else. that's the kind of particular potency, jen, that i think he has in this primary. >> that is true. trump also has the entire republican party, where the most vocal wing of the party following and echoing him. it's like he sends this bad signal out to go and attack alvin bragg. they are all doing it, including even tim scott who is not even in the race yet, but seems to be echoing this same language about seeing a politicized case, which there is no evidence that it is. trump also has all of these people, kevin mccarthy, potential candidates, echoing his messages and the attacks to round desantis. he doesn't have that. >> michael, jen psaki, thank you so much to you both. jen psaki, new show inside with jen psaki, 12 pm eastern on msnbc, also streaming on peacock. that's our in on this wednesday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex.

>> i will say, lawrence and rachel have a bagel situation going with jen psaki's show on sunday, bagels and cream cheese, community eating sessions. i would suggest that you and i come up with something like a bloody mary or a mimosa or some other sunday lake -- >> sounds good. >> i'm just putting it out there on national television so we can hold ourselves later on on it. that's it for me, that's the show. thanks, chris. thanks to all of you at home for joining us at this hour. all we, we have been an indictment watch, we're wondering about the case with donald trump allegedly paying hush money to porn star stormy daniels which resulted in the first indictment of a former u.s. president in american history. today, we got two pieces of news that made me wonder if there is now complication for that historic birth. maybe the news about wondering which case against top health would go down against history

-- the first case brought against the former president. a first piece of news was that manhattan district attorney alvin bragg, who is overseeing the stormy daniels case, he called called the scheduled grand jury, we don't know why he did that, and we will get some expert legal help breaking that down later this hour. for now, the bottom line is the no indictment in that case is happening today. that's number one. number two has to do with special counsel jack smith's investigation into whether trump took classified documents when he left the white house, and whether trump obstructed justice when the government tried to get those documents back. we got such a huge advance in that case today, we have been wondering how close they've missed an indictment of their very own. and there is the shred of a chance that jack smith breaks history first. last night, the appeals court in d.c. gave trump's team until midnight to file a brief in the mar-a-lago case.

after that, special counsel smith's team had until six a.m. to file their response. they literally had to pull in all-nighter. what is so important that the court of appeals in d.c. decided that they could not even wait one day, and instead needed jack smith's team to stay up all night? this is trump attorney evan comer, not the only -- but he's also representing the primary point of contact with the national archive and the doj for nearly a year now. a ton of this case seems to be about trump's potential obstruction of justice. the trump's lawyer since april of 22, and that is all very relevant here. you might remember that back in june of last year, a few months prior to the fbi search of mar-a-lago, trump's lawyers gave a statement to the department of justice, saying that a diligent search had been conducted, and to the best of their knowledge, all material at the property had been

returned. devin corcoran drafted that statement, and another trump lawyer signed it. two months later, the fbi found more than 100 classified documents in a storage area, and in trump's own office in his family's personal residence at mar-a-lago. key parts of this investigation for how these documents got into trump's residence in the very first place, and whether trump moving them there might have been an attempt to obstruct justice. the washington post reported last year that the department of justice had gathered evidence, indicating that trump told people to move boxes to his residence after his legal team had received a subpoena for mar-a-lago's security camera footage. once the doj got ahold of that footage, it allegedly showed exactly that, people moving boxes to trump's personal residence shortly after his legal team learned of the subpoena. when i say trump's legal team, again, the point person on the

legal team is evan corcoran. again, back to the key part of this investigation, what does the moving of those boxes in attempt to obstruct justice? with that in mind, one of the things that the special counsel's reporting and particularly interested in is a phone call between him and evan corcoran right around the time for that subpoena of the video footage was first issues, maybe to find out what devin corcoran was being told or not told about does boxes. all of this puts trump lure evan corcoran in a very unique position. yes, he's trump lawyer, but he also might be a witness or party to a crime. he could be willingly or unwittingly a pawn in president trump's alleged obstruction of justice. that is something known as the crime fraud exception, and that can break attorney giant privilege. last month, special counsel jack smith as to the d.c. district court judge for approval to do just that, to

force corcoran to cooperate with the investigation. abc news reported that the special counsel for them presented evidence that trump, quote, deliberately miss had his own attorneys, and evidence that appears to show that trump committed the crime. on friday, a federal judge agreed with the special counsel, and ordered evan corcoran to comply with the grand jury subpoena for the testimony, and also ordered him to hand over a number of records related to what the judge reportedly referred to as trump alleged criminal team. those documents would be handwritten notes, invoices, and transcriptions of personal audio recordings. trump's team, not wanting those documents in the hands of the special counsel for obvious reasons, the legal team representing trump appealing that ruling. that dispute is what led to the d.c. circuit to assign special counsel jack smith that all-nighter last night.

now today, that same appeals court has ruled in jack smith's favor. they refused to grant the trump's team appeal, meaning that friday's ruling, the attorney client privilege, that can take effect. cnn and cvs are both reporting that he is sent to testify on friday. the actual legal judgment remains under scaled, and they haven't independently confirmed friday is the date that it will happen, but the key witness to the mar-a-lago classified documents obstruction of justice case is now fair game for special counsel jack smith. this begs the question, are we on a watch now for indictments in the plural? joining us now, nbc's senior legal correspondent and kyle cheney, senior legal affairs writer for politico. as we try to understand exactly what is happening, it appears to be administer recommending wrapped in something that's understated, things are pretty

clear. first, i love your perspective own unusual timing yesterday, ordering one side to respond by midnight, special counsel has to respond by six a.m., i've never seen that. how did you interpret that? >> the stakes are very high. there's something in those materials that the judge, assuming that it would be those materials in private, before she actually ordered them to be turned over, they're not currently reporting the, but that's typically how it goes. something in those, she decided was so high stakes, so important had to be turned over expeditiously, and in the court of appeals said sided with her, obviously we haven't seen what they've done. it's sealed. we don't know what that is, but whatever it is, obviously they hear a lot of veteran as well, because they went through the trouble of trying to get the materials so that the grand

jury can see them. the grand jury within review this and preparing to possibly indict. >> do you draw any conclusion about the timeframe on all of this, given the rapidity with which, the alacrity with which they are moving through this. what seems to be the and stages of this investigation? >> it's fair to say that we don't go after the former presidents attorney until you are really at a critical juncture. it's certainly not the move that you would make is your first entry into the gate. you would usually do it once you developed enough facts and evidence to feel like this is really the thing that we need, and you would have to take that showing to the judge that this is really critical evidence. it is not to say that they are anywhere near close to an indictment. that might be nearly as far out as the da in manhattan for instance. it is fair to say that they are an advanced stage in the investigation. >> for a moment, prior to trump

announcing the knees of running for president, the reporting that we had, and especially in the washington post, was that the doj was close to charging that division in the mar-a-lago case last fall, and obviously that did not come to pass. special counsel jack smith is pointed to run this. it's now march, months later, but as laura points out, we are talking about the presidents lawyer being subpoenaed, going forward, providing that evidence, what is your estimation about what else we might expect in terms of witnesses that can be called, in terms of the work that remains on this case, which to the layman seems pretty exhaustive at this point. >> to put it in a broader perspective, it's happening in manhattan, you have the documents case, and then you have fulton county which is currently be invite investigated to turn the election in georgia, and all

three of those could be imminent, it's not just the two that we talked about, but it's the third one as well in fulton county. indictments can come any day if the da from fulton says that it's imminent, that the charges are imminent there. it's very remarkable when you think about, and you're absolutely right, when you're going to appear with that on a fraud theory, you're pretty much at the end game. judges don't like to do, that ever, in any circumstances, and so when you have the chief judge at the time, agreeing that they appeal the court, they agree with her, then it seemed like the evidence must be pretty compelling and overwhelming, and so now the question is, will corporate show up on friday? there's been some effort for the supreme court which we have not seen any signals yet. there's been some reporting the trump isn't interested in going to the supreme court. it may be that he shows up, gives them the goods that he has, and indictment could be

fairly forthcoming after that. >> what is your assessment of that? while the judge ruled that yes but, he has to testify, and the evidence has to go, the prosecutors can look at the evidence they were talking, about and we will get to that in a second. the appeals process continues, right? kyle saying the trump reportedly doesn't want this to go to the supreme court, given how they have handled previously similar things, what is your estimation about the fight ahead, and how much this could be litigated further? >> keeping the appeal open can be risky at first, in the event that later down the line, a court decides that these documents should actually have not have come into evidence, should not have gone before a jury. the whole thing gets thrown out which could be particularly problematic for them. even if his team are allowed to review these materials, they not might not be able to ultimately use them if they were to report with an

indictment. >> and let's just talk about the materials. if we're talking about notes from personal audio recordings, and we don't know that is. >> again, the judge examining this material is referring to it as trump alleged criminal scheme, he's putting the words trump and criminal scheme together after review of these materials, which might include notes from personal audio recordings. >> it's weird because usually when you see the exception in vogue, it's in a case where they are in some sort of cahoots with the climate client. in this case, what it appears to be is that she, the judge, has suggested that trump actually misled his own attorneys in some way, and again the contours of, that we're going to have to report out, but as you said in your setup here, we know that their department is so interesting, as he has what turns out to be a very -- that the justices start receiving those on.

with that done at his clients suggestion, and if so, how did that all come together? >> those are the kinds of questions the you can try to focus on. a statement is the kind of centerpiece for the obstruction case, right? the notion that the trump legal team says that, do you know what guys? they've got everything. what we know about the statement is evan corcoran drafting it, but christina bobb, a different lawyer signs in. i wonder if you are interested for the sort of choreography of the signing of that statement, because it suggests that there are inferences drawn about who knew what and terms of dylan galatea that statement. >> and that is why one of the questions that i have, is evan corcoran going to come forward willingly? if he's somebody that says that i want to tell you what i know, i have to clear my name and the people that worked with me, but then trump is going to block him. it's a secret of events that

suggests that if trump intervened to stop him from going forward, stopping him from talking, i don't know because this is all happening in secret, and it's all under seal, we just get bits and pieces here in there. it's hard to always judge with the motivations are here, but one of the theories around why the appeals court moved in such urgency, is because perhaps he was ready to come say what he knew, and if he didn't step into adjudicate this, it might be too late. we saw very similar situation play out last fall when martin short and -- and mike pence were subpoenaed for the get january 6th grand jury. it seemed like a very much secret process that trump lost, in the very much day after he lost that event, they came in and testified we've seen this movie before in a certain way. maybe he is a lot to say. >> that is a fascinating theory, and i wonder what you make of it.

perhaps he is a cooperative witness, and they have to get this material in the prosecutors hands stat because he wants to come and testify. >> we just don't know. there's some reporting out there that he actually ordered him to produce these documents by ex date, and so with the appellate court, in order to make sure they got out ahead of that ruling, they wanted everything to be done expeditiously, so that they could have a whole airing of their side, a swarming to produce that, but we just simply don't know, i wish that we did. we are working on it. i just think that we don't yet know enough about what corcoran's level of cooperation is here, if any. >> we do have a sense that he's pretty exposed, and we have reporting that he is still working as a lawyer for donald trump, which laura, again, i'm not a lawyer, but that seems pretty perilous, not only for evan corcoran but also for donald trump because evan

corcoran is a potential witness in this case, and he would no longer be able to go with him. trump could also be accused of witness tampering, there's just so many levels to how legally perilous it is for all parties involved. >> i think that he's still involved for sure. >> there hasn't been anything about this yet, the legal machinations of this case. but i do think that we need to wait and see how some of this plays out, and again, it's a question of how they want to use the material, right? the bar for getting the grand jury subpoena is lower than they threshold that he would have to make in court to actually prove that he's harder to be, that's a really different threshold. i'm just curious to see how, if at all, he uses the materials that he fought so hard to get. >> and i will say, we want to highlight, in addition to the statements that we talked about, it's also the phone call that trump made to corcoran allegedly in and around the

same time that the doj is subpoenaing to get their hands on the video footage that was then revealed, and they were putting boxes around mar-a-lago. the content of that call are going to be of great interest to all of us, but especially to the department of justice as they try to figure out, if they do what they're going to do in this case. laura? come back, please. all the time. >> i'm not going away, that's for sure. >> this is not going away. kyle cheney, thank you for your great reporting, and thank you to both of you for your time and expertise, and just walking us down this strange and winding road. we have a lot to get to this evening, including the role of the national enquirer in the hush money scheme that might end up making history. that tabloid, if you recall, in maybe you don't, also playing a role in another national scandal involving a major political figure and his affair, and hush money. we will have more on that, when we come back. e house whisperer!

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the presidential election just around the corner, and everybody was waiting for democratic candidate john kerry to choose a running mate. that was when the new york post got a big scoop and rushed to print this front page story.

carries choice, he picks gephardt at the peak candidate. he did not pick him to be his running mate. the new york post got it wrong. the vice presidential version of newly to defeated truman. but maybe john kerry should've listened to that prediction that morning, because the man that he did pick to be his running mate that year was this guy, north carolina senator jon edwards. by 2018, john edwards was telling news outlets -- sorry, john kerry was telling news outlets, calling him a fake. he said he didn't measure up as vice presidential candidate, because seven years after carrie and edwards lost the 2004 presidential election, john edwards became americas first national political candidate to be indicted for scheme to pay hush money to add mistrust to cover up an affair. >> with his daughter, kate by his side, john edwards took responsibility for doing wrong.

but not for breaking the law. >> i did not break the law. i have never thought about breaking the law. >> almost 1 million dollars provided by two wealthy donors, and according to the government, the money was used to hide his mattress, brio hunter, and later their child, while he ran for president. the six count indictment alleges the payments constituted unlawful campaign contributions, and accuses edwards of soliciting and covering them up, saying that he knew that if it became public, it would undermine his image as a family man, and it would destroy his candidacy. >> nobody ever been charged, either civilly or criminally, the claims that have been brought against senator edwards today. >> no one has ever been charged, either civilly or criminally with the claims that have been brought against senator edwards today. the national political candidates are concerned, that

claim is still true, at least for now. the world's waiting to see if manhattan district attorney alvin bragg will bring charges against donald trump for his own alleged scheme to pay hush money for a former mistress in order to cover up an alleged affair. the potential case against trump is remarkably similar to the one brought against john edwards a decade ago. both cases involved paying a woman to keep secret and alleged affair during a presidential campaign, in both cases hinged on the idea that the hush money, paid to cover up that a fair, and that money constituted an illegal campaign donation. those similarities are nearly certain to be in the back of the manhattan da's mind right now. even though john edwards political career was effectively ended by the discovery of mrs. affair and love child, the legal case against edwards proved significantly less damning. in 2012, day acquitted edwards of one campaign finance charge at the center of the government's case against him. the jury deadlocked on five other charges, but because

edwards was found not guilty on that campaign finance charge, the rest of the case started to look a lot shakier, and the prosecution chose not to retry edwards on those other charges. now, legal experts are warning of similar pitfalls in the financial case against donald trump. it's not yet clear, for example, whether prosecutors will be able to prove that the alleged hush money payment made to stormy daniels, whether that constituted a campaign finance violation. so that is how prosecutors can avoid repeating history, as they weighed whether to bring in historic charges against former president. i will ask the former manhattan prosecutor that very question, and a whole lot more, coming up next. with less sugar or no sugar at all. in fact, today, nearly 60% of beverages sold contain zero sugar. different sizes? check. clear calorie labels? just check. with so many options, it's easier than ever to find the balance that's right for you. more choices.

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the national enquirer that wrote the very first story about a major candidate for president, shelling out of hush money to cover an extramarital affair. the candidate was john edwards, in the national inquiry aborting that his mistress was pregnant. once they wrote that first story, he was like a dog with a bone. they employed every tactic they could to keep front pages like these to keep on the new stance for the better part of the year. in 2010, the coverage earned the tabloids the nomination. story was clearly gold for the

national enquirer, and in 2015, the paper had a chance to do it all over again. they had a shot to break the news in the second major candidate for president hashing -- to cover up to extramarital affairs. the enquirer decided not to break the story but to cover it up, because in 2016, the candidate with donald trump. this time instead, the wall street journal broke the story but dave pecker, the chair of the committee the publishes the enquirer, the date killed stories about that -- and was involved in hush money payments. they gave prosecutors the information they needed to charge michael cohen, who implicated trump himself in the hush money scandal, which brings us to this week. as we wait for a manhattan grand jury to decide on's recommendation about whether to charge trump with his role on the hush money payments, we have news it does jurors are reconvening tomorrow. a report saying that they might

hear from one where witness before they vote. joining us now is karen and gavel of -- i'm so sorry, karen. >> if you so much for being here tonight, karen. i swear i'll get your name right another time. >> karen, you have a wealth of experience in this kind of legal situation, if not the particular case. i wonder first and foremost, the kind of back and forth that we've seen again, involving the grand jury, bringing them back, a suggestion of one more witness, with rumors out there that that one more witness might be michael cohen and might be somebody else. at the start of the week, bob kclo, one of the former legal minds involved in all of this back in the day came out and really attacked michael cohen's character. he's a star witness here potentially for the manhattan do way. do you think that what we could be seeing is alvin bragg trying

to clean up the mess that bob castella made at the beginning of the week? >> what is happening is that basically a mini trial in the grand jury, which is unusual. grand jury proceedings are usually on their own, much smaller amounts of evidence that that type of the trial. there's no opening statements, no cross examinations, they're just putting on a bare bones case to get over the hurdle of an indictment, which is a much lower standard than a trial when you have to prove a case beyond a reasonable doubt. but here you're having a little bit of a new trial going on because the grand jury heard from a defense witness, which the defense had a right to request that. the grand jury heard it, and so it's kaavan for a situation where you would want to put on that rebuttal, at least consider putting on rebuttal witnesses if there is some doubt on the information given that the prosecution wants to

reboot. >> it also feels like the public is so engaged in every chapter of this, because as you point, out this is not a normal grand jury proceeding. but talking about press availability of michael cohen, holding up copies of a book that talks about law -- is it about the manhattan da? >> michael cohen is known, he knows who he is. they know they have a conviction for lying to congress, other criminal convictions that he's flip-flopped on. there is a point in time where he said that donald trump had nothing to do with it, but now he's saying that he does. you have to corroborate absolutely everything that michael cohen says, but michael cohen also provides a lot of color for who donald trump is. donald trump picked michael cohen, donald trump used to michael cohen, he wrote the book on how to do these

criminal schemes that lawyers and others are doing with donald trump. that is who donald trump picked, as somebody like that. as a prosecutor, you have to live with who it is that the defendant brings in as a witness, and a person in the room who's going to have the evidence. i think that alvin bragg had all of that corroboration lined up, knowing that you have to corroborate with him. >> and he knew who michael cohen was. >> exactly. >> let's talk a little bit about the strength of the case, because we did a fair amount of treating everybody to the john andrews history, how do you see this case as meaningfully different than the edwards case, for example? >> this case has two legal issues, right? a, did it happen, and michael cohen has the issues that he has. you have to corroborate that. and b, it is it legally sound? for both of those issues, the

john edwards case, i think that it did not necessarily have those issues. the john edwards case with much more about the facts, and whether that was for a campaign violation, weather or not to have a inappropriate campaign violation. here, it has a similar legal issue, but it also has a other legal issue. this is the state court prosecutions, and the questions about whether or not a federal campaign counts as the crime that is falsifying a business record from a misdemeanor to the felony. >> everybody says that it's a two tiered process to escalated to a felony. people have supposed, ideation campaign finance pieces when elevates it to a family. there are other potential crimes that could be cited it would elevated to a felony. are there not be on the campaign fight -- >> there absolutely are. i used an analogy of a

burglary. in a burglary, it's a trespassing. you knowingly enter and remain unlawfully somewhere. it's not trespassing, that's a misdemeanor. with turns it into a burglary, when you go in, you have the intent to commit a crime in there. you don't necessarily have to prove the crime, you don't necessarily have to commit that. you know what can -- you just know that it was not taking a nap on the couch. he has a, knife whatever. and so it's similar here i think. you're going to look at different facts, is this proper, why didn't they recorded as pain? because it's not illegal to do a hush money payments, so why did they have to recorded as a legal retainer? donald trump is out there saying that he didn't want millennia to know. i would argue that for the trump books and -- >> so why did they structure the payments in several different ones, why did they structure them overtime if they were not trying to hide it?

and what was going on two weeks later, he was elected. and so i think the you can make a very strong argument that this was for the purpose of committing a crime. it could be one of several crimes. he wasn't just taking a nap on the catch. >> last question for you. in terms of why they did not pursue this, when it was kind of in their hands, bill barr was the attorney general at the time, but merrick garland is now the a.g.. have you ever thought about why this administration, the department of justice is not more fully using the hush money case? >> at the time that michael cohen pled guilty in 2018, they talked about individual ones. the justice department then, bill barr, the justice department, they found that individual one, donald trump, the one that he actually participated in. when he was president at the time, nobody is going to bring a case against a sitting president. that's just not what's going to happen.

why merrick garland did not pick it up afterwards, i would argue that he had 1000 people to get to prosecute on january 6th. and there were a lot of other issues involving donald trump. this case of fell by the wayside. but that's the gap, that's what i think. it can still compete with the mar-a-lago documents case, january 6th, and all of this prosecutions. >> it's an understatement right there. karen, thank you so much for your expertise, and your wisdom, it was great to have you on the show. >> thanks for having me. >> we have much more ahead tonight. yet another trial, a deferral, and not the ones we've been talking about, but another trial is looming over president trump. this one is over several allegations leading back to the 1990s. wow. plus, the new york times report jason inside trump world as their former president braces for indictment. we will get the scoop on what reporters are describing as trump magical thinking.

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that he is raised one and a half million dollars since the day he went on to social to rant about his possible arrest and called for protest. nbc has not confirmed that fundraising number. trump's most ardent supporters are latching on to trump's potential supporters in a way that only supporters would. several this weekend tweeted president trump will be arrested during lent, a time of suffering and purification for the followers of jesus christ. as chris was crucified in that rose again on the third day, so too will donald trump. seattle. meanwhile, the new york times characterized trump's current behavior in state of mind this way. mr. trump has been both invigorated and angered by the prospect of being arrested, according to those who have spoken with him. and he has also entertained a certain amount of magical thinking. joining us now is the lead author on that story, michael bender, political correspondent for the new york times, along with great matthew dowd, chief

strategist for the bush cheney 2004 presidential campaign and an msnbc political analyst. gentlemen, thank you for joining me. i will start with you, michael, about the magical thinking. if you could illustrate to us or just retail, what kind of magical thinking are we talking about in trump world as it pertains to this indictment? >> there's a couple of things here. one is we, have talked to several people who have spoken to the former president who say that he has become fixated on an idea of a perp walk, a tradition that detectives and police reporters in new york city are very familiar with by the newly arrested being walked past a gaggle of reporters and news reporters cameras, and trump has been captivated by this idea, talking to people about, if he's going to have a perp walk and if he would smile for the cameras, how that kind of thing might play with the

american public. several people have been left thinking that he sees this as kind of a fun thing to do and certainly an opportunity to make a political statement, what he is thinking here is that anything to project strength and confidence. he doesn't want to be seen as slinking away in shame if he is arrested. but the truth is, he most likely will not have a perp walk. that sort of thing, if he is arrested, that sort of thing will be arrest did by law enforcement secret service who most likely want to avoid a massive scene. the other kind of wild thing here is that he has launched a big pressure campaign. you showed some of those over the top campaign requests, contribution requests, you've gone on a tirade attacking the manhattan da. some trump aides have convinced themselves and have spoken to the former president about this, that pressure campaign may

actually be having an effect, and that the manhattan da may walk away from an indictment. if they decide not to indict the former president because of the pressure campaign trump is winning. we have seen this before. the trump white house had convinced themselves the democratic house run by nancy pelosi might not indict him, and they thought of the time that they might have turned some democratic votes and that vote will go down. we know that didn't happen the first time where the second time. it's unlikely that his pressure campaign is having any effect on the manhattan district attorney's office now either. >> my head is spinning with all the things you just said, michael. matthew, let's first unpack the twilight zone in which trump land exists, that a perp walk, matthew, could be seen as a sign of strength. how do you see a perp walk in this day and age, as it pertains to donald trump? >> will you know, alex, what's

funny about it is, it's a reflection of how they think about their supporters. they think about their supporters and the idea that having a perp walk of donald trump would benefit him. and that actually says to me all you need to know about what they think about their supporters, which is that there they will never hold him accountable, they don't care what he does. he is free to run his criminality or whatever. that's what they think. so they can do anything and get away with it. the sad news is, my fear is that at least in the short term, among republican primary voters, his base, he would actually benefit from that. he may get a lift, an initial lift of that, because he's going to make it seem, you think i'm being persecuted but it's really you are being persecuted. you are the real victim. they're going after your culture, your life, all of that. i think if you really get truth serum to republican leaders, even though they've been in

defense of him, like kevin mccarthy, what they would like to see is, they support donald trump, donald trump sees their loyalty, and donald trump is never the nominee of the party. because i think they know deep in their heart that if he makes it through the primary, having an indicted donald trump going into a general election is the worst possible thing for them in keeping the house. >> i do wonder though, matthew, when we talk about the support of his followers, if you think fundraising it is at all of indicative of enthusiasm? let's remember, in the eight weeks since donald trump said he didn't he didn't lose the election, he raised $255 million. his campaign is saying it raised 1.5 since friday. the numbers are decidedly a lot lower this time around, as you talk about the martyr complex.

do you think that is indicative of anything? how do you read that? >> i have been, i've tried to speak out against this for the last ten years. i think the metric of fundraising and the metric of rallies, and i pair them together, are no longer applicable to how voters think, how the voters are going to decide these elections really feeling what it manifests in themself. nearly every single trump endorsed candidate in 2022 raised attorney of grassroots money. and. kari lake is a perfect example. she had all these rallies, screaming and yelling people, and she lost. and so i think we should start abandoning that metric as a metric that says this person is strong, this person is powerful, this person is demonstrating political support. because time and time again, i mean, sarah palin used to draw huge rallies, much bigger than barack obama. and that ended up being a

negative on the ticket. i don't think it's indicative of base support. it's not indicative of what's going to happen in a general election. >> fair point. michael, i know trump is embracing certain aspects in this potential indictment. but your reporting indicates that there is actually fear in trump land. and i wonder if you could take us back to the fear that he felt, i think it was a 1973, about being arrested after the first criminal investigation into the trump and trump and their potential sued for -- discrimination. >> a couple of things are true here. one is trump's trying to move this legal fight in manhattan onto a political battlefield so that he can, find a way to leverage this for his campaign moving forward. and to mitigate as much damage as possible. but let's not mince words, donald trump does not want to

be arrested. he does not want to be indicted. we see that in social media. you see some of his posts, on his social media website. all capital letters to the manhattan da, do the right thing. he does not want an indictment on his record. and he has always had a certain fear of being arrested. it sounds silly to say that out loud, but it's true. and he has cultivated a lot of relationships with that dynamic underpinning it. folks who may be able to help him if you got to the point of an arrest or an indictment. he made sure to keep them close. i would like to jump back, you were asking about the fundraising. i do think, from what i have seen in some polling lately, trump's bases doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but the biggest question i think republican voters are going to face in the republican primary is whether they think trump can

win in november of 2024. if he can beat biden. he's got to bring back moderate republicans independents who have abandoned him for three consecutive election cycles at this point. we have seen him starting his polling within the last few months. that's because a large part he has been playing two smaller crowds. he's been answering questions. he's doing more traditional campaigning, not fully, that humber-st. time, but more than he used to. his response to the indictment is the kind of thing that has long turned off moderate republicans and independents from trump. i think that's the thing to watch, the effect this could have moving forward. >> all right. i just want to say, for the record, i don't know a lot of people that have an ongoing and generalized fear about being arrested. but that's interesting psychology right there. we're going to leave it there. matthew dowd and michael bender, appreciate your time.

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