the law, even a former president. >> peter, lastly and briefly, polling suggests that independent and swing voters, some will be turned off by this trial, certainly if there is a conviction. in a race that will be so close in november, could this make the difference? >> we can't make predictions, and we have to be careful. many would have thought the indictments would have turned people away from president trump, but he seemed to gain strength in the primaries. we're now in a general election contest where people who aren't necessarily inclined to go with him because he is under attack the way his own base has done. you're right, i think we don't know. it doesn't take many people to be turned off, to go to an independent or stay home, to change the outcome in the few key states that really matter. michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, arizona. 10,000, 20,000, 50,000 people in one, two, or five of those states, depending on who it is, says, i don't know, i was with him but i'm not sure i want a convicted felon, should he be

convicted, that could make the difference. >> we're grateful for his voice. chief white house correspondent for "the new york times," peter baker, thank you. we'll talk soon. thanks to all of you for getting up "way too early" with us on this busy and historic monday morning. "morning joe" starts right now. i'm testifying. i tell the truth. all i can do is tell the truth. the truth is that there's no case. they have no case. on monday in in other words, i will be forced to sit, fully gagged, i'm not allowed to talk. can you believe it? they want to take away my constitutional right to talk. i have a crooked judge. this has never happened before, by the way. you do know that, right? with all of the things they did with millions of pages of study, they found nothing, which makes me perhaps the most honest guy almost in the world, i think.

they found nothing. >> well, he's right about one part of that. this has definitely never happened before. today is an historic day as donald trump becomes the first former president to face a criminal trial. we are hours away now from the start of jury selection in the hush money case against donald trump. thousands of new yorkers will be a part of that process. the self-proclaimed most honest guy in the world is accused of having an affair with adult film actress stormy daniels, then coordinating a hush money payment to her prior to the 2016 presidential election. the scheme has trump facing 34 felony charges tied to falsifying financial documents, which procedur prosecutors say conceal the reimbursements he made to his former attorney and fixer, michael cohen.

we're going to have expert legal analysis on this case throughout the morning and, of course, it starts at 9:30 eastern time. we'll be covering the proceedings live and get reporting from the courthouse. good morning. welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, april 15th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at "politico," jonathan lemire. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay is with us. rogers chair and the american presidency at vanderbilt university, historian jon meacham. we have a lot of breaking news over the weekend to get to on the world stage globally. first, jon meacham, if you can give us a sense of the historic nature of what will be happening at donald trump's trial today, given this has never happened before, what is the historical context you can put it in? >> the historical context to me is, is anyone above the law in

the united states of america? before the republic even began, thomas paine wrote, people ask in america, "where is the king? well, the king is the law." no one can be removed from it. so this is a test of our democracy. it's a test of the role of truth. it's a test of an ancient right of trial by jury. it's a test of do we have faith in our institutions to deliver justice? >> yeah. we're going to get to our expert legal panel in a moment to look at the details about that. first, our top story this morning, the fast-moving and significant events over the weekend out of the middle east. on saturday, iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones to toward israel, marking the first time iran has directly attacked the jewish state. an international military coalition led by the u.s. was able to shoot down 99% of the

missiles before they reached israel. israeli defense forces released this video of some of the missiles being intercepted. the u.s. defense department called the attack unprecedented, saying the drones were launched from iran, iraq, syria, and yemen. officials say only a few missiles fell inside the country, causing slight damage to an israeli air base. a young girl was the only person who was injured in the attack. iran says its attack was in response to israel's strike earlier this month on a consulate in syria. the strike killed two generals and five officers from the iranian revolutionary guard corps. in a statement, iran said it now considers the matter concluded but warned of a more severe response if israel, quote, makes another mistake. adding that the u.s. must stay

away. it's not clear if israel will respond to the attack or what that might look like. the war cabinet met yesterday but provided no details. officials have said israeli forces remain on high alert and that leadership has approved both offensive and defensive action. in a statement from war cabinet minister benny gantz, he wrote, israel will, quote, exact the price from iran when the timing is right. they do promise a response. meanwhile, the u.s. is advising israel to choose a limited response as opposed to an all-out armed counterattack. a senior biden administration official tells nbc news the president told prime minister benjamin netanyahu the u.s. will not participate in offensive operations against iran. another administration official told reporters yesterday the president wants israel to,

quote, think very carefully and strategically about how to respond to iran. adding that israel got the best of the exchange since most of the missiles were intercepted. that's, i think, where one of the biggest stories of this lies. let's bring in the president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. author of the weekly newsletter "home and away" available on substack. and former supreme allied commander of nato, retired four star navy admiral james stavridis. he is chief international analyst for nbc news. admiral, if i could start with you on exactly what happened during the interception, in the hours before, who got together? who led at the u.s.? how important was it that most of these drones and missiles and rockets were intercepted? i mean, the message about iran and to iran seems, to me, to be

vital here. >> i agree. and i spent much of my career at sea in command of guided missile destroyers and cruisers. this was the mission, shooting down missiles directed at our carriers, at our allies. i can't imagine a better day for the air defenders than to knock down 350 drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. it's a feat of military arms, and it also speaks to the military mismatch, frankly, between iran, which has, you know, reasonable technology in those zones, but the capabilities on the allied side. in terms of how this was put together, think of it as a defense in depth. it begins with satellite coverage that sees these launches at great distance.

command and control that's slashed together by the u.s., israel, nato partners and arab partners. significantly, jordan, for example, was participating in shooting down some of these capabilities. all of that gets knit together, mika, and then individual targets are apportioned to the launcher systems. that's a long way of saying, very good performance. now, having said all that, let's be honest here, tehran telegraphed this. it had a bit of a performative feel to it. i don't think they wanted to end up in a situation where 200 israelis got killed by a cruise missile or a ballistic missile. >> right. >> so, at the end of the day here, that's why i think the international pressure landing on the israelis not to respond excessively makes a lot of sense. look for cyber, maybe going after iranian maritime assets,

perhaps special forces, if you will, back to the status quo. i think that's how we're headed. let's hope the israelis don't choose a massive military response. that really would escalate the situation considerably. >> jonathan lemire, the biden administration responded immediately. president biden rushed back to the white house over the weekend, met with his national security teams, and then the collective effort began, was put together, that led to the interceptions. fast, effective, but now comes the task of what's next. >> yeah, the president was at his beach home in delaware over the weekend, cut short, mika, as you say, his time away. met with his national security team. certainly, made clear the united states would stand with israel as it defended itself against iran. papering over the differences, at least for now, that we have with israel about what's happening in gaza. we had the president convene the g7 leaders yesterday, really push for a path to diplomacy

here. he spoke to prime minister netanyahu and encouraged netanyahu to, quote, take the win. to the admiral's point, your defense capabilities, with help from the uk, jordan, and others, did a marvelous job defending what iran did. this was a historic, first attack from iran to the jewish homeland, to the nation of israel itself from iran, and it was a wild failure from the iranian point of view. the president telling the prime minister, hey, that should be enough. richard haass, let's talk about what could be next. the admiral's point, look, there are 300 missiles and rockets, but it was telegraphed. it was slow moving. u.s. officials told me over the weekend they knew iran had to do something, but they did something that could be pretty easily defeated without this turning into necessarily a wider regional war. so we know tehran doesn't want an escalation. we know president biden doesn't want an escalation. the wild card here seems to be prime minister netanyahu.

what do you think happens next? >> look, the israelis have a dilemma here. the fact this was unprecedented, jonathan, a homeland or homeland attack, there's powerful voices in israel saying, we cannot let this stand without precedent. we have to restore deterrence. israel is also under pressure from the united states. one thing you have to do as an ally is take the views of your patrons, shall we say, into account. what can israel do? they can do nothing. i don't think that'll happen. they can go back and find iranian targets around the region. essentially, go back to the war in the shadows that iran and israel have been fighting for years. but there's two other possibilities. one is they would, for example, attack the places in iran where they're storing or making drones or storing or making missiles. an attack that would be discreet and germain to what happened. others are saying, this is the

moment we've been waiting for. we have to attack iran big, once and for all, go after the nuclear program and so forth. there will be a menu of options in israel. i actually think it is going to be hard or difficult for the israelis simply to say, do nothing. it's a question, again, what they do, when they do it. they have time on their side. they don't have to respond tonight. they have their hands full in gaza. my sense is they'll do something. the idea of restoring deterrence, not allowing iran to think it can attack the jewish state with impunity, i think israel will be looking to do something. >> yeah. you've even got voices here, like john bolton, saying that israel should go big right now. it was clearly a military win, admiral stavridis, for israel. to some extent, do you think it was also a political and diplomatic win? i mean, we've seen for the first time since october the 7th the narrative shift to the israeli military doing something right and being powerful once again, in a way that it'd lost some of that veneer after the attacks of october 7th. and there is this big diplomatic

coalition. israel was looking isolated over its activities in gaza, and now the narrative, in the short term, shifted to, that we are standing by israel, not just the united kingdom, which you're seeing an urge to be smart and tough there, emphasis on the smart, but the jordanians joining the countries helping israel out. politically and diplomatically, this looks like a good moment for israel. how does it capitalize on that and not risk jeopardizing that? >> what a good point. i'll just add to your list of voices speaking up. the g7, which represents well over half the world's gross domestic product, squarely behind israel on this one. let's face it, a lot of those voices want to avoid a wider war, not only because we all want to avoid state on state conflict, but also the effect on the global economy.

iran's first move in a big, regional war, my view, will be to close the strait of hormuz. there goes 25% of the world's oil bottled up in the persian gulf. there's a lot of motivation here. in terms of your point, katty, yes, this does shift the narrative somewhat. let's observe that this was the israeli military defending its country and doing it very effectively, and compare that to the, frankly, the debacle of october 7th, when israeli women and children were slaughtered in their numbers due to a failure by the israeli defense forces and the intelligence services of israel. so to richard's excellent point, they will be looking at a menu of options here, and i hope they consider the importance of that global narrative, which they

have been losing terribly because of their activities in gaza. here is a chance to get some of that dialed back in favor of israel. >> definitely a possible opportunity there. let's go live to jerusalem. nbc news chief foreign correspondent richard engel is there. richard, any sense of a response by israel coming anytime soon? i'm hearing schools have reopened, so perhaps that's a sign that calm is potentially persisting for now. >> reporter: so this announcement came last night, that israel was lifting the restrictions that had been put in place. it actually changed its policy as of yesterday evening. schools today were supposed to be closed. all public gatherings still banned. the israel military was keeping it fairly vague. then late last night, i think because there was a lot of

confusion here, there was a lot of concern, why was israel keeping these restrictions in place, there were some reports on israeli television even as of late last night that a new israeli response was coming, that quite late in the evening israel changed the policy and said, "no, schools can go back. gatherings can go back. we're lifting those restrictions." i think that eased some tensions. we were out doing interviews this morning talking to israelis on the beach in tel-aviv. people here are going back to life as normal. i think the lifting of those restrictions late last night at the 11th hour did eliminate some of the confusion. but, as you were just talking, there is not a sense that we are out of the woods. had some of those ballistic missiles, more of the ballistic missiles gotten through, the drones gotten through, caused significant damage, caused

significant casualcasualties, i we would have been having a very different conversation right now. the fact that 99% of the drones and missiles were knocked down, almost all of them before they even entered israeli air space, gave this country a degree of confidence and allowed it to step back from the brink, at least for now. but to the point you were just making, to richard's point, this country still has a credibility gap, a deterrence gap that it is trying to restore in gaza, with hamas after the october 7th attack, and now, one would assume it'd have to prove that to iran after iran crossed arubicon and launched a military style assault all across this country unsuccessfully. >> richard, good morning. richard haass here. to what extent where you are does this look like iran,

through bibi netanyahu, a lifeline? does he seem now stronger in israeli politic, almost the narrative has changed? on the other hand, to what extent is he coming under real pressure from some of his right-wing colleagues in his government to do what we're talking about? essentially, he's got to attack iran, or some of them will actually threaten to bring down his government. what are the politics of this on bibi netanyahu? >> reporter: the politics on bibi netanyahu are immensely complicated. because if you'll remember, before october 7th, there were massive protests on the streets of tel-aviv. they were shutting down the highways. they were shutting down the road to the airport. some demonstrations in jerusalem, as well, but almost all of it in tel-aviv and the tel-aviv area. after the war started, those protests went away because this country was on war footing. people didn't necessarily rally around netanyahu, but netanyahu formed this broader war cabinet

which gave him a degree of cover. now, six months into it, those protests are starting to come back. they're starting to come back in large numbers. on the eve of this attack, 24 hours before iran launched the attack, there were tens of thousands of people on the streets of tel-aviv. they were expecting over 100,000 people protesting netanyahu. many of the protest leaders are members of the hostage family community. this protest movement against netanyahu is growing again. now, whether this attack or this thwarted attack at israel's defense, backed up by the united states and other countries, will give him a bit of a lifeline is difficult to know. the protesters truly despise netanyahu, and many of them believe that he's responsible for the security failure in this

country. you could even say that what happened over the last 48 hours was a security failure. look at what has happened in the last several months. you had hamas emboldened enough to send thousands of fighters across gaza border into israel to carry out a massacre. now, iran felt confident enough to launch hundreds of drones and missiles. yes, they were shot down, but these two things still happened, and many israelis say that under the watch of prime minister netanyahu and his quite extreme government, the overall security in this country and the overall impression of this country around the world has deteriorated significantly. >> nbc's richard engel live in jerusalem, thank you very much. retired admiral james stavridis, thank you, as well. up next in 60 seconds, jury selection in donald trump's hush money trial will get under way in just a few hours. it starts today.

we'll get a live report from outside the manhattan courthouse where the historic proceedings will take place. you're watching "morning joe." we're back in one minute. the chances of a plane crash -- 1 in 11 million. you're not going to finish those salted nuts, right? never waking up from anesthesia -- 1 in 185,000. validate your parking or just see how it goes? -what? -why stress about the unlikely? does a killer clown worry about being struck by lightning while winning the lottery? -sure don't. but your odds of falling victim to online crime are 1 in 4. you need aura. you, your family all protected from scary online stuff. [ laughs ] aah! protect everything your family does online with aura. ♪♪ imagine a future where plastic is not wasted... but instead remade over and over... into the things that keep our food fresher, our families safer, and our planet cleaner. to help us get there, america's plastic makers are investing billions of dollars to create innovative products

and new recycling technologies for sustainable change. because when you push for smarter solutions, big things can happen. gettysburg, what an unbelievable battle that was. it was interesting and vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. it represented such a big portion of the success of this country. gettysburg, wow. i go to gettysburg, pennsylvania, to look and to watch. the statement of robert e. lee, who is no longer in favor. have you noticed that, no longer in favor. never fight uphill, me boys. they were fighting uphill. he said, wow, that was a big mistake. he lost his great general. they were fighting. never fight uphill, me boys, but it was too late.

>> um, that was former president trump on the campaign trail in pennsylvania on saturday. i'm thinking, jon meacham, is there anything to say about what he said? maybe we should just move on. >> i don't think shelby foot put it exactly that way. i think that's a fair way to put it. >> you know, trump delivered that history lesson just outside allentown, where, at times, he sort of stumbled along with his speech. >> just this week, it was reported that an illegal -- and you just look at this, what's happening. >> so, in just hours, jury selection is set to begin in donald trump's hush money criminal trial in new york city. it is the first time in u.s. history that a former president will be on trial for criminal charges. two sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell nbc news that 6,000 potential

jurors will be subpoenaed to manhattan criminal courts this week. usually, about 4,000 jurors are called in a week. more than 1,500 will be called today. not all of these potential jurors are intended for the trump trial, though. but the increase in number can be attributed to the former president's trial. at a manufactured event at mar-a-lago with speaker mike johnson, trump said he intends to testify at the trial, though trump's attorneys have yet to confirm or deny whether he'll do so. that's the speaker of the house with president trump at mar-a-lago. there's stormy daniels. trump is accused of coordinating a hush money payment to that adult film actress, stormy daniels, during the 2016 election. to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter. trump was charged with falsifying documents to cover up that payment. he denies the charges and denies

having had sex with daniels. joining us now, former deputy chief for the southern division of the district attorney of new york, christi greenburgh. msnbc legal analyst. thanks for coming on this morning. let's start from the beginning. a lot of people are going to be focusing, now that the trial is actually beginning. can you explain what this is really about, and then how jury selection could really impact the process here and even the outcome? >> sure. so just to level set on a few things, making a hush money payment on its own, not illegal. falsifying business records, that is a misdemeanor under new york state law. the way we get to a felony here is these falsification of business records, the checks he signed, the general ledger entries, those falsifications happened in order to commit another crime. here, that was an order to conceal an agreement among trump

and others to unlawfully influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. so what i am going to be looking for in this trial is not necessarily the falsification of business records. i think the documents are very good. the deception just kind of leaps from the page of some of these documents. they're using fake names, fake settlement agreements, fake invoices. you're really going to be looking for witness testimony to get you to the criminal intent, that these payments were there to influence the outcome of the election. so that is going to be of focus as we go through this trial. in jury selection, what are you looking for? you're looking for the person who could potentially hang this jury. in manhattan, i think it is unlikely you're going to get an acquittal, but you could get one or two people who don't agree and hang this jury. you are going to be looking for people that exhibit any political bias, in favor of donald trump. have they voted for him? that's not a question, not what their political party affiliation is, but have they

attended a rally? did they follow him on social media? what is their media diet? you know, various questions about whether or not they think that he's been treated unfairly in this case, that it is unfair to, you know, charge, criminally charge a former president of the united states. that'll be first and foremost. what both sides are going to be looking for, as well as people who have a distrust of the law enforcement and the justice system. people who are very opinionated. lawyers, you want lawyers off the jury. those are the kinds of people that both sides will be looking for. prosecutors will want to keep those people off the jury, and the defense will want them on in the hopes of a mistrial. >> let's bring in former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubin from outside the courthouse in new york city. finally, you've been leading up to this and giving us context, but today is the day that it begins. what will you be looking for?

>> mika, a lot of what i'll be looking for is what happens before the first prospective juror walks into the courtroom. we understand that because, over the weekend, trump was on his truth social account making numerous posts about perspective witnesses, there could be this morning some discussion about the posts and what the consequences could be for any violation of the gag order. we also expect, based on correspondence that trump's lawyers sent late last week, that they could say to judge merchan, "hey, we know you finalized the jury selections and protocol for selecting the jury, but we still don't think it is fair. because you're going to allow anybody who says they're unable to serve to walk away scot-free, and that's not good enough for us for appellate purposes. we need to be able to distinguish between the person who says, i'm unable to serve because i was a 3-month-old at home and the person who says, i can't serve because i couldn't possibly be fair and impartial here."

look for the morning proceedings to take up a good and healthy amount of time this morning. of course, where the gag order is at issue, you know that the former president is very impassioned about that. i'm also looking to see, can he control his temper even in this first day of trial? >> lisa, talk about the jury selection a little bit more. it's really hard to believe that there are 12 and 6 alternates out there who don't have an opinion about donald trump already or have an opinion about this case already. how are they going to try to -- what are the kinds of questions they're going to be asking them to try to get to people who really could be fair jurors in this trial? also, what happens to that person who wants to sit on the jury in order to try to swing it one way or another and may lie about their own background? how do they weed them out? >> well, let's start with your second question first. how do you sus out the people lying? sometimes people can't help themselves. they'll answer questions even

against their own self-interest of getting themselves on a jury. i am reminded of the second e. jean carroll trial. there was a prospective juror who met that description. the person wanted to sit on the jury but had to answer truthfully a series of questions that showed they couldn't be fair and impartial. there were factors that showed not only a feeling one way or the other but an intensity of feeling. that's what the selection process is designed for. it's not, can you find 12 people and 6 alternates who are not biased in some way or another walking in the door. everybody in america has a feeling about donald trump. i think you would be, as you noted, hard-pressed to find someone who is neutral. the question is, can people set those feelings aside and be fair and impartial when they join with 11 others on a jury. it's designed to help the lawyers and the judge ferret that out. there are very few questions on

the jury questionnaire in and of themselves that would be disqualifying. one is the question about, to you belong to the three percenters? that may show a disinclination toward, first of all, the government, but also a feeling about former president trump and the 2020 election, et cetera, that may make it hard for a person to serve. very few others of them by themselves would disqualify someone. what you're looking for is someone who answers a battery of questions in a way that you can say, given this person's answers to questions x, y, and z, they cannot be impartial as a member of the jury. >> all right. lisa, hold on. i have more questions for you. i want to turn to jon meacham for some perspective here. this is a major moment in history. this has never happened before. i'd love to hear more about that. also, given recent history, i mean, recent history with president trump and post president trump and january 6th and the way he's treating the people who are in jail right now

for the insurrection at the capitol, the way he is whitewashing what happened and getting other republicans to do so, can you also talk about how trump could and is already using this to foment ambiguity and anger in this country? >> yeah. in one of his first public speeches, abraham lincoln said if the american republic were ever to fall, it'd not fall to a foreign foe. it would fall to a tyrant who rose among us. >> yeah. >> i think that's essentially where we are. you're exactly right. what is unfolding in manhattan today is part of a larger story about donald trump, his behavior, his view of whether or not american democracy exists for the good of the country or for the good of donald trump. i know that's not what the jury is deciding, but there are lots of juries here, right? there's a national jury.

there's the jury in the courtroom. ultimately, you have this trial. you have the supreme court preparing to hear arguments on trump's really wild claim that presidents are totally immune from anything, as if we are creating this sort of superhero who has immunity for all things. >> right. >> which is totally contrary to the rule of law. and, as you say, an attempt to run a coup d'etat four years ago, three and a half years ago, to overturn an election that was adjudicated again and again, often by judges appointed by republicans. so, in the broadest sense, what's on trial is fact, is truth, and then, the second thing that's on trial, which is vital, is half the country has essentially decided that

whatever donald trump does is fine. >> that's right. >> because of x, y, or z, whatever the reason is, right? they're a strong base. there are his enablers who think they're going to have lower taxes and more conservative judges and it doesn't matter that he's trying to rip up the constitution. that's a decision that a lot of folks have made. the question is going to be, as we head into this presidential election, is will a sufficient number of those people stand by donald trump come what may, including a felony conviction, including possibly convictions, certainly trials about overturning an election that he just didn't like, right? that's on trial. truth and democracy are on trial this year. i have no pleasure in saying this. i'm not being hyperbolic.

this isn't history nerd sweepstakes. it's not that. this is the fact of the matter. american democracy in many ways is being tested here. >> well, you talk about truth and democracy being on trial. i also think the question is going to be ultimately whether truth and democracy matter. because, and we'll show you later when we get to politics, sununu answering the question to george stephanopoulos. do you care if he is convicted of all of this, will you still vote for this? painfully, and he looked pained, he said, yes. meaning that truth and democracy don't matter? that's an interesting question. lisa rrubin, i want to ask you dual question, and it's process first. how long could jury selection be dragged out by those who want to drag it out, or are there parameters around it? ultimately, who is set to

testify, and who among those set to testify are the most concerning to donald trump? >> let's start first with the parameters around jury selection. we are hearing that jury selection here is expected to last one to two trial weeks. mika, as you know, this judge, judge merchan, doesn't convene court on wednesdays. but to what extent could donald trump drag out this process? they certainly could. two reasons why. there are two types of challenges that could be posed to jurors. one is the challenge for essentially whatever unstated reason that side wants to give. in new york state, for the felony for what donald trump has been charged, each side will get ten peremptory charges, meaning they can strike ten jurors without any reason to state. then there's challenge to cause. a challenge for cause can

essentially be, this person cannot possibly be fair to me for x, y, or z reason. look to them to try and further understand jurors' answers to the jury questionnaire and then exploit any loopholes whatsoever to try to get people kicked off the case. that's also because they have unlimited challenges for cause. the second part of your question, i think, was about the witnesses here and who poses the greatest danger to donald trump. >> yes. >> i think that while we are all fixated on michael cohen, who is a character we know very well, there are a number of other witnesses here who are going to corroborate things that michael cohen says happened. in particular, the witness that i would be afraid of are two. there are two women who have both worked with donald trump, one very well-known to us, the other not at all. hope hicks and madeline westerhat. madeline was the secretary in

trump's oval office 2017 to 2019. what does that have to do with the scheme being alleged here, which most of us refer to as the hush money scheme? because in terms of repaying michael cohen, somebody had to put checks in front of him in the white house. we know he personally signed nine of them in 2017. who was that person? those are checks that came, according to the indictment, from the trump organization, got sent somehow to d.c., were signed by donald trump, and that very distinctive sharpie scrawl we know so well, and then it constitutes part of the false business records here. i'd contend that's what she's doing here and what else she heard and saw. that's also of interest to me because we know donald trump doesn't email and doesn't text. if people want to communicate with him on paper, the way they used to do that, you'd put an

email in front of his executive assistant. the person would print it out and give it to donald trump. then that person becomes a very important witness to cases like these. in terms of hope hicks, hope hicks is alleged to have participated in a number of phone conversations, both with cohen and trump and potentially with them together in the lead-up to the november 2016 election. when hope hicks testified before the judiciary committee in 2019, she denied having any knowledge in advance of the repayments -- sorry, of the payment scheme to stormy daniels and also to karen mcdougle. but what she knew afterwards during her term of service in the white house was off limits during that testimony. she may have learned something then, or, possibly, she might have a different perspective on those events today and in future days in this court than she did before the house judiciary committee. mika, i'm looking to see those two women, hope and madeline, as the witnesses that might really

bear some unrest for donald trump. >> so interesting. jonathan lemire, just from looking at this at the start, at the onset, we've been hearing donald trump already making himself the victim. he will continue to do that throughout this trial. i'm gagged. he keeps saying, "i've been gagged, i'm gagged," which is an interesting thought, and then forced to be here and this is election interference because i'm running for president. of course, all the delays have brought this closer to election day. i'm also thinking that he'll be up against a daily diet of narratives from karen mcdougal, from stormy daniels, from other women about his behavior. because of the salacious part of this and because it's easy to understand, unlike some of the other cases that he's up against which people might just say, forget it, especially trump supporters or people on the

fence, they just tune out, but i think it may cause more people to tune in and hear what's happening. therefore, you'll hear donald trump bellowing that he is a victim, but you also may very much be clued into what people are testifying during this trial. >> it is weighing on trump. he took to truth social repeatedly over the weekend with screen after screen about this process. he was up early posting before 6:00 a.m. today on the same matter. the politics of this are a mystery. we've never been here before. we can certainly suspect his base will only be more fired up about it. the independent and swing voters, we'll see. polling suggests a conviction might change some of their minds. they might be less inclined to support donald trump in an election this november that's expected to be so very close. that might make a difference. kristy, we've been living with this so long, the idea of trump going on trial. it is finally here. historic day. we shouldn't overlook that. we've also seen images of him in the courthouses a lot the last few months, but those are

different. those are motions, procedural hearings. today begins a trial with jury selection. to mika's point, this still matters. even though this is a case deemed the least serious of the four he faces, it still matters. my question to you is, if we get four, six, eight weeks from now, however long this trial takes, if we have a conviction, what does that mean? could donald trump face prison time? >> yes. >> how likely is that? >> given how serious these charges are, i mean, you have 34 felonies, each count carries a potential sentence, maximum sentence of four years. again, i don't expect that these would necessarily be consecutive to one another. they could be concurrent. but given just how much prison time the maximum is, you can expect that there is likely to be a significant prison sentence here. because, again, it's not just about some documents that were false. it is about the fact that this is election interference.

you know, taking yourself back, this trial will take us back to 2016 when he is chanting, "lock her up," and what he is doing behind the scenes is telling stormy, "i'll pay you to shut you up." it is interesting he is talking about a gag order and being concerned about that when this trial is about him silencing this adult porn star he allegedly had the affair with. who was defrauded here? again, the intent to defraud is what makes it criminal. who is defrauded? we were, right? we didn't have this information that we could have used when we went to the ballot box. >> all right. msnbc legal analyst kristy greenberg, thank you for coming on this morning. and legal correspondent lisa rubin, thank you, as well. lisa is headed inside the courtroom right now to get her seat. we're going to be checking in with her each morning for the duration of the trial. look forward to it, lisa. in our next hour, we're going to speak with former u.s. attorneys chuck rosenberg and

barbara mcquade as we get closer to today's 9:30 a.m. eastern time start to the first ever criminal trial of a former president. also ahead on "morning joe," as i mentioned, one of donald trump's chief critics during the presidential primaries is trying to defend his newfound support for the presumptive gop nominee. we'll show you the painful comments from republican governor chris sununu. plus, house speaker mike johnson is facing new pressure to pass a foreign aid package following iran's unprecedented attack on israel. we'll have the latest reporting from capitol hill. and we'll be joined by an israeli government spokesperson as the country weighs its options. "morning joe" is coming right back.

♪ i wanna hold you forever ♪ hey little bear bear. ♪ ♪ ♪ i'm gonna love you forever ♪ ♪ ♪ c'mon, bear. ♪ ♪ ♪ you don't...you don't have to worry... ♪ ♪ be by your side... i'll be there... ♪

♪ with my arms wrapped around... ♪ slowing my cancer from growing and living longer are two things i want from my metastatic breast cancer treatment. and with kisqali, i can have both. kisqali is a pill that when taken with an aromatase inhibitor helps delay cancer from growing and has been proven to help people live significantly longer across three separate clinical trials. so, i have the confidence to live my life.

kisqali can cause lung problems or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. avoid grapefruit during treatment. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills, or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. long live life and long live you. ask your doctor about kisqali today. i told myself i was ok with my moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis symptoms. with my psoriatic arthritis symptoms. but just ok isn't ok. and i was done settling. if you still have symptoms after a tnf blocker like humira or enbrel, rinvoq is different and may help. rinvoq is a once-daily pill that can rapidly relieve joint pain, stiffness,

and swelling in ra and psa. relieve fatigue... and stop further joint damage. and in psa, can leave skin clear or almost clear. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal; cancers, including lymphoma and skin; heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor have an increased risk of death. serious allergic reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. done settling? ask your rheumatologist for rinvoq. and take back what's yours. abbvie could help you save.

welcome back to "morning joe." it is 49 past the hour. we are going to get to politics and to donald trump's criminal trial in just a moment. first, we want to discuss the developments over the weekend after iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones toward israel, marking the first time iran has directly attacked th jewish state. joining us now, the spokesman for the israeli government, avi hyman. iraq call it is attack legitimate and responsible action, that they were responding. my question to you, sir, is what are the options in terms of a

response, and can you confirm that there will be a response to this? >> thank you so much for having me on this morning. let me first say that this narrative of retaliation is actually absurd. i can't speak directly to that strike in damascus, what i can say definitively is that was not an embassy, not a consulate, not a diplomatic mission. it was a military target, iran's major exporter of terror around the world. they were there to do israel harm. as far as the response, israel will retain our right as a sovereign democratic country to defend ourself after what you said was an unprecedented attack. thank goodness, an unprecedented response. had some of those ballistic missiles, suicide drones, or cruise missiles, had more of them landed, that could have

meant catastrophe in israel, potential carnage. we're thankful to our strategic allies for standing with us on this one. it could have ended very, very differently. >> we have the president emeritus on council of foreign relations with us, and we has the next question for you, sir. richard. >> sir, you referred to the fact that some of the missiles or drones around launch gotten through, it could have caused real damage. there's a school of thought, though, here in the united states and elsewhere that iran seemed very anxious for this not to escalate. they were very quick to announce in new york that the whole given back and forth had been concluded. to you take that seriously? do you think iran intended for the missiles to get through, or do you think they were simply doing what they did in order to say, essentially, israel can't expect to be a sanctuary? how seriously did you understand their military attack to be? >> well, i think this was a

very, very serious military attack. i'm not sure if there is a precedent for it. what i can say is this is a huge country attacking a tny country, a country -- iran has been funding its proxies in terror pretty much from the islamic revolution. whether it's hezbollah, hamas, the houthis, et cetera. now, there was a form of peace. there was a form of cease fire on october 6th. then hamas attacked us, raping, killing, burning whole families alive. who was pulling strings if not the tyrants of tehran? they want to paint this picture as if they started -- we did something a few weeks ago, and they're doing something now. that's not the case. this started long ago. iran is pulling all the strings in the middle east as far as terrorism is concerned. >> mr. hyman, good morning. president biden in his phone call with prime minister netanyahu over the weekend certainly expressed u.s. support for israel's need to defend its

but also told the prime minister to, quote, take the win. u.s. officials urging israeli counterparts to not do something they'd regret, another quote, in terms of retaliation. could you give us a sense, how much is your government going to listen to the counsel of the united states and not do a significant escalation here? >> i can't stress the nature of the relationship, of the friendship of the shared values that we have with the american people and the administration. we thank the administration for everything they've done for us and continue to do for us. but, at the same time, we will have to, as a sovereign state, make the decisions to defend our country in the best possible way. now, in the middle of the war, we were told don't rush into gaza. don't go in hot-headed. we didn't. we waited it out. we went in cool, calm, and collected. we're currently assessing the situation with iran, and we will act accordingly. at the end of the day, it's us

that grabbed our toddlers, that grabbed our babies and ran for cover on saturday night when 300 missiles, suicide drones were being blown up over the skies above us. >> israeli government spokesperson avi hyman, thank you very much for coming on this morning. we appreciate it. while we're on this, the house is expected to vote this week on legislation in support of israel. in a social media post on saturday, majority leader steve scalise said the lower chamber will consider a pro-israel bill that holds iran accountable for this weekend's missile and drone strikes. meanwhile, speaker mike johnson indicated yesterday that house republicans are now putting together a foreign aid package. president biden held the call with top congressional leaders yesterday to discuss iran's attack on israel and the need for the house to vote on the

senate-passed national security supplemental. let's bring in nbc news capitol hill correspondent ali vitali. how is this going to play out? we obviously haven't spoken about ukraine, which has been waiting, is it months now, for the support they need to continue to fight against russian oppression? i'm wondering if what's happened over the weekend and the threat of greater instability around the world will finally get house republicans to come together and pass what the senate is sending them. >> i wouldn't put forward that optimistic of view, mika, especially because of the ways we've watched this house republican conference continually scuttle conversations around foreign aid, both to ukraine and also to israel, in large part because when you're thinking about the senate supplemental package, we're talking about a bill that deals with all of that aid grouped together. if you're sending it to ukraine, you're sending it to israel, you're sending it to taiwan. that is the bill that will be

the fastest in getting the aid out the door because of how congress functions. the senate already passed it. it's now sitting in the house waiting for speaker johnson to do something with it. if he were to do something with that specific package, it is almost likely, or if not assured, that he would lose his job or at least be motion to vacated, then we would have to see what would happen. the other conversation that's happening up here is that speaker johnson is now saying he's cobbling together his own version of a foreign aid package. now, if that is an aid package that is solely focused on israel, you can basically think about ukraine aid as dead on arrival, in large part because grouping them together was the way you made sure all of these various countries got the aid that they so badly have requested and needed from the united states. now, we'll watch and see what the speaker does and whether or not he's still willing to keep those two things together, moving them in tantandem. that draws the ire of key members of his house republican

conference and again puts his job on the line. what we'll see the house do this week, mika, is put forward 17 bills steve scalise promised, that swaps out an agenda of appliance freedom that was initially on the house docket this week. now, they'll focus on israel and iran, largely messaging bills, but meant to show they stand with israel in the wake of this weekend's attack. yes, there is a renewed urgency based on what we saw, and we do know that on that call over the weekend, as biden talked with the big four leaders up here in congress, three out of those four leaders support the supplemental package that the senate has already passed. the pressure is on the speaker right now as it always has been, but the more we see instability in the region, the more we hear from folks on the ground in ukraine demanding future aid, the higher that urgency gets. it's not like it wasn't urgent already. >> ali, to what extent does the speaker's meeting with donald trump and what donald trump specifically said about marjorie

taylor greene and wanting to keep the speaker in his position and not have the chaos that would follow, how does that protect him? he suggested he'd like to are the ukraine aid, and now he can add it in because of what trump said. >> having been down in mar-a-lago, trump didn't give him a full embrace. it was a side hug. not necessarily the protection i think some allies of johnson were hoping for. there was something specific in what trump said. yes, the idea that he wants to keep the speaker in his job, the fact he said i stand with the speaker, but also the fact he said he was open to ukraine aid but not in the form of the senate supplemental. donald trump made clear that he wanted to talk about it as a loan. there are various pieces of legislation up here that do that. again, that starts the procedural process all over again here. that would mean the house has to pass that new bill, then it goes back over to the senate where they will then want to negotiate it and make amendments to it.

then it continues to bounce back and forth. every conversation i have, guys, with democrats and republican leaders who are in favor of getting ukraine the aid they need, getting israel the aid they need, they all say the fastest way and the only viable way to do that is through the senate-passed foreign aid supplemental that is already, again, sitting here waiting for the house to take it up. >> nbc's ali vitali, thank you. just to put a pin on it, i want to go to jon meacham. meacham, we have two hot wars going on right now with major developments, dramatic developments over the weekend. both of them fending off aggression, fending off aggression that could impact the safety of the world. doesn't the u.s. usually lead in moments like this and not a republican candidate for president? >> absolutely. the lesson of certainly the 20th century is that aggression unconfronted metastasizes.

we have to stand with allies and friends in a reasonable but a convincing way. the world -- this is what history is, right? we've been dealing with chaos and war and turmoil since the third chapter of genesis. that's when all of this started. it requires responsible, grown-up people to do it. not that they're perfect. but the central lesson of american history, and i would argue the central lesson of everybody's lives, if you sit and think for a second, who are the people who have meant the most to you? they're people who have helped bring order to chaos. they are people who have not simply put their own interests first but put your interest first. they're people who were there for you when you were hurting. they were there for you when you needed strength. the republic is no different. i would argue that we are facing

a fundamental choice. strike the i would argue. we are facing a fundamental choice. >> right. >> between an american president who does, in fact, put the country first, and now a criminal defendant who has self-evidently tried to break american democracy for his own purposes. and that's just a fact. that's what this is. you can talk yourself into, oh, you know, prices or whatever, you know? but that's not a salient argument when you're talking about protecting an institution that is worth preserving and protecting. let's get to the historic criminal defendant angle right now at two minutes past the top of the second hour of "morning joe." jury selection begins today in

donald trump's hush money trial, marking the first time in american history that a former president will be on trial for criminal charges. nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard reports. >> reporter: at this lower manhattan courthouse, an unprecedented case just hours away. the first ever criminal trial of a former president of the united states. >> when i walk into that courtroom, i know i will have the love of 200 million americans behind me. >> reporter: donald trump this weekend rallying supporters before the start of jury selection in his criminal trial monday over the alleged hush money scheme to cover up payments to adult film actress stormy daniels, just before the 2016 election. >> i go into court over nothing. it's not a crime. >> reporter: trump has said he did nothing wrong, same with his supporters. if they find him guilty -- >> who, trump? i won't believe that. >> reporter: nbc news has learned some 6,000 new yorkers have been summoned as potential

jurors. >> this is a case that is going to burn through a lot of potential jurors during jury selection. that's probably because a lot of jurors are going to have very strong views one way or the other about the defendant. >> reporter: perspective jurors will be asked more than 60 questions, including what news sources they read and watch, and whether they have attended a trump rally or follow him on social media. per the judge's instructions, the questions do not include whom potential jurors have or intend to vote for. witnesses expected to be called include trump's former aide, hope hicks, stormy daniels herself, and trump's one-time personal lawyer, michael cohen, who already served time for his role in the alleged scheme. >> it is always somebody else's fault when it comes to donald trump. >> reporter: donald trump indicating he, too, will take the stand. >> all i can do is tell the truth. the truth is that there is no case. >> so interesting, jonathan

lemire. donald trump is already saying he is gagged. i'm gagged. i can't talk. i have to show up in court. this, this, my people, is election interference. what it is is a case about election interference. the narratives will definitely show that in court. don't know which way it'll go, but, certainly, the testimony and the prosecution will point out that that's what donald trump was trying to do. interfere in the election by keeping information from the american people and doing it in fraudulent way sways. joe biden was on the campaign trail. talk about the split screen. >> significant split screen. trump also on social media railing against the case. he said he'll testify. he'll take the stand in his own defense. we'll see if his lawyers let him. his lawyers are trying to talk him out of holding the hallway

news conferences he's been doing in recent months. they think it can lead to more harm than good. trump was in pennsylvania over the weekend, and we played that earlier in the show. meanwhile, joe biden is going to camp out there this week. multiple visits to pennsylvania, including towards his own neck of the woods in scranton. he heads, of course, to philadelphia, at the suburbs of philly, arguably going to decide the key battleground state and make the election as a whole. underscoring just how important that state is. also, mika, to your larger point, we should not expect president biden to address trump's legal troubles in any real way from the campaign trail. they've been very clear about wanting to have a bright line between the white house and doj and any sort of criminal prosecution. but they'll lean into the split screen, suggesting, look, as donald trump is going to spend his week in a manhattan courtroom, i'm telling you, the american people, how i improved your lives and why i deserve a second term. >> he'll take advantage of that for sure. he has to be there. unless he asks to be dismissed

and is. now, it starts in about two and a half hours, we'll be covering this all live. we have lisa rubin at the courthouse. she's inside getting a seat right now. also coming up in awe if a few minutes, we'll have chuck rosenberg, barbara mcquade, talking about the jury selection, how it'll work, and who are the key people who will be testifying in the trial, what it could mean for donald trump, the nare tratives that will be coming out of the testimony, and also the timing of all of this in the run-up to the election, how trump will use that. also, could this be dragged out in a way that it makes it to the election or goes beyond it? some say it is unlikely. of course, with donald trump, you never know. let's get to the other big news over the weekend. the united states is urging

israel to use caution in any response to iran's unprecedented attack over the weekend amid fears of a broader conflict emerging in the region. nbc news correspondent white house monica alba has the latest. >> reporter: president biden urging restraint as concern grows among senior officials the u.s. could be dragged into a broader conflict in the middle east. depending on how israel responds to iran's attack. >> we don't seek an escalation or wider war in the region. >> reporter: the president meeting with g7 leaders, with all members writing they unequivocally condemn in the strongest terms iran's actions. demanding iran and proxies cease attacks and vowing to take further measures now and in response to future moves that would destabilize the already fraught situation. a senior administration official says the u.s. and tehran had contact through swiss

intermediaries before and after the attack. overnight, the president conveyed to prime minister netanyahu by phone that while u.s. support for israel is ironclad, it will not participate in any retaliatory counteroffensive by israel, according to senior administration officials. >> whether and how the israelis will respond, that's going to be up to them. >> reporter: the white house also applauding israel's defense capability, aided by the u.s. which shot down dozens of missiles and drones launched from iran, syria, and yemen. the president calling members of several fighter squadrons to commend their airmenship and skill. while some republican critics argue the biden administration hasn't done enough to contain the threat. >> i think they've emboldened iran. this administration is failing to say there is a red line. there should be a red line. >> let's bring in u.s. national editor at "the financial times," ed luce. columnist and associate editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. national security analyst for nbc news and msnbc, clint watts.

and white house and national security correspondent for "the new york times," pulitzer prize winner david sanger, the author of "new cold wars: china's rise, russia's invasion, and america's struggle to defend the west." timely, timely book. david ignatius, let's start with you. i'd love to get an overview of what happened over the weekend. i'm curious your thoughts on the world support, the regional support, the significance of the collective action led by the u.s. to intercept the pretty massive attack by iran into israel and how much that shows that this support for israel is so key to israel's survival. >> mika, as senior administration officials describe it, the meeting saturday night in the situation room, in the basement of the white house, as officials,

including president biden, waited to see what would happen when iran had launched this wave of 300 missiles, including 100 ballistic missiles, which took 12 minutes by their count to fly to israel, as they waited to see whether those missiles would land and do damage or whether the defenses would work was extraordinary. when that period ended and it was clear that there was no significant damage in israel, it's clear to that group, and i think should be clear to most analysts, that this was a significant victory for israeli defenses. u.s. officials think that iran tried as hard as it could to kill people, to damage israeli infrastructure, sites on the ground. this was, as they said, the upper range of what they expected. the most missiles they thought the iranians might fly. the fact they were essentially all taken out, that 99% of these

incoming cruise, drone, and baa ballistic missiles were destroyed, quite unusual. the question now for israel and the united states as it observes is whether israel will retaliate further. this was an iranian retaliation for an april 1 israeli raid on a damascus diplomatic site where the commanders were plotting. will israel go now another step up the ladder? president biden was very clear when he called prime minister netanyahu immediately after the crisis moment saturday night, when it was clear that the defenses had held, the shield that was the high-tech shield had worked, president biden said, "think it through. slow down. be careful." that was his advice to netanyahu. don't be in a rush to take additional actions. you've won this round.

my final takeaway, mika, is after six months of a very frustrating war in gaza, where israel has had difficulty achieving its goals and has become more and more isolated in the international opinion as the world criticized the deaths of palestinian civilians, you had a moment saturday night where the whole world seemed to be standing pretty much with israel. an unusual coalition. i'm told the air defense support included countries like jordan, saudi arabia, other arab countries, plus countries in europe that have been standing back from israel during the gaza war. so it may be a psychological turning point for israel, may be open to the way of looking at the gaza situation through a different lens. also, it may be the prelude to an even more serious escalation. we just got to see. >> at the end of last week, ed, just before the attack, people were concerned this could lead

to a much wider escalation, that this could be the moment at which a mistake was made or something happened that, you know, triggered that kind of archduke ferdinand moment. even though everybody says they don't want a wider war, we somehow stumble into the war. after the success of the israeli defenses, have we pulled back from that moment? the risk, since hezbollah didn't get involved, since the israelis did a good job of shooting down the missiles and the israelis themselves were left relatively unscathed, have we stepped back from the moment and now it doesn't look as potentially alarming anymore? >> not yet, no. i think it's way too early to exhale. remember, this attack from iran was telegraphed days in advance. not just to the americans, you know, via the swiss and the armanis, who are go-betweens, but to the region, as well.

the iranians briefed what was going to happen. they didn't brief the scale but that there would be an attack coming. the allies of israel and israel itself had time to prepare the best possible shield. if israel responds in something more than a symbolic way, with something far more kinetic than just a kabuki response, then you could see iran do this again but without telegraphing it, without warning. that could be an extremely, extremely dangerous moment. when biden says to netanyahu, take the win, think carefully, as david pointed out, be very, very careful about what you do next, i don't think this is a form of words. this is a very, very serious piece of advice to israel not to allow this to escalate into a wider war. i do think there is concern here

that because we're not talking about rafah and gaza, because we're talking about iran, netanyahu is getting a taste for a calibrated widening of this war. things can't be calibratecalibr. you mentioned archduke ferdinand. mistakes can be made. it is too early to exhale. >> david sanger, we'll get to your book in a minute, but first the matters of the weekend. first, what is your analysis here? as ed noted, this attack from iran highly telegraphed, hours to prepare, fairly easily shot down. that said, the sheer volume of rockets could have done damage. even one or two of the missiles slip through, could have had devastating consequences. we know that the biden administration is doing everything it can to de-escalate the situation. the president himself largely staying off stage. no oval office address, anything like that. he's urged bibi netanyahu to,

quote, take the win. we know these two men, very tense relationship of late. will netanyahu listen? >> so far, jonathan, the evidence is that netanyahu is largely not listened when it's come to the question of gaza. he has more at stake here. first of all, this was, as you just heard from david and ed and from katty, this was a remarkable advertisement for the investment made in missile defense. ten years ago, this would have been a very different outcome. but that said, we have crossed a rubicon here with the launch from israeli territory. because the taboo is gone at this moment. so the israelis will no longer feel compunctions about striking within iran. it may not be in this round, but we are at early stages of this. the other part of this to watch, which we haven't been discussing because this has been,

fortunately, a conventional war, is in the years since president trump dropped out of the iran nuclear agreement, the iranians, first reluctantly, then with some enthusiasm, have begun building up their nuclear program. if they want to do an escalation that does not involve sending missiles a second time, you're going to see it at the rate at which they are enriching uranium and moving towards a weapon. that is going to raise, for netanyahu, the question that's come up time and again over the past decade, which is, how close to a weapon, how close to a bomb is he willing to let them go? now that the taboo is gone for striking inside iran, since they struck inside israel, that worries me. >> yeah, worry for the world. clint, let's watch through, israel said they haven't decided how they'll response. they'll take their time a bit. walk through their menu of options here.

if it is limited in scope, and u.s. officials, much are saying we don't want israel to escalate, but they understand israel probably has to do something. they're saying it, keep it small, proportional. tell us what it could look like. conversely, what could a major response look like? >> jonathan, some of this could have already started. we just don't know. over the weekend, there was a strike in southern lebanon against a hezbollah target. many thought hezbollah would have been in a bigger way. they fired some rockets during that mission. at the same point, looking at the regional proxies that are out there. i think that's where israel will focus in a physical way. if it is not kinetic, though, it is the cyber war. that's a big component of it. that's a way for israel to do some sort of a strike without doing physical damage, maybe perhaps inside iran. then if they're going to go for something really large, really large strike, that could be, like david was talked about, going after a major target inside iran with air force, missiles. that'd probably be a major

escalation. that's the tipping point that would likely lead to a larger regional war. looking at the scale, we don't know. it could have already started. this one raid yesterday in southern lebanon, a cyber attack may be already under way. we don't know. those are the things i think would probably be falling in the realm of possible in the next 48 hours. >> david sanger, i want to talk to you about your book which actually is very relevant to events of the moment. i'm just going to read two revelations from this book, really in no order of importance because they're very different. you found that trump had made it clear he thought that ukraine, and certainly crimea, must be actually a part of russia. he could not get his head around the idea that ukraine was an independent state. i'm going to let that sit right there. also, given the historic events of today, you reveal in your

book that donald trump had an obsession with stormy daniels and other women who he felt had wronged him. actually burned up 45 minutes of an important meeting riffing about these women, specifically a long diatribe about stormy daniels, the former porn star who claims she had an affair with him. now, there is a criminal trial starting in just about two hours, making it historic because it's the first former president to go on criminal trial all revolving around election interference and a payment to that porn star he seemed to be obsessed with in a meeting. what else is in this book? >> well, what else is in it? those two are both true, and the meeting referred to was with randall stevenson, at the time, the ceo of at&t, who was in trying to talk to him about important change in communications networks in the

u.s. it was supposed to be a classified meeting. at some point, trump said to him, "this is really boring." went on to his discussion of stormy daniels. but the book is about something much larger and something that took place long before trump came to office. it is basically about the revival of superpower conflict. so i'd say the first 100, 150 pages of this book tries to examine the question, mika, of how it was that the united states so deceived itself into believing that china and russia, for completely separate reasons, would join western institutions and basically run by western rules. then how we reacted or underreacted when that unravelled. in the russia case, we had plenty of warning. you know, putin came to the munich security conference in 2007, a place that david and i and ed occasionally had to show

up, and he railed against the parts of russia that he believed had been rested from the mother country after the dissolution of the soviet union. seven years later, he, of course, annexed crimea. it took us a year to put sanctions together. only with the big invasion of ukraine have we really seen that take place in a big way, a big reaction. china's case is slightly different. it was xi jinping where we got the intelligence wrong about what kind of leader he would be. of course, what did he do? he came in, secretly gave a series of speeches. you can read about it here, about building up china's nuclear force. did the repression on hong kong. now, we are caught with a leader who we're going to be living with for another ten years or so.

while things eased up in the past year or, actually, i should say the past six months, i don't know anybody in the u.s. government who thinks we aren't on a longer-term confrontation. we're focused on the middle east, rightly so, but the risk here is once again getting distracted. >> david ignatius, take the next question. >> david, you've been covering the rise of this new cold war for years and doing it superbly. i want to ask you what kind of marks you'd give president biden for dealing with the issues that you raise in your book. in this newly dangerous world, how is he doing? >> so he started off rough with the afghanistan withdrawal. obviously, you saw that was where his poll numbers declined. i also think it's probably where putin got the idea that he wouldn't respond on ukraine. putin got that wrong. i detail in the book at some length, david, that the

discussions that took place behind the scenes, in the white house, as they were deciding to reveal the intelligence, send bill burns, the cia director, to putin and warn what the response would be. how burns' arguments were kind of dismissed by putin. i think they handled the pre-war period very well. i think they handled the arming of ukraine well, although, i think some of those arms could have gone earlier. it's only now that they are running into the blockades they didn't see coming. that is a congress that is fundamentally stuck on the question of continuing the aid. as much as biden would like to continue his policy, if it turns out that congress does not renew that, i think the message to the allies around the world will be, even if you have a democrat who supported ukraine aid in the

oval office, it may not make that big a difference. this is going to be the real test, i think, of american steadfastness. >> white house and national security correspondent for "the new york times," david sanger, thank you so much. his new book out tomorrow entitled "new cold wars: china's rise, russia's invasion, and america's struggle to defend the west." an important book. you can preorder it now. david, thank you very much. and "the washington post"'s david ignatius, national security analyst for nbc news and msnbc clint watts, thank you, both, as well. still ahead on "morning joe," much more on today's history-making day in manhattan, as the first criminal trial of a former american president gets under way in just about two hours. one of our next guests says donald trump's strategy for jury selection will be to find one or

more holdout jurors. former u.s. attorneys barbara mcquade and chuck rosenberg will explain that. plus, republican governor chris sununu spent months attacking trump, only to make a dramatic 180. we'll show you the pointed exchange between the governor and george stephanopoulos. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. the all new godaddy airo helps you get your business online in minutes with the power of ai... ...with a perfect name, a great logo, and a beautiful website. just start with a domain, a few clicks, and you're in business. make now the future at godaddy.com/airo

welcome back. it's half past the hour. joining us now, white house national security communications adviser and assistant to the president, retired rear admiral john kirby. thank you so much for coming on this morning. so much happened over the weekend. i'm curious if you can assess

for us what the options are on the table for israel. and i know that you've already said that it's up to israel to make a decision as to what their response will be. how much influence, though, will the united states have on that being as much diplomacy as possible, given how much upheaval the region is already enduring? >> as you know, mika, the president convened the g7 lead leaders yesterday to talk about a unified, strong, diplomatic response. those leaders talked about other ways we can work together to try to hold iran accountable. we're exploring some of those options as we speak. we'll see where that discussion goes. what iran did was truly unprecedented. the world needs to speak with one voice, that that's unacceptable and that they should be held to account for a

scale of attack that we just haven't seen before coming from iranian soil. now, again as you said, what the israelis will do, they will do. they'll talk about that. i certainly want to reserve them that space. the president was clear with prime minister netanyahu on saturday night. this was an extraordinary military success. it showed not only israel's military superiority but that israel is not alone. the united states actually put, the president put american fighter jets in the air actively defending israel in harm's way. that goes a long way. that sends a strong message about where israel is in the region versus where iran is in the region, which is increasingly isolated. >> yeah, incredible precision and prevention led by the u.s. to intercept this attack. i wonder what that collective, quick, fast, precise action says

to iran and about iran. >> i think it says to iran that when the president says we are committed to the self-defense of israel, he means it. this wasn't just about giving israel weapons. we actually had american fighter pilots in the air. we had american ships at sea knocking things down. we were actively engaged. the thing i think it says about iran is that they don't have the military superiority. i mean, what they tried to do they utterly failed. again, i want to go back to what i said before. it also shows that israel is not alone. they do have friends. nobody is walking away from them and their ability to defend themselves. again, the president also made it clear he doesn't want a war with iran. we don't want to see this widen, deepen, and broaden throughout the region. we want to see things de-escalate. >> can i switch the conversation a little bit back to gaza and rafah and your relationship with israelis on that front. when we're talking about friends, after the shooting of the world central kitchen aid

workers, america basically said to israel, "if you don't allow more aid in, we will reconsider our policies toward israel." are you satisfied with the amount of aid, that it's stepped up? do you think it is enough? are you satisfied? is that threat of reconsidering your policy toward israel now off the table? >> thanks, katty. yeah, the aid has increased and quite dramatically in just the last few days. more than 2,000 trucks have been able to get in. i think, i might be wrong on this number, but i think it is nearly 100 or so over the last 24 hours alone. the aid is getting in. that's important. but it has to be sustained. what we also said was our policy with respect to gaza will have to change if we don't see changes over time and have them sustained. so far, yes, they have been meeting the commitments they made to president biden. they have been doing the things the president asked them to do, but we really need to see it sustained over time. >> jonathan lemire.

can we get audio? all right. i'm going to take jonathan lemire's audio. i guess the microphone doesn't work. admiral, just moving forward, what will the white house be looking for and working toward in the next few days given the dramatic attack that was intercepted over the weekend? it appears all is calm in israel, given that schools are opening, but israel has said they will respond when they feel like it, when they feel they are ready, and that there will be a response. what's the message that the administration is sending to israel as they consider what to do next? >> i think, really, that came out of the discussion with the president and the prime minister on saturday night. again, it was commending an incredible military achievement, which, again, showed that israel has friends and showed that israel is militarily superior to iran. iran did not show itself well on saturday night given what they

tried to do versus what got in. the president's message to prime minister netanyahu was, this is an extraordinary military success. this is a huge diplomatic success. it is quite an achievement. you have to think about what that success sends as a message to iran and to the region, and consider, you know, how important the impact of what you proved you could do on saturday night really is. the president doesn't want to see this thing widen, doesn't want a war with iran. again, that's been a consistent message from him. >> yup. white house national security communications adviser and assistant to the president, retired rear admiral john kirby, thank you very much. a lot going on on this monday morning. coming up, just hours from now, two hours, donald trump's historic criminal hush money trial is set to begin with jury selection. that comes as president biden plans to campaign in a key battleground state. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back with that.

liberty mutual customized my car insurance and i saved hundreds. that's great. i know, i've bee telling everyone. baby: liberty. oh! baby: liberty. how many people did you tell? only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ baby: ♪ liberty. ♪ (reporters) over here. kev! kev! jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ (reporter 1) any response to the trade rumors, we keep hearing about? (kev) we talkin' about moving? not the trade, not the trade, we talking about movin'. no thank you. (reporter 2) you could use opendoor. sell your house directly to them, it's easy. (kev) ... i guess we're movin'. voices of people with cidp: cidp disrupts. cidp derails.

let's be honest... all: cidp sucks! voices of people with cidp: but living with cidp doesn't have to. when you sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com, you'll find inspiration in real patient stories, helpful tips, reliable information, and more. cidp can be tough. but finding hope just got a little easier. sign up at shiningthroughcidp.com. all: be heard. be hopeful. be you.

why are force factor vitamins so popular at walmart?

force factor uses the highest quality ingredients to deliver powerful, healthy results from delicious and convenient supplements. that's why friends and family recommend force factor. rush to walmart and unleash your potential with force factor.

joe." 41 past the hour. this is a live look outside the courthouse, where history will be made today in manhattan as the first criminal trial of a former american president will get under way in that courthouse in just about -- just under two hour. our next guests are going to be talking about what starts today, and that's jury selection. one of the things is the effort to find holdout jurors. we'll talk about what that means. let's bring in former u.s. attorneys and msnbc

contributors, chuck rosenberg and barbara mcquade. barbara, let's back up a little bit. a lot of people will really start to tune into this for a number of reasons. there's been a lot of delays and a lot of waiting for this trial to begin. a lot of debate over whether this is the more serious or less serious trial, whether that even matters. and what is on the line here? i would like to know exactly, if you can explain, what this trial is about. i know it is centered around a hush money payment, but what will the prosecution be trying to prove here? >> mika, the indictment alleges that donald trump falsified business records, which is a crime in itself under new york law, but it is a misdemeanor. it becomes a felony, however, if those falsifications are done to conceal some other crime. the other crime that is alleged here is campaign finance laws. it is the theory of alvin bragg

that these records were falsified on the eve of the 2016 election. also, at the same time the "access hollywood" tape had been revealed to the public in which donald trump spoke disparagingly about women. and the need to conceal the records was to promote his campaign and prevent the disclosure of these damaging allegations that otherwise would have come out without the payments to stormy daniels. they were, instead, booked as if they were legal fees to michael cohen when, in fact, it was reimbursement to michael cohen who had paid this hush money. >> chuck, donald trump has taken to truth social this morning post after post after post complaining about what's about to happen in a couple of hours. give us a little bit, if you will, as to how you think jury selection will play out. also, go big picture about why this really matters. it feels we've been living with this idea, that donald trump will be charged with this. we've seen him in court a bunch. today is different. it is the beginning of a criminal trial and the former president of the united states a

defendant. >> it is different, to your point, jonathan. jury selection should not be mystery and shouldn't be complex. it shouldn't take that long. maybe i'm biased. where i practiced as a prosecutor, it was fast and efficient. you inevitably seated a fair jury. i think they'll get there, too, in this case. it'll take longer. procedural in new york is different from the federal court in virginia where i was. but you can be fair if you're a democrat or republican, if you watch fox or msnbc. people are remarkably good at putting aside whatever opinions they may have, whatever preferences they may have. as the judge will instruct them, focusing on the facts abused to trial and applying the law as the judge instructs. i think a lot of this is a bit of theater. it's a pit bit of a dance. the faster we get through this

process and get to trial, introducing witnesses and documents, the better off we'll all be. chuck, some of the details along the way here, obviously, donald trump is under a gag order. running bets on whether or not he breaks that or already has. if he does that, he endangers the lives of people. trump's anger, he uses it to his political advantage. really, it is for the safety of the people involved with this trial. what are the consequences if he does that? i mean, we haven't really seen consequences play out on the breaking of gag orders along the way with donald trump. will this be different? >> it may well be, mika. look, it's an incredibly crass thing to do. to your point, it is also an incredibly dangerous thing to do. also, if you take a step back, it makes absolutely no sense. it's like if you're a pitcher and you're walking out to the mound in the top of the first inning, you stop by home plate

to tell the umpire he's stupid and corrupt and incompetent, i'm not sure you'll get a lot of close calls over the balance of the game. so as a strategy, it makes absolutely no sense to me. by the way, if he is convicted, this very judge who he has been castigating, and the judge's family who he has been criticizing publicly, this is the guy who is going to sentence him. so, to me, you know, crass and dangerous and ineffective, but maybe that's the game plan, mika, for reasons you and i can't fathom. >> i was just -- last week, i was talking to michael steele about the death of o.j. simpson. michael steele went into the trial convinced o.j. was innocent. he came out listening to all of the facts convinced that o.j. was guilty. how possible is it in this trial, and maybe put your author's hat on, in the divided nature of our country, that there will be people who go into

the trial, listen to the facts, and form an opinion different from the one they went in having? is there a way in which this trial could do what it is meant to do and explain to the country, these are the facts, now go away and form your opinion based on just what you've heard in this courtroom? >> well, i think so. of course, that's what jurors are supposed to do, come in with an open mind and base their decisions on the facts and the law. you know, i believe that's what happens in most cases. of course, i think you're speaking more broadly about the court of public opinion and the public. i've seen this happen. i have been involved in cases where people will say of politicians, i've only been charged of these crimes because of my political party, political affiliation, political acts, my race, whatever it is. you know, that can sound good to people who are sympathetic to the person, who supported that person. when facts come out, it can be really devastating, and people understand in the light of day it's shown, about the checks, about the documents.

when they hear these things, it consider more difficult to refute. we're not going to have televised proceedings, which i think might be difficult. people will have to rely on someone's reporting about what did happen in court. that could create an opportunity for spin. but i do think that laying the facts bare makes it more difficult for someone to say i've been railroaded when you see what the facts are that ultimately prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. >> former u.s. attorneys barbara mcquade and chuck rosenberg, thank you, both, for your analysis this morning on this historic day. we'll be hearing from both of you again as we cover this trial. republican -- and this is to the politics of this which is fascinating. republican new hampshire governor chris sununu hessian -- he spent the last year cutting donald trump deeply, from his legal issues to cognitive abilities. take a look. >> if he doesn't have the

fastball, doesn't have the energy, i mean, i think one of his last rallies he was talking about jesus christ as speaker of the christ and compared himself to nelson mandela. if he is not on the teleprompter, it's not the same guy. this is the guy that was blaming nikki haley for january 6th. he's off the teleprompter, this is not donald trump of 2016, guys. if he is off the teleprompter, he can barely keep a cogent thought. that's fact. >> but you've seen him in person, as -- >> i worked with him closely. he is not the same guy. this is not donald trump. >> didn't have a prompter last night. >> look, this guy is nearly 80 years old. thank you for your service. >> 77. >> nearly 80. we'll do math later. look -- >> you are so -- >> this is not 2016 anymore. he's not on not on his fastball. >> okay, and now everything is completely different. sununu was pressed yesterday by abc's george stephanopoulos on a major flip-flop by sununu

himself. take a look at this lengthy exchange. it's brutal. >> please explain, given the fact that you believe he contributed to an insurrection, how you can say, we should have him back in the oval office? >> it's not -- because for me it's not about him as much as it is having a republican administration, republican secretaries, republican rules, a sense where states' rights comes first, individual rights comes first, parents rights comes first. we'll have a pro-business economy. we're not going to have a cancel culture that has infitrated all across america. it's not about trump -- >> but he will be president. >> -- bringing that mentality back. >> that doesn't make any sense. you're saying, it's not about trump. he will be the president, and you have said that he's someone who has contributed to an insurrection. >> i understand it doesn't make sense to you, george, but look at the polls. what you're telling me is you don't understand why 51% of this country is supporting donald

trump. they're not crazy, they're not maga conservativists, they want culture change. >> governor, i'm not talking -- >> the issue is -- >> i'm not talking about polls. i'm asking you a very simple question. you believe donald trump contributed to an insurrection? that's correct, right? >> i stand by the statement. >> you stand by the statement. look, his words -- >> you stand by the statement that he contributed to an insurrection. so you believe a president who contributed to an insurrection should be president again?! >> as does 51% of america, george. >> so just to sum up, you would support him for president, if he was convicted in classified documents, you support him for president even though he believe he contributed to an insurrection, you support him for president even though you believe he's lying about the last election, you would support him for president even if he's convicted in the manhattan case, the answer to that is correct, right? >> yeah, me and 51% of america.

>> all right, i'm not going to ask you what happened to sununu -- that's for sununu to deal with himself. but that answer, what does that tell you about where our politics are today? >> oh, nothing -- nothing cheerful. nothing inspiring. i mean, this is very clearly a person saying that my party and my own career survival matters more than my country, because it's quite clear what his views were originally, which were the correct views, which is that trump poses a threat to the republic, to the constitution, to regular democratic order and that he will still, with this bizarre repetition of, because 51% of americans agree with me, that means doing the wrong thing, is justifiable. that's about the only line of defense he had. and i think it's relevant -- it wouldn't be relevant if it was just chris sununu, but it's relevant because we have yet to see what deal nikki haley will

do, if indeed she's going to do one, to support trump and what she will get in return for that, if, indeed, that happens. we see marco rubio auditioning overtly to be his running mate. we know what marco rubio has said about trump. we know what lindsey graham has said about trump. you can go through like nine pin s. most of the republican party and point out that they had just as scathing views that this man was not fit to be president, and then did a complete pivot and decided for self-preservation, instinct, or career advancement, that they would back a man unfit to be president. so what does it say about politics in the gop today? it says they do not care about their country. >> u.s. national editor at the "financial times," ed loose, thank you very much for being on this morning. still ahead on "morning joe," while donald trump will be in a courtroom this week, president biden will be on the campaign trail. we'll tell you where he's headed

and the pitch he's expected to make to voters. plus, iran's air strikes on israel, putting more pressure on speaker mike johnson to bring a foreign aid package to the house floor. we'll show you how he's responding. that's all ahead on "morning joe." life, diabetes, there's no slowing down. each day is a unique blend of people to see and things to do. that's why you choose glucerna to help manage blood sugar response. uniquely designed with carbsteady. glucerna. bring on the day.

this is one of our willow boxes. this is just filled with some of the things that we had started gathering for her while i was pregnant. yep. here's her little baby book. this is the outfit that she was gonna maybe wear home from the hospital. all of these... um, this is... the blanket that she was in.

and these are... her little footprints. it's okay, i know. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

my name is oluseyi and some of my favorite moments throughout my life are watching sports with my dad. now, i work at comcast as part of the team that created our ai highlights technology, which uses ai to detect the major plays in a sports game. giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport.

i have a crooked judge. this has never happened before, by the way. you do know that, right? with all of the things they did with millions of pages of study, they found nothing, which makes me perhaps the most honest guy almost in the world, i think. they found nothing. >> well, he's right about one part of that. this has definitely never happened before. today is an historic day, as donald trump becomes the first former president to face a criminal trial. we are hours away now from the start of jury selection in the hush money case against donald trump. thousands of new yorkers will be a part of that process. the self-proclaimed most honest guy in the world is accused of having an affair with adult film actress, stormy daniels, then

coordinating a hush money payment to her, prior to the 2016 presidential election. the scheme has trump facing 34 felony charges tied to falsifying financial documents, which prosecutors say he did to conceal the reimbursements he made to his former attorney and fixer, michael cohen. we're going to have expert legal analysis on this case throughout the morning, and of course, it starts at 9:30 eastern time. and we'll be covering the proceedings live and get reporting from the courthouse. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is monday, april 15th. with us, we have the host of "way too early," white house bureau chief at politico, jonathan lemire. u.s. special correspondent for bbc news, katty kay is with us, and rodgers chair at the american chair at vanderbilt

university. but first, jon meacham, if you could just give us a sense of the historic nature of what's going to be happening with donald trump's trial today, given that this has never happened before, what's the historical context you can put it in? >> the historical context to me, is anyone above the law in the united states of america? before the republic even began, thomas paine wrote, people ask, you know, in america, what's the king? well, the king is the law. and no one can be removed from it. and so this is a test of our democracy, it's a test of the role of truth. it's a test of an ancient right of trial by jury. it's a test of do we have faith in our institutions to deliver justice? >> we'll get to our expert legal panel in just a moment to look at the details about that, but

first, our top story this morning, the fast-moving and significant events over the weekend out of the middle east. on saturday, iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones towards israel, marking the first time iran has directly attacked the jewish state. an international military coalition led by the u.s. was able to shoot down 99% of the missiles before they reached israel. israeli defense forces released this video of some of the missiles being intercepted. the u.s. defense department called the attack unprecedented, saying the drones were launched from iran, iraq, syria, and yemen. officials say only a few missiles fell inside the country, causing slight damage to an israeli air base. a young girl was the only person who was injured in the attack. iran says its attack was in response to israel's strike

earlier this month on an israelian consulate in syria. that strike killed two generals and five officers from the iranian revolution guard corps. in a statement, iran says it now considers the matter concluded, but warned of a more severe response if israel, quote, makes another mistake, adding that the u.s. must stay away. it's not clear if israel will respond to the attack or what that might look like. the war cabinet met yesterday, but provided no details. officials have said israeli forces remain on high alert and that leadership has approved both offensive and defensive action. in a statement from war cabinet minister benny gantz, he wrote, israel will, quote, exact the price from iran when the timing is right. they do promise a response. meanwhile, the u.s. is advising israel to choose a limited

response as opposed to all-out armed counterattack. a senior biden administration tells -- official tells nbc news that the president told prime minister benjamin netanyahu the u.s. will not participate in offensive operations against iran. another administration official told reporters yesterday that the president wants israel to, quote, think very carefully ever and strategically about how to respond to iran, adding that israel got the best of the exchange since most of the missiles were intercepted, and that's, i think, where one of the biggest stories of this lies. let's bring in the president emeritus of the council on foreign relations, he's author of the weekly news letter, home and away, and former supreme allied commander of nato, retired four-star navy admiral, james stavridis. he is chief international analyst for nbc news. and admiral, if i could start with you on exactly what

happened during the interception. in the hours before -- who got together, who led it, the u.s. and how important was it that most of these drones and missiles, rockets were intercepted? the message about iran and to iran seems to me to be vital here. >> i agree. and i spent much of my career at sea and command of guided missile destroyers and cruisers. this was the mission, shooting down missiles directed at our carriers, at our allies, and i can't imagine a better day for the air defenders than to knock down 350 drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles. it's a remarkable feat of military arms. and it also speaks to the military mismatch, frankly,

between iran, which has reasonable technology in those zones, but the capabilities on the allied side. in terms of how this was put together, think of it as a defend in depth that begins with satellite coverage, that sees these launches at great distance, command and control that's lashed together by the u.s., israel, nato partners, and arab partners, significantly jordan, for example, was participating in shooting down some of these capabilities. so all of that gets knit together, mika, and then individual targets are apportioned to the launcher systems. so that's a long way of saying very good performance. now, having said all of that, let's be honest here, tehran telegraphed this. it had a bit of a performative

feel to it. i don't think they wanted to end up in a situation where 200 israelis got killed by a cruise missile or a ballistic missile. and so, at the end of the day here, that's why i think the international pressure landing on the israelis not to respond excessive makes a lot of sense. look for cyber, maybe going after iranian maritime assets, perhaps special forces, if you will back to the status quo. i think that's how we're headed. let's hope the israelis don't choose a massive military response. that really would escalate the situation considerably. >> jonathan lemire, the biden administration responded immediately. president biden rushed back to the white house over the weekend, met with his national security teams, and then the collective effort began, was put together, that led to these interceptions. fast, effective, but now comes the task of what's next.

>> the president was at his beach home in delaware over the weekend, cut short, mika, as you say, his time away, met with his national security team, and certainly, made clear the united states would stand with israel as it defended itself against iran, papering over the differences we have with israel about what's happening in gaza. we had the president convene the g-7 leaders yesterday, really push for a path to diplomacy here. and he spoke to prime minister netanyahu and encouraged netanyahu to, quote, take the win, to the admiral's point, your defense capabilities, with help from the u.s., the uk, jordan and others, did such a marvelous job defending what iran did. this is an historic first attack from iran to the jewish homeland, to the nation of israel itself, from iran, and it was a wild failure from the iranian point of view. and the president telling the prime minister, hey, that should be enough. so richard haas, let's talk about what could be next. to the admiral's point, look,

there were 300 missiles is rockets, but it was telegraphed, it was slow moving. u.s. officials told me over the weekend, they knew iran had to do something, but they could do something that could be pretty easily defeated without this turning into a wider regional war. we know tehran doesn't want an escalation, we know president biden doesn't want an escalation, the wild card seems to be prime minister netanyahu. what do you think happens next? >> for the israelis, they have a real dilemma here. the fact that this was unprecedented, jonathan, if you want to say a homeland on homeland attack, there are powerful voices in israel saying, we can no let this stand without response. this sets a dangerous precedent. we've got to restore deterrence. now, israel's under all sorts of pressure from the united states and one thing you've got to do as an ally is take the views of your patrons, shall we say, into account. so what can israel do? they can do nothing. i don't think that's going to happen. they can go back and find iranian targets around the region. essentially, go back to the war

and the shadows that iran and israel have been fighting for years. but there's two other possibilities. one is they would, for example, attack the places in iran where they're storing or making drones, or storing or making missiles. an attack that would be discreet, targeted, and germane to what just happened. and last, you'll have people in israel saying, this is the moment we've been waiting for. we have to attack iran big, once and for all, even go after the nuclear program and sort of. there's going to be a menu of options in israel. and i actually think it's going to be hard or difficult for the israelis simply to say, do nothing, especially what they do, when they do it. they have time on their side. they don't have to respond tonight. they have their hands full in gaza. but my sense is they're going to do something. this idea of restoring deterrence, not allowing iran to think they can attack the jewish state with impunity, i think israel will be looking to do something. >> you even have voices here like john bolton saying that israel should go big right now. it was clearly a military win,

admiral stavridis, for israel, but to some extent, do you think it was also a political and diplomatic win? i mean, we've seen for the first time since october the 7th, the narrative shift to the israeli military doing something right and being powerful once again, in a way that it had lost some of that veneer after the attacks of october the 7th. and there's this big diplomatic coalition. israel was looking isolated over its activities in gaza, and now that narrative, at least for the short-term, has shifted to, that we are standing by israel. not just the united kingdom, which also we see david cameron this morning urging the israelis to be smart, but also tough, but emphasis on the smart there. but the jordanian joining that coalition of countries that was helping israel out. so politically and diplomatically, this looks like a good moment for israel. how does it capitalize on that and not risk jeopardizing that? >> what a good point, and i'll just add your list of voices speaking up, the g-7, which

represents well over half of the world's gross product, squarely behind israel on this one. and let's face it, a lot of those voices want to avoid a wider war, not only because we want to avoid state-on-state conflict, but also the effect on the global economy. iran's first move in a big regional war, my view will be to close the strait of hormuz. there goes 25% of the world's oil, bottled up in the persian gulf. there's a lot of motivation here. in terms of your point, katty, this does shift the narrative somewhat. and let's observe that this was the israeli military defending its country. and doing it very effectively and compare that to the frankly, the debacle of october the 7th, when israeli women and children were slaughtered in their

numbers due to a failure by the israeli defense forces and the intelligence services of israel. so, to richard's excellent point, they will be looking at a menu of options here and i hope they consider the importance of that global narrative, which they have been losing terribly, because of their activities in gaza. here is a chance to get some of that dialed back in favor of israel. >> definitely a possible opportunity there. let's go live to jerusalem, nbc news chief foreign correspondent, richard engel is there. and richard, any sense of a response by israel coming anytime soon? i'm hearing, schools have reopened? so perhaps that's a sign that calm is potentially persisting for now? >> so this announcement came last night, that israel was

lifting the restrictions that it had put in place. it had actually changed its policy, as of yesterday evening, schools today were supposed to be closed, all public gatherings still banned. and the israeli military was keeping it fairly vague. then late last night, i think because there was a lot of confusion here, there was a lot of concern, why was israel keeping these restriction in place, there were some reports on israeli television, even as of late last night, that a new israeli response was coming, that quite late in the evening, israel changed the policy and said, no, schools can go back, gatherings can go back, we're lifting those restrictions. and i think that eased some tensions. we were out doing interviews this morning, talking to israelis on the beach in tel aviv. so people here are going back to life as normal. so i think the lifting of those

restrictions late last night at the 11th hour did eliminate some of the confusion. but as you were just talking, there was not a sense that we are out of the woods. had some of those ballistic missiles, more of the ballistic missiles gotten through, the drones gotten through, caused significant damage, caused significant casualties, i think we would have been having a very different conversation right now. the fact that 99% of the drones and missiles were knocked down, almost all of them, before they even entered israeli air space gave this country a degree of confidence and allowed it to step back from the brink, at least for now. but to the point you were just making and to richard's point, this country still has a credibility gap, a deterrence gap, that it is right to restore in gaza, with hamas, after the

october 7th attack. and now one would assume it will have to prove that to iran after iran crossed a rubicon and launched a military-style assault all across this country unsuccessfully. >> richard, good morning, it's richard haas here. so what extent, where you are, does this look like iran threw bibi netanyahu a lifeline? does he seem now stronger in israeli politics? almost the narrative has changed? and on the other hand, to what extent is he coming under real pressure from some of his right-wing colleagues and his government to do what we're talking about? essentially that he's got to attack iran, or that some of them will actually threaten to bring down his government. what are the politics of this on bibi netanyahu? >> the politics on bibi netanyahu are immensely complicated, because if you remember, before october 7th, there were massive protests on the streets of tel aviv, they

were shutting down the highways, they were shutting down the road to the airport. some demonstrations in jerusalem, as well, but almost all of it in tel aviv and the tel aviv area. after the war started, those protests went away, because this country was on war footing, people didn't necessarily rally around netanyahu, but netanyahu formed this broader war cabinet, which gave him a degree of cover. now six months entitle, those protests are starting to come back, and they're starting to come back in large numbers. on the eve of this attack, so 24 hours before iran launched the attack, there were tens of thousands of people on the streets of tel aviv, they were expecting over 100,000 people protesting netanyahu. and many of the protest leaders are members of the hostage family community. so this protest movement against

netanyahu is growing again. now, whether this attack or this thwarted attack in israel's defense backed up by the united states and other countries will give him a bit of a lifeline is difficult to know. the protesters truly despise netanyahu. and many of them believe that he's responsible for the security failure in this country. and you could even say that what happened over the last 48 hours was a security failure. look at what has happened in the last several months. you had hamas emboldened enough to send thousands of fighters across the gaza border into israel to carry out a massacre. and now iran felt confident enough to launch hundreds of drones and missiles. yes, they were shot down, but these two things still happened and many israelis say that under the watch of prime minister netanyahu and his quite extreme government, the overall security in this country and the overall

impression of this country around the world has deteriorated significantly. >> coming up, we'll go live to the courthouse in new york city where donald trump goes on criminal trial. we're just minutes away from the start of jury selection, a full preview of the former president's prosecution when "morning joe" comes right back. n "morning joe" comes right back (♪♪) [shaking] itchy pet? (♪♪) with chewy, save 20% on your first pharmacy order so you can put an end to the itch. get flea and tick medication delivered right to your door. [panting] at bombas, we're obsessed with socks. tees. and underwear. because your basic things should be your best things. one purchased equals one donated. visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order.

only purple's gel flex grid passes the raw egg test. no other mattress cradles your body and simultaneously supports your spine. memory foam doesn't come close. get your best sleep guaranteed right now! save up to $400. visit purple.com or a store near you. my mental health was better. but uncontrollable movements called td, tardive dyskinesia, started disrupting my day. td felt embarrassing. i felt like disconnecting. i asked my doctor about treating my td, and learned about ingrezza. ♪ ingrezza ♪ ingrezza is clinically proven for reducing td. most people saw results in just two weeks. people taking ingrezza can stay on most mental health meds. only number-one prescribed ingrezza has simple dosing for td: always one pill, once daily. ingrezza can cause depression, suicidal thoughts, or actions in patients with huntington's disease. pay close attention to and call your doctor if you become depressed, have sudden changes in mood, behaviors, feelings, or have thoughts of suicide. don't take ingrezza if you're allergic to its ingredients. ingrezza may cause serious side effects,

including angioedema, potential heart rhythm problems, and abnormal movements. report fevers, stiff muscles, or problems thinking as these may be life threatening. sleepiness is the most common side effect. take control by asking your doctor about ingrezza. ♪ ingrezza ♪

hi, i'm kevin, and i've lost 152 pounds on golo. (uplifting music) my biggest concern when i started golo was food. i'm a big guy and, shockingly, i like to eat. i was worried it was gonna be like other diets that were bland and restrictive. but with golo, my meals are great, and i'm no longer hungry like i was before. i'm so pleased i gave golo a shot. don't wait, go to golo.com.

pennsylvania, to look and to watch. and the statement of robert e. lee, who's no longer in favor, did you ever notice that? no longer in favor, never fight up hill, me boys. never fight uphill. they were fighting uphill, he said, wow, that was a big mistake. he lost his great general. never fight uphill, me boys! but it was too late. >> um, that was former president trump on the campaign trail in pennsylvania on saturday. i'm thinking jon meacham, is there anything to say about what he said or -- maybe we should just move on? >> i don't think shelby foot put it exactly that way. i think that's a fair way to put it. you know, trump delivered that history lesson just outside allentown, where at times he sort of stumbled along with his speech. >> just this week, it was reported that an illegal -- and you just look at what's

happening. >> so in just hours, jury selection is set to begin in donald trump's hush money criminal trial in new york city. it is the first time in u.s. history that a former president will be on trial for criminal charges. two sources with direct knowledge of the situation tell nbc news that 6,000 potential jurors will be subpoenaed to manhattan criminal courts this week. usually about 4,000 jurors are called in a week. more than 1,500 will be called today. not all of these potential jurors are intended for the trump trial, though. but the increase in number can be attributed to the former president's trial. at a manufactured event at mar-a-lago, with speaker mike johnson, trump said he intends to testify at the trial, though trump's attorneys have yet to confirm or deny whether he'll do so. that's the speaker of the house, with president trump, at

mar-a-lago. and there's stormy daniels. trump is accused of coordinating a hush money payment to that adult film actress, stormy daniels, during the 2016 election. to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter. trump was charged with falsifying documents to cover up that payment. he denies the charges and denies having had sex with daniels. joining us now, former deputy chief of the criminal division for the southern district of new york, christy greenberg, she is an msnbc legal analyst. thanks for coming on this morning. i think let's start at the very beginning. a lot of people are going to really be focusing now that the trial is actually beginning. can you explain what this is really about and then how jury selection could really impact the process here, and even the outcome? >> sure. so just to level set on a few things, making a hush money payment on its own, not illegal.

falsifying business records, that is a misdemeanor under new york state law. so the way we get to a felony here is that these falsification of business records, the checks that he signed, the general ledger entries, those falsifications happened in order to commit another crime. and here, that was in order to conceal an agreement among trump and others to unlawfully influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. so, what i'm going to be looking for in this trial is not necessarily the falsification of business records. i think the documents are very good, the deception just kind of leaps from the page of some of these documents. they're using fake names, fake settlement agreements, you're going to be looking for witness testimony to get you to that criminal intent. that these payments were there to influence the outcome of the election. that is going to be a focus, as we go through this trial. in jury selection, what are you looking for? you're looking for the person

who could potentially hang this jury. in manhattan, i think it is unlikely you're going to get an acquittal, but you could get one or two people who don't agree and hang this jury. you are going to be looking for people that exhibit any kind of political bias, in favor of donald trump, not have they voted for him, that's not a question, not what their political party affiliation is, but have they attended a rally, did follow him on social media, what is their media diet? various questions about whether or not they think that he's been treated unfairly in this case, that it is unfair to, you know, criminally charge a former president of the united states. so that's going to be first and foremost what both sides are going to be looking for, as well as people who have a distrust of the law enforcement and the justice system. people who are very opinionated, lawyers -- who want lawyers off the jury. those are the kinds of people that both sides will be looking for, prosecutors will want to keep those people off the jury, and the defense will want them

on in the hopes of a mistrial. >> all right. let's bring in former litigator and msnbc legal correspondent, lisa ruben from outside the courthouse in new york city. lisa, finally, you've been leading up to this and giving us context, but today is the day that it begins. what will you be looking for? >> well, mika, a lot of what i'm going to be looking for is what happens before the first prospective juror even walks into the courtroom. we understand that because over the weekend, trump was on his truth social account, making numerous posts about prospective witnesses, there could be this morning, some discussion about those posts, and what the consequences could be for any violation of the gag order. we also expect based on correspondents that trump's lawyers sent late last week, that they could say to the judge, hey, we know that you finalized your jury instructions and your protocol for selecting the jury, but we still don't

think it's fair, because you're going to allow anybody who says they're unable to serve to walk away scot-free, and that's not good enough for us for appellate purposes. we need to be able to distinguish between the person who says, i'm unable to serve because i've got a 3-month-old at home and the person who says, i'm unable to serve because i couldn't possibly be fair and impartial here. so look for those morning proceedings to take up a good and healthy amount of time this morning and of course, where the gag order is at issue, you know the former president very impassioned about that. i'm also looking to see, can he control his temper, even in this first day of trial. >> lisa, talk about the jury selection a little bit more. it's really hard to believe that there are 12 and 6 alternates out there who actually don't have an opinion about donald trump already, or have an opinion about this case already. so how are they going to try -- what are the kinds of questions they'll be asking them to try to get to people that really could be fair jurors in this trial? and also, what happens to that

person who wants to sit on the jury in order to try to swing it one way or another, and may lie about their own background. how do they weed them out? >> let's start with your second question first. how do you suss out the people who are lying? sometimes people can't help themselves, and they will answer questions even against their own self-interest of getting themselves on a jury. i am reminded of the second e. jean carroll trial, who there was a prospective juror who exactly met that description. the person very much wanted to serve on the jury, but had to answer truthfully a series of questions that revealed that on balance that person couldn't be fair and impartial. there were too many different factors that showed not only a feeling once way or another, but an intensity of feeling. and that's really what the selection process is design odd ferret out. it's not can you find 12 people and 6 alternates that are not

biased some way or another. every person in america has a feeling about donald trump. you would be hard-pressed to find someone who's neutral. it's can people set those feelings aside and be fair and impartial when they join with 11 others on a jury. the questions on balance are designed to help the lawyers and the judge ferret that out, so there are very few questions on this jury questionnaire in and of themselves that would be disqualifying. one that i can think of is the question about, do you belong, for example, to the 3 percenters or the booingly boys. that may show a disinclination towards first of all the government, but also a feeling about former president trump and the 2020 election, et cetera, that may make it hard for a person to serve. very few others of them by themselves would disqualify them. you're looking for someone who answers a battery of questions in a way that you can say, given this person's answers to questions "x," "y," and "z," they cannot be impartial as a member of the jury. >> lisa, hold on, i have for

more questions for you, but i want to turn to jon meacham for some perspective here. obviously, this is a major moment in history, this has never happened before, and i would love to hear more about that, but also given recent history -- i mean, recent history with president trump and post-president trump and january 6th and the way he's treating the people who are in jail right now for the insurrection at the capitol, the way he's whitewashing what happened and getting other republicans to do so, can you also talk about how trump could and is already using this to foment ambiguity and anger in this country? >> in one of his first public speeches, abraham lincoln said, if america were to fall, it would not fall to a foreign foe, it would fall to a tyrant that rose among us. that's essentially where we are. you're exactly right. what's unfolding in manhattan today is part of a larger story

about donald trump, his behavior, his view of whether or not american democracy exists for the good of the country or for the good of donald trump. and i know that's not what the jury's deciding, but there are lots of juries here, right? there's a national jury, the jury in the courtroom, and ultimately, you have this trial, you have the supreme court preparing to hear arguments on trump's really wild claim that presidents are totally immune from anything, as if we are creating the sort of superhero who has immunity for all things, which is totally contrary to the rule of law. and as you say, an attempt to basically run a coup d'etat four years ago, three and a half years ago, to overturn an election that was adjudicated

again and again, often by judges appointed by republicans. so in the broadest sense, what's on trial is fact, is truth. and then, the second thing that's on trial, which is vital, is, half the country has essentially decided that whatever donald trump does is fine, because of "x," "y," or "z." whatever that reason is, right? there's a strong base, then there are his enablers who think that they're going to have lower taxes and more conservative judges, and it doesn't matter that he's trying to rip up the constitution. that's a decision that a lot of folks have made. the question is going to be, as we head into this presidential election, is will a sufficient number of those people stand by donald trump, come what may,

including a felony conviction, including possibly convictions, certainly trials about overturning an election, that he just didn't like, right? that's on trial. so truth and democracy are on trial this year. and i don't -- it's -- i have no pleasure in saying this. it's not -- i'm not being hyperbolic. this isn't like history nerd sweepstakes. it's not that. this is the fact of the matter. coming up, the pressure is building on house republicans to pass a foreign aid bill after iran launched a massive series of strikes against israel. nbc's ali vitali has the latest from capitol hill. that's next on "morning joe." from capitol hill. that's next on "morning joe.

the house is expected to vote this week on legislation in support of israel. in a social media post on saturday, majority leader steve scalise said the lower chamber will consider a pro-israel bill that holds iran accountable for this week's -- this weekend's missile and drone strikes. meanwhile, speaker mike johnson indicated yesterday that house republicans are now putting together a foreign aid package. president biden held a call with top congressional leaders yesterday to discuss iran's attack on israel, and the need for the house to vote on the senate passed national security supplemental. let's bring in capitol hill news correspondent, ali vitali. ali, how is this going to play out? we obviously haven't spoken about ukraine, which has been waiting, is it months now for the support they need to

continue to fight against russian oppression? and i'm wondering if what's happened over the weekend and the threat of greater instability around the world will finally get house republicans to come together and pass what the senate is sending them. >> i wouldn't put forward that optimistic of a view, mika, especially because of the ways that we've watched this house republican conference continually scuttle conversations around foreign aid, both to ukraine and also to israel. in large part because when you're thinking about the senate supplemental package, we're talking about a bill that deals with all of that aid, grouped together. if you're sending it to ukraine, you're sending to it israel, you're sending it to taiwan, that is the bill that will be the fastest in getting that aid out the door, just because of the way that congress functions. it is sitting in the house waiting for speaker johnson to do something with it. if he were to do something with that specific package, it's almost like or it's not assured that he would lose his job or at

least motion to vacated, and we would have to see what would happen. the other conversation that's happening up here is that speaker johnson is now saying he's cobbling together his own version of a foreign aid package. now, if that is an aid package that is solely focused on israel, you can basically think about ukraine aid as dead on arrival, because in large part, grouping them together was the way that you made sure all of these various countries have got the aid they so badly needed and requested from the united states. now we'll watch and see what the speaker does and whether or not he's still willing to keep those two things together, moving them in tandem, but again, that draws the ire of key members of his house republican conference, and again puts his job on the line. what we will see the house do this week, mika, is put forward 17 bills that steve scalise has promised. that swaps out an agenda of appliance freedom that was initially on the docket. now we'll see them focused on

israel and iran, meant to show that they stand with israel in the wake of this weekend's attack. so, yes, there is a renewed urgency, based on what we saw. and we know on that call over the weekend, as biden talked with the big four leaders up here in congress, three out of those four leaders support the supplemental package that the senate has already passed. the pressure is on the speaker right now, as it always has been, but the more we see instability in the region, the more we hear from folks on the ground in ukraine, demanding future aid, the higher that urgency gets. it's not like it wasn't urgent already. >> ali, to what extent does the speakers meeting with donald trump and what donald trump specifically said about marjory taylor green and wanting to keep the speaker in his position and not have the chaos that would follow, to what extent is that protecting him, and would allow him to even add the ukraine aid, if he wants, which he suggested that he would like to have in there, that he can now add that in because of what trump said? >> you know, having been down in

mar-a-lago, trump did not give him a full embrace. it was more of a side hug. not necessarily the protection that some allies of johnson were hoping for, but there was something really specific in what trump said. yes, the idea that he wants to keep the speaker in his job, the fact that he said that i stand with the speaker. but also the fact that he said that he was open to ukraine aid, but not in the form of the senate supplemental. donald trump made clear that he wanted to talk about it as a loan. there are various pieces of legislation up here that do that. but again, that starts the procedural process all over again here. that would mean that the house has to pass that new bill, and then it goes back over to the senate, where they will then want to negotiate it and make amendments to it. and then it continues to bounce back and forth. every conversation that i have, guys, with democratic and republican leaders who are in favor of getting ukraine the aid they need, getting israel the aid they need, they all say that the fastest way and the only viable way to do that is through

the senate passed foreign aid supplemental, that is already, again, sitting here, waiting for the house to take it up. >> coming up, we'll speak with israel's former ambassador to the united states, after iran's unprecedented attack over the weekend. michael lauren is our guest when "morning joe" comes right back. n "morning joe" comes right back why would i use kayak to compare hundreds of travel sites at once? i like to do things myself. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. kayak... aaaaaaaahhhh kayak. search one and done.

♪ i have type 2 diabetes, but i manage it well ♪ ♪ jardiance! ♪ ♪ it's a little pill with a big story to tell ♪ ♪ i take once-daily jardiance ♪ ♪ at each day's start! ♪ ♪ as time went on it was easy to see ♪ ♪ i'm lowering my a1c! ♪ jardiance works twenty-four seven in your body to flush out some sugar. and for adults with type 2 diabetes and known heart disease, jardiance can lower the risk of cardiovascular death, too. serious side effects may include ketoacidosis that may be fatal, dehydration that can lead to sudden worsening of kidney function, and genital yeast or urinary tract infections. a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection in the skin of the perineum could occur. stop jardiance and call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of this infection ketoacidosis, or an allergic reaction. you may have an increased risk for lower limb loss. call your doctor right away if you have symptoms of infection in your legs or feet. taking jardiance with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. ♪ jardiance is really swell ♪ ♪ the little pill ♪ ♪ with a big story to tell! ♪

hi, i'm kim, and i lost 67 pounds on golo. when i go out with people, ♪ the little pill ♪ they expect me to eat like a bird. they are shocked by the amount of food i eat while losing weight. with golo, i don't need a cheat day because i get to eat the foods i like any day of the week.

my name is oluseyi and some of my favorite moments throughout my life are watching sports with my dad. now, i work at comcast as part of the team that created our ai highlights technology, which uses ai to detect the major plays in a sports game. giving millions of fans, like my dad and me, new ways of catching up on their favorite sport. former president of the united

states leaving trump tower headed to that courthouse. in a matter of 39 minutes, history will be made when jury selection begins in the manhattan district attorney's hush money case against donald trump, making him the first former president to face criminal trial on felony charges. that will be quite a scene. when he goes to the courthouse, we'll of course be covering that live. the former president has been using this trial and the others as kind of a venue for his political campaign, for his anger, for his ability to stoke anger as he considers himself to be the victim in most of these cases. lisa rubin will be covering the trial for us.

coming up, former u.s. attorney joyce vance will join us to explain what's going to happen today, why jury selection is so important in this trial and what this trial is really about. we call it the hush money case, but it is really about election interference. also we'll get historical analysis. we'll be right back with live coverage. l be right back with l coverage

this is actually an error in the l.a. times obituary section about o.j. instead of writing o.j. walked out of the correctional center, they wrote

>> what else is he saying? is he saying anything as he makes his way to the courthouse right now? >> it's a historic day. former republican presidential nominee, criminal defendant, that is donald trump. he has taken to truth social early and often today, starting before 6:00 a.m., making false

claims about how this case should never have come before the statute of limitations saying every legal scholar agrees with him. we know that's not true. ing suggesting this is election interference and it's the biden democrats behind this prosecution. several posts about the gag order suggesting it is unconstitutional. his last post was a little more than an hour ago, so he's not currently on truth social in the car as he heads to the courtroom. it is a significant day, one we've been talking about for so long. he's facing all these trials. this one has come to be despite attempts to delay. we have seen him in courtrooms a number of times before for

pretrial hearings and motions, but today is different. what remains to be seen is the impact it may have on the election. >> we're going to be covering this from all angles all day long. katty kay is with us. trump faces criminal charges in four different jurisdictions, but this trial is likely to be the one case that will have a verdict before election day. laura jarrett reports. >> reporter: this morning in new york city, history in the making with jury selection beginning in the first criminal trial against donald trump. thousands of perspective jurors summoned to the courthouse in lower manhattan for extensive vetting over the next several days, questioned on everything from their favorite podcast to whether they've ever been to a

trump rally. the jury not expected to be sequestered but will stay anonymous for their own safety. prosecutors expected to argue mr. trump orchestrated a plot to buy the silence of a porn star that threatened to derail his 2016 bid for the white house. reeling from the "access hollywood" tape, trump tried to bury the story by paying her off. the state's case will be how the presumptive nominee covered up and reimbursed cohen. >> the evidence is compelling. it's an attempt by trump to obscure important facts from the

voters right before the election. >> mr. trump denies the encounter with daniels ever happened, pleading not guilty, more recently suggesting he's prepared to risk taking the stand at trial. >> yeah, i would testify, absolutely. >> reporter: and continuing to try to turn what would ordinarily be legal jeopardy to his election while he seeks reelection framing the prosecutors and the judge as out to get him. >> when i walk into that courtroom, i know i will have the love of 200 million americans behind me. >> joining us outside the courthouse, vaughn hillyard. what will you be looking for today? >> reporter: we're looking at potentially weeks here for the jury selection process.

we know 6,000 new yorkers are being summoned here this week alone. what is unique about this jury selection process is anybody who comes in is able to dismiss themselves for no exact reason. the prosecution and the defense will have the opportunity to ask potential jurors questions. they're going to be looking for 12 individuals, plus six alternates to sit inside of that jury box. just in the last 60 seconds, donald trump has officially arrived here to the lower manhattan courthouse for the beginning of this trial. this is something that goes back now to 2016 when two weeks before the election, michael cohen arranged that payment to stormy daniels to silence her story. over the course of 2017, 11 checks were sent to michael cohen reimbursing him, nine of them personal checks from donald

trump. donald trump's story over the course of the last eight years has never been clear. in february of 2018, right after the first public story came out detailing this cohen and stormy daniels arrangement, donald trump said he didn't know anything about it. ask michael cohen, he said. then there are suggestions donald trump was aware he was writing personal checks to michael cohen. just a year ago days before his indictment i was on donald trump's plane, i asked him three separate questions about the extent to which he knew that michael cohen had paid off stormy daniels for her silence. i also asked him what was he paying michael cohen for then. every time donald trump gave an obfuscated, unclear answer which hits at the heart of the question that if donald trump testifies, the prosecutors will have the opportunity to cross examine here. that is the decision donald trump will make here.

the trial could last up to six weeks, could lead to a felony conviction. >> it's so interesting. as you just reported, donald trump is in the courthouse right now. i mean, history has begun. it's the first former president to be facing a criminal trial under a gag order. the way this is described is this trial is about hush money paid to stormy daniels. from knowing donald trump from before he ran for president when he was doing "the apprentice" and running his businesses at trump tower, there are two people who will be testifying in this trial who were the closest to donald trump in his life, the closest to him in his business, the closest to him during his campaign and even the closest to

him during part of his presidency. those two people are hope hicks and also michael cohen. they will be testifying in this trial. i personally know that's especially triggering to donald trump, especially testimony from hope hicks. when you look at these other people who will potentially be witnesses in this trial, the other real trigger factors for this former president -- and i say trigger factors, because when he gets triggered, he starts posting crazy, untrue things on truth social or in front of the microphone. he wanted to kill embarrassing stories about himself before the election. then you also saw stormy daniels and karen macdougall. these are embarrassments for

him, especially in front of his wife melania. there's been a lot of reporting about how the women who hold donald trump accountable tend to trigger him the most, make him the most upset, unhinged. it's going to be interesting to see how donald trump plays this politically. he calls this election interference, because of course he's a candidate for president and this is interfering in his election. at the same time, the narratives that are going to come out of this trial, it will be interesting to see how the public responds to this. i think this trial will get more attention than some of the other trials. the details are salacious. the information is easy to understand. it's unclear to me whether that will help or hurt donald trump, because it will definitely put on full display his personal behavior.

i wonder, especially with a lot of the election and races you've been covering and the way our politics have gone, i think we can expect donald trump to make this quite a campaign event for himself. >> absolutely. in fact, he was in central pennsylvania this weekend at a campaign rally that i attended. of course, you have those throngs of supporters who remain loyal completely dismiss any basis of indictments against him, but there is a reality that the rest of the american electorate is looking at. that is in the last year donald trump has been found liable to have sexually abused a woman, to have repeatedly engaged in financial fraud through his family corporation. now they are going to be looking at him any moment now walking through those doors for a criminal trial, the first for a president of the united states ever here.

this is where just this weekend the new "new york times" poll found that a majority of americans, including independents, took the charges against him in new york seriously or somewhat seriously. the issue with this gag order is on the political side of this is that the way that he undercuts the legitimacy of his critics and opponents is by trying to undermine their reputation on his social media account and on campaign stages. now donald trump has a gag order against him here. we could expect those initial conversations in that courtroom to go around that gag order. this weekend right before he took that stage in central pennsylvania, he put out a truth social post in which he referenced michael cohen. quote, michael cohen has been prosecuted for lying. he referred to them and, quote,

two sleaze bags who have cost our country dearly. the gag order is about making public statements about witnesses concerning their potential participation in this investigation or its criminal proceeding. it will be up to the judge about whether donald trump potentially violated this gag order, but we have two juries. this is the one inside the courtroom, but then there is the one of the american electorate. we could expect donald trump to make his case to the american public at large and try to undercut anybody, even if it means former aides like hope hicks or michael cohen in order to do that. >> yeah. in this criminal trial, he does face jail time, whatever that will look like for a former president. if you're just joining us on the west coast, donald trump is inside that manhattan courthouse right now as the first criminal

trial with a former president is about to begin. jury selection specifically is about to begin today. donald trump is in there now. he's been posting angrily since before 6:00 this morning on his truth social website about how unfair this is and about how this is election interference into his election and how the gag order should be lifted. i want to read from the "new york times" analysis of this, which is kind of stark. with jury selection starting right now, mr. trump will become the first former u.s. president to stand trial on criminal charges. win or lose, he will be the first presidential candidate whose political fate before being decided by millions of voters will be shaped by 12 people in the jury box. that's how important this jury selection is. of course, there will be a lot of issues made by both sides

probably in picking these jurors. there are specific boundaries and questions they have to answer. there are other cases also needing juries in this courthouse, but there are 6,000 potential jurors ready to go for this trial and some of the others as well. i want to bring in david rothkoff from "the daily beast." this is a historic moment where donald trump will be looked at for election interference and the transaction that happened right before his campaign began, but we're hearing this with the backdrop of two civil trials finding him liable for fraud, liable for sexual abuse and also

defamation. and we're going to be hearing more about potentially depraved behavior as it pertains to women, not just what he's done with him, but how he speaks about them, how he sees them. i'm wondering what your thoughts are as this historic trial is about to begin. >> a couple of things. one, you know there's an old saying in washington. it's not the crime, it's the coverup. i think that's what we're seeing here. he tried to bury this, and now he's finding out he cannot bury it. that's going to have a number of resonances. a lot of this has to do with trump's really awful behavior toward women throughout his entire life. that's going to resonate during the upcoming campaign with the republican party's really awful behavior towards women, taking away their right to control their own bodies, et cetera. the other thing i think is going to be very interesting to watch is who wins the battle of the

narrative. alvin bragg is coming in here to prosecute trump and trump is trying to present that he is being persecuted. we know he has a very hard time containing himself. he's not going to be president trump when he's sitting in that courtroom. he's going to be defendant trump. if he does have these outbursts, it's going to be the judge who decides what's going to happen to him. that's just the kind of thing that makes him do crazy things. it's how he reacts to the case and the trial and how the public reacts to him. >> i'm going to be so interested to see how he reacts and then how the public reacts to his reaction. there are a lot of republicans going on the record saying they'd vote for him whether he's found guilty of everything,

which shows how deep trump cuts when it comes to life behavior. we're going to bring in our legal panel for perspective on all of this. we want to turn now to the weekend's unprecedented iranian attacks against israel. on saturday iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones towards israel, marking the first time iran has directly attacked the jewish faith. a coalition led by the united states was able to shoot down 99% of the missiles before they reached israel, which is incredible. earlier on "morning joe" we

spoke to white house national security advisor john kirby. we asked him about the attack and the message sent by the united states and its allies by coming to israel's defense. >> when the president says we are committed to the self-defense of israel, he means it. this wasn't just about giving israel weapons. we actually had american fighter pilots in the air. we had american ships at sea knocking things down. we were very much actively engaged. the thing it says about iran is they don't have that military superiority. what they tried to do, they utterly failed. it also shows israel is not alone. they do have friends. nobody is walking away from them and their ability to defend themselves. >> joining us now, retired four star army general barry mccaffrey.

what are israel's military options, and which one of those would the biden administration be most worried about? >> well, let me start by reiteraing a point admiral stavridis made. this is a multilayered defensive effort by israel. to achieve this outcome, none of these iranian attacks got through is almost hard to believe. i would add, the other half of that equation is the iranians do not have the capability to deal with the israeli air force. if their f-35s go after strategic targets in iran, it would be devastating. i think that's an important aspect of the weekend attack.

however, we've got to remind ourselves that was 120 ballistic missiles. the flight time is 12 minutes. it was clearly aimed at devastating, catastrophic losses on israel. this was not a telegraphed, symbolic political act. this is a major lethal attempt to do harm. i think at the end of the day israel has to reestablish deterrents. they cannot accept a situation where the iranians make a major attack on the israeli state. they're going to pause. they're going to try and let the thing cool off, but at some point they've got to strike back. >> president biden reportedly said to netanyahu they should

just take the win. there's clearly a concerted effort from allies to try to get israel to not escalate this war further. that's exactly what they don't want. will that have an impact on how israel responds? >> this was an extraordinary technological feat made possible both logistic and strategic cooperation between israel, the united states, france, britain, even the jordanians, but also the technological feat made possible by high-altitude missiles and other missiles and of course the iron dome. this is really truly the highest

iteration of the u.s./israel strategic cooperation. having said that, defense is not deterrence. israel is in a very tough neighborhood. we feel the best way to prevent escalation is by large weapons. if and when israel chooses to respond, it has to be smart. it has to be in coordination with our allies. there are many possibilities on the table. doesn't necessarily have to be some massive missile attack in return. israel has cyber capabilities, which are world leading. iran has vulnerabilities, including its oil facilities on the persian gulf. >> let's take the iranian

perspective here. u.s. officials and israeli officials did anticipate some retaliation after that strike in syria that killed a few of their officials. but there's been real questions as to what the intent was of this strike. on one hand, these are 300 drones and missiles. had any of them landed with any sort of accuracy, there could have been devastating impacts. that said, this is also an attack that was highly telegraphed, warned in advance, relatively slow moving and easy to shoot down. what do you think iran's motivations were here and what might they do next? >> a friend of mine at the white house said yesterday whenever a country launches 100 ballistic missiles, that isn't merely symbolic. that was meant to be a highly destructive attack. since the 1979 iranian revolution, this iranian regime's identity has been premised on hostility toward

israel, death to israel, death to america. these are our constant slogans from the government. i think the challenge the iranian regime has now is they're like any dictatorship. it wants its population to be fearful of it. these attacks israel has carried out against iranian revolutionary guard commanders has made the regime look weak in the eyes of its people. on one hand, i think iran wanted to try to destroy deterrence against israel and save face with its own population. but at the end of the day this regime also wants to stay in power. they know they're significantly outmatched militarily by the israeli government. >> you say the u.s. needs to pull out all the stops to avoid this becoming a widening war to avoid this escalating. can you talk about the challenges to that, especially

with the republican reticence here at home to supply aid to israel and also ukraine? >> well, i think there are a number of challenges to it. i think at the core of it there is the tough relationship right now between prime minister netanyahu and this administration. this is a moment of opportunity for israel to take advantage of the fact that there is broad global support for its defense against iran and that in fact there was a historic collaboration with its regional neighbors in interdicting this attack. having said that, the attack has moved some things forward here politically. mike johnson has said that he wants to move forward with some aid to israel. of course, the administration has been pushing for a package that would support ukraine, israel and a number of other priorities for the past six

months. the question is will johnson move forward with the israel side of this, or will he also include ukraine in it? will he include it as aid package or, as former president trump has suggested, as a loan package? that's going to come up this week. it's going to be highly consequential, both in terms of the perception of support for israel, but also in terms of another priority that is at least just as great for the united states, which is enabling ukraine to stop russia to back and to defend itself. both are essential. if everybody in the congress gets to vote, it's highly likely they will get support.

>> thank you all very much for coming on this morning. we have a lot to get to still. moments from now, jury selection in donald trump's hush money trial will get under way in new york city. donald trump is in the courthouse right now, and jury selection is moments away from beginning. we'll bring in our legal panel. l

- it's apparent. not me. - yeah. nice going lou! nothing like a little confidence boost to help ease you back in to the dating scene. that includes having a smile you feel good about. fortunately, aspen dental specializes in dentures and implants made just for you. and with flexible financing, you don't need to sacrifice quality work for a price that fits your budget. at $0 down plus 0% interest if paid in full in 18 months. helping our patients put their best smile forward. it's one more way aspen dental is in your corner.

hi, i'm david, and i lost 92 pounds on golo. helping our patients put their best smile forward. my life partner connie and i were in really rough shape regarding our health. and our doctors told us that we needed to lose weight. i saw a golo commercial and i thought, "we really need to try this." as the weeks went by, the weight came off. we learned to make healthy choices and be supportive of each other. together, we've lost 170 pounds. golo worked for us. since losing weight on golo, i'm feeling grateful and hopeful about the future. (energizing music) kayak. no way. why would i use kayak to compare hundreds of travel sites at once? kayak. i like to do things myself. i do my own searching. it isn't efficient.

use kayak. i can't trust anything else to do the job right. aaaaaaaahhhh! kayak. search one and done.

history will be made at half past the hour moments from now.

former president trump is inside the courthouse in manhattan, where he is facing criminal charges. this has never happened before with a former president. some context for you, so far we have seen trump found liable in multiple civil cases, including massive fraud, sexual abuse and defamation. and now he's in a court proceeding of a very different kind, much more serious nature. trump is now going to be facing criminal charges. he is about to start a criminal trial. there is the former president. we're going to monitor this moment right now, because there was word that he might stop and make a few comments. we will dip into that if that happens. this is history happening right before our eyes. let's listen. >> nothing like this has ever

happened before. there's never been anything like it. every legal scholar says this case should never have been brought. there is no case. people that don't necessarily follow or like donald trump said this is an outrage that this case was brought. this is political persecution. this is a persecution like never before. nobody's ever seen anything like it. again, it's a case that should never have been brought. it's an assault on america. that's why i'm very proud to be here. this is an assault on our country. it's a country that's failing. it's a country that's run by an incompetent man, who's very much involved in this case. this is really an attack on a political opponent. that's all it is. i'm very honored to be here. thank you very much. >> donald trump making a few lies there. the first one is that every

legal scholar thinks this is unfair. that is definitely not true. and also this is a case that has nothing to do with joe biden. this is a criminal case in a manhattan court. it has to do with a hush money payment to a porn star that might ultimately be election interference, because they were using fraudulent ways to get the money to her. we'll let the law play out in this. donald trump, of course, having his say, saying that the gag order he's been put under gives him no voice. he wants the gag order to be lifted. as you will see in the days and weeks to come, he will use this trial no doubt, as we've seen before in his civil trials, as sort of a political platform in itself. we'll be monitoring that. the consequences, of course, in this trial far more serious in nature than the civil trials we have watched him endure.

the consequences include the possibility of jail time. donald trump will be watching testimony in this trial that could be quite triggering to him personally. it will be interesting to see how he handles that, given the gag order. we'll be seeing some of his closest confidants, closest friends testifying potentially against him during this criminal trial and of course alleged former sexual partners. let's go right to joyce vance. this is historic, obviously, salacious, of course, because of the porn star hush money and other testimony we'll hear from other women who had what they will say were sexual experiences with donald trump, triggering for him, embarrassing for him given his personal situation, a

political opportunity for trump for sure. i would like to ask you, joyce, what is he facing legally today in this trial? >> today we start with jury selection. not always the most interesting part of the trial, but you can see trump's demeanor as he approached the courtroom today. he looks a little bit shrunken in on himself. the reality of a trial often doesn't hit the defendant until they get to the courtroom and have to look at the people who will sit in judgment of him. today around 500 citizens in manhattan will be summoned. the judge will hold a selection procedure. we don't know exactly how long that will last. it could be a matter of days, or it could drag on for longer. the judge's goal is not to find

jurors who don't know anything about this case, but jurors who are willing to set aside any preexisting belief. i think people are a little bit incredulous that that can work, but i've seen it over and over again. jurors listen to the judge and take an oath to be fair and then they deliberate and deliver a verdict based on the evidence. i think that's what we'll see here. that's donald trump's worst nightmare. >> joyce, if you could put it in as simple and tight terms as possible, what will these jurors ultimately be answering? what's the decision they will have to make? >> it's an important question, because the law, like always, is a little bit confusing. here's the charge. there are 34 counts under the

same statute. donald trump on the eve of the 2016 election used fraud to conceal his relationship with stormy daniels from voters. he did that because the campaign thought they couldn't withstand another hit after the release of the "access hollywood" tape. so trump and others, who aren't defendants in this case, came up with a scheme to pay stormy daniels hush money to stay quiet. paying hush money is not a crime. trump uses nondisclosure agreements all the time with people. this was a crime because they didn't want the hush money payments to come to light, so they made false business entries in the records of the trump organization. that in and of itself is a misdemeanor. it becomes a felony because it was used to aid or conceal the commission of other crimes, campaign finance crimes and tax fraud. that's the case in a nutshell. >> just looking at this video, to emphasize your first comment

that often defends don't get the weight of what they're dealing with until they walk into the courtroom. i have to tell you, seeing him walk through those doors there, he looks simply exhausted. joyce, stay with us. we're going to expand our legal panel as these proceedings get under way. we also have lisa rubin in a seat in the courtroom herself. we'll be hearing from her throughout the coverage all day on msnbc. joining us now, doris kearns go goodwin. have you ever seen anything like this? >> i think what strikes me is of course it's an historical moment and we're never seen it. what saddens me as an historian is i'd love to time travel back

to 1863 or to be there in august of 1965 when the voting rights act was passed. ever since the time when this election was not agreed to be lost by former president trump, we've been in defensive stature and moving backward in time. we have so many fights we have to fight and so much of it is connected with his legal problems. >> what does it say to you about who we are as a country right now? we were talking about how donald trump is now a criminal defendant, and yet he stands a one in two chance to be president. for some of this country, what he's going through is almost thrilling to them and they believe every word he says. what does that say to you about

who we are? >> i think it says we've lost the sense of a collective identity of who we are as a people, what values are we promoting. think about the people we care about as our leaders and look at that as sort of a template for president trump, humility, empathy, resilience, accountability, kindness, compassion and ambition for something larger than themselves. those are the leaders who have led us. that means the citizens respect those kind of leaders. only in the 1850s did we find a situation where truth was in question. you read only a partisan paper. everything was different if you were in the south or the north. look where that led us. we've got to figure out a way to come back together again and understand truth and law and the kind of leaders we want that represent our values. it's character above all that we need right now in public life.

>> we're going to be talking about your new bookentitled "an unfinished love story of the 1960s" all week long. we're crushed a little bit because of the legal case we're covering right now. but can you please tell us something about the book? >> my husband and i opened 300 boxes he had saves that are really a time capsule of the '60s. he had not wanted to open them for so long. finally when he turned 80 he said it's time to do it. we relived the '60s. when you relive that decade from the beginning to the end -- and dick was everywhere in the '60s. you realize what was so

extraordinary about the time and it's so important for us to know now. it was a time when people believed they could make a difference. they joined the peace corps by the thousands and freedom rides and there was a sense you could change things by moving collectively. it's what we need now from our young people. unless they know they can mobilize and act to protect the very rights given in the '60s by all that action are now under threat again. it's not necessarily going to be leaders. it's time for the citizens to make a difference. i'd like this book to be a reminder of what a generation feels like as the generation of the '60s did. i was so glad i was living in that time when you felt you were really changing things and involved in something larger

than yourself. >> we've been looking at the lovely pictures of you and dick together. it must have been fun to go back to that time period in history. sometimes people say, well, does this compare to the most violent times in american history where the country is so divided at the moment and there's so much talk of political violence around america. then actually when you look back at '68, it was more tumultuous. we had troops on college campuses. places were on fire around the country. in some ways you're right it was a time of engagement, but it was also a time of extreme tension in america. this isn't the first time we're seeing that. >> you're so right. that's why history can give us lessons and perspective. it did seem in 1968 the country was falling apart.

there was an enormous sense of unsettlement. somehow we came through it. that's the important thing to remember. all those tough times in our history, whether it was the great depression or the civil war or the early days of world war ii, the people living then didn't know how it was going to end. we know now. they didn't know that in the late '60s. still we have to balance that. a lot of tough times great things happen. look what happened at selma at the bridge. yet the conscience of the country was fired at that moment. that's when change takes place. that's when justice happens, that's when freedom happens. the '60s is noted for that. the state intervened with these assassinations. what happened during most of

that time was movement forward toward freedom and justice. that's why i'm glad to relive it again. dick died before we finished this project. i wasn't sure i could finish it, but i promised him i would. i became a biographer of him and a historian myself. i interviewed a whole bunch of people who were there. it's a generation that's fading in time. so to get their stories and get an understanding of that decade really was a great tribute for not only my husband, but for me as a historian as well. >> thank you so much. the new book is titled "an unfinished love story, a personal history of the 1960s." congratulations once again, doris. >> thanks, mika. and coming up, we are awaiting the start of jury

selection in donald trump's hush money trial, set to begin in a matter of moments. we're going to go back live to vaughn hillyard reporting from the courthouse and get more top legal analysis on history in the making. that's next on "morning joe." (vo) in two seconds, eric will realize they're gonna need more space... (man) gotta sell the house. (vo) oh...open houses. or, skip the hassles and sell directly to opendoor. (man) wow. (vo) when life's doors open, we'll handle the house.

♪ i am, i cried ♪ [ laughing ] ♪ i am, said i ♪ ♪ and i am lost and i can't ♪ punch buggy red. ♪ even say why ♪ ♪ i am, i said ♪ ♪ ♪ business. it's not a nine-to-five proposition. it's all day and into the night. it's all the things that keep this world turning. the go-tos that keep us going. the places we cheer. and check in.

they all choose the advanced network solutions and round the clock partnership from comcast business. see why comcast business powers more small businesses than anyone else. get started for $49.99 a month plus ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. don't wait- call today.

♪♪ we're looking live at the courthouse in new york city, where jury selection is set to begin in a historic first-ever former president facing criminal charges. donald trump is inside the courthouse right now. nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard is back with us from outside the courthouse in lower manhattan. what are you hearing about what's going on? has jury selection started yet? >> reporter: not quite yet. just to give everybody an understanding how this is going

to play out, we do not have cameras inside of the courtroom. we have a great reporter team and producer team who are transcribing notes in realtime that we are reading as they come through. i can tell you the prosecution is now seated at their respective table. todd blanch, former president trump's attorney, isseated at the table. they have been whispering back and forth in each other's ears. we also know that still photographers just in the last two minutes were allowed into the room. we could expect to see some of those still photographs coming of donald trump any moment now once those photographers leave. those inside were given a last-minute bathroom heads-up. judge merchan saying if you need a bathroom break, take it now. the courthouse in the area is tightly guarded at this point in time. of course, this is a criminal trial. the proceedings will be strict and much tighter than what we

saw in the civil fraud trial. this is about to be a trial that could last up to six weeks, mika. you mentioned it a few moments ago. individuals like the name of david pecker. the reason i bring him up is this particular case goes bark 8 1/2 years. it was david pecker who was the ceo of american media, the parent company of the "national enquirer." it was the american media ceo david pecker who told the department of justice during their investigation that he met with michael cohen as well as donald trump all the way back in august of 2015 about catch-and-kill scheme in order to silence any alleged affairs that donald trump had. fast forward more than a year later, that's exactly what happened. the allegation that's been laid out is that two weeks before the 2016 election, that david pecker was the one that called michael cohen to come to him about stormy daniels story. that's what ultimately compelled michael cohen to try to buy her

silence. fast forward eight years, it's led to this day here in april of 2024, donald trump about to take the stand facing 43 -- 34 felony counts here that could potentially lead to prison time and making the stakes of his white house election here in november all the more higher, mika. >> we're going to have a big conversation about this with our legal panel. vaughn, if you hear something that's happened in there, even just a line or two, pop back in and up date us. joining us now, former u.s. attorney joyce vance still with us. let's bring in state attorney for palm beach county, florida, dave aronberg, msnbc legal analyst charles coleman and msnbc legal analyst catherine christian. dave, i want to start with you. i want to jump ahead in a lot of these questions to get a sense of the big picture. donald trump is accused of directing his attorney michael cohen to pay porn star stormy daniels for her silence right

before the 2016 election. then he didn't report the contribution to his campaign finance reports. then 35 times, 35 times he falsified business records allegedly by labeling the reimbursements as legal fees. does the prosecution is the receipts to get to a guilty verdict in your mind? >> they do, mika, because this is a paper case and you have key witnesses involving this matter like michael cohen who knows where all the bodies were buried. that was donald trump's lawyer. unusual witnesses like hope hicks expected to testify. she's a trump loyalist. no one can confuse her of having an axe to grind. she was on air force one with donald trump steaming his clothes while he was still wearing them. she had access. as far as election interference which is what the d.a. is saying, it's not election interference to falsify the business records of a private

company because the public is not able to access those records. so the election interference i think is more for public consumption, to show how important this case is. the prosecutors do not have to prove election interference. all they have to show is that the defendant falsified his business records, which is easy to prove, and it led to another crime. that's what makes it a felony. what's the other crime, perhaps campaign finance violation, perhaps an irs matter. i think this is a good case for prosecutors, especially because the jury pool, and it will start today with jury selection is in manhattan where trump only got around 12% of the vote. that's got to really scare him. >> catherine, it can't be easy to do that jury pool which is why we have 6,000 potential jurors showing up during the course of the week. which is the phase of the trial that you think is going to be most interesting, most revealing in terms of guilt or innocence of the former president? what are you looking for? when do you think that evidence

is going to come? at the moment we're focused on jury selection, but that's not when we'll hear some of the most explosive stuff. >> it will be the cross-examination of michael cohen. the prosecutors better have corroboration for him. i've had many witnesses who have had baggage, have had criminal records. i never in 30-plus years had one that had a conviction for lying, that had a month before the trial have a federal judge accuse him of lying, who has been on tv preetdly e pressing his bias and hostility against the main defendant, has written books that express bias and hostility against the main defendant. that's a wealth of cross-examination material for the defense attorneys in this case. if the prosecutors have witnesses and documents, and the documents do not speak for themselves. they need credible witnesses to say those entries are false.

if the prosecutors have credible witnesses who corroborate the falsification of the documents which are checks -- business entries, checks, ledgers and invoices, then this is a good case for the prosecution. but it's a jury trial. defense attorneys will tell you, i just need one juror to cause a hung jury so there's no verdict. it's a simple case, but it's not an easy case. so i never say it's an easy case for the prosecution. i agree with dave. to call it an election interference case is to make it more complicated than it is. it's a falsifying business records case, and that's illegal in new york state. >> certainly an historic day. we're getting our first look at images of donald trump inside the courtroom. there he is sitting at the defendant's table.

photographers were allowed in for a few brief moments. as noted by vaughn and others, cameras will not be permitted to remain in the courtroom when proceedings get under way. there are historic images there, the first time a former president sitting at a defendant's table at the beginning of his own criminal trial. charles, one of the great questions will be is donald trump going to testify in his own defense? he said in recent days he would be willing to. there's been reporting that his lawyers may not be so into that idea. what would you, if he were your client, recommend? walk us through the pros and cons of it. >> there's no question that putting donald trump on the stand as a witness would be an absolute nightmare for his defense team and a gift to the prosecution. we've already seen donald trump take the stand as a witness as he did in the e. jean carroll case. he could not control himself even in terms of the limited amount of space that he had to testify and the amount of leeway

that the judge gave him. he went beyond that. you know in a case like this you're talking about not only candidate donald trump, but also defendant donald trump. he is not going to be able to sit in a courtroom for a period of six weeks and not boil over. i'm very much interested to see at what point. it's not if, but when he violates the gag order that judge merchan has put into place. i don't think his attorneys are going to risk putting him on the stand simply because he's not a witness that you can prep. he's not a witness you can predict, and he's not a witness you can control. he would be acting to his own detriment to take the stand, not to mention that ultimately he's going to be in a position where he will either perjure himself or make himself look like a fool because of the prosecution's cross-examination. >> if we could bring up the picture from the courtroom taken moments ago, donald trump in court in his criminal trial. the first time ever a former president has faced criminal charges. that's him inside the manhattan

courtroom right now. joyce vance, i'll end on this. as we look at these pictures weighing on his mind potentially could be the embarrassing details that will come out in this trial. weighing on his mind could be the thought of close intimate friends and allies for years including hope hicks testifying potentially with testimony that goes against him, and ultimately weighing on his mind could be the consequences. these charges do potentially, if found guilty, lead to jail time. i don't know what that looks like for a former president. could you talk about the potential consequences that he faces? >> so i think you're exactly right. that's ultimately the consequence that donald trump begins to confront today. the prospect of spending years in jail, this wouldn't be a ten-year sentence on conviction.

it would max out at four or five years. donald trump has walked into a courtroom surrounded by uniformed members of law enforcement. he's in a courthouse where other people are coming into courtrooms from custody. he is seeing what his future looks like upon conviction here. it's a very sobering moment for donald trump. you can see it in the sleepless lines on his face. >> joyce vase, dave aronberg, charles coleman, thank you all very much for coming on this morning. i have a feeling we'll be talking a lot in the weeks to come. that does it form us this morning. we'll see you tomorrow morning at 6:00 a.m. eastern. ana cabrera and jose diaz-balart pick up the coverage right now. good morning and thank you for joining us. it is 10:00 eastern. i'm ana cabrera reporting alongside jose diaz-balart with our special coverage as