california, florida, texas. you saw it with ron desantis when he walked into a diner how awkward he was. you know? if you belong to these big starts you don't do the retail politics. that's so important. obama was a community organizer. joe biden took amtrak literally everyday back and forth. >> right. >> they did things where they talked to normal people, regular people and they themselves were normal regular people and understood how to communicate. >> in conclusion, i'm glad that you two linked. you see chai, pretty sharp guy. >> yeah. >> yeah. >> thank you. >> glad to have you on chai, always good to see you. >> two sharp guys. we appreciate them joining a special edition of fallback. connect with me. arimelber.com and keep it locked for "the reidout" next. ed for "the reidout" next ♪♪ tonight on "the reidout" --

>> i do have a lot of surrogates speaking very beautifully. they come over from all over washington and they're highly respected. >> republican candidate for president of the united states is going through mental anguish in a courtroom that's very depressing, very depressing. >> donald trump brings in his most loyal maga sycophants. cos playing as trump to break the judge's gag order for trump as his criminal trial heads towards a conclusion. also tonight, two presidential debates come together very quickly today as president biden challenged trump to two debates and trump accepted. but the debates will be a significant departure from what we're used to. ♪♪ good evening, everyone. i'm jason johnson, in for joy reed. we begin tonight with michael cohen, the man who once said he would take a bullet for donald trump. will be back on the witness stand tomorrow in day two of

cross-examination by trump's defense team in his hush money election interference trial. the defense's goal, to try to poke enough holes in cohen's credibility and testimony about trump's involvement in the conspiracy to falsify business records to cover up the $130,000 payment to adult film star stormy daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. we saw some of that yesterday in trump attorney todd blanche's dramatic first go at cohen where he spent hours tempting to paint cohen as a liar who was just out for revenge against his former boss, even trying to use cohen's own words against him. for instance, blanche said you referred to president trump when he left the courtroom. you said he goes right into that little cage, which is where he belongs. in an f'ing cage, like an animal. do you recall saying that? to which cohen replied, i recall saying that. following cross-examination which will likely finish before

the end of the day, the prosecution is expected to rest its case following any redirect. the defense has already indicated it might not put on any defense at all. and might not call any witnesses. as of yesterday morning, the defense said they didn't know if their client was going to testify. something trump isn't required to do but said he would absolutely do. >> yeah, i would testify, absolutely. it's a scam. it's a scam. i'm testifying. i tell the truth. i mean, all i can do is tell the truth. and the truth is that there's no case. they have no case. >> of course, trump has made similar claims he would testify in some of his other legal matters, and he never did. this all means that the first criminal trial of a former president of the united states could come to a close as early as the beginning of next week with closing arguments. then it will be up to the minds and hands of the 12-member jury to deliberate and return a

verdict. joining me now to discuss is katherine christian, former manhattan assistant district attorney and msnbc legal analyst, jill wine banks former watergate assistant prosecutor and co-host of the sisters in law podcast and omarosa, author of "unhinged." thank you for starting us off with the show today. you know, katherine, i want to start with you on this. so, cohen is going to testify again tomorrow. the defense is saying, you know, this is probably our biggest chance, our biggest get. where are they right now? do they have michael cohen on the ropes? does this appear to be a situation where they're knocking down the main witness? where do you think they stand? where do they seem they think they stand? >> they don't have him on the ropes. what they've successfully done, if you can call it that, is bring out some information about

the hatred of donald trump that michael cohen has. and he just needs to own that. that wasn't brought out by the prosecution. and the prosecution did a very good job of bringing out michael cohen's convictions and other information. but, they have a whole day tomorrow. what they're trying to do is not just poke holes. they're trying to destroy michael cohen's testimony. they're going to be charged, the jurors will be charged at the end of the summations that if they don't believe witnesses' testimony in one material fact, they can disregard the entire testimony. however, the prosecution in this case did a very, very good job of providing enough corroboration for michael cohen, enough circumstantial evidence against donald trump for his guilt that really they can attack michael cohen's credibility and the jury could still find that they have proven

beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump is guilty. >> omarosa, i want to read something to you. there's this really interesting idea that the prosecution has talked about, accomplice liability to sort of explain their case theory, right? so basically what they've said is let's say hit man hires or a husband hires a hit man to kill his wife, and the husband may not be present when the hit man actually carries out the murder, but the husband is every bit as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger, even though he wasn't there. can you follow that kind of logic, right? a lot of the jurors said they did. you're the only one tonight who has actually worked with donald trump and seen how he works. is that an effective and realistic sort of algorry for how he operates? is he a guy who gets his fingers in the spaghetti himself? or is he a person who often sort of sends other people out to do his dirty work so that he has plausible dnld later on. >> jason, if that hypothetical scenario that you have just outlined i think you actually

hit the nail on the head as to how donald trump's strategically operates in a way to not get his hands dirty. he will give directives. he is very careful not to use email, for instance. he's careful not to write certain things down and have others to do that for him. in this case, he had michael carry out this really situation that was something that he wanted michael to clean up for him. this porn star, this hush money. he wanted it taken care of because he did have a woman problem. so that certainly tracks with how donald trump operates in his organization. >> and i want a quick follow-up to that. this idea that michael cohen doesn't like donald trump, again, lots of people who used to work for donald trump don't like him now. as someone who used to work with him, and now knows what kind of person he is, do you think that actually -- do you think the average person looks at that and says, well, i don't know if you're credible if you don't like your ex-boss, do you think

there's so many people that no longer like this man, that's not necessarily as much of a problem as it used to be? >> jason, to that point, let's start at the very top. his own vice president doesn't support him and like him. half of his cabinet doesn't like him and support him. people like myself who worked with him and saw how he jeopardized our country, our democracy, don't happen to like him. i don't believe that that's a deal breaker for the injury because many of them may be sitting there and not like him. what really this comes down to is about justice. and accountability. so, regardless of how you feel about donald trump or how michael cohen feels about donald trump, can donald trump be held accountable for his alleged crimes? that's the true question here. >> right. yeah, it's not just about what cohen thinks. he's how the culture actually thinks about this guy. >> yeah. >> jill, i want to ask you this, so, one of the things that i also think is a key piece of evidence here, if you're ever going to have a question whether trump did this or whether he was involved is this handwritten

note from allen weisselberg. this is amazing to me that again, you know, i'm thinking of the wire. i can't believe you're taking notes on a criminal conspiracy here, bank statement from first republic with handwritten notes from allen weisselberg on how to reimburse cohen, $180,000 grossed up to $360,000 with an additional $60,000 bonus added twogt and divided by 12 amounts. the guy writes the whole thing out here and makes it clear that cohen couldn't have been operating on his own because he was expecting reimbursement. is this the kind of thing that a jury will see and be able to connect the dots or do they still need to be hand held? to me this seems pretty obvious. >> i think you would be a great juror because it does connect the dots. but so does michael cohen. and so does all of the other witnesses that have woven a web that you can see how everything fits together. and it's not just michael cohen who came across, i think, outperformed what everybody

expected and will be believed by the jury, but he'll be believed partly as you noted, because they have built a foundation around him that shows how everything he's saying is true. the additions that he makes are the only logical conclusions you could draw from the foundation that's been built. when he says, yes, he knew about it. yes, he knew there were false records. those are things that the foundation has made it clear, put together. i think he will be believed and there will be a jury that believes this is the case where all the elements have been satisfied, that donald trump knew about the payment, he knew it was intended to help his election and knew that the records were falsified so that he could get a tax benefit, so that it would be concealed so that no one would know he was doing an election violation. >> jill, i want to stay with you for a minute. so there was a congressional hearing today on the weaponization of government that you testified in.

i want to play some sound from this get your thoughts on the other side. >> mr. costello, is michael cohen a liar? >> that doesn't begin to describe him. he lies at every opportunity when it's in his favor. he said i didn't want to embarrass melania trump. that's why i decided to take care of this on my own. went back to that several time. you did this on your own? on my own. did donald trump have anything to do with it? no. did you get the money from donald trump? no. from any of his organizations? no. from anybody connected to donald trump? no. >> jill, first off, talk about what your testimony was in this hearing and second, what purpose -- what purpose did the republicans really think they're accomplishing with this sort of, you know, c-span marathon of a hearing that nobody else is going to pay attention to? >> first, let me say, jason,

you're making me relive one of the worst days of my life. it's so hard to sit there and not respond to the nonsense that's going on, the three republican witnesses, but maybe especially mr. costello. it was painful. to me, it was so obvious that on this day they picked to assassinate the character of michael cohen. it was outrageous. everything he said. my testimony related to they have called this hearing a law fair weaponization of government. and honestly other than law fair blog i had to look up what law fair meant. using the institutions of government to take down an opponent. and to me, this hearing was actually law fair. they were doing it to hurt the on going trial, to interfere in this particular trial. my testimony was more about the

fact that it used to be that facts matters and that the distinctions between the indictment decisions of the special counsel for mr. trump and for president biden are based on not a different standard, but on different facts. and that if anyone would pay attention to the facts, it was justified to make the decision that you would not indictment president trump. and it left you no decision except to indictment mr. trump because mr. trump not only concealed, he hid, he obstructed. those are the reasons that the aggravating factors lead to an indictment. and so, it was my point was no one is above the law, including a former president. and that the differences in decisions have nothing to do with the department of justice, cheating or showing a bias. it has to do with the facts that apply to the standard. so the standard is the same. there's no weaponization. and i thought that the testimony

attacking michael cohen was completely unfair. >> and as usual, it's probably for an audience of one of trump. katherine, very quickly, you know, look, i always say this. i'm not a lawyer. i don't play one on tv, but to me the idea that the defense is only going to rely on redirect and not put donald trump on the stand, not put any witnesses on the stand, that seems really risky to me. is that because they don't have any credible witnesses that they can put up there? or do they really think they can tear down michael cohen enough that when this jury gets together in a couple of days they can get a hung jury or get a not guilty verdict? >> that's what they think. and it would be crazy. it would be insanity for donald trump to testify. he's not. he's going to say he would have but there's no case. so, he's not going to testify. and they probably won't call witnesses. the reality most criminal defendants don't but donald trump snot going to testify. >> he wouldn't necessarily be the best defense for himself.

thank you all so much for starting us out tonight on "the reidout." ♪♪ up next, the republican puppet "the reidout"ed up at court today all cos playing in trump's red tie. we can't show you where trump's hand was, but rest assured he was controlling all of them inned or to skirt his gag order. more on that absurdity after the break. break.

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donald trump had a day off from court today, but on tuesday, the political plastic showed up still trying to make fetch happen. a collection of puppets wearing their no strings attached and hoping they show enough loyalty to trump to be vp, and its going to be them. the red tie gang followed the example set by other trump surrogates who showed up in new york this week, including house speaker mike johnson. >> the judge inside his daughter is making millions of dollars running against donald trump, raising money for donald trump's political opponents. >> i'm sitting here listening to a guy on the stand that they had to get out of house arrest because he lied in another court. >> the judge's own daughter is making millions of dollars doing online fundraising for democrats. >> you've got relatives of the judge that are benefitting financially. >> the only thing that's being done wrong is by this judge. his daughter is making money raising money for democrats?

>> the real bookkeeping that we need accounting of is judge's own family member collecting millions of dollars as a democratic operative. >> if it seems like there's a theme, there is. the attacks on juan mer chan's daughter and star witness michael cohen fall under his expanded gag order for donald trump. trump's already been fined $10,000 for violating it. and faces possible jail time for future violations. also, alabama senator tommy tuberville admitted on right wing tv. >> hopefully we have more and more senators and congressmen going up everyday to represent him and be able to go out andover come this gag order. that's one of the reasons we went is to be able to speak our peace, all for president trump. >> meanwhile, new york magazine journalist andrew rice told our colleagues last night that he witnessed something interesting in the courtroom. >> in court yesterday actually i was sitting close enough that i

could actually look over trump's shoulder and see what he was reading. at one point he was reading the quotes that these individuals were -- going through and making notations with a pen on the paper. >> before or after? >> while testimony was going on. while michael cohen was testifying against him, he was going and going through and annotating and editing the quotes that these people were saying. >> look, nbc news can't independently confirm rice's personal testimony, but it's worth noting regardless that judge merchan's expanded gag order makes trump making others to make public statements about witnesses and the family of courtroom participants. joining me now to discuss the former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney, and brian tyler cohen, msnbc contributor and host of "the no lie podcast." i'll start with you yoditi. this is confusing to me.

nobody liked ghost writers. this is what donald trump wants to do with the puppets outside. who is this helping? maybe the jury doesn't know that he's doing this. it's not necessarily going to affect the prosecution at all. what's the value of having these surrogates out there talk smack about the judge who's overseeing the case? >> it's true that donald trump only cares about his campaign. that's all he cares about. the jury is not -- they're not supposed to look at media at all about this trial. these individuals that are walking in, in the front row in the courtroom being disruptive while michael cohen is testifying is not appropriate but i don't think the jury actually knows who they are. right? what would matter for the jury, i think is to see donald trump's family, not politicians, right? to see his family support him through this i think would win big with the jury. but of course, there's no family members there. i think maybe one of his sons were present. i'm not sure. but this is purely to influence the election because he can't be

out on the road campaigning like he wants to because he's a criminal defendant. >> this is the other part that gets me. so the criticism from all of these sort of no strings attached puppets, right? >> these ligt right wing npcs. >> that he's got, it's going to be me. all hoping to be picked for vp, they're complaining that the judge's daughter is making money of this. yet, laura and eric trump literally filmed an ad inside the courthouse with trump's red tie surrogates and appearance from donald trump. i mean, i know hypocrisy is not new here, but again, who is the audience for this? because it seems to me that this seems to weaken whatever argument the npcs are playing. >> there's gambling in this casino, right? >> right. >> i think at this point donald trump is just vying to win in the court of public opinion. we have seen reporting also that he instructed his attorney to go harder against the witnesses, harder against stormy daniels.

obviously not something that's going to be to his benefit as far as the jury is concerned. i don't think he cares about that. this whole thing, to your exact point, this is all about the campaign. and donald trump is just trying to win a campaign. this is all an extension of his campaign. and if he wants to campaign as the tough guy, then he will do whatever he has to do in the courtroom or out to seem like the tough guy. >> yodit, what's my strategy. i'm a trump defense attorney. i went at michael cohen. he didn't break, so far. >> so far. >> what's the thing i have to get out of michael cohen to save my case? he's the guy, he's the person that if you can discredit him, hopefully the whole thing falls apart. >> i think they're trying to bring out the michael cohen that he is outside of the courtroom, who he has been, right? well documented how much he hates trump. especially on his podcast, his books. anywhere he can talk in the media, he's talking about trump and how he wants him to go to prison. what you -- we have seen so far on direct with michael cohen is a calm, cool, collected,

rehearsed, been -- the prosecutors worked with limb over the past year about how he's going to answer these direct questions. but on cross examination, what the defense wants to do is rattle him. they want the jury to see the bad side of michael cohen to react. i don't know if they did that on their first day at cross-examination because the defense has so much to work with. i don't think they really landed some major punches. but they get another chance tomorrow. what they want to do is get him out of character and catch him in a lie as well. >> here is the thing, michael cohen has been clear. he doesn't like trump. i hate the way you walk, talk. made it clear for years now. he can't stand this guy. >> yep. >> does that necessarily make you less credible. the man went to jail. you're saying that doesn't necessarily help. >> the first question that the defense asked stormy daniels when they were cross-examining her, do you like the date or hate the defendant? >> she said yes. that gave her points because she could have lied and said, well, i don't have any ill will towards the man. she was being honest about her feelings. it's well documented i think throughout the entire testimony

or prosecution's case through other witnesses his social media just a few days before he took the stand he was wearing a t-shirt with donald trump in an orange jump suit behind bars. so it's very well documented. i don't think that that really matters. i think what they need to do is produce his lies. i think he might have lied on tuesday. if he lied on tuesday, he could be lying to you. so you can't believe anything that this man says. he has motive. he has a personal and financial investment in seeing donald trump get convicted. and so, that's what they want to keep, you know, really demonstrating to the jury and make that argument in closing arguments. >> so, i want to play some quick sound to you, brian. these are basically the political emotional support puppies for donald trump. i want to play some of that sound and get your thoughts on the other side. >> i called president trump and told him i wanted to be here myself to call out what is a travesty of justice. >> i'm here and all of us are

here as friends of donald trump supporting him in our personal capacity and shared opinions. that's why we're here today. >> i'm here to show support for the friend. >> i'm from the south here today to represent and pay my respects to what president trump is going through. it's a tough time for him. >> brian, and i go with the point that yodit just made, all these people are fine. none of them are his family. how does this hit with anybody who is watching this trial? >> look, i think it's just showing the rest of the republican base that they have a permission structure, maybe, because this guy is a criminal defendant right now. they have a permission structure. it's okay. you can come back home to donald trump. we're all giving him our stamp of approval. but what it should really show americans more broadly, these people are supply kants. they stand for nothing. they have no integrity, no dignity, principles. assuming they ever had any of those things and they will cast off any of what they claimed to stand for in blind deference to

donald trump. and especially someone like mike johnson, who views himself as the world's greatest defender of the bible. to then show up in new york, voluntarily, and defend a guy who is facing 34 criminal charges for falsifying business records related to hush money payouts for an affair he had while his wife was at home with their infant son is just so beyond the bounds of logic and decency that like it just goes to show that anything these people have claimed that they stood for means absolutely nothing. they stand for power. they stand for their deference to donald trump and nothing else. >> what about your friends indeed. and friends like these don't necessarily help you. yodit, brian, thank you guys so much. you're the best dressed people i had on here today. thank you. up next, remember this -- >> proud boys, stand back and stand by. >> that's because he would rather have a puppet as

president. >> no puppet. no puppet. >> and it's pretty clear -- >> you're the puppet. >> it's pretty clear you won't admit -- >> hit my hands. i never heard of this one. look at those hands. are they small hands? ♪♪ well, whether america likes it or not, we'll be subjected to many more moments like that with biden and trump agreeing to debate each other in june and september. we'll discuss that with cornell belcher next on "the reidout." c belcher next on "the reidout millions of children are fighting to survive ."

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♪♪ well, it's official, folks. president joe biden and donald trump will be debating ahead of november's election. it all came together rather quickly this morning after biden posted this video challenging trump to debate anywhere, any time, any place. >> donald trump lost two debates to me in 2020. since then he hasn't shown up for a debate. now he's acting like he wants to debate me again. well, make my day, pal. i'll even do it twice. let's pick the dates, donald. i hear you're free on wednesdays. >> wow. well, didn't take long for trump, who has the day off from his criminal trial to accept that challenge. it will be his first debate since the 2020 election, given that he didn't show up to a single republican primary debate over the last year. however, this time around it's going to be a lot different than what we've seen in the past.

the presidential debate commission won't be organizing this and there will be no audience present. it will be much earlier than what we're used to. the first debate is scheduled for just over a month from now, june 27th and the second on september 10th. joining me now to discuss this is cornell belcher, pollster and msnbc political analyst, one of my favorite people to talk to. cornell, thank you. you and i can talk facts, not just strategy. why now? why is joe biden getting up there and saying, any time, any place, bring it. i got hands. why is joe biden calling for a debate in june, usually one of the dead fundraising months during a presidential election? >> yeah. well, let's get in campaign strategy weeds with the smart folks who watch joy reid's show. look, typically for a challenger you want to debate the incumbent because there's not often where you have a clear shot of hitting

the incumbent. if you're a challenger, you have to take out the incumbent. number one job for challenger to get the people, in this case majority of americans who gave joe biden the job, you have to give them a rational for firing him. and there's very little -- you can do -- try to do it in television ads, but there's no clearer cut, sort of one on one way better than in a debate. so if the challenger, you want to debate. i will also note here, as you pointed out earlier, that trump kind of wants this debate. right? and if trump was as confident about his position, trump campaign was as confident about his position, he would not actually be taking this debate, just like he did not take the debates in the primary because he was confident in his position. the question is, you know, from the biden campaign, sort of why take this debate on now? why push for this debate if you're a challenger? look at the dynamics that's been unfolding in this campaign. and i think i understand why they're saying this because it's

all been about personality. you know, is he old enough? is he too old? trump is corrupt on this and that. but, the truth of the matter is, the biden campaign wants to start talking about the issues and the policy contrast between these two people. this is not going to be a personal sort of conversation about who you personally like. but lay out to the american people the policies and the impact differences between these candidates. and i think you want a longer run-up of the policy differences in a conversation. my god, can we finally start talking about policy differences between the two candidates and not their personalities. i think the campaign wants that and needs that. so that's why i think they're calling for these debates and want a longer ramp for this conversation about policy differences and issue differences. >> so, cornell, part of my theory, frankly for this election has been -- as much as we have conversations about enthusiasm and people

disappointing, there are people who are disappointed in joe biden. they wanted more. they wanted more passion. this, that or the other. there's a difference between being disappointed in joe biden and disliking donald trump, right? that is something that seems to be at play here and demonstrating those personality differences matters. here is another thought, i'm curious if the numbers are backing this up. i also think it is a way to make sure that rfk jr. is basically frozen out of the conversation. because even though he's tweeted that he's like -- he thinks he'll be able to qualify by june 27th, more likely than not, he will not be able to. and this will allow joe biden to turn this into a binary race in june and basically freeze out rfk until he either decides he's going to drop out and endorse trump or drop out in general. does that make sense with the numbers? >> no. i think that's spot on. and again, if you are the biden campaign from a strategic standpoint, you want this to be a two-person race, right? we saw what happened in

wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania in 2016 with third-party voting. which again, donald trump is a 46, 47% proposition. that's not from polling. that's from what actually happens on election day. he wins by subtraction, not by addition. the third party helps him. but making this a binary choice -- again, lining up this is a choice between biden on policies versus trump on policies, and i think that's a debate that i think the biden camp thinks they'll win on policies. >> very quickly before we go to break, cornell, there's a lot of polls out now. i am known for saying these polls ain't loyal. we're way too early to trust them. i think a lot of them failed tremendously to properly sample african-american voters and latino voters for those who saw recent polls, "new york times," what's your response? you've been highly critical a lot of the very publicized polls

we have seen over the last couple weeks. >> well, too often the sample size from minorities in these polls are inadequate for you to drive several news stories across several weeks. i think in large sample size polls of african-american, hispanic voters, what you see is not that african-american or hispanic voters are breaking so heavily towards trump in a historical way. the idea that african-americans would be breaking towards trump in a way above and beyond, they've done it every republican is kind of ridiculous. >> yeah. it's absolutely unlikely. we have to run to break. we're going to bring cornell belcher back with us because i want him to finish his thought. we're going to be discussing angela alsobrooks defying the polls and beating his millionaire opponent in maryland to become the projected nominee for senate. this is a race that could determine control of the u.s. senate. we'll be right back to discuss that cornell and aaron haines. a. .

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in the november election, control of the u.s. senate is up for grabs. and surprisingly, maryland. rely blie blue maryland will have a competitive race after senator. i mitch mcconnell ran larry hogan to run. they chose angela alsobrooks over multimillionaire

congressman david troen. he spent roughly $60 million of his own money on the race and he lost. and here is where i talk about polls, which once again missed the mark. according to 538, aggregates polling, alsobrooks went into the primary trailing by two points. she ended up beating him by 12. larry hogan, who has never been on a ticket with donald trump, will now face alsobrooks, maryland's first black senator in a state where black people account for 32% of the voting population. back with me is cornell belcher and joining us is erin haines, editor at large of the 19th msnbc political contributor and host of "the amendment pod cast." i want to finish up your thought before, cornell, with what we just discussed. polling seemed to be off. angela alsobrooks, came in trailing by two, significantly outspent. all the polls said, hey, she's going to lose. she beats him by 12.

what's going on here? can we just not trust polling anymore? >> no. for the love of god, please stop pretending like polling is a predictor of the future. it's not. it is absolutely not a predictor of the future. what polling is instructive, right? the example you just gave, it was a two-point race. a two-point race is a toss-up. anyone can win that race. for us on the campaign side of things, what we're looking for in a poll is the instructor of what we need to do, right? nailing a horse race is a tough thing to do, you know why? we're literally spending in the case of the maryland race, darn near $100 million to move that race. that number is absolutely going to move. so stop this fixation with the horse race number. every time we covered a horse race number, i much rather think it's much better for our audience if we're covering policy differences between these candidates because that horse race number is going to move. it's going to change.

>> erin, you know, at the 19th you all focus on women in office, women campaigning, policy, intersection of race, this is a practical campaign issue i have for you. i'm a maryland resident. most of my friends and colleagues in maryland said, one friend in particular said, look, i heard from david trone's campaign three times. they didn't hear from angela alsobrooks' campaign until after she won and then she was asking for money. how does this happen? just an on the ground stand points, what do you think was behind her success? and do you think she will be more competitive against larry hogan a popular former governor than david trone? >> well, i think a couple of points here, jason. first of all, again, the poll that counts the most is the poll that we have on election day, right? in that poll angela alsobrooks outperformed everyone's expectations. i do think a lot of that did have to do with her lived experience, which she really leaned into when she was talking to voters.

her race, her gender, her personal story. i think really is something that resonated with voters, something we saw in our reporting when we profiled her for the 19th. and so, you know, sure, maybe there was not necessarily -- she definitely didn't have the money that david trone had, but what she did have in terms of a ground game, she had the support of organizations like higher heights, letters from 650 black women pushing back against racial and gendered stereotypes in ads that david trone was running. that's the thing that can galvanize black women to turn out and poll can sometimes miss, right? it's not capturing those black women who maybe don't have a yard sign or aren't enthusiastically saying whata yard sign or are not enthusiastically saying what they are going to do in an election, but are going to show up at the polls and not only by themselves, but with their sorority, their church members,

their community and whoever else they can get out to show their support. i think that is why we are where we are and i think that is something larry hogan should pay attention to headed into november. i think if it ain't broke, don't fix it, headed into november, right? >> headed into november let's talk about your home state of georgia. we have president biden heading down to morehouse to give a speech. there have always been issues with presidents going to college campuses. sometimes there are complaints, but the biden administration had to send a surrogate in advance to tamp down what they are concerned about might be protests. might be young men and women, young men in particular since this is morehouse graduation, who would turn their backs on them. if i were the biden campaign i would've tried to slip out of this four or five months ago. perhaps a place that is more conservative where you are less likely to have this sort of

thing, but he is already locked into this. what is the biden campaign concerned about primarily, image -wise, and what does he have to say to make sure this is a graduation and not a time where biden has a negative reaction from a core constituency of black men that he needs to get elected this fall. >> certainly the biden campaign is looking to mitigate whatever may happen at commencement this weekend. you certainly have some morehouse students, some atlanta university center students who participated and joined encampments in the area to express their concerns. they were necessarily protesting on their campuses, but participating in other protests. how might they decide to protest during this commencement? i think it will be interesting to see, but you have alumni who raised objections to president biden coming and you also have alumni in support of president

biden coming, not to mention parents who are paying a hefty sum for students to learn those degrees and certainly want to see those students walk across the stage. i think those are all considerations going into this week. also this is a week when you are seeing the biden harris administration try to shore up support among black voters, particularly black men, which they know they have an issue with. so going to morehouse anyway is something that he was going to not do. >> thank you for joining us tonight on "the reidout". up next we have a sneak peek at stephanie ruhle's exclusive interview with senator mitt romney tonight. you won't want to miss it. why choose a sleep number smart bed?

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welcome back. munch attention has been paid to what is going on outside the courthouse in donald trump's criminal trial or rather, what is not happening outside. a source familiar with trump's thinking tells rolling stone the former president was especially irritated after he saw this headline from early may. trump was reportedly so unhappy about the size of his crowd, he sent out a proverbial bat signal with a host of different lawmakers responding to the call. noticeably absent are any old- school republicans from what

used to be the grand old party. msnbc's stephanie ruhle spoke to one of the few, so-called old-school republicans, utah senator mitt romney, about why he wasn't there. >> reporter: this week leaders in the republican party went to the trial, stood outside the courthouse and attacked our legal system. how does that make you feel about republicans right now? >> i think it is terrible for our country to see people attacking our legal system. that is an enormous mistake. i think it is also demeaning for people to apparently try to run for vice president by donning a red tie and standing outside the courthouse. i would have felt awkward where i one of those individuals. i can also say i think president biden made an enormous error. he should have fought like crazy to keep this prosecution from going forward.

it was a win-win for donald trump. >> reporter: is that joe biden's job? is that the legitimate separation? >> i've been around for a while. if lbj had been president and didn't want something like this to happen, he would have been all over the prosecutor, saying you better not bring that forward or i will drive you from office. >> reporter: but i'm sure you support separate and equal branches of government. >> i do, but had i been president biden when the justice department brought indictments, i would have pardoned him. i would have pardoned president trump, why? because it makes me, president biden, the big guy and the person i pardoned the little guy. >> that is not a smart strategy. we will have more from that conversation right here on msnbc's the 11th hour. you can find me on my podcast. having a fantastic conversation talking about all things musical.