that does it for us. "the reidout" with joy reid starts now. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> he's got to listen to his attorneys. it's not as much what he wants to do. we know he wants to testify. he's willing. it's pretty quick and it would be a pretty short testimony as far as the questions that would need to be asked because he had

no part in this. >> we all know that trump's promise to testify was just dishonest bravado, and now the defense has begun its case, it's becoming increasingly clear that trump will not be called. plus, a whole lot of things happened while i was on vacation, including the news that an upside down distress flag flew over supreme court justice sam alito's home. tonight, i'll explain why alito and others are in such distress that they think they need a trump dictatorship to solve their problems. but we begin tonight with these five words from the prosecution in donald trump's hush money election interference trial. your honor, the people rest. after 15 days and 21 witnesses, the prosecution handed over the reins to the defense who began making their case this afternoon, beginning with testimony from robert costello, a criminal lawyer with ties to

rudy giuliani. costello was in talks to represent trump's former lawyer, michael cohen, in 2018, as cohen faced federal indictment for taking out the very helock loan at issue in this case. the one he used to pay off stormy daniels for the benefit of the trump presidential campaign. which the trump campaign then lied about in their business records. within 15 minutes of being on the stand, judge juan merchan lost his patience with the visibility reactions to the objections to costello's testimony and the judge cleared the courtroom to admonish the witness. if you don't like my ruling, you don't say geez, adding costello can't strike anything because the judge is the only person who can strike anything. you don't give my side eye and you don't roll your eyes. costello said he understood and we'll get to more on the defense's case later. first, michael cohen wrapped up his fourth day on the witness stand today and his third under cross-examination.

which at times was meandering and kind of hard to follow as trump's defense attorney todd blanche focused primarily on cohen's character. trying to paint him as a liar, a cheat, someone who could not be trusted, he was just out for revenge. as blanche wrapped his cross-examination, he tried to land a final blow in front of the jury, asking cohen, do you have a financial interest in the outcome of this case? cohen responded, yes, sir. blanche then asks the question of today, whether a conviction benefits you financially. to which prosecutor susan hoffinger said, asked and answered, your honor. judge merchan said i will allow it. you can answer it. and perhaps to blanche's surprise, was cohen's response. the answer is no. blanche asked, it doesn't? cohen added, it's better if he is not, for me, because it gives me more to talk about in the future. blanche spent much of the day air punching trying to throw

multiple theories against the wall with hopes one would stick for at least one juror. including that cohen was too consumed with his own business dealings during october 2016 when the stormy daniels payment was made, such that his recollections about his calls and dealings with trump are especially suspect. there was the theory that trump's payments to cohen were just part of a retainer agreement as trump's lawyer. and there was the claim that nondisclosure agreements like the one stormy daniels signed are very common and not illegal. during redirect, the prosecutor knocked each of these bowling pins down one by one. hoffinger, were you too busy in october 2016 to finalize the stormy daniels pay off with mr. trump? cohen, no, ma'am. hoffinger, was the $420,000 payment that you were owed as reimbursement, did that have anything to do with the retainer agreement? cohen, no, ma'am. on the ndas, hoffinger, under

the circumstances of this nda with stormy daniels that you testified to, was it perfectly legal under those circumstances? cohen, no, ma'am. she then made sure to clarify for the jurors. hoffinger, are you actually on trial here in this case? cohen, no, ma'am. hoffinger, are you a witness here? cohen, yes. and again, it needs to be repeated that despite being the one whose prosecution and testimony gave birth to this case, michael cohen is essentially battling cleanup in this case against individual one, meaning the case against donald trump doesn't rest on the testimony just of michael cohen. nearly everything cohen has testified to has already been corroborated by evidence entered into the record by other witnesses, documents, emails, text messages, and audio recordings. it's likely we'll ver a lot about that evidence again by the prosecution, next tuesday, when judge merchan has scheduled closing arguments to begin. closing arguments could have started later this week, but merchan ruled this morning that

due to the upcoming call day weekend, he does not want there to be such a large gap between the closing arguments, jury instructions, and the start of deliberations. joining me now is lisa reuben, msnbc legal correspondent, duncan levin, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor for the manhattan district attorney's office, and lockland cartwright, former executive editor for the "national enquirer." he's currently a special correspondent for the hollywood reporter. lisa, let me start with you. characterize what happened in court beyond what i have said just now. >> you have given a really good summary, joy, but i think what happened today can best be characterized as exhaustion and exasperation. michael cohen was on cross-examination for the third consecutive day. at times not only did todd blanche's cross-examination seem meandering but it was really repetitive. there were lots of subject matters that were covered again and again. that having been said, there were a couple surprises and not ones that were favorable to the

defense. i think the other theme of today is whatever advantage the defense was enjoying on thursday afternoon when they closed, that dissipated for them today through two different circumstances. one is that the remaining cross-examination of michael cohen really didn't land any punches and in fact cohen got to punch back. and the second is that robert costello, who is that other witness that they called today who was sort of trying to function as michael cohen's lawyer despite not having ever been hired by michael cohen, he himself was a little bit of a disaster on the stand, as you recognize, and the jury, while they didn't see necessarily judge merchan chastise him, they saw all of the audible and visible reactions that costello had to being stymied in answering questions that the judge didn't want answered, and repeatedly, costello tried to talk over the sustained objections or said things like, geez, or rolled his eyes and things like that. i really have never seen a witness behave like that in

court and on demeanor alone, robert costello gets a big fat f. >> lockland, i want to go to you on this. there was a lot of talk leading up to michael cohen, all over tv, of people saying, oh, he's going to be a disaster. this is going to be horrible for the prosecution. he's got this record of criminality, as if he was a bank robber before donald trump made him do crimes for him. the guy is a lawyer. i said repeatedly on the show, number one, he's an attorney. he knows how to act in court. he's been in front of a judge before. number two, he's a practiced television guest and host. he hosts a freaking podcast. so i assumed he was going to be a solid witness. make of it what you will, michael cohen's ability to just answer the questions, yes, sir, no, sir, be succinct, get it done, and this guy costello, who seems to be the witness that a lot of people thought michael cohen was going to be. >> yeah, it's extraordinary, when you juxtapose the two of

them. michael cohen, cool, calm, collected, under pressure over the last four days that he's been on the stand. the defense have been continually trying to niggle at him and try to get a reaction, and he has been, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. he's been incredibly steady in the witness stand. and then we have bob costello come on this afternoon and within the first 15 minutes, the judge has to ask the jury to leave to admonish him for his behavior on the stand. if i'm the jury looking at the first real defense witness being bob costello and how he behaved this afternoon, compared to michael cohen, that would not have left a good impression on me. >> duncan, welcome to the show. how unusual is it for a witness and a judge to get into it the way -- we're just reading the accounts of it. i'm sure it was quite dramatic in person. how unusual is that, and in this

courtroom, how damaging could that be for the defense case? >> well, they have clearly gotten off to a terrible start here. it's very unusual to be slapped down in this way, but this type of behavior by a witness is one that the defense clearly should have gotten under control far before they ever called him to the stand. you remember, todd blanche got off on the wrong foot when the cross-examination of michael cohen, too, having his first question to michael cohen be objected to and the objection sustained right out of the bat, right off the bat, because he was asking personal questions about didn't you call me this and didn't you call me that? the judge is clearly exhausted and exasperated with this defense at this point in the trial. and so it's just -- they're off to a bad start. this is a witness who probably did not need to be called. they're calling him to basically try to destroy michael cohen, but they could try to destroy michael cohen just in their closing argument. they don't need to call robert

costello. robert costello is a witness who michael cohen already testified on direct examination that he lied to because robert costello was going to talk to trump about whatever cohen said, so he's a witness that they really didn't need to call. to get off on this footing, particularly on their first and maybe their only witness, is just a misstep by the defense that was an unforced error. >> an unforced error probably because trump wanted them to do it. it seems like the defense, that seems to be the characterization every day, is they're waging a defense that probably if they had a more normal client, they wouldn't. they're just doing whatever trump wants and attacking the people he doesn't like. and sort of trying to belittle them on the stand. let's talk a little bit about this attempt to undermine cohen and literally try to accuse him essentially of perjury. there is this situation where michael cohen is trying to get to trump to get his money back. he's not getting the money back and he needs the money back. he reaches out to schiller who is donald trump's guy that's

traveling with him, and here's this photo. this is from october 24, 2016. this is a rally in tampa, florida, that trump is attending. keith schiller is there. he's always with trump. michael cohen is trying to get in touch with him. and we have now the still of the phone call. we don't have video of the phone call, but we have a still of it. this is what is said on the call. nobody is thinking about michael. this is michael cohen talking. you understand? and despite what like for example you know, what the earlier conversation, you know, and who else would have done that for somebody? who else? meaning pay that money to stormy daniels. he said i did. what's the significance of that, lisa? there is an attempt to use that against cohen. >> yeah, i want to decouple those two things. you showed one piece of evidence that i think was really helpful for the prosecution and then i want to talk about the second. the picture of keith schiller and donald trump shows them walking off a stage at 7:57 p.m. in tampa, florida, on october 24th.

that is five minutes before cohen connects with schiller on the phone. that's the phone call that cohen in his direct testimony remembered that he asked schiller to pass the phone to trump so that he and trump could solidify the arrangement to pay stormy daniels in october of 2016. the defense having found some other text messages between schiller and cohen about an annoying 14-year-old who was harassing cohen by phone and schiller basically saying call me, tried to play gotcha with michael cohen and say that's not really why you called keith schiller on october 24th. you called keith schiller because of this annoying 14-year-old. but showing that picture as the prosecution did today, shows that they were together and it is credible as michael cohen claimed today, that he could have accomplished two birds with one storm, in fact talking to schiller about the calls and then passing the phone on to trump, and just making sure that they were eye to eye about that payment. >> and thank you for clarifying that.

and then the second piece of it is a separate situation where he's having trouble getting his money back, and sort of the urgency of getting trump to respond to pay him back. did they do any damage on trying to portray cohen as essentially just mad because he didn't get a job, he didn't get what he wanted out of trump? did any of that seem to go anywhere for the defense? >> i don't think so. so the call that they played was between cohen and keith davidson, almost a full year later, while he is in the process of being repaid. you can tell that michael cohen at that point is thinking through how betrayed that he feels. it's not a secret that michael cohen felt betrayed. it's not a secret that people close to michael cohen felt betrayed. in fact, the defense -- what did you say? >> he wrote a book about it. >> that's true, and the defense made him go through a bunch of texts with his then college aged daughter about the jobs she was hoping he would get. his disappointment is evident. i don't think it's in

contention. i don't think the call did much for the defense today. >> lockland, the thing is, it seems to me that so much of this case on the defense side has become an attempt to sort of disparage michael cohen and stormy daniels personally. what i haven't read through as i'm reading through all the notes, the wonderful notes from our legal team, is a defense to the actual alleged crime. >> where is the counternarrative? we have been at this for weeks and weeks. the defense has not established a counternarrative. i mean, explain to me all the bits of paper that we have seen in this case. give me a reason that donald trump is signing these checks. and they haven't been able to produce this. this is a copper bottom case. if you even take michael cohen out of it and there's a reason that cohen went last here, because we were able to establish a lot of this through david pecker was corroborated right through to hope hicks and everyone else in between. and you know, we're still, we're days away from closing, next

tuesday, still the defense has not put up a counternarrative to explain away all of the bits of paper. so take cohen out of it, and you still have a very strong documents case, and without a proper defense to explain all of this. >> and duncan, you also have michael cohen literally convicted for the same thing, which it's very difficult to decouple them when the crimes that he is being disparaged for are the crimes that donald trump participated allegedly with him in. i want you to get to the importance of what the instructions to the jury will mean in this case. because there hasn't been a counternarrative, how do those instructions play into how this plays out? >> sure, and a lot of people see jury instructions being a very boring thing that is just nothing they have to pay attention to. but there are really three elements to this offense that the d.a.'s office needs to prove. the first is that donald trump caused the filing of false business records. the second is that he did it

with the intent to defraud the voters. the hird is that he did it with the intent to conceal an election law, conspiracy between him, michael cohen, and the "national enquirer," david pecker, to conceal these election law violations. and you can see that the d.a.'s office is really largely put in enough evidence on all of these to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that donald trump is guilty at this point. but when it comes to down to any one of those elements, the lawyers are going to argue what the meaning of those words are. in the statute that talks about falsification of business records, there's really no definition for what it means to cause someone to file a false business record. and the defense is going to say, you need to have evidence that he caused it, that he picked up the phone and called michael cohen and he said you better put some false information into the books and records of the trump organization.

what it's more likely to be, and there's some case law that governs this, is that causing false business records to be filed really means putting in some kind of series of events such that it's reasonably foreseeable that false business records would be filed. i think that all of these instructions are things that are going to be fought about, but whereas all the evidence is in front of the jury, it might change the way the jury thinks about some of these things. there's another example of something the jury could do if they wanted to which they're probably not going to do. if they're actually arguing a case just for the jury and instead of for the public and they thought this was not going their way and donald trump was going to be convicted of a felony, they could ask for a jury instruction for the misdemeanor, for the lesser included and they could waive the statute of limitations for it. all of these things could change the outcome of the trial depending on what they argue and there's a lot in the weeds on what these election violations

are, what the campaign violations are, whether he was actually putting forth his own money. there's a famous supreme court case called buckley v. vulayo, which allows people to spend as much money on their campaigns as they want. they could ask for an instruction on that saying this was his own money. unfortunately for them, they cut their own foot off because they argued this was not a reimbursement, so i don't think they're going to ask for that instruction. these are all things that really could change the outcome of the trial even though it's minutia over some instructions that the jury may or may not read at the end of the day, but this is something that's very important. >> it seems you have thought more about that than the defense. don't go anywhere. we'll have much more on trump's criminal trial. al with a statin. diets and exercise add to the struggle. today, it's possible to go from struggle to cholesterol success with leqvio.

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the defense has finally begun presenting their case to the jury in the first criminal trial of donald trump. and it may not be going exactly as they hoped. the day ended with probably the most dramatic mome inlt the trial so far as robert costello, a lawyer who once advised michael cohen and one of the witnesses the defense plans to call was admonished by the judge for his reaction to objections. the defense also signaled they could rest their case as soon as tomorrow. meaning the big question of whether donald trump will take the stand in his own defense appears to be unlikely. despite the fact trump has repeatedly said he would testify. so how do we square that?

i expect him and his dress matchy matchy like the boss red tie wearing emotional support entourage will think of some excuse any moment now. back with me, lisa, duncan, and lockland. let's talk about the atmospherics. here's who was in court with donald trump today. we'll put it up, allen wilson, some people you haven't heard of, some congressmen, andrew clyde, alan dershowitz, interesting. he was there. missouri attorney general candidate was there. bernie carrick, who donald trump pardoned, pardoned felon bernie carrick. kash patel, former chief of staff to the secretary of defense who will probably be in the next administration. vernon jones, the sort of democrat turned really right-wing wacky georgia republican. and actor chuck zito, former president of the new york chapter of the hell's angels. what was that about? >> i have no idea what chuck

zito was about. let's talk about the larger atmospherics. there was a moment last week, joy, on thursday, where the d.a.'s office was complaining about the disruption caused by members of trump's entourage coming in and out of the courtroom because they were having press availabilities outside during breaks and therefore would miss the beginning of the renewed session. and when they did that, todd blanche said, look, i can't control these people. they're just members of the public. i think anybody who has watched the surrogates operation over the last several days understands that this is not just some coincidental gathering of members of the public but a tightly coordinated surrogates operation in coordination with the trump campaign themselves. they're selecting who comes to court every day. they have a sense down to the seat of how many people they can fit in the first two rows of the gallery assigned to them and they fit each and every one of them. they're accomplishing certain objections every time they call

upon people to come there. sometimes they're asking for people who are state attorneys general, but the guy who came today that you mentioned, he's not just a candidate for missouri attorney general. he's one of trump's appellate lawyers. there are lots of people there wearing multiple hats but they're all hats that fit into the maga world. it's not just some disparate assembly of people who like donald trump. >> if i could take you into the courtroom today, sorry joy, as i'm sitting there, and this is becoming -- has become a daily occurrence, we can hear trump in the hallway, and so we all turn to then see him walk in, and then today, people just kept coming and coming. it was like, oh, there's alan dershowitz, there's chuck zito who was the hell's angels, led the new york chapter of the hell's angels. they just kept coming and coming to the point there wasn't enough room for them to sit. then it's left up to boris

epshteyn to play party planner, party seater as he finds more room for them at the end of the courtroom. and to the extent that today they even didn't have enough room to accommodate all of them. it's become just this circus every day. and you can see that merchan is growing tired of it, although he hasn't made any kind of order about it. but it is becoming a running spectacle day in and day out. it's almost like which member of the wanna be veep squad are we going to get today? today, we were overblown with one of these. >> they also often dress alike. they dress like donald trump. kash patel, let's play him today. he wasn't dressed alike today, weirdly enough. >> michael cohen admitted on the witness stand just this morning to six different felonies of stealing donald trump's money. after six weeks of trial, we finally have a crime. we also have a victim. that victim is donald j. trump.

>> they look like a singing group or maybe like cos players trying to pretend to be donald trump. like trump impersonators. >> did kash not get the memo about the red tie? >> he's done. i think he's done. whatever his future was, done, not wearing the uniform. let's play alina habba. here's what she said. >> he's got to listen to his attorneys. it's not as much what he wants to do. we know he wants to testify. it is pretty quick and would be a short testimony as far as the questions that need to be asked because he had no part in this. good duncan, it's clear donald trump is not going to testify because first of all, he would commit perjury on the stand. he's not capable of telling the truth. number two, he would destroy himself because he would get up there and incoherently ramble he didn't sleep with stormy daniels and michael cohen is a terrible person. and he couldn't stop that because his brain don't work

good. will he be able to get out and spin that he was told he can't testify, that his lawyers said he couldn't testify? because that's not true. he has the right to testify? >> he said stuff all throughout this trial that does not comport with reality, starting with the fact he said this is all trying to keep him off the campaign trail when he has taken every single turn at this trial to make it longer than it needs to be. he's not -- he's forced the d. aft's office to call custodial witnesses, the head of c-span, people from the book publisher. he could have gotten a lot of these exhibits in faster. the fact this trial has lasted as long as it has is in large measure his fault. he said a lot of things that don't comport with reality, and because of the gag order, he earlier said he wasn't able to testify, and the judge made clear you have every right to testify. he's going to say whatever he's going to say out on the campaign trail. you can be sure that the minute this trial is over, whatever it is, when he's released from this gag order, he's going to start

unleashing different types of narratives about it. but he does not really need to testify because what -- the defense is setting up this defense that this was something that was cooked up between allen weisselberg and michael cohen, and that it didn't involve him at all. and he doesn't really need to get on the stand to say that he didn't know anything because he's going to get eviscerated on cross-examination. the downside to him taking the stand far outweighs the fact that he could say no, this was about melania. i wanted to make sure she didn't find out about it. it's all belied by the evidence. i think all of the other evidence really is going to kill that. there's really no reason for it. >> and note that melania is not there, nor any other members of the family. only the less beloved son showed up one time. let me read to you the moment when the court was cleared today. we do have that transcript. this is the court. the fact that i -- this is the judge speaking. the fact i had to clear this

courtroom and that the court officers including the captain had great difficulty clearing the courtroom and that there was an argument back and forth between the press and including counsel for the press goes to what i had to clear the courtroom in the first place. that is, sir, your conduct is contemptuous right now. i'm putting you on notice that your kurkt is contemptuous. if you try to stare me down one more time, i will remove from you the stand. i will strike his entire testimony. do you understand me? mr. bove, yes, judge. i understand. this is the judge again. listen to the question and answer the question. the witness, this is the witness, can i say something please? the judge, no, no. this is not a conversation. to which the witness said, okay. lisa, that was a dramatic moment. >> it was, and it wasn't one we saw, so i'm really glad you read the transcript. that happened in a sealed courtroom, as you noted. that was something that judge merchan said only with robert

costello on the stand and the lawyers in the room, and then the additional people that are there for the d.a. and for the trump folks. but no members of the public and certainly not the press was there to see that. that having been said, costello continued to sort of talk over objections and really resist the questions posed to him from the d.a.'s office. he has not been a good witness even when he was better counselled pie judge merchan. let's see how that ends tomorrow. >> yeah, they made a lot about cohen being coached. this is why you coach a witness. i'm not a lawyer and i know that. thank you very much. we're back in a minute. has grown me the best garden i have ever had. good soil, and you get good results. look at that! the broccoli was fantastic. that broccoli! i think some of them were six, seven pounds.

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because we're moving forward with everybody. shell. powering progress. it's been a tumultuous day in the middle east. first, the stunning developments overnight. state media confirmed that iranian president ebrahim raisi was killed in a helicopter crash along with the foreign minister and seven others. iran state media said the crash was the result of a techtual failure. heavy fog prevented the team from finding the wreckage for hours. raisi had been iran's president since 2021 and was seen as groomed to be iran's next supreme leader, having acted as the ayatollah's protege. in iran, supporters gathered in tehran to mourn. while in london, opponents of the regime gathered outside

iran's embassy waving anti-regime flags. the vice president has been named as iran's interim president and a presidential election must be called within 50 days. another major development in the region today. the historic announcement from the international criminal court, its chief prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu and hamas military chief as well as several other figures on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. the warrants would have to be approved by the court's judges, a process that could take weeks or months, if the warrants are issued, the israeli officials and hamas leaders could face arrest if they travel to any of the court's 124 member nations. i will note that neither israel nor the united states are member states of the icc. joining me now is trita parsi,

executive president of the quincy institute. let's take these in order. great to see you. the death of the president of iran. what does that trigger, because you do have these two questions. speculation over whether or not ayatollah khomeini will name his own sun as his successor, what if that happens and what happens with the change of leadership? >> so, the process with iran is one that is really kept secret at this point. there are plenty of people who are even denying raisi was in the running for the supreme leader's position. i think it's quite clear he was one of the candidates. right now, it is not clear who potential other candidates would be. khomeini has come out publicly anded he doesn't think his son should take over from him. but whether that will end up being the case or not remains to be seen. what's really sensitive now for the iranians is they're going to try to portray an image of

stability, that everything is in order, that they have everything under control, that these next elections within 50 days are going to run smoothly without any major mayhem or protests because it's crucial for them. this is like iran before the actual real crisis, which is when the supreme leader dies and when they will have to deal with a much more important secession. >> is there any chance, any chance this change of leadership something less hard line emerges in iran, very quickly? >> i find it unlikely, unfortunately, because the hard liners have really worked hard to control all different levels of power in the iranian system, precisely because they want to make sure when the succession comes, they don't have any competition at all. the idea they would give up on that seems unlikely. >> speaking of hard liners, netanyahu surrounded himself with extreme right wing religious fanatics, i think one could safely say. he's not been charged yet but there's a recommendation he be charged with crimes against

humanity. let's play president biden's reaction. >> let me be clear, we reject the icc's application for arrest warrants against israeli leaders. whatever these warrants may apply, there's no equivalence between israel and hamas. and it's clear we'll do we can to insure civilian protection, but contrary allegations made by the international court of justice, what is happening is not genocide. we reject that. >> meanwhile, mike johnson, the speaker, has threatened icc to sanction the icc. they reported 12 republican senators have threatened the prosecutor with sanctions and threatened family members, other senators like tom cotton and others joining in with that. talk about the implications here. at this point, netanyahu couldn't go to the olympics in europe because he could be arrested. >> remember, putin was on this

list, and of course, the biden administration celebrated that and pressured south africa to arrest him if he showed up in south africa for the meeting. as a result, he didn't, even though putin was very upset and he wanted to go, the south africans didn't let him in. netanyahu is going to have major problems, and also the biden administration, because we're seeing how as netanyahu is destroying israel's credibility, with this blind support, the united states is dragging the u.s. itself down with israel in this regard. if any other country was doing this, we would say that's a rogue nation. this is not the type of conduct or policy that we should be pursuing. >> it baffles my mind because on the one hand, it feels like the biden administration wants soft regime change. they seem to be sort of openly supporting netanyahu's chief rival who said he would leave the government if they don't have a plan for the post-war gaza, and then on the other hand, they wrench right back to embracing him when he's in

trouble. i don't understand it. if he's in this kind of trouble and they don't want him in anymore, why not just let go? >> i think you really put your finger on it. they do want to get rid of netanyahu, but as soon as he gets into trouble, they're back there supporting him. what does it do? it creates an incentive for netanyahu to go more and more ballistic and get himself into trouble in order to force the biden administration to come to his aid. this is at the very core a part of the problem that we have in the relationship between the united states and israel right now. >> indeed. trita parsi, always a pleasure. thank you so much. coming up, my take on supreme court justice samuel alito flying a stop the steal distress flag in his yard, and the deeper meaning behind what maga is actually in distress about. that's next. next.

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by now, you're aware i'm sure that an upside down american flag was photographed flying in front of the verge home of supreme court justice samuel alito. a violation of the flag code used for a sign of distress. and like any good conservative when called on his outrageous disrespect to the flag, justice alito blamed his wife, claiming it was she who was distressed. he was upset by unkind neighbors who called her a name after she complained about nasty things they said on yard signed about

donald trump. the justice claims he had no role in the flag flying. assuming sam lives in the house too, throwing mrs. alito under the bus doesn't cut it. he's the one with yet another huge ethical problem, especially since the flag was flying about a month before alito and clarence thomas, his comrade and billionaire funded vacations and insurrection wives issued their dissent with neil gorsuch joining in a supreme court case on whether pennsylvania's electors should be thrown out at the trump campaign's request. weird, right? also around that time, even alone that time, sidney powell who claimed deceased venezuelan dictator hugo chavez helped steal the election overseeing an investigation of voter fraud was appearing on conservative media telling anyone who would listen that samuel alito was the guy. the quality of this video is not the best but it gets the point across. >> we were following a 12th

amendment constitutional challenge to the process that the congress was about to use under the electoral act provisions that simply don't jive with the 12th amendment to the united states constitution and justice alito was our circuit justice for that. >> why was she so confident? and just what is the source of this distress that made maga turn our flag upside down? alito has been doing public complaining that he feels conservative christians are under attack and they are the basis of maga. and let me share other stories that may not seem related but are because they might answer this question about the sources of maga distress. do you know who this guy is? it is john mcatee. used to be donald trump's body man in the white house but lost the gig after a background check revealed some alleged financial crimes. he was moving with the trump campaign before going back to

the white house in 2020 as the personal director. it was his job to make sure everyone working in the administration had personal loyalty to trump. when trump launched his attempt and presumably while the alitos were flying the coup flag, mcatee, who peaked during his time as the university of connecticut quarterback was providing lece to mike pence, urging him to use his fence and vp powers to keep donald trump in office despite losing. he was a big advocate of the made-up theory that vice presidents can just do that because that is what trump wanted becky said that mike pence needed an absurd memo. and mind you, his legal training was a google search. when the trump coup failed, john mcatee came up with a new plan. he started dating app called "the right stuff" which was designed to help marriageable partners for the maga faithful, the kind of wives you can blame when you hoist a coup flag in front of your house. the right stuff invested big

investors like peter teal who actually couldn't use the app himself because he is and the app does not allow same-sex marriages. as part of the provost, mcatee went on to give us to brag about how he sometimes gives homeless people counterfeit money in hopes that they will get arrested when they try to use it. his dating app is struggling, mainly because barely any women have signed up for some reason. >> john mcatee is a big part of project 2025, the plan for the trump dictatorship and he would be in charge of personal again in a new trump administration. mcatee is the kind of guy who is in distress in the maga mind and the cause of the distress for the alitos and mcatees of the world, are out of control liberated women who won't marry conservative men, have babies and give up no-fault divorce for people who keep insisting that black lives matter, immigrants of course, and accurate history that is not always make the white guys look good. and john mcatee and his friends at project 2025 are not the only ones with a plan to fix it.

just in the last week, governor glenn youngkin vetoed two bills that would protect access to contraception in virginia and two virginia school boards put the names of confederate generals back on to schools meaning black students in the schools will be forced to venerate men who enslave ancestors and not allowed to learn the true facts about slavery or read books by a number of black authors. nfl kicker and fashion picks with bible quotes. telling a graduating class including scores of women that their degrees are a lie and they should just embrace their true vocation of making their husbands a sandwich. texas governor greg abbott granted a full pardon to a man convicted by a jury of shooting a black lives matter activists dead after threatening and racist rants on social media, that he wanted to do just that and then driving his car into a group of pedestrian marchers. because in texas, the only thing actually illegal is trying to vote while black and

on parole. did i mention that if you are pregnant, it is illegal to get a divorce in missouri quick scores of u.s. states allow child marriage and project 2025 includes the national abortion ban. these stories don't seem related but they are. they are the answer to the alito question . who do maga believe are in distress such as they need a king trump to get things right again. we are back with a big announcement this week. ed gut.

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stay with msnbc tonight at 9:00 p.m. eastern. the fulton county district attorney bobby willis was prosecuting donald trump in the election interference case. he joins us in an exclusive interview ahead of tomorrow's georgia primary where willis is on the ballot. join us wednesday night right here when nathan wade will be my guest. he resigned as fulton county special prosecutor in the trump case in march following a judge's ultimatum that willis could only keep the case if wade stepped down. tune in for that. that is tonight's read out inside with jen psaki starts next. . we are rapidly approaching the conclusion of donald trump's criminal trial in new york.