right to an abortion. he brags about it now. >> i want to thank the supreme court justices for having the courage. clarence thomas, samuel alito, john roberts. brett kavanaugh, neil gorsuch. amy coney barrett, for the wisdom and the courage to do this. >> but donald trump deserves

all the credit. he has the man responsible. for millions of american women living under dangerous and ciccone and abortion bands and if elected again it will only get worse. i am joined by michelle goldberg, opinion columnist for the new york times and a florida representative who previously served as a senior director of planned parenthood for southwest florida. representative, let me start with you, because you are in florida. this really is sort of the biggest change in the landscape i think we have had so far because of how large florida is and how restrictive this bill is. what does it mean for folks in your state? >> well, thanks so much for having me, chris. it is devastating not just for floridians, but all of the women in surrounding states who come to us for care. i was at one of our local planned parenthood centers yesterday and we were rushing to see as many patients as possible, knowing that today

there would be rejections. the patients would have to travel as far as north carolina and virginia to access abortion care. >> michelle, you were just in arizona if i am not mistaken. today they did overturn the ban, but clearly republican leadership gave the green light to do it. they only got the smallest amount of votes necessary. what did you here in arizona about the politics of this issue in that state? >> obviously it is incredibly unpopular. it is still remarkable arizona is the first date with a republican-controlled legislature that is backed off of these ciccone and abortion bands and it is obvious why they did it. it is a swing state. it is a crucial role to play in the presidential election. a very tight senate election and you have seen the senate candidate, the republican candidate kari lake who in the past had lauded this 1864 abortion been. >> literally this bill. >> right, then turned on a dime

and said she is no longer in favor edit -- in favor of it. she is lobbying republicans to repeal it. i went to a kari lake event and i was speaking to somebody from students for life. the event was at arizona state university and she was kind of aghast that the republican who led the push to repeal this in the house had recently spoken to her group, you know? but i think basically they know -- kari lake said at one point, if we don't repeal this, there are people who consider themselves pro-life who are going to vote for this abortion referendum. there is an abortion-rights referendum on the arizona ballot as i believe there is going to be in florida. so she hasn't kind of figured out her language. she has taken a number of positions and is kind of all over the place, because this is so unpopular and yet you have so many republicans who are still so committed to this long-

term project of an abortion ban. >> you also, representative, will have a ballot initiative in your state. if i'm not mistaken the threshold will be 60%, is that right, for statewide ballot initiatives in florida? >> correct. the florida republican legislature has made it more difficult to pass ballot initiatives, but we were successful in collecting more than 1 million verified signatures for this initiative with 30% signed by florida republicans. so we are very hopeful to hit that threshold, but it will definitely be an intense campaign ahead of us. >> this is a hard question to answer, but i will ask it. who do people think is responsible? ron desantis signed the legislation. the republican-led legislators passed it. donald trump appointed the justices on the supreme court that overturned row. like who are people directing their anger at?

>> well, definitely former president trump and i want to keep it former, but also ron desantis, without a doubt. governor ron desantis signed this into law at 11:00 at night in a private meeting. it is not a popular piece of legislation and more and more everyday people who are typically not engaged in politics are coming out to say they will vote this november because abortion is on the ballot. no i think what is important for folks to understand how high the stakes are. most people from my experience working at planned parenthood, they don't know the state of abortion until they need one. there will be an intentional education campaign, so folks realize we have a six week ban and as more of these were stories get shared, that will elevate the consciousness for more people to be ready to vote in november. >> quickly in arizona, where do you see people directing that anger? >> i think on both sides they understand trump is responsible

for this. the republicans, it is interesting that republicans sometimes don't believe that he is actually against the 1864 law. they will say again and again, no, he is the most pro-life president we've ever had to. >> so you are violating secret trump canon if you try to repeal the law. michelle goldberg, florida state representative anna eskamani, thank you both. appreciate it. distract coming up, the ridiculous idea that there is never a right time to charge a president. jamie raskin joins us on immunity and the danger the supreme court might just buy it. it. comfort, and electricity... are forever in bloom. welcome to beyond. the mercedes-maybach eqs suv. it's good to get some fresh air.

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question of whether or not the president has some immunity or total immunity from prosecution. it is a last-ditch effort to avoid accountability for his crimes on and related to january 6. the profound irony is that this idea that an ex- president cannot be criminally charged for their conduct in office is the exact opposite of what trump's own lawyers argued during his second impeachment trial. let's set the scene for a moment. february 9, 2021. over a month from january 6. donald trump has been impeached for a second time and senate republicans say since trump had already left office, it is time to move on. >> do you believe donald trump committed and impeachable offense? >> to begin with i think it is a moot point, because right now donald trump is no longer the president. he is a former president. >> donald trump will have been out of office for almost a month and it would seem

exceedingly strange that the senate is having a trial to essentially convict and remove him from office and he left office a month ago, when there are so many other pressing needs. >> democratic congressman jamie raskin pointed out that such an argument left a significant loophole in the constitution. >> their argument is that if you commit and impeachable offense in your last few weeks in office, you duet with constitutional impunity. you get away with it. in other words, conduct that would be a high crime and misdemeanor in your first year as president, in your second year as president, in your third year as president and for the vast majority of your fourth year as president you can suddenly do in your last few weeks in office without facing any accountability at all. this would create a brand-new, january exception to the constitution of the united states of america.

a january exception. >> like that movie, the purge, where all crime is legal for one night. the president can commit all kinds they want as long as it is late enough that congress can't get the wheels turning fast enough to impeach and convict them. donald trump's own lawyers had to rebut that argument in this contest and prepared at the time what seemed like a clever defense. trump's argument was that impeachment was not necessary to hold him accountable, because he could be criminally charged after leaving office. >> this idea of a january amnesty is nonsense. if my colleagues on this side of the chamber actually think that president trump committed a federal offense. a high crime is a felony and misdemeanor is a misdemeanor. the words haven't changed that much over time. after he is out of office, you

go and arrest him. >> we have a judicial process in this country. we have an investigative process in this country, to which no former office holder is immune. that is the process that should be running its course. that is the process that is the appropriate one for investigation, prosecution and punishment. >> that was from their opening statements. trump's defense from the start was that once he left office he steps outside the regime of impeachment and into the regime of prosecution from law enforcement. and we've heard this over and over again. republican senator john cornyn from texas even teed up trump's lawyer to repeat that point a few days later, just to hit it home. >> there is no such thing as a january exception to impeachment. there is only the text of the constitution, which makes very clear that a former president is subject to criminal sanction after his presidency for any

illegal acts he commits. >> there is only the text of the constitution which makes very clear that a former president is subject to criminal sanction after his presidency. i can't say this enough. this argument was not coming from the democrats. this was the argument coming from donald trump and his lawyers and enablers like senate minority leader mitch mcconnell. >> an ordinary citizen. unless the statute of limitations is run, still liable for everything he did while he was in office. didn't get away with anything yet. yet. we have a criminal justice system in this country. we have civil litigation and former presidents are not immune from being accountable by either one. >> not immune. so now cut to three years later and trump and his enablers are

arguing the literal, exact, precise opposite point that he cannot be criminally charged because he was not impeached first. they made the laughable argument before the supreme court last week. >> you have argued that the impeachment clause suggests law requires impeachment to be a good way to criminal prosecution, right? >> i think that is the plain meaning of the second phrase in the clause. prior to impeachment it constitutes -- >> it doesn't, but it is the head i win, tails you lose defense. when trump is impeached he says wait for criminal charges. when he is criminally charged he says the time to act was back when i was impeached and the highest court in the land might let him get away with all thing. i will discuss all of this with congressman jamie raskin who led that second impeachment against donald trump, next. mp, adding vraylar to an antidepressant is clinically proven to help relieve

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the january exception is an invitation to our founder's worst nightmare. and if we buy this radical argument that president trump's lawyers advance, we risk allowing january 6 to become our future. >> congressman jamie raskin warned everyone three years ago when he was the lead house manager in trump's second impeachment about the situation we are in right now with donald trump and his immunity claim.

congressman raskin joins me now. i've been wanting to talk to you, congressman, because when the immunity arguments happened i remembered one of trump's lawyers making the case during the trial, saying, look, he can always be prosecuted afterwards. we all agree with that. then i heard his lawyers go to the supreme court across the street and say, no, the total opposite. then i looked at the tape and i remembered it was your talk of the january exception that what this entire line of argument into motion and i wanted to come back to you. what you think of what has transpired given what you argued during the trial, what they argued in response and know what they are arguing before the court? >> right. well, remember all of it comes up because they made the claim originally and a motion to dismiss. which 45 republicans voted for. 55 senators rejected. a motion to dismiss based on the idea that the senate lacked jurisdiction to try a former

president. that cuts against more than two centuries of impeachments of officials who have left office were quickly resigned, thinking that could save them from impeachment. it didn't go anywhere, so that should have been done with. trump lawyers picked up the argument very early, saying, look, you don't need to impeach. if you really committed crimes, if he really incited insurrection, if he was really involved in a conspiracy, you can get him later. you can prosecute him like a real dependent and -- real defendant. that was the mantra picked up by trump supporters. when we got to the vote senator mcconnell astonished me by not voting to convict because all of his body language and facial expressions and things he was saying to me during the breaks indicated that he was very sympathetic to the house

manager's argument, but he got up and basically said we made our argument that trump was actually and factually and morally responsible for everything that happened, but he went back to the motion to dismiss argument that there was no jurisdiction and said unfortunately we can't be having a trial of a former president and we can't convict him. which really made this acquittal the greatest case of jury nullification in american history, because they went back to a legal argument that was rejected at the beginning of the trial and then used it to nullify the facts. it is like a murder trial where a gun is suppressed or there is an argument that a gun should be suppressed on fourth amendment grounds, but the court rejects that and then the jury goes back and says, even though the guy committed the crime, they should not have admitted the gun. >> people forget how this all laid out and it is wild to me to watch the same man's lawyers

argue one thing before the senate and argue another thing before the supreme court, when those two are in direct contradiction. i want to ask about something else that took place today. >> can i say something else about that? on that point, trump thinks because he changes lawyers the way other people change ties that he doesn't have to have consistency between the arguments, but those are all his lawyers. >> and the court should know that. the people mulling this over and the justices mulling this over. there was a really interesting hearing that happened on the hill today. there have been joint investigations on big oil. the house oversight committee looked into what they knew, when, about climate change and how shockingly far back that knowledge goes. what you testified days you testified before that hearing. what did you have to say? >> basically big oil and gas new in 1959, the year of the

first barbie doll, that their whole business model destabilized the climate. by the time you get to the 1960s it was very well understood among all of the oil companies, the basic dynamics of climate change. yet they made the decision that rather than be paul revere and sound the warning for america, they would sweep everything under the rug and fight the climate scientists who began to concur with their original findings. and you know in senator whitehouse's committee, the budget committee, we showed evidence-based on 2 million different documents that when they could no longer engage in climate denialism, they switched over to doing things like saying we are going to get through this with algae and then they spend ridiculous amounts of money promoting algae research, knowing that it was not going anywhere and ultimately pulling up the

stakes on it. and they used the american petroleum institute and the chamber of commerce to go and fight against the climate action reforms that people have been pushing in america well the companies pretended that they were vaguely for it. >> it is such a remarkable thing to imagine what would've happened if the trajectory had started then, to think about fossil fuels use now. jamie raskin, thank you for your time. >> you bet, chris, thank you. trump took the day off for multiple legal woes stay at the campaign trail and to learn about -- >> we are honored to be joined today by shannon gray who owns a vegan restaurant. i'm not into the vegan stuff, i must say, but i have to come and try this. i don't know if i'm going to like it. >> up next, the food will have to wait. what trump faces back in new york tomorrow morning when his

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how do you spell relief? r-o-l-a-i-d-s rolaids' dual-active formula begins to neutralize acid on contact. r-o-l-a-i-d-s spells relief. in the spring of 1969, students at morehouse college, a historically black college in atlanta, were frustrated by what they said was the school slope progress in civil rights. they protest and had been rebuffed, so they locked the college trustees in their office for two days and essentially held them hostage. one of the trustees was martin

luther king senior, father of the recently slain civil rights leader. he began having chest pains and one of the students later said we let him out of there so we would not be accused of murder. that student and his classmates eventually gave up under a promise of amnesty. he was expelled and it would be years before he was rehabilitated. decades before he became known the world over as actor samuel l. jackson. i tell this story for two reasons. one to remind us that college activism has long been a part of college education. the other reason, though, is to get a sense of proportion which seems lacking today. we watched disturbing imagery emerge from campuses at columbia, ucla, university of texas, university of south florida, so many others. where cops or in some cases mobs took down pro-palestinian encampments and protests, as well as professors and journalists and just random bystanders.

the cumulative effect of this coverage, along with unverified assertions from police and politicians, has been to drive home the idea that's student protests are basically a terrorist level threat. that they have to be neutralized by battalions of cops armed like soldiers with sonic cannons. the reason this seems to me i reaction that is out of proportion to the protests themselves. it seems especially true when you look at other campuses like brown university, where administrators negotiated with protesters who took down their encampment. at wesley university the presidents of the protest was nonviolent and nondisruptive, adding that as long as it continues in this way, the university will not attempt to clear the encampment. these universities have reiterated the existing rules against harassment, while also protecting assembly. which seems sensible.

also out of step with what you are seeing elsewhere. because ever since october 7 when hamas committed its atrocities in israel, there has been this obsessive media focus on college campuses and that is true partly because there are genuine issues worth debating, including the degree to which universities are creating spaces that are hostile to pro-israel jewish students, where they feel under threat, or universities and the degree to which they are suppressing pro- palestinian speech. those issues do matter, but the way that so many prominent voices have focused exclusively on colleges feels, honestly, a bit decadent. like we are doing a paper doll version of the conflict, because the actual reality of what is happening is so horrific and high-stakes that it is more enjoyable to argue about what college kids are doing than to confront the human misery and destruction

happening in the actual conflict that is, of course, the source of these protests. what seems most worth debating is not campus speech, but whether the u.s. government should continue to fund and disport -- and support a war in gaza that has pushed 1 million people to the brink of famine. a war that has damaged half the buildings in gaza. a war that has failed to bring home most of the hostages held by hamas and has led to the deaths of those hostages as well as an estimated 34,000 palestinians including 10,000 women and 13,000 children. is that ongoing efforts morally defensible? is it strategically wise? are we, as a nation, doing the right or wrong thing continuing to support it? whenever that becomes a question that almost becomes reflexive to challenge the questioner and i can't help but think of the protests in the lead up of the iraq war, which were widely defended and widely

attacked. many prominent war supporters blasted the demonstrations and pointed to the fact that some of the people organizing the protests held genuinely odious and fringe views. for instance the view that north korea is a workers paradise and great place. that is a horrible view. there are protest organizers with bad views, lots of them. there are people at the protest with terrible views. there are people who thought 9/11 was an inside job. i would argue with them my selves -- myself at protests. did that have anything to do with whether the war was moral and prudent? no, the war was demonstrably neither. on that, the protesters were right, which brings us back to columbia university, where 56 years ago almost to the day protesters took over the same building that was occupied earlier this week. they, too, were removed and arrested and many were bloodied and beaten for protesting, among other things, the

university's involvement in the vietnam war. they believed the war was a moral catastrophe and the u.s. should stop waging it. they were right. the fact there was genuine extremists among those protesters had no bearing on whether they were right or wrong about that. what i find particularly maddening about the focus on the protesters of the conflict is that it is an evasion. it avoids the difficult task of being universally empathetic to our fellow human beings and reckoning with the scale of devastation that is wrought by our country, in our names, with our support. in the aftermath of 9/11 we waged a global war on terror for two decades that killed an estimated 430,000 people, many of them children, women, elderly, innocence. in vietnam we are estimated to have killed more than 1 million people, huge swabs of them civilians. women, children, old people.

can you even make sense of those numbers? i can't. no one can. it is hard to think of them, to contend with them as actual human beings who live the lives before we took them. they lived like you and i were loved by the people in their lives. it is much easier to get angry at the spoiled brats on college campuses. why are they being so disruptive? what are they so upset about? if you feel that way, which i can understand, honestly. i have felt irritation and anger to protesters many times in my life, even once i was ostensibly on the same side as, broadly speaking. why are these people so upset that we are helping a government wage a brutal war that has killed 13,000 children? the question kind of answers itself. to take seriously the scale of human suffering that is happening in gaza doesn't mean you must come down on the side of the protesters, certainly. there are many people think the war is a brutal, but necessary campaign for israel's defense. what it does necessitate is

that you way the human suffering against the actual endgame of the conflict that is currently being waged and is unarticulated as of now. a conflict the u.s. continues to support. our humanity demands we focus on those questions. first and last. last. in the kind of work that i do, you are surrounded by people who are all younger than you. i had to get help somewhere along the line to stay competitive. i discovered prevagen. i started taking it and after a period of time, my memory improved. it was a game-changer for me. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. ok, someone just did laundry... no, i add downy light so the freshness really lasts.

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donald trump was not in court today, a rare occurrence these days, although wednesdays are his day off, and said he was cramming in campaigning, holding rallies in wisconsin and michigan. he's jetting back to new york

tonight ready for a big day in court tomorrow. he has to be in the courtroom at 9:30 sharp so the judge can hold a hearing over the latest gag order violations. trump has already been fined $90,000 over previous violations. the judge threatened him with jail if he keeps flouting the order. i'm joined by rebecca, who wrote an op-ed. i like the piece, i want to talk about it in a second. first, so just -- the gag order here is going to happen tomorrow. and we were talking about this last night, there's no further violation he can do because these were from before the first finding of contempt, but presumably the judge will apply the same analysis? >> i think so. there's no reason to think he'd treat it differently. >> given the fact you worked in that d.a.'s office, did you ever see a defendant act like this? >> i never saw a defendant act like this. i mostly worked in white collar crime.

i think some of the prosecutor who is focused on street crime might have found something remotely similar, but i really didn't. >> you didn't have defendants slamming everyone, talking about everyone's corrupt, and -- >> you know, there are allegations of prosecutorial misconduct that defendants make all the time -- >> sure. >> -- but this level, this repeated level, this, you know, refrain throughout the trial is unusual, unprecedented. >> yeah, so you say -- you had this to say in this piece, which i thought was interesting, because we've been going back and forth about how to talk about this case. hush money, election interference. you say, boring as it may sound, is a case about business integrity. is an important and straight forward case, albeit workman-like and unglam warehouse, in time, after the smoke has cleared, it will be easy to see why the prosecution is solid and legitimate. what's your snarth. >> my argument is people have been distracted by the crime that he is alleged to be helping -- seeking to commit or conceal

by falsifying these records. and if you focus on the falsification itself, it's clear that the elements are pretty easy to meet, and they're also -- this is exactly the sort of crime that is prosecuted all the time in this office. so it's not novel, it's not, you know, some kind of federal crime dressed up as a state crime. it's the stuff of the d.a.'s office. >> why should we care, though, as a society about what you call business integrity? i mean, i think that gets to it, right? if you say they conspired to interfere in an election and rob voters of the full information they needed, i understand why i should care about that. business integrity sounds like, i don't know, a fine. >> it does sound that way. it is a privilege to do business here. you use your business for the good or you can use your business to cloak criminal acts. it becomes easy to do that if you mess your records in an effort such that when future regulators come and look to see what's going on, they can never

figure it out. it becomes an immunity cloak we don't want to allow businessmen to have. >> you say that taking this case on its own terms is a business record case offers a different, arguably more convincing way to defend its legitimacy as a prosecution, you're saying. mr. trump was a businessman for many years in new york. when you call it workman-like, you can't futz around with business records in this way, and people know that. >> a lot of people are why this, it's not a big thing like january 6th, it's not, you know, his huge political crimes. but in a certain way, those are more novel. >> right. >> this is exactly like everything else. and there's a way in which it seems more legitimate. he's not being targeted for political acts. he's being targeted for the things he did as a businessman. >> one of the moments where this was, i thought, brought into relief was david testimony where he couldn't talk about privileged conversations with his lawyers, but it became clear that multiple lawyers were

like, this is no good. this does not work, this is not on the up and up, you should not do this. >> and that's very good evidence to show that what his intent was, and all they need to prove is that his intent was to commit a crime. and so if other people -- if all of these lawyers are informing him, this is not lawful. it's not a close call that. makes the whole defense that, you know, everything was on the up and up, everything's fine, we're allowed to do this problematic. >> we think we're going to get a few more witnesses this week. what are you sort of looking for in terms of where the case goes next? >> i'm very interested in how the defense lines up. so are they going to put all of their eggs in the basket of, you know, this is all fine. everything he did, he did and it's fine, or are they going to try to distance him from the things that michael cohen did. >> say more about that. mooning that cohen had gone rogue here. >> yes. this was the lawyer trying to freelance and hoping that he was going to get some great later payoff from donald trump, and this is why he did it. that's one possible defense. a lot of white collar crime

people are like, you know, it was my assistant doing it on her own. like my secretary. so you know, he could go with that defense. >> because generally in those cases, the principle has an agent that is committing it. >> i think he's made a lot of public statements that, in fact, he did this and there was nothing wrong with it. those are all admissible. i think they are going to go with there is nothing wrong with this. that's a risky defense. >> rebecca, her piece in "the new york times", i think out yesterday? >> yep. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. >> that is all in on the wednesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> you're telling me donald trump has a questionable defense? >> yes, he does. but stranger things have happened. >> very true, my friend, thank you, as always. the past 24 hours have been a flash point for pro-palestinian student protests at college campuses across the country. this was the scene this morning