hey, everybody, it's 10:00 a.m. in new york. i'm yasmin vossoughian. is today the day? will donald trump become the first president in or out of office to face criminal charges? we could find out at any moment. the new york grand jury probe ago hush money payment to adult film actress stormy daniels on trump's behalf reconvening today, and it could make that historic decision to indict the former president. and if it does, donald j. trump claims he is ready for his perp walk, but while he may be, we're going to talk about why the secret service may not be. plus, the fed between a rock is and a hard place. the central bank set to meet today and expected to raise interest rates for the ninth time in one year to try and bring down sky high inflation. the impact today's decision could have on your wallet and the banking industry still reeling, of course, from the biggest meltdown since 2008. and raw outrage after

virginia officials released more disturbing video showing the final moments of ivo otieno's life. he died after sheriffs deputies piled on top of him while he was being admitted to a mental hospital. his mother now speaking out. >> i want those monsters, those animals that treated him so wrong and squeezed the life out of him, i want them brought to justice. >> the latest on those charges, the deputies and the hospital workers involved face, and a major twist in a case with connection to the alex murdaugh murders. south carolina authorities have been investigating the death of a former classmate of the surviving son buster of homicide. why the family of stephen smith hopes they could finally get answers about his death.

. starting us off gabe gutierrez outside the d.a.'s office, vaughn hillyard outside mar-a-lago in west palm beach florida, joined by peter baker chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," msnbc analyst, and co-author of "the divider: trump in the white house 2017 through 2021" and then with me on set is danny cevallos, criminal defense attorney and msnbc legal analyst. gabe, start us off if you will, talk us through the grand jury's schedule today and expectations we have here in new york. >> reporter: good morning, yasmin. all eyes as you mentioned are on that courthouse behind me, and we expect the grand jurors to reconvene sometime this afternoon. they have been reconvening at about 2:00 p.m. eastern time on wednesdays, and right now the big question is will there with potentially another witness as part of this grand jury investigation. that is unclear at this moment, but if there is -- there are no

more witnesses, the prosecution could put this up for a vote, and if 12 grand jurors vote to indict former president trump, that indictment would then go under seal. it's possible we might not find out about an indictment until prosecutors reach out to the former president's legal team. again, if he is indicted and potentially the former president could then reveal this to the world on his social media platform. again, yasmin, what we're waiting for right now is what happens this afternoon, whether we might learn the next steps or right now it's a bit of a surreal scene here in lower manhattan. we've seen more security barricades, more police presence, and just down the street coincidentally, an episode of law and order is filming right now. we don't expect any new information on this until later on this afternoon. >> quite a lot going on there in new york to say the least, gabe gutierrez, thanks for that. vaughn hillyard, take us to mar-a-lago, if you will, of course the preparations that are going in from the trump side in reaction to what may or may not

happen here in new york. >> reporter: right, the trump camp at this point now has had more than a week here to prepare if the potential indictment of donald trump here. you know, it was over the weekend that he first suggested that he was going to be arrested on tuesday. that was yesterday, and that was pure speculation because charges never came. that's what we are waiting here on at this time. i was talking with an ally yesterday of donald trump who suggested the former president could be cleared does not want to get arrested, does not want to be indicted does not want to go through a lengthy criminal proceeding, that would require him to go up to new york at the heart of his presidential campaign. politically as of right now in a republican primary when you are marching to the beat of donald trump's drum, he's winning within the republican party. that's where you have seen the likes of ron desantis sort of be put in a difficult situation here of having to answer to the

extent to which he believes there's merit behind the charges against donald trump. but as for the trump operation here at mar-a-lago, there is no movement planned here in the days ahead until saturday. that is -- it's supposed to be donald trump's first campaign rally, the traditional mega rally of his 2024 bid, out in waco, texas, so of course there's a lot that could happen between now and then. could he be arraigned before saturday, then go out to texas? there's a lot of question marks here. here in mar-a-lago, donald trump and his allies, they are pressing and hoping that this point he's not indicted. donald trump posted himself on his truth social account that, quote, the rogue prosecutor is having a hard time with the grand jury, especially after the powerful testimony against him is attempting to build a case that has never been brought before. as you can see in his multiple social media accounts, donald trump is hoping to avoid this

and hoping the grand jury does not see eye to eye with alvin bragg. >> we had a lot of questions out there, all we know for sure is law and order is taping down from where gabe gutierrez is now. we're awaiting that decision to come out of the new york d.a.'s office. all that being said, peter, will you walk us through the logistics of the possibility of indicting a former president of the united states. this is not a regular civilian individual, right? this is an individual who's incredibly high profile with secret service detail as well. what would that look like if it happened? >> well, it would look like something very different than what you see on law and order. i would not expect to see him treated like every other defendant. obviously they are going tomake arrangements because they have to deal with the secret service. he's in florida, not new york. presumably they will have a surrender discussion about how he can turn himself in without handcuffs and all of that.

like any other defendant, he will have to presumably go through the mug shot and the fingerprinting and all of that kind of thing. there will be a processing, you know, procedure just like you would have for any other white collar criminal. it all is the first, right? there could be some sort of accommodation we're not aware of. as you say, we've never seen this before in american history. i think we ought not to lose sight of that. i think we have sort of lost sight of just what an amazing, remarkable and unprecedented moment this really is. for good or bad, the country is now going to be putting a former leader on trial, it looks like, for a criminal offense. that has all sorts of implications and consequences going down the road. >> and again, we don't know, as you just said, what is going to happen here. it's something i was noting as we came on the air here at 10:00 a.m., what a remarkable moment really this is in history no matter what happens. talk to me about the possible

charges here. if you're looking at the history of d.a. bragg's office and what they have pursued, we're looking at 117 accounts in regards to falsifying business records since he took office. that involves 29 individuals and companies. that is something we know they are considering when it comes to charging the former president here of the united states. what else? >> there's been a lot of talk about the falsifying business records charges in connection with the stormy daniels payoff. at this point, i'm starting to think that may be a distraction. that maybe we're really going to see charges possibly related to donald trump's practice of inflating his value for bragging rights or to get loans and deflating it when the tax man cometh. that is a pretty standard scheme, and it seems to be, at least from what's been reported, that is something that could be charged. the reason i think the stormy daniels might be a distraction, i don't think it's a strong case. it's default a misdemeanor case. it only becomes a felony if the

falsification is designed to conceal some other crime, and if that other crime is an election law violation, there are at least three or four problems with that, not the least of which is number one it's a state attempting to enforce federal election law, and that may not fly. there's some suggestion in the courts that it could, but if it's a reasonable minds can differ situation, that means it could get tossed and it could be hard to sell to a jury. >> and there's really no precedent for it, right? the only precedent would have been michael cohen himself, but he pled guilty. >> not only did he plead guilty, the feds could have prosecuted based on that. after all he came into court and put on the record essentially he was called individual one, but everybody knew it was trump, at least according to cohen, that directed cohen to make these payments. so, yes, that is something michael cohen pleaded guilty to, but it doesn't mean that michael cohen can be a star witness against trump. there's been a lot of talk about cohen being that star witness.

i don't think that's the case. i don't think the prosecutor would balance an entire case against a former president on michael cohen. more likely i think michael cohen will be authenticating documents. this is going to be a documents case, not a michael cohen case. documents, there are plenty. there are tax documents. there are statements of financial statements that can be gone over. all of those if they're authenticated can make a compelling case. whether it's a state rico charge or a falsification charge. >> we're just getting this news about stormy daniels nbc news learning that stormy daniels's attorney clark brewster has sent emails and communications between stormy daniels and trump attorneys, brewster is saying these emails led to a conference with tack pena, which he denies. the emails are in great detail

about the signing of the essential nda that she signed with trump, and a lot of it was confidential. what reporting do you have on this that you can expand on, peter? >> i don't have any reporting, i think what's important is they're trying to establish everybody's position on this agreement. they gave her $130,000. they didn't call it hush money, obviously. they called her a consultant in order to sign a nondisclosure agreement. they made it look like a business transaction in effect executed by lawyers. it wasn't money left on the night stand, but you know, the question is how you can pierce that fiction, right? if that, in fact, is just meant to gussy up what amounts to what we call hush money, then they're trying to show through this research that it's not anything other than what it looks like. you're right to point out that the lawyers are trying to provide inside documents that will show you the state of mind

at the time, not just after the fact$ts explanations. >> i also want to go to you on something else real quick, even though i just handed you my phone. i to want to talk to you about what abc news is reporting now. we're talking about abc news reporting this morning that source is saying the special counsel claims trump deliberately misled his attorneys about those documents and, quote, in her sealed filing ordered that evan corcoran, attorney for trump should comply with a grand jury for testimony on six separate lines of inquiry over which he had previously asserted attorney/client privilege. what do you make of this development? >> oh, if defense attorneys had a nickel for every time the clients mislead them. it happens all the time, and it threatens the attorney/client relationship. arguably, in some situations, an attorney must withdraw if the

client persists in trying to use the attorney to commit a crime. and then you get into crime fraud exception to attorney/client privilege. so there are a lot of implications, if it's the truth, that trump misled his attorneys in the course of that attorney/client privilege. especially if it is in furtherance of a crime. >> thank you, gabe gutierrez, vaughn hillyard, thank you guys as well. of course we're going to be tuned in all day today as this is developing. up next,ed fed walking a tight rope, meeting about raising interest rates, while also juggling banking turmoil. unsettling new video of attacks on zaporizhzhia. we have more from the region. and the mother of ie voe otieno who dies in a virginia hospital. >> every day myself calling his

name. this is not what i expected when i took my son to the hospital. inside the growing outrage and the case, and we're back in just 60 seconds. aww. [ audience cheers ] maybe try switching your car insurance to progressive. you could save hundreds. [ audience laughter ] thanks, tv dad. we'll think about it, okay? look what i found. -a puppy! -a puppy! oh, no, no. i wish tv dad was always in charge. [ dog barks, audience laughter ] listen to your tv dad. drivers who switch and save with progressive save nearly $700 on average. (cecily) it's probably gonna take us a while to move this sign. (vo)rivers who switch and save time to get moving, because this offer won't last. switch to verizon and get welcome unlimited for just $25 a line. (seth) i love that it's guaranteed for 3 years. (cecily) yeah, get an awesome network and save money doing it. (seth) not bad. (cecily) you get to keep your phone. more savings. (vo) switch and get welcome unlimited for $25 a line. guaranteed for 3 years. (cecily) hey, that could catch on. (vo) yup! don't wait.

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instead we keep seeing time and time again more and more civilians getting killed very far from the front line like here in the capital kyiv where i am now. zaporizhzhia is in the east of the country. we've heard from government officials this is a front line city. i've been there many times. it's about a 30 minute drive from where the russian line is. you can see from the video here this was a twin missile attack, and now we're hearing from the ukrainians, they believe it was a tornado-esque russian system. it would have been launched probably from the battlefield. it hit a residential apartment block, twin missiles killing what looks like, you know, dozens of people.

so this is a big, big problem we keep seeing, and it really underlines for the ukrainians at least why they need anti-missile systems and more sophisticated weaponry from the west. >> so while we're watching that, of course what takes place in ukraine with that ongoing war, we are also watching and have been watching intently the president of course -- or the meeting, i should say, between china's president xi jinping and russia's president vladimir putin in moscow. what has been the reaction on the ground specifically from president zelenskyy there in ukraine? >> reporter: i should start off by saying they killed dozens, they injured dozens in zaporizhzhia, one person was killed. going on to that meeting in moscow, it's interesting because that is now the close of this meeting and really the headline from here in kyiv is what is not news. there was a lot of apprehension of course here and in washington and london about what could come out of this meeting between these two what looked like a sort of self-described best friends or only friends in the world, these two men. instead, what we have is

something like silence, and that will be -- you can almost hear an audible sigh of relief from here in kyiv in the government quarters. they're not hearing what would have been the worst possible news, which would have been that china has agreed to give lethal weapons to russia to use in their fight against ukraine. that was the expectation. that was the nightmare, and now that's not happening. what they're looking forward to now is a potential phone call between president volodymyr zelenskyy of ukraine and the leader of china xi jinping. in just a couple of hours we're going to get that crucial announcement from the fed on whether the federal bank is going to raise interest rates. experts expecting fed chair jerome powell will raise rates but by less, likely a quarter of a point or so, that's what we're expecting as of now. this decision is coming as the fed now faces the dueling challenges, of course, of fighting inflation and trying to avoid further rocking the global banking system. high rates could potentially put

more pressure on those institutions, even though they were given a heads-up of what could happen from the fed chair. joining me now nbc news business and data reporter brian cheung. this is a tight rope jerome powell is going to have to walk and he has been walking for quite some time now raising interest rates continuously. the idea is maybe he'll go much smaller this time around or maybe none at all given what's taken place over the last few weeks stwl it's because of those dueling challenges you laid out already. when we talk about what's happening here, prior to all the banking issues, the story was high inflation. if inflation is really high, then the central bank makes interest rates higher to make borrowing costs more expensive to take steam out of the economy and make prices come down. one challenge is that one of the dominos to fall that led to silicon valley bank's collapse, not the entire reason, but one of those elements was higher interest rates. the federal reserve is looking at this situation and saying, look, we can either raise interest rates by a small

amount, which the smallest increment is a quarter point, or we cannot raise rates at all. it's kind of a tossup in terms of whether or not that will happen this afternoon. for what it's worth, investors are betting on the likelihood of a 25 basis point interest rate increase, but there are odds that some of that won't raise rates at all. >> when we talk about banking and the stability, new nbc reporting that we have, amid the recent bank failures, a question that took hold during the 2008 financial crisis has resurfaced. is the federal reserve charged with supervising the banks for which it is the primary regulator or aligned with them to do the job. does there need to be a change in the relationship between the fed and the banking industry? >> yeah, and my colleague gretchen morgenson doing a nice job of laying out the role. there is a challenge for bank regulators and supervisors what they usually do is they spend

time physically at the bank meeting executives, interacting with the bank as they supervise and examine the health, safety, and soundness of these institutions. but if you're inside the door, it's very easy to start shaking hands. it's very easy to start building relationships, and there were -- there was other reporting that suggested that the san francisco fed, which had jurisdiction over silicon valley bank actually flagged issues. what they call matters requiring attention, but they didn't to anything to act on that. so it was known within the regulatory community and at the bank itself that there were issues, but nothing was done about that. that's the reason why there's ab investigation. the federal reserve has launched one, and we'll have to see if congress wants to look at that as well. >> let me quickly ask you. let's say jay powell doesn't increase interest rates today, does that mean it's over and he's going to stop doing it in the future? >> no. the federal reserve has made it career they just look at the data and they'll see. if they decide to pause, that's not the consensus, but that

doesn't preclude other moves down the line. appreciate it. coming up next, how footage showing irvo otieno's final moments could factor into the murder case against the deputies and hospital workers involved in his death. plus, the mother of stephen smith says she never believed the death of her son, a former classmate of buster murdaugh was an accident. >> in my heart this was not a hit and run. i think he was murdered and i just need the proof. >> what authorities are saying now about how they're investigating the case. and she's a famous actress, why gwyneth paltrow is being sued for allegedly causing a ski accident, and what to expect when she takes the stand. we'll be right back.

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welcome back. this morning,ñyk> we are follow growing outrage after the public released surveillance video

showing the final moments of a 28-year-old man who died in custody at at psychiatric hospital in virginia. a grand jury had charged seven sheriffs deputies and three hospital workers with second degree murder for their involvement in the death of irvo otieno. the video we are about to show you is difficult to watch. the video, which does not have audio shows the people who were charged piling on top of otieno until he is no longer moving. state police investigators told ot become combative during his admission. an attorney for one of the hospital workers says his client is innocent. an attorney for one of the deputies said he's looking forward to defending himself. the hold told nbc the workers charged are on administrative leave and the hospital is, quote, fully cooperating with the virginia state police in this investigation. otieno's mother telling nbc news her son was dealing with mental health issues and needed help.

>> when i took my son to the hospital and they took him into the hospital, i expected him to be taken care of and to come back home to us. >> nbc's catie beck is joining us now with more. i know that you spoke to otieno's family as well. what else did they tell you? >> reporter: well, this is a raw and emotional interview. his mother sort of describing her shock to learn that her son would never come home again as she was saying just there, this is someone who had been suffering with mental illness for some time and had had periodic episodes like this before, and the ending had always been very different. she says that she believes her son was murdered and that she wants transparency and justice for the ten defendants indicted yesterday by a grand jury. this grand jury took just a few hours to issue those ten indictments, which to her says they saw on that tape what she did, which was a human being

being smothered to death who was in handcuffs and shackles. so the question that she and her family now wrestle with is the why. there is no sound on that tape to know what was transpiring in those moments, but it is pretty clear that he was confined. he was handcuffed. he was shackled and then for about an 11-minute period, he had at least ten people putting their weight on his body. so she said she's disgusted and outraged and she said for any parent who has a child with mental illness, this should be a warning sign that this is how mentally ill people are treated and that she's demanding justice and accountability. here's another snippet from that interview yesterday. >> they were charged with the responsibility of taking care of my boy, and they failed totally

from start to finish, they failed. they failed irvo otieno. and my question is why didn't somebody speak up. >> reporter: now, there is an ongoing investigation into the chapters before that 11-minute section of video and the chapters afterwards. he was actually at the jail behind me before he was transported to that mental hospital and apparently the handling of some serious questions as well and then also after the incident at the hospital, after he had been pronounced dead, there was a substantial amount of time before the virginia state police were called in to investigate, typically when there's an in-custody death, the virginia state police arrive within minutes. this would have been hours. >> all right, catie beck for us, we thank you. let's go to south carolina if we can now where we have a new development in the unsolved

death of a classmate of buster murdaugh. the son of convicted killer alex murdaugh. authorities have now publicly confirmed they are investigating the 2015 deaths of 19-year-old stephen smith as a homicide. all of this happeninguiy÷ afterx murdaugh's double murder investigation prompted police to reopen smith's case. blayne alexander is joining me now with the latest developments on that. it's good to talk to you. what more do we know about this? >> reporter: good morning to you. all of this was brought back into the spotlight, the death of stephen smith brought back into the spotlight as part of the investigation into the murders of alex murdaugh's wife and son. that's when police say new evidence prompted them to reopen the case. now, this investigation is open and ongoing. stephen smith's family has spent years searching for answers. we should note for his part buster murdaugh has denied any involvement in smith's death. >> this morning a heartbroken mother may be one step closer to

answers, eight years after the mysterious death of her teenage son. overnight, the south carolina law enforcement division known as s.l.e.d. confirms to nbc news stephen smith's death is being investigated as a homicide. >> based upon their review of the forensic evidence that they too are convinced that this was not a hit and run, that this was something more. >> reporter: according to lawyers for smith's family, s.l.e.d. has also agreed to work with them and participate in exhuming stephen's body for a private autopsy to gather more evidence. it's all validation for sandy smith who told us before the news she never believed her 19-year-old son's death was an accident. >> in my heart this was not a hit and run. i think he was murdered and i just need the proof. >> reporter: smith's body was found lying in a rural south carolina road back in 2015, state investigators initially ruled it a hit and run and no one has ever been charged. in june of 2021, s.l.e.d.

reopened the case based on information gathered during the curse of the double murder investigation of paul and maggie murdaugh. the agency has not said what that information was. a netflix documentary raised the possibility of a relationship between smith and buster murdaugh. >> there were so many rumors swirling around that buster and stephen were intimate together. >> reporter: in a statement to nbc news this week, buster murdaugh calls the rumors baseless and denies any involvement with stephen's death. no one in the murdaugh family has been implicated in stephen's killing. it comes weeks after alex murdaugh was sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife and son. lawyers for the smith family say they believe that frees up more police resources and they hope will encourage more potential witnesses to come forward. >> whoever that person is, i'm telling you talk to s.l.e.d., call us, put this weight down. >> reporter: a hope shared by sandy smith still desperately

seeking the truth. >> i'm a mother. i need answers. >> reporter: sandy smith says she wants to see a private, independent medical examination of her son's body. a judge has to grant permission in order for that to happen. >> blayne alexander for us, thank you. in the next hour, actress and wellness ceo gwyneth paltrow is due back in a courtroom in park city, utah, where she's facing a civil trial for a ski accident nearly seven years ago. she is being sued for $300,000 by an optometrist who says paltrow recklessly cracked into him on the slope causing permanent brain damage and didn't stop to help. nbc's kathy park is following this for us. lots of twists and turns to this thing. i was reading through it yesterday. give us a sense of what we can expect in the courtroom today. >> yeah, so this is day two of what will likely be an eight-day trial, and we anticipate more

witnesses to take the stand, mostly medical experts who are going to be supporting claims that the plaintiff terry sanderson has suffered permanent damage as a result of that 2016 skiing incident. but yesterday we heard opning statements from both parties. terry sanderson who is saying gwyneth actually crashed into me after becoming distracted on the slopes. she was looking a different way, crashed into me. gwyneth's attorney is saying gwyneth was going down the slope, kind of doing her thing with her family when harry sanderson crashed into her, and she was actually pretty upset about it. at some point we're going to be hearing from her children who were on this trip as well, and they're going to be supporting and corroborating her account of what happened. apparently they witness her becoming pretty fired up, upset about what happened. yesterday we also heard from two witnesses, one of them was the only eyewitness, craig ramon who apparently is an acquaintance of terry sanderson, and he actually

says he saw gwyneth crash into his friend and didn't stick around for very long and kind of sped off the slopes. and we heard from another woman, the ex-girlfriend now, but the girlfriend at the time of terry sanderson the skier, who says after the incident he just sbt isn't the same. so going back to the claims that he suffered permanent damage as a result of this crash. his personality changed, everything changed after this incident. >> we're going to be watching this thing play out for the rest of the week. good to see you, kathy. an indictment against a former president, it would be historic, right? what sources inside trump world are telling "the new york times" about donald trump's thinking, and we'll have insights from the former trump org executive coming up next. plus, on strike, another day of no class for nearly half a million students in los angeles as tens of thousands of school employees are struggling to pay their bills and demanding more money.

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welcome back, everybody. while we wait to see whether a new york grand jury decides to charge donald trump with a crime, we're learning more about how trump feels about the possibility of becoming the first president to be indicted. "the new york times" reporting this, behind closed doors at mar-a-lago, the former president has told friends and associates that he welcomes the idea of being paraded by the authorities before a throng of authorities and news cameras. he has pondered how the public would react and is said to have described the potential spectacle as a fun experience. i want to bring in former executive vice president of the

trump organization and author of "tower of lies: what my 18 years of working with donald trump reveals about him." welcome to you both, guys. thanks for joining us. barbara, let me start with you on this one. you heard a little bit of what i read from "the new york times" article describing the former president's state of mind right about now and the prospect of what could be in the pipeline for him. i want to read a bit more from that saying that no one is quite sure whether his remarks are bravado or genuine resignation about what lies ahead. what's your assessment of his state of mind right now, barbara? >> bravado or assessment, i think bravado is his trademark. but i don't think that he really believes this is going to -- that he's going to get indicted, maybe he'll get indicted, i think he's just beingg!z himsel

and saying, i think, that, you know, he doesn't believe it because he doesn't. it's just the way he is. i think he's convinced himself. certainly bravado, that's what he's trying to do here. make some noise and probably thinks that he can improve his presidential chances. >> so what i'm hearing from you is that he doesn't necessarily believe like it's going to happen, like this is reality. i want to read a bit more of the reporting that we have from "the new york times" about how he has been over the last couple of decades, and you worked for him for nearly two decades, right? according to people who worked with him years ago at the trump organization, mr. trump who was first criminally investigated in the 1970s was plainly frightened of being arrested. he spent years cultivating officials who might have influence over investigations

into him or his company. can you speak more about this, barbara, and your knowledge of this type of behavior from the former president? >> it's hard for me to comment. i'm actually surprised at that comment. 1970s, yeah, a different person than he is now. maybe the people who knew him before, maybe they saw something that he might have been concerned about working for his father, but i don't think that he -- i think by the time he morphed into what he is today, i don't think that he is afraid of being arrested. i don't think he thinks that could happen, or maybe not so much arrested but convicted, something that is real and not political as he presents it and

probably believes it. >> paul, i see you kind of giving some reactions as i've been reading these quotes to barbara to weigh in on. if you will, weigh in and talk to me about as we think about the mind-set of the former president of the united states, is this anything more than trying to kind of have a public influence on d.a. bragg's decision in all of this? >> i think it is. i think it serves two purposes for him. one, i think it serves to rally his base of supporters. these are dog whistles, especially to the white supremacist supporters that are part of his base, and i also think it helps further his political agenda while he's trying to raise his profile in the republican agenda against other people who may challenge him as he tries to run for president again. if you look at what he's saying and how he's saying it, there's issue of concern. he's talking about the current

prosecution that's happening in new york and saying that bragg is a racist. bragg is an african american prosecutor, rather than focusing on the charges, trump is saying that he is being persecuted, that he's going to be locked in a cage, and more importantly -- and i think this is really telling -- he's calling on his protesters or he's calling on his supporters to protest in much the same way that he called on folks to protest for january 6th, and so all of this is a confirmation, rather than facing the actual things that he did that were criminal, rather than facing the actual charges and talking about them to defend himself, what he's saying is that he wants his -- he wants his base to rally around him, to disrupt the process, to support him, raise his profile and that's his real agenda. that's what concerns me about what he's doing. this whole thing about how he's talking about it raises a lot of concerns to me, and it really makes it clear to me that he's

not trying to force and address the issue as he's likely to have to do once this indictment does come through, and it will come through, i believe, very soon. >> do you think this is also kind of just bravado for the court of public opinion as he is heading into yet another election year running for president of the united states. >> i think that it is because as long as he can force people to pay attention to bravado and not the facts, i think that gives him a benefit and an advantage. as long as people aren't looking at what he actually did, as long as people aren't looking at what the actual facts are. as long as people aren't comparing what his behavior was to criminal behavior, i think he wins. the problem is it's not just this case in new york. there's still another local case in georgia. there's still another state case in new york for his business practices and there's still two federal investigations that are pending and looming around him. this is just the first one that is likely to show us what it

looks like to have donald trump appear in court, what it looks like to have donald trump arraigned, what it looks like and sounds like to have donald trump react to criminal prosecutions that are going to open the door and have him face accountability for his past behavior. that's what we're talking about, and that's what we're likely to see over these next few days. i don't have any doubt that that's coming, especially with this grand jury knowing and understanding how the grand jury works with potentially charges like this with donald trump. >> thank you. in washington, everybody, republican senators have started getting calls from their boss, mitch mcconnell as he recovers from a fall. he has not been on the hill since he was hospitalized for the fall earlier this month. he suffered a concussion and minor rib fracture. senators including minority rep john thune and john cornyn talked to mcconnell yesterday. thune says he sounded good and is anxious to get back. let's head over to los

angeles where school is out for a second day in a row after staff including custodian bus drivers, they walked off the job. their union is demanding a 30% pay increase with an average salary of $25,000, and teachers who aren't in the union say they won't cross the picket lines. that means there's a second day of parents scrambling to find child care. some kids could go to the los angeles zoo where students can visit for free as long as schools are closed and l.a. mayor karen bass has also announced the city will help distribute free lunches. scott, it's good to talk to you on this. what are you hearing from families and the striking workers as well amidst all of this? >> reporter: yasmin, there's no shortage of frustration all around as we enter now the second day of this three-day work stoppage. we're at the east district office for the l.a. school district where a little bit later this morning we're

expecting there will be a rally here, as you can see there were also pickets early this morning. you start to see in a situation like this just how much people depend on their local school districts, particularly in a district like l.a., which is mostly low income families. the district says that it gave out some 125,000 free meals yesterday. ñ about 1,300 students that went to what they call supervisory sites, but the district is set up, that is just a small fraction of the 400,000 or so students in this school district where everyone, as you said, yasmin, has just had to scramble with no new talks scheduled. these support employees, the service employees for the district want a 30% pay raise. the district is offering 23%. there seems to be a pretty wide gulf in between, and the union says that the average salary is just $25,000 a year.

that includes full-time and part-time employees, but still, barely enough to get by in los angeles, and that's what they are fighting for in this lockout. >> wow, we're going to be watching this very closely, scott, we thank you. coming up next, in the hot seat, what we can expect from the ceo of norfolk southern when senators grill him today on improving rail safety after the toxic train derailment in ohio. plus, forget about jaws. you need to hear this whale of a tale that led to a rescue at sea. >> just an incredible amount of water coming in. >> it felt like it was just a scene out of a movie, like everything was floating. maybe try switching your car insurance to progressive. you could save hundreds. that's a great idea, tv dad. but i said the exact same thing. some day when you're a father, you'll understand. i'm his father. it's not a competition. listen to your tv dad.

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