The vote of the people determining who the president of the United States is, or instead, violence and forced determining. As alleged in this indictment, he chose the latter. And he failed at it. And now the country and federal government will attempt to hold him criminally responsible for what he tried to do. For that alleged felony criminal conspiracy. We of course have been expecting this indictment for a long time but it is no less stunning for having been foreshadowed for so long. This is a federal criminal indictment of the former president for trying to overturn an election and keep himself in power. The indictment also describes six unindicted coconspirators. Five of the six of them, lawyers, primarily those who crafted the bogus legal arguments that underpinned trumps alleged attempts to undermine the electoral process. I say that because theres been interesting efforts within the Legal Profession to essentially police itself, and without accountability of various kinds for a lot of different Trump Lawyers who took part in this plot. This ratify some of those efforts within the Legal Profession to say this was a plot that wasnt just touched by trump alone, he did have coconspirators and in many cases, they were lawyers who ought to know better, and if by the political, the professional bars to which they attend, or if by their profession, if not by the criminal Justice System, they should be held accountable as well. The indictment alleges that trump tried to get State Officials to overturn Election Results that he tried to get the Justice Department enlisted, in this effort to overturn the Election Results, that he organized an effort to have Fake Electors submitted to overturn the Election Results in congress, add it all up, and there are four new federal Felony Charges. Joining us now are stephanie ruhle, and chris hayes, and alex wagner, and ari melber, also joy reid, and jim psaki are joining us from washington. Let me start with you because you have not been part of our discussions, at least while i have been here this evening. Alex wagner raised a good point earlier on, which is at the timeline is going to line right up with the president ial election process and the campaign. You know, these claims are going to be tested in court but they are also going to be tested in the court of politics. I know that President Biden went to a movie, and i have to ask, what do you think this does to the campaign . The first thing is, we dont know yet, because this is going to have to play out in the public, whether this is seeing some of the trial, reporting on some of the trial, or all the events that are going to happen between now in november 2024. What we do know is while weve seen in recent polls, including the siena poll, this is startling to me, 22 of respondents who thought that trump had done something criminally wrong, also supported him. So that is a troubling sign for our democracy and the republican primary. But we also know in 2022, the democracy was on the ballot. People ran on it. Candidates ran on it. People who ran against democracy lost in the primaries, lost in the general election, or lost in the general election, i should say. That is a good sign. If you are sitting in the white house right, now you are probably at home because the president is at the movies, as you just said, but you are also thinking about the timeline of next year. As weve all talked about over the last several weeks. Including when the trials are. But at what time will the president start making a version of the argument he made so strongly in 2020 and updated. Which is that there are choices for the public, for the American People, about who you want standing up for you in the oval office. Will you stand for democracy or against it . Hes not going to break that, hes an institutionalist, but i do think that he will hurt in this argument about our values, our morals, the history of our country, that is true to who he is, and that is another way of making the argument. I think that is exactly right. I was thinking about that potential argument from President Biden, which weve seen him make, and he gives us a big speech about democracy and the rule of law and constitutional order. And all of how we should be talking about gas prices. Even when the Political Class doesnt think that he should, but now, this Indictment PutSomething Else on that. That is not just about this cause the idea of democracy. It is about violence. It is about how this is going to be decided on industries. It is about using the military against the American People. So it is not, i guess it is a political question about how far President Biden and democrats want to go with this, but this indictment makes it not just about concepts and political science, different forms of government, it is about whether or not you want things in this country to be decided by people fighting it out in the streets. When you think about what donald trump is doing right now, and his bid to be the next president , hes not talking about gas prices, health care, the border, he is running because his president ial bid is so that he can raise money for himself and keep himself out of jail. When you look at what he is facing right now and when hes out there talking about running again, he is trying to save himself. That is what this entire thing is about. When i am looking at all of this and i am saying im sorry, i watch fox news for the last hour, so you didnt have to, you know what theyre jack smith made it very clear, you want to lie, you want to tell stories, go for it. This is not what this is about. This is about trying to hurt the American People and keep them from the voting. Changing the outcome of the election. Fox news is going to have a hard time keeping this banner and keeping this argument up for a long. Because jack smith is making it really clear, it is what trump did. Just understand what jen said, a lot of times in politics who are costs pressured between things that are important and right, and things that are politically popular. You have to make these compromises. The worst thing donald trump ever did which was january six, its also the least popular thing he has ever done. The incentives here are perfectly aligned. Substantively and legally it is incredibly important to hold him to account. The lowest moment in his political popularity was in the aftermath of january 6th. It is the most unpopular thing that he has ever undertaken. And it deserves to be put before the nation as a question, as he heads towards most likely being the nominee and to be talked about in the august debate on the republican primary stage, with him in his absence. To me, what is hardening to jen, the arrows do all point in the same direction on this question. Except for republicans will not go, there his republican primary rivals for the nomination are not they are not actually running for office. You are running and i was the front runner, would you not be going for my jugular . Instead they are like hey, dude. You are running so they were all pulling at 0 , and they are all taking him on in this regard. But all the rest of them are going to say that the lesson of today, the important thing of today is that the Justice Department is terrible, the fbi is terrible, and american Law Enforcement needs to be dismantled because conservatives cannot get a fair shake and they are coming after trump because they cant come after you, but it is only because they want to come after you, that will be the republican line of the tire political party. Arent all the witnesses almost all the people who spoke in the january 6th hearings republican . I mean mike pence, the guy who its today saying, i chose the constitution, that is what this reflects, but also, this is a distraction from President Bidens failed economics. And you are like if i were joe biden i wouldnt say anything about this, but i would go and have a rally at the state in atlanta. And i would go to detroit, and i would go to all the other places where donald trump committed this alleged crime, and by the way, i just want to say, this conspiracy against writes, this is a civil war era statute that basically had, as you say, racial terror as its let us not forget the other thing donald trump was trying to do was disenfranchise the votes of urban democratic centers where there are just proportional numbers, disproportionate numbers of black and brown voters. Im not saying racism was the explicit goal, but it is certainly across current of what was happening here. Call him up in detroit, called him up at the state, all of these centers where they wanted the recounts, where they thought there was fraud, the invocation of sheamus, multiple times on the phone with the Georgia Secretary Of State the obsession giuliani calling them drug dealers. The notion that somehow these black and brown democratic votes had to be thrown out, that these were the centers for fraud, there is something there. There is a Cross Pollination with the legacy of the statute that hes being charged with. I was going to say that trump is also on a huge losing streak. If we are just talking about him in politics, he got fewer votes in 16, they lost badly as a reaction to trump in 18. They obviously lost 2020, that is what this coup is about. Theyve massively underperformed. They have viewers who lived through the red fizzle. And this stuff hurt. So while, you said such important things that we all take seriously, but hes legally presumed innocent, and nothing about they should be approached inside the doj or the government for partisan lands. Thus far we have not seen evidence of that. And if we did we would report it. Having said all of that, if we are talking about the trajectory and american, life being convicted is bad. Being a defendant with a lot of evidence is bad. Being a convicted person who has the right to appeal, and who definitely does, as lawrence reminded everyone of that tonight, it is also bad. It is interesting with the context, which you and others have raced, tonight they wanted, the racists wanted to show Martin Luther king in the prison guard, and put that photo out there to make the point that he is a convict. And he was arguing, know there is something wrong with the laws. We talk about free speech, you are allowed to criticize the laws in this country. That is a good thing. So the fact that you have been convicted of something somewhere doesnt automatically mean anything for your wider public life. But, if you are badly convicted or appealing a conviction on something as serious as trying to enter democracy because of your terrible losing streak, which is where the losers stuff, hes a repeat loser of elections, and the alleged evidence of coup stuff combines into a very unpopular sandwich. And donald trump understands, and donald trump you are not unpopular sandwich, that is not what he meant. Well, that is where that all comes together, and it is something donald trump knows because hes always calling everyone what . Loser . Were accusing them of being a criminal that this person is crooked, or that person is under investigation, or what was his first impeachment about . Faking a for an investigation of the bidens. He understands that. Again, the case has to go forward without politics, but if we are asking a rely Reality Basis i. T. , if it is good, no. And it is such an important point, Litigating The Conspiracy is, in some ways, litigating the election. Because the important factual predicate to it being a conspiracy is that he knew he lost, and all the nonsense, the big lie was not true. There is a sort of substrate of the whole thing that going back to remind everyone he lost to joe biden, which in the view of republicans, joe biden such a ludicrous figure. So preposterous that she would lose to joe biden. That is the argument that trump flirted with four theyre being fraud. How could me, your favorite president , lose to joe biden . But the litigation to this is reminding everyone that yes, indeed, you lost to joe biden. But one of trumps lawyers are saying tonight in response to the indictment that what they are looking for into the trial, because it will disprove all these assertions that these were false claims of voter fraud, they will have to prove once and for all that the election was stolen. So think about what pence wants to do. He saying to the American People lets focus on bidenomics. You know who else wants to do that . Joe biden. Joe biden would love for us to be doing a primetime special talking about the successes of joe biden, and he would love to go down there and talk about the infrastructure project. So its like, have at it mike pence, joe biden is desperate to talk about the successes because he has a threat, and this needle, and it is working. When you look at this in terms of this parallel track that we are about to have happened over the course of this next year, we all know exactly what we will be covering this time when years from now in terms of what is happening in the campaign. What do you think the democrats of joe biden should do with this . I think we all expect joe biden will never talk about it directly. But do you think this means that the Referendum Issue of donald trump, and the rule of force, versus joe biden, and the rule of law, becomes the only frame of the election . You might have made the point earlier that the panel made that the idea of saving democracy actually turned out to be a powerful factor in the midterms, as did abortion. But i am with alex. If i am the biden campaign, to go back to my old world of being in a Campaign World i would go to each of these states, because one of the things that the democrats are a bit concerned about is, they are always concerned lowkey about black male turnout. The turnout of black voters. I hope that it will be as robust as they needed to be to win. And obviously they are always concerned about the drift of some latino voters toward the republicans. Well, if i am them, i am going to wisconsin, i am going to arizona, you know, i am going to detroit, to michigan, i am going to each of these states, to new mexico, to all of these states where the robbery was attempted, and make the case that this man attempted to steal your votes, doesnt respect your right to vote, and that the klan act had to be used against him because of his attempt of theft, and cool, because it was not just a coup against the constitution, it was a coup against you. It was essentially saying that your vote is criminal. I would go to georgia and say remember ruby freeman and shaye moss were called drug dealers for attempting to help you vote. There were people who were trying to help their community vote, filipino voters in arizona had an attempted robbery committed against them, right . That voters in wisconsin, and all of these places had an attempted theft committed against them and that is the case for Reelecting Biden if you are a democrat. But i have to redo one thing, rachel, you love to do that, can i just do one quick dramatic reading for you . Because i just pulled it up. Ron desantis, today, he put out a statement. And he says as president , i will end the weaponization of government, replacing fbi director and injuries single standard of justice for all americans while i have seen reports, this is the most important line, i have not read the indictment. I do, the, believe we need to enact reforms on what americans have a right to remove cases from washington d. C. To their home districts. It is unfair to have to stand trial before a jury that is reflective of these swamp mentalities. What is he saying about d. C. . One of the reasons that our country is in decline as the politicization of the rule of law. No more excuses. I will end the weaponization of the federal government and he says all of that, multiple paragraphs, and he hasnt read the indictment. He couldnt get, i am a slow reader, but he couldnt read 45 pages . He couldnt read, the governor of the state of florida, could not read 45 pages in five hours . I will end the weaponization of the federal government. One of the criminal counts that has been brought in this indictment, which was about to be tested in the highest Profile Criminal Trial to ever happen in the United States, including the lindberg baby, everything, back to the very beginning is that donald trump sought to use the u. S. Justice department to tell states to throw other Election Results so that he can stay as president. And actually bring investigations and to advise them that there was so much, rob dont wear, you could throughout your results. Talk about using the federal government for politically weaponized purpose. He is literally being charged for that. So the idea is that republicans are against that, maybe you should read the indictment because guess what is in it . This is a guy who literally ran 2016, he is now running promising to indict joe biden, and his son who has nothing to do with government. Hes literally running on im going to lock up all the bidens. He is the guy who had his Justice Department lockup Michael Cohen for writing a book. After he did the crime for him. He did the crime for him and then he said you are too dangerous, you are writing a book, lock him of. They put him in prison. It is so insane that you have republicans claiming weaponization a federal government that is all donald trump really did with his Justice Department. That is a great political tactic. Whatever youve done, make sure that you accuse other people of doing it. And nobody can then do the accusations against you. That is literally where we