>> harry smith, nbc news, i i was city. >> and it is caitlin clark's history making game that will take us off the air tonight. with that, i wish you a good night. i am symone sanders-townsend in for stephanie rule. you can catch me on saturday and sunday mornings on mighty show the weekend with my co-host alicia menendez and michael steele. this week our guest include congressman pramila jayapal, and the french ambassador to the united states. we hope to see you at 8 am eastern this weekend, right here on msnbc. i will have the coffee. but for now, from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thank you so much for staying up late. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

>> the fbi informant republicans hoped would take down joe biden s is arrested. >> a trusted, highly credible informant, a very credible fbi informant -- >> a guy with an impeccable credentials. >> jamie raskin on the spectacular collapse of a maga attack. now what the fani willis hearing means for the trump prosecution in georgia. the data set for the hush money trial in new york, and the indicted front-runner usis push to install his family at the rnc so he could siphon campaign cash to pay his d criminal attorneys. >> every penny will go to the only job of the rnc. that is electing donald j trump. >> when all in starts, right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes.

well, it has been quite a day of news in the many cases against donald trump. there were, as you might have seen earlier today, fireworks in fulton county in a georgia courtroom liwith the prosecutor who brought the racketeering case against donald trump and his codefendants, that woman, fani willis, spent the day on the stand defending herself from attempts to pull her g off the case. in manhattan a frjudge set the date for what may be the start of the first criminal trial of the ex president. we're going to get in all of that later in the show. but first we begin with another case. that's the one that republicans have drummed up against president joe biden's only living son. for years the right wing has been running a sketchy, tawdry political operation to find and prosecute any wrongdoing by the president's son, hunter biden. and the president's son has, of course, as we all prknow, made some bad judgment cocalls over the years, largely, mei think, related to his lifelong struggle with addiction. but he has been targeted in what is essentially a political hit job intended to inflict pain upon his father. he is facing criminal charges

by a special prosecutor in the department of justice that many experts say would never be brought against anyone who is not the sign of the president. some of the most serious claim levelled against hunter biden have to do his work for ukrainian energy company called burisma, and alleged payments they made to the violence. plural. so republicans been yelling from the roof tops about brides bribes paid not only to hunter biden but to joe biden the president of the united states, who was then vice president. that i d of o illicit secret bribes has been the central of their whole attack. and today, in the most spectacular announcement imaginable, it blew up in their faces. sp you see the special counsel,

republican appointee, believe in a case against hunter biden, appointed by donald trump, said this guy, this informant that they hung their entire claim on about the bribe he lied. they're infamous fbi informant is being federally criminally charged for making it all up. . >> documented allegations of bribery from a trusted fbi confidential human source has no finally been released. now its contents are devastating. >> okay, i am sparing you the amount of sean hannity i can play you. for my son's i watched about 30 minutes of monologues. but in his show, fox host sean hannity alone promoted a claim of the single fbi informant no less than 85 times last year. 28 of those segments were monologues. very long monologues. in addition to all the breathless so-called reporting. this was across the right-wing media. hannity had house oversight

committee chairman and chief biden crime family investigator james comer on as a guest 43 times in 2023. today james comer and sean hannity's favourite informant, a smoking gun for the investigation, was arrested at harry e reid international airport in los havegas, indicte on two counts of feeding the fbi false information about president joe biden and his son hunter. according to that indictment, 43 year old alexander smirnoff's story about mariza officials playing the bidens money, was a fact an amalgam of a remarkable business meetings in context. joining me is nbc news justice reporter ryan reilly. ryan, this is really quite a bombshell. first, tell us who this individual is. >> so he did an fbi informant for a long time, i think since 2010. this isn't

somebody who just came along. but he was anti biden, according to this indictment, and was going back and forth with his fbi handler and was sort of suggesting, contemporaneously, in 2020 that this could impact the presidential race. this was some of the text we see impacted. he said this is gonna come out. the suggestion i read into those message was . that he was going through other avenues and getting this out through the media, saying this is going to come out soon. so it wasn't just feeding this into the fbi and putting ban information there. but also trying to weaponize through messages to either members of congress or through the media and what have you. it was all just made up. it was purely made up stuff that he put their. so if you have ever seen a headline, you wouldn't see it it nbc news because -- because but if you ever see headline bout ea pthof 500 million dollar payment to joe biden, that's where it all came from. it's the fruit of the poisonous tree that this all came from and a lot of what this

impeachment inquiry is about. >> the new york post also run by rupert murdoch, like fox, biden 10 million dollar bribe file, barry smith chief said he was forced to made joe -- part of a bribery scheme, according to fbi documents. here is where it gets interesting. that fbi document was that this confidential important road of form making lebeochis bribery allegation. and that is what he's being indicted for since it was a fabrication. e' but then in this kind of alleyoop play, the republicans on the hill know this document exists and they shake it loose to the public. this is chuck graphically in july of 2023, for the better part of cha year i've been pushing the justice department, fbi, to provide details on its handling very significant allegations from a trusted fbi informant, implicating then vice president biden in a criminal bribery scheme. they know about, it they brow beat the doj to shake it loses if they're covering up, and now it turns e. tout the man's bein

indicted for fabricating. >> and james comer actually threatened to hold fbi director chris wray in contempt. this was a serious thing. they were really wanting to get this document. it was all just nonsense and based umon nothing. at the time when donald trump was the executive. he was in the white house. he was overseeing the justice department and fbi, theoretically. so this wasn't something that would have been crushed back down. it wasn't pursued because it wasn't really reliable. in terms of getting $5 million to two individuals, that's something that shows up. that's tough to hide. there's a lot of ways you can determine that. we . ats know how joe biden mad money, it was through a good book deal he got after he was vice president. former vice presidents and vice presidents get good book deals, and that's how they pay for things afterwards. that's not what was happening here. it $5 million were showing up there would've been other evidence of that. all they had was when fbi informant saying this.

now the fbi now the special prosecutor says this is made up, invented conversations that he claimed happened earlier when they didn't really happen. he had these context with burisma officials, but he said they happened a lot earlier they did when in fact he wasn't in contact with n burisma officials until 2017, after biden was out of office and couldn't be pulling strings are having influence as vice president it was alleged in the underlying allegations from a publicans. >> to your point, when we cover this the first time on air, i remember them saying let's take a step back and do a little objects here. was a 5 million dollar es abrib secretly shepherded to the sitting vice president at the time by a corrupt foreign interest that just no one figured out, including donald trump's own justice department was sitting on it? or was that fabricated? well, today i think we have pretty definitive answer. ryan riley, thank you very much.

congressman jamie raskin democrat of maryland. he is the ranking member on the house oversight committee, which has been investigating these claims in a statement tonight he said, quote, i formally ghcall on speaker johnson, chairman comer, and house republicans to stop promoting this nonsense and end their doomed sreimpeachment inquiry. congressman raskin joins me now. is this the end of the road for this line of investigation, congressman? >> i certainly hope so. the members of the committee on the democratic side have seen these fraudulent allegations debunked time and time again. left harness wrote a edletter t chairman comer and me. he was really giuliani's right- hand man. he said i was sent out there to concoct this case. there is nothing to. at the testimony devin archer completely debunking it and the

former president of ukraine, poroshenko, debunked it. the republicans on the senate side on 2020 do their investigation and they said they couldn't find anything to it. so we are not that surprised that this has happened but it is an amazing turn of events, and i do think it's an opportunity for a reset on the republican side. we could use the oversight powers of congress to be looking at the problem of gun violence, for example, or we could be looking at climate change. if they want to stick with this issue, let's look at the question of presidents and their families selling on the government of the united states. we did a minority report of our hin. oo we released it over a month ago. i think i came and talked about it here. we found documented receipts over 1 million dollars that donald trump collected at his hotels and golf courses from china, saudi arabia, united

arab emirates, lots of countries. we could look at the whole question ldof foreign governmen in a bipartisan way. we could look at the question of other family members using their names to make deals with foreign governments. let's look at that as well. but let's be serious about it and deal with the facts rigorously rather than in mythological ways. >> one of the things i think is key to highlight here, and i want to lay it out and you tell me if i have this right. it has always been the case, under biden's worked for burisma was documented. we know that happened. we know the payments were made to him, et cetera. they have never, and hunter biden had a business, consulting nepawith various entities. the thing they have never been able to demonstrate, and i think because it didn't happen, is connecting it k to joe biden to the president of united states, so the man who is actually the sitting president, who they want to impeach. the reason they lean so heavily on this now clearly fabricated allegation, because it's the only thing out where out there that made that leap. several sean hannity monologues talk a length about this. this is the one. this is the thing that connects joe biden.

this is why it is so important. >> jim jordan said it y iisis key allegation in the whole constellation of allegations. chairman comer was on tv yesterday talking atabout it. they clearly view it as the heart of the whole investigation. already they are starting to backpedal and say oh it wasn't really about burisma and ukraine, then what was it about? nobody can determine what it was about. mike johnson in endorsing the impeachment inquiry went right to the burisma allegation. so this really is the heart of it. i think it's an opportunity for them to say you know what? we gave it our best shot but we're gonna give up the ghost. there's nothing there. even on trump's handpicked special counsel, mr. weiss, has bought charges ndagainst this confidential s human informant,

who terms out, presumably, allegedly, to have been engaged in a fraud from the very beginning. that is what we have said. there is simply no other evidence that has ever ha supported it. >> so on the question of impeachment, it was always the case, any donald trump is very public. he wants joe biden to be impeached. if he were to and face criminal trial this year, which i think is likely, they would like to impeach joe biden around that time and essentially have ysseterprogramming. s that's my supposition. they need a full vote of those to do that. they just impeached alejandro mayorkas over what was a policy dispute with no allegation of high crime or misdemeanour. but it took them two tries. the field on the first vote. they succeeded by one vote the second time. subsequent to that a new democrat has been elected in the third congressional district in new york. the majority is now 219 to 213. they can only lose two votes on anything if its party line vote. it seems to me like it's dead. but maybe i'm getting ahead of myself but i don't think they're going to be able to be president because they also don't have the votes. >> that's right. e ybge

and they, mayorkas was impeached over a policy dispute, the policy dispute was they did not want mayorkas working with the senate republicans democrats to actually solve problems at the border. that was a policy dispute. they wanted to keep the border crisis alive for donald trump's candidacy. but look, they were never going to be able to impeach joe biden because you've got 15 or so so- called biden republicans who represent districts that went for joe biden even though they are represented by republicans. those guys don't want to go anywhere near the fantasy production of this fake impeachment drive. so it was never going to happen. the impeachment of mayorkas was just this little trinket of a consolation prize that they got instead and that also blew up in their face and one might hope that they might say to themselves, let's give up all the nonsense the impeachments and the expulsions and centers

and all of that and let's get back to work and try to make something ryhappen. but unfortunately donald trump, the fourth branch of government, vetoes it every time, or the fifth branch of government vladimir putin vetoes it. they can't solve the problem ukraine, the problem with the border because trump doesn't want it. >> mike johnson doesn't have the votes to control bthe hous whatsoever. it's complete failed state. the house of representatives right now. congressman jamie raskin, thank you very much. coming up, donald trump's sopranosesque planet to make the rnc play his giant legal tab. but then fireworks from fani willis as the trumps prosecutor fight back against his lawyers. that's next. that's next.

>> if you are expecting some explosive moments in the criminal trials of donald trump, today in atlanta was quite a day. there was trauma, there was yelling, and none of it involved trump.

he wasn't even there. the center of this fire and fury, the person being scrutinized on the stand by multiple lawyers, was the woman who was prosecuting donald trump, fulton county district attorney fani willis. >> i object to you getting intrusive into peoples personal lives. you're confused. you think i'm on trial. these people are on trial for trying to steal an election in 2020. i'm not on trial, no matter how hard you try to put me on trial. >> my question was, do you have any prior -- >> objecting to any personal records of mine. >> what was that? how did we get here? well, of all the criminal faces, cases facing donald trump, the election racketeering case in fulton county georgia seemed, in many, ways the most damning. that was the one in which trump applauded to steal the electoral votes in 2020. crucially in this case there was trump on tape literally telling the states top election official to find him exactly the number of votes he needed

to win. there were four co-conspirators in that scheme who pled guilty and started cooperating with the prosecution. now the case is in complete jeopardy over allegations of misconduct by willis, the d.a. who brought the case. that was the subject of today's hearing. lawyers for the defendants say willis accepted favours and collect carried on an affair with a lawyer named nathan wade, seen testifying there, who she then brought in to work on the trump prosecution. willis was on the stand today for just over two hours, where she needed to romantic relationship with wade, but she said it started after they started working together and ended last summer before the indictment came. down >> the romantic relationship ended before the indictment returned, yes or no? >> to a man, yes. >> to a man, yes, to you, know? >> please explain. this >> the forthcoming indictment didn't have anything to do with that? or was it just a coincidence?

>> mr., let's go on and have a conversation. >> whether or not it was a coincidence -- >> it had nothing to do with this. >> willis arrived fired up and ready to perry with the defendants lawyers. people don't know she was gonna take the stand. at one point he was ordered to the stand in the office objected she said i want to talk. as those lawyers repeatedly asked probing questions about her intimate personal life, scrutinized spending, a romantic and sexual habits, her trips, each and every place she lived, quite a few, after she said her address was publicized and she began to receive threats from pro trump extremists. through it all they demanded to know about her outside the office encounters with wade. >> mr. wade visited you with the place you laid your head? has he ever visited you at the place you laid your head? >> let's be clear, you lied, you lied right here. no, no, no. this is the truth. it is a lie. it is a lie. >> i will take five minutes. >> attorneys the defendants

came back again and again to the meals of the trips that willis and wade took together. >> your 2022 disclosure form did not list any of the thousands and thousands of dollars that mr. weighed paid for on trips that you were on. isn't that correct? >> that's because mr. wade was paid that money back, or he was paid due to the fact that i bought the plane ticket or a paid for the hotel. there was never money that he gave me. that wasn't the nature of our relationship. >> there are some serious questions here, maybe that willis's answers are not satisfactory. there is, at the very least, an appearance of impropriety. but as you heard her say, she's

not on trial. a racketeering case against trump and 18 associates conspiring to steal george's electoral votes from their rightful winner, joe biden, but more importantly, away from the voters who voted for joe biden. it's an unprecedented and necessary to press for the future of democratic elections of the united states. what is mind-blowing is that the probing questions into the personal life of trump's prosecutor could possibly sink that case. >> katie feng is the host of the katie phang show as well as an attorney. melissa redmon, a university of georgia law professor who worked in the fulton county d.a. office with fani willis. they both join me now. katie, i'm gonna start with you, you are covering it all, day and before we get into some of the details here i just want to i think i watch the whole

thing not knowing, what is the threshold legal question here? what has to be demonstrated to get it over the line such that fani willis is disqualified from this case? what do they have to show for that to be the case? >> i'm grateful, chris, for that question, because it is all about the law. this was a legal proceeding that took place today, an evidentiary hearing. in georgia the law is as follows. to disqualify prosecutor from a case you have to have an actual not a speculative or theoretical conflict of interest. when do you have the conflict of interest. when you have a personal financial stake of the defendants convictions. or the defence has the burden in this case, chris, to prove through evidence, not through innuendo, not through salacious rumours, about whether affairs were had or not, that evidence has to be entered into the record and cannot be hearsay. it has to be firsthand eyewitness firsthand testimony and evidence about what has occurred. and the reason why i emphasize the law is because even though you even suggest that it has

the appearance of impropriety but it doesn't make this difference unless there's an actual conflict of interest. the law in georgia, chris, actually says that married couples can be on opposing sides of a case and that in and of itself to have that romantic relationship does not constitute disqualification. the stake has got to be higher though. if fani willis is dq'd off to this case, her entire office in georgia, that's the loss, is is off the case and gets reassigned. so what the judge needs to do is determine the credibility of these witnesses. who is lying? who is telling the truth? who has the incentive to lie in this instance? and apply his determination of those witnesses credibility and the facts in the evidence to the law in this case. >> melissa, let me ask you was someone who worked in this office and knows fani willis. it was striking at a personal level to see her chomping at the bit to get to defend

yourself today. i think her office where we were opposed to her appearing. what do you think of that? >> i don't have to clarify, i don't know her personally but i've seen her in action, or what we saw today was basically how i would see her in trial. basically ready for a war. she has had her integrity questioned, she has had her decision-making questioned, sometimes her intelligence questioned, as to why she made the decisions she made and the duly elected prosecutor in one of the largest counties in georgia. you can imagine she wanted to have an opportunity to tell her side of the story. i think it's akin to a defence attorney telling their client, make the state prove their case. make them put up their evidence first before we decide whether or not you need to testify. the attorneys, i am sure, we're seeing the subpoena should be crushed, you don't need to testify. they're sufficient expedition.

but miss willis apparently took the view that no, they want to have this conversation, let's have it. and that's what we saw play out in court. >> let's get back to this threshold legal question of a conflict of interest. the allegation, katie, by the defence, is that the actual conflict of interest here is what, specifically? >> your guess is as good as mine. if you really think about it, chris, this is what the allegations are. but i'm not really understanding it. she hired her then boyfriend to be a special prosecutor so she could reap the financial or pecuniary benefits of that relationship. you've heard now fani willis say under oath she is her own woman. she makes her own money. she doesn't need to be a kept woman at the hands of nathan wade. in fact she gave him catch, catch that she was taught by her daddy to make sure she had so she could keep or independents in the financial independence that it merited. i think what is amazing here is that she has had to defend decisions that otherwise would be so personal and intimate we would never know. for example, special prosecutor nathan wade, chris, today was

the first time anybody heard, or joke you public, that nathan wade was battling cancer in 2020 and that is the reason why he didn't venture out into places that wouldn't be sterile during a pandemic. we didn't know need to know that nathan wade was battling cancer. that information should never have made way into public consumption, and yet it did today. what is this benefit that she derives if he makes it clear that even though he may have made the preserve the tickets are booked to take its, she compensated him fairly for it. she made it clear, chris, that there is zero financial benefit she derived from that relationship with him. >> and melissa, this spectacle of it, it felt like, again, she is an elected leader and is subject to oversight. i want to treat this with kid gloves. she serves the public. there is an allegation of impropriety, this is a procedural hearing under georgia law. watching it felt like this tawdry public humiliation. it was a little like this to

our reporter. did you have the same feeling? >> absolutely. it was tawdry. one of the purposes would be public humiliation because of the standard for disqualification in georgia. even if they were in a relationship when she entered the contract, even if the money for the vacations wasn't perfectly evenly split, you would still have to show that she spent two years investigating a case, several months presenting, it to both a special grand jury and an indictment jury for the purpose of, she did all of that because of this relationship and submitted it from the strips, or whatever you can say. when you talk about the absurdity of having to show that actual conflict, that this relationship, whatever it was, whenever they did during the course of their personal lives, was somehow for the purpose or somehow impacted whether or not

these accused were fairly indicted and whether this case is being prosecuted absent any personal relationships of attorneys on either side might have. why are we doing? this where we hearing all of these personal details? from these attorneys as miss willis said, when they are not on trial. >> katie phang and melissa redmon, after one of the strangest days i have seen in a courtroom, i have to say thank you so much for bringing that down. i appreciate it. what still ahead, as donald trump appears and yet another new york courtroom today, the latest on the undated ex presidents plan to use the republican party as his personal piggy bank, next. ban.

>> donald trump was in court again today as part of his new york criminal case. because it is nearly impossible, frankly, to keep track, this is the case about the criminal into conspiracy trump purses abated in to get him -- while his third wife was at home with a on his third wife was at home with her third born child. then he bribed daniels with $130,000 to stay quiet about it, right before the election, when he was reeling from the access hollywood tape.

trump is now facing 34 criminal counts as a result in a new york court. his trial will begin in little over a month, on march 25th. and as we know, that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his legal woes. i don't think it's an overstatement to say there is not a single person on the planet right now, possibly, who is under more legal pressure than this man. one of the things we are seeing develop is that his approach to all of this is endless delay, delay, delay. and that could actually be an effective and serious legal strategy. there's a reason why most criminal defendants and litigants don't pursue it. all of this lawyering costs a shocking amount of money. think about this. trump is paying for lawyers in the new york criminal stormy daniels trial and the new york state civil fraud trial, which is threatening the trump organization with the corporate death penalty. as well as his second new york civil fraud trial in which he was found liable for defaming

writer e. jean, sorry, civil trial, after a previous civil trial where he was also found liable for sexually abusing her. the ex president now needs to pay her $83 million, a verdict that he has pledged to appeal but is unlikely to prevail. that is just one docket. the ex president is also paying for lawyers in special counsel jack smith's 2020 election interference case, and not just for the trial case. his subsequent appeal all the way to the supreme court to get it thrown out on a bogus immunity grounds. not only that, he has got lawyers defending him in the colorado case. remember, that's the one that's trying to get him disqualified from the ballot under section three of the 40th minute. he's also appealing that. his lawyers just argued in front of the supreme court. that's expensive lawyering. then there is jack smith's other federal criminal case stemming from trump's outright

theft of classified documents and the other election interference case, director in charge is in fulton county, georgia. to be clear, there is likely some overlap in these cases. but we don't know exactly how many attorneys currently represent the ex president. we know there are a lot of them. we know that there are lots and lots of billable hours costing lots and lots of money. in fact, last year alone trump spent over 52 million just on legal fees according to one analysis. we know that, well we kind of know it, because trump is not footing the bill himself. he has been raging use amounts of money through his fundraising apparatus, crowdsourcing a slush front for the devoted maga grandparents of america. bird a certain point that wells going to run dry and it's the worst time because if you think trump has expensive fees now, just wait until the criminal cases actually go to trial. think about the billable hours there. luckily for trump, he has found the perfect entity to take over and use for illegal

fundraising. that is one of america's teenager parties, the republican national committee. you may have seen the recent news that despite her embarrassing unethically degrading fealty to donald trump, rhonda mcdaniel is said to be effectively kicked out of her position as head of the rnc. it looks like she is going to be replaced from die hard trump loyalists including his longtime supporter mike wylie currently the head of the north carolina republican party, chris lacivita, a longtime republican are part of his second command on trump's campaign, and trump's own daughter-in-law and former for fox news pundit, lara trump. they're not hiding in any way what the takeover means. >> if i am elected to this position, i can assure you, there will not be any $70,000 or whatever exorbitant amount of money was spent on flowers every single penny will go to the number one and the only job of the rnc, that is electing donald j trump as president of

united states. >> the only job of the rnc that is elected donald j trump's president united states. there you have. it straight from the woman named trump, who is about to co- chair the committee. the aaron city the rnc is about to be republican in name only, funnily the money to pay for trump trials around the country instead of elections. we all know it. political reports quote, i love this line, several senior republican officials are concerned donald trump's expected takeover of the rnc well timidly pave the way for the committee to once again cover his legal bills. joining me now, someone who knows a thing or two about this, former rnc chair michael steele, host of the new show the weekend, alongside my friend lisa mendes and symone sanders, saturday and sunday morning right here on msnbc. excellent viewing. good to have you here. you do great work. i'm loving it. okay, my understanding is that they have already paid a bunch of his legal bills in the past. but they kind of made a distinction between what they

would and wouldn't pay, basically. and basically were like, we're not gonna pay for your personal legal bills, will pay for stuff that you were doing, but it seems that if it he unfroze the committee, he can get them to pay for anything? >> first of, i went broke just listening to your describing all of this legal problem. that's a lot, number one. number two, past is prologue. and you already saw how they handled as these cases and other issues were emerging during his four years, how the rnc was used financially. where resources were going and how it impacted quite honestly which is why they were winning elections in some critical states because they didn't have the resources to put on the ground. those resources were largely diverted. so here we are now, here's the play, if i want to take something over, what do i do? i clear out the leadership. so i take out the national chair woman and i put in a sycophant, a loyalist, who primarily, and fundamentally

agrees that the election, the last election was stolen. put a pin in that. it's important, because if he gets reelected, what that means is, you now have in place some of the groundwork you're going to need to make the claims to real litigate the 2020 election. but we can talk about that another time. the second thing is you then put people who you are close with, family members, and close allies of associates and put them in charge of the day to day operations. that's where the money comes in. that's where the ground game really comes in and is materialized for him. the dollars coming in, they go out the door in other forms and fashions to pay for those bills as they come to. and that, as politico and other sources are noting, is a real problem going forward.

the comparison i was making, there was a great soprano's episode called the bus that. a guy running a sports good store gets into that with tony soprano. when he gets into deep, they take over the store and ship it bare. they take all the stuff, star billing fight tickets on the accounts, let's go to collections. it's a husky, right? here is value. i keep thinking of a bust out. this is the rnc, man, and they will have the hands over it. when >> you've really seen some of the impacts coming because what did the rnc report at the end of 2023, $8 million in the bank, cash on hand, going into a potential cycle. >> one of the two national parties in america. >> $8 million. the reality of that is, that number is fine, if you are coming off an election cycle, where you are spending a lot of money. >> if you aren't, it's 2023. >> not only is that an 8 million dollar you have in january, coming off the 2022

cycle, not in december, a year after the cycle is over. you've already seen problems internally with the problem to raise money. we got the problem that whatever you do races already for trump. from what we are seeing. >> her mission statement there, which is every dollar is to get donald trump elected is at least odd, right? but here is the minnesota party. this is the minnesota gop. after a devastating 2022 election, republicans were left reeling. some big donors there and to leave the state, and at one point this year, the party had just $53 in cash on hand and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. you've got michigan right now -- you got to popes. >> yes, yes. >> who brooklyn to beat the pope. p hawk straw is the new chair, according to the new chair of the michigan republican

national committee determination to kristina karamo as vowed to fight as she continues to -- but in all these places, they seem like, financially, institutionally, presumably, everything you want the rnc to do, to build on backup. >> that's an excellent point. when i came to the rnc -- >> this was their thing? >> this was my thing. we it was to put resources on the ground, and i got criticized for it. at the end of the day, i had websites, because when i got there, 38 out of the 50 state parties did not have a website. i spent $6 million on things like that. this is where the rnc is today. you take six minute dollars out to help the state party, organization, get up to speed for the upcoming cycle. the numbers did not add up in the. and here is the problem, the state parties themselves have begun to fracture. as michigan shows you, the internal infighting. what does that you, donors don't give? >> right, where is it going to

go to? >> major donors are like hell no. that is the michigan problem, nevada problem. >> it will be interesting to see how this plays out. michael steele, who is good to have you. you can catch the weekend, saturdays and sundays at 8 am eastern right here on msnbc. up next, the astonishing story of one of the only black people to receive reparations for slavery and just how he did it. the subject of trymaine lease excellent new practice, and he joins me next. me next.

for generations, black americans pushed for reparations or compensation for the descendants of the enslaved people that built america. the country has not made amends and rebuffed these efforts. it's unclear if that will ever change. the government has paid reparations for slavery before. listen to this, back in 1862, they can penn state it emancipation act -- district of columbia. as part that the act, the government paid out $1 million in compensation, not to enslaved people but to slave holders. now, in a fascinating new podcast series, msnbc's trymaine lee explores one of the stories of one of the people compensated by the 1860 to act. his name is gabriel quickly, and he is a black man. he was a black man that bought the freedom of his enslaved relatives and then applied for the composition under the law. it's a remarkable story

uncovered by his descendants and explored in this new series by trymaine lee about what it means not just for that family but the ongoing fight for reparations across the country. trymaine lee, host of into the american podcast joins me now. it's good to have you here. >> what a fascinating project. i have to say, as somebody who thinks of somebody who is well read on this period. this one, i saw your sketch of, and i thought, i never heard this story. how did you find your way into it. >> first of all, there is somebody in recent years that only about the composition for reparations act. a pay two former slave holders, not two slaves. that is mind-blowing. enough to understand who are these white families that got paid. >> who got the reparations? >> who got the reparations, and what happened to the black folks that were enslaved? a great team of producers working on this discovered and lifted 1000 names. there were five -- i am sorry, six black families, and one name popped out.

the first want to apply was gabriel. i said, listen, if you pay for your human property, we will reimburse you as a thank you for going along with it in making emancipation. that was lincoln's big idea. technically, gabriel coakley purchased the freedom of his family and kept the receipts. whether an act of cunning, guile or strategy, he never registered them as free people. what he does is, technically, he's a slave owner, because slavery is still legal. >> they are still his property, even though they are not actually -- >> his wife, sister, six children, all technically slaves. the compensation act arrives on his door, and he says, you know what, i will try to get compensated, and he does. >> we should note here, the context here, 1862, district of columbia, on the border, between the north and south, this is where this whole war is going on. there is this question. one of the earliest iterations -- the milquetoast version, it

was this thing called compensated emancipation. to avoid the war and bloodshed, maybe the government pays the south and slave holders for the people that they enslaved. >> there was a point of great debate, because on one hand, it makes sense. there are a lot of confederate loyalties in washington, d. c., if you keep up and maryland, with a lot of old slave holders. the idea was, if you pay them, they'll go along easily. a lot of people emitting that these people or property, paying them, allows the idea that these people were property, and it goes against the moral concerns about slavery in the first place. >> most abolitionists hated this at the time, both black and white. tell me at the time what happened to the family? >> what is amazing is that this is a story in so many ways about what could have been. the idea that black americans would have been made whole has after slavery ends. >> at that moment. >> you think about general sherman's 40 acre rebuke, the land along the coastal

carolinas. what happens is that gabriel gets his money, and it changes forever the trajectory of the family for generation. we talk about national honor winners, academics, clergy, folks who had a running start into what would have been this new freedom, institution building. this is the most amazing story never told, and i stand by the. i am so excited for people to finally hear this story. >> it's so incredible because it's like this counterfactual that we never get to test, right? when people talk about this, what we know is that the definition of slavery and the wealth of not just slave holders but white families, there is a accumulating effect that happens down through generations, and we know that as a historical matter. but this is like running some historical experiment, where you go back and change one variable. you, say what if we do change the verbal? what if we take the black family and give them a little bit of those assets at this time, what happens down the

chain? >> that's right, i am trying not to get too much of the story away, but gabriel ends up being a property owner, buying and selling property. he has an oyster business. with that money, he hopes to confound what is today the oldest black catholic church in the city. he was a pillar in his community. access to education, again, fundraising for religious schools for black students to attend, forever changing not just his family's lives but that of an entire community. again, experiencing this newness of freedom. >> how did you put this story together? again, when i saw this, i was like, this is fascinating. then i was like, you're not going to have any tape. it's a tough one to tell. a lot of stories, historical podcast, they are 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, you have lots of tape, can play audio. how did you go about? this >> two ways, one, we have the living descendants of gabriel. we have people who can attest to the stories told. but there is always a narrative about black people, because we were considered property for so

long, that the historical record ends at some point. but there are actually troves of documents, land sales, business deals, all across the country, indus the old basement archives that we exported from d. c. to louisiana, where it starts these narratives unfolding before our eyes. we know how much was paid for who and when. what was inherited, what was passed down? this store tells another american story. >> it's really remarkable. actually, you can scan that q r code on your screen to listen to the first episode of trymaine's new podcast series. into america presents the uncounted millions, at the power of reparations. it's also available wherever you get podcasts. definitely check that out. trymaine lee, it was a pleasure. >> thank you. >> that is all in for this thursday night. alex wagner tonight starts right now, good evening, alex. >> can i say, i have known to tremaine lee since we have sat desks away from each other as young reporters back in the

day. >> >> that's awesome. >> way back in the day. easy doing much better, then and now, than i ever will. but it is super exciting, and i am so happy that you had him on the show. thank you, my friend. thanks to you at home for joining us with his very big hour of news. today was a massive day of developments in the world of trump legal. tonight we've got the news that trump's defense team has filed a response before the supreme court. remember, right now, the federal election interference case is frozen, while the supreme court considers a request from trump's lawyers to keep this case on ice as they planned their next step. yesterday the special counsel asked the high court unfreeze the case. the case.