His lawyers latest moves and the battle of the Special Counsels request for a Protective Order. While jack smith fires back with his own response. Then ron desantis about face on his biggest 2020 election lies, as he attempts to revamp his 2024 campaign. And a look ahead to tomorrows political special election in ohio. What it could mean for the states constitution and the fight for abortion access. As the 11th hour gets underway on this monday night. Good evening once again. I am stephanie ruhle. We begin this evening in washington, d. C. Where lawyers for former president Donald J Trump have responded to Special Counsel jack smith request for a Protective Order in the 2020 election case. Trumps team countered with a narrower Protective Order that would allow him to publicly discuss some of the evidence collected by the government ahead of the trial. The Special Counsels office came back just hours later urging judge chutkan to forego and additional hearing and sign off on the governments proposed Protective Order. Jack smiths team said donald trump once to try this case in the media rather than in the courtroom. And our friend glenn kushner, Glenn Kirschner said it best last week, judge tanya chutkan, she doesnt play. And we saw that tonight when she wasted no time responding at nine pm on monday night, ordering to see both sides and getting them to agree on a time for a hearing on this Protective Order, on or before this friday. All this after the former president spent the weekend attacking the judge personally and the Special Counsel on his social media platform. Former doj official mary mccord says all of this is just part of trump strategy. I think this is really a delay tactic. Mr. Trump is now the defendant in an ongoing criminal proceeding. And they are treating this as though he is still just an ordinary citizen, who whose rights cannot be restricted at all. And that is not just the way it works in the criminal law, rightly or wrongly, the law provides a showing of the requisite predicate cause. There could be restrictions on people that can be restrictions on their liberty. Many, many defendants in criminal cases and up detained pre trial. There can be restrictions on their speech. And i think that is something that mr. Trump and his attorneys so far are not really acknowledging. In addition to writing up that 29page response, trumps lawyers spent their weekend work shopping potential defenses, guess where . On television. Heres that one lawyer john lauro how he responded to a question about mike pences testimony. He said the president asked him to violate the its another way of saying he never said, no, thats wrong. A technical violation of the constitution is not a violation of criminal law. That is just plain wrong. And to say that is contrary to decades of precedent legal statutes. Lets Take A Deep Breath because for fact sake, we all learn in middle School Civics that the constitution is the law of the land. So a violation of the constitution is by definition a violation of the law. Lauro also claimed that pencess testimony would help trump, saying the former president would be acquitted if his Vice President is called as witnesses. But do not forget, mike pence is not the only former trump official who could testify. I have no plans to testify or. But, look, we will always comply with the law. Where you interviewed by the Special Counsel . Im not gonna get into heavy discussions about would you appear if a witnesses call . Of course. Of course, this is just one of the many Legal Proceedings the former president finds himself subjected to. Trump is potentially facing seven trials before next years election day. Three civil, four criminal. Meanwhile, there is also news in the classified documents case. Today, judge Aileen Cannon who is overseeing that case down in florida has asked the Justice Department to explain its use of a d. C. Grand jury in its continuing investigation. Theres a lot to govern. Lets get smarter with the help of our Leadoff Panel tonight. Pulitzer prize winning journalist philip rucker, he is the next National Editor for the washington post. Kyle cheney is here, politicos Senior Legal Affairs reporter. And tali farhadian weinstein, a former federal and State Prosecutor in new york. She clerked for Merrick Garland and Justice Sandra day oconnor. Tali, lets talk about this timing. Jack smith just took three hours, that is it, to respond to dozens of pages from trumps team after three plus days. And then, judge chutkan responded just a couple of hours after that. Is trumps team firsthand, this is what happens when you face off against the Worlds Largest law firm . Indeed, stephanie. And i think that part of why everyone has been able to move so quickly is that what jack smith had to say in that motion is so totally obvious. Which is that a defendant does not have the right to publish discovery. A defendant has a right to a discovery, and remember, discovery is evidence that the government has gathered. For example, transcripts of interviews with witnesses that the government has conducted. A defendant has a right to see that and to use it in any of his defense, not to put it out there, and particularly not in a way that might undermine the integrity of the proceedings or in some way intimidate or affect witnesses and people who are going to bring in evidence. And, you know, sometimes i find it helpful, stephanie, to just recall, most of my career was violent crimes. And i almost always saw Protective Order, to make sure that a defendant would not cross those lines and take the discovery that we have put together and use it in ways that are obviously prohibited and undermine the rule of law. Kyle, what are you watching next in this dispute . So as you noted, the judge was extremely quick about getting us on the calendar. So, she is still moving at a pace that i think the trump team said, we dont want to move at that pace. You know, they didnt want to meet until later in august. They did not want to have this conversation until at least the end of this week, let alone having other hearings before the end of this week. So, i think the fact, you know, what we need to see here, essentially, you know, how that hearing unfolds. I think the government is very squarely saying that donald trump should not be left to try this case in the press. They reported to his lawyer going on tv five times on sunday. They pointed to trump attacking pence on social media. That is trumps standard and oh. If the government wins this fight, how is trump going to operate, you know, his Campaign Going forward. Its the only way he doesnt, he knows how to operate witches attack, attack, Attack Anyone who he perceives as being his opponent and so, these two things are not compatible right now. All right, phil, i promise not to ask you to our questions tonight. I know you are coming off a huge weekend. You celebrated your dogs third Birthday Party. You threw a Birthday Party how do i even say that, that is insane. So i wont make it too tough. But i do want you to get inside the mind of donald trump because its what you do best. He is now facing several trials. This man is not used to being a criminal defendant. Walk us through, he will be sitting in a courtroom, right . As the judge provides overall rules, witnesses, one after the other, many of whom may have been his colleagues, may have worked for him, potentially testifying against him, while his rivals will be out on The Street Campaigning against him. How is donald trump going to be able to handle this . This man, he needs to set the tempo and control the narrative. Yeah, stephanie, first of all, it is likely that its gonna be an unprecedented unprecedented moment in history where the leading republican candidate for president is facing trial on multiple fronts. You are right to point out that there would be all these witnesses who are close to him. There may even some witnesses who are working on his campaign, several of his own campaign advisers, helping build his president ial campaign right now, they were key figures in the indictment and are, you know, potentially going to be called as witnesses in this january 6th trial. Meanwhile, you got the classified documents trial. Youve got the possibility of another indictment in Fulton County, georgia. All of this colliding with the president ial Campaign Calendar next year. And one of the things weve seen trump and his legal team try to argue, at least in that florida case, is to delay the timing of a trial. Trump very much wants to try to secure the republican president ial nomination before he gets bogged down in these courtrooms. And he seems to have a belief. In fact, he has said it out loud on social media, and in rallies he said if he were to get elected as president , he could potentially, you know, try to undo some of these legal problems that he is in. And, so he wants to delay as much as possible, and what you are seeing from jack smith and the prosecution is an effort to speed things up to move very quickly, decisively, and try to bring these cases to a trial as quickly as possible. Well, in theory, or logic would tell you that trump and his legal team are on the same page publicly, maybe not privately. But we are hearing, ill, donald trump publicly demand this judge to recuse herself. And not hearing that from his lawyer who was all over television. Why are they not in lockstep . What are you hearing . This is another example, you know, trump being out front of his legal team, weve seen this play out behind the scenes in some ways. Weve seen tensions emerge in other, you know, criminal and civil matters that trump and his team, depart, there is differences in legal strategy. Trump wants to go after this judge. He wants to say she is biased, appointed by barack obama. And that just makes her unacceptable as a judge. Whereas judge cannon, his own appointee in florida, he said only kind things about her. Thats clearly not a basis for a recusal. Just political affiliation of the appointed president. However, trump is trying to make this case right now. His lawyer is not ready to go there and that Big Media Tour that he did, he very carefully avoided that subject, and he actually said on a separate podcast, we havent even decided if we are going to do that yet. Yet on monday morning, trump came right back and said she needs to recuse. They are clearly not aligned on this. Whether that were to force trump lawyer in, and theyll actually find something he doesnt want to file, thats a different question. But trump, he is pushing that issue forward. It is tough for republicans on the hill to push this. And judge chutkan was confirmed to the bench 95 to 0. Tali, and the other defendant and the world would already be facing consequences, potentially including pretrial defenceman, detention for going after the judge, which is exactly what trump has been doing over the last week. What options does judge chutkan have here . Stephanie, she has a range of options. And they can build up over time. I do expect that she will put serious restrictions on what he could do with discovery, and what he could say, not in terms of political opinions. I mean, he is of course free to express those. But what he could say that could interfere with the administration of this case. And thats going to put him in peril, the more restrictions that she puts, you know, the greater danger he is in, that she ultimately will have to say, you know, you will be further restricted, you might only be able to see this stuff in particular spaces under very tight circumstances, all the way up to detention. So, i think this is going to ratchet up overtime. Phil, how worried is trumps team that he is going to do something that will force this judges hand either out of the trial or even worse, once it begins. They should be pretty worried because this is an undisciplined defendant. Weve seen that over time, including throughout his presidency. And i think it helps explain why trumps lawyers have been so adamant in pushing back against this request for a Protective Order to try to create, build structurally as much freedom as possible for their client, to be able to talk openly on social media and on the Campaign Trail about the discovery, about the various potential witnesses, about the prosecutor himself, and even about the judge. I mean, theyre trying to create some space for trump because they know theres really no way to control what he says or to have him be disciplines defendant in any way. And just to underscore how extraordinary this is, it is really not normal to see any sort of criminal defendant out there in public, trashing the judge, trashing the prosecutor, trashing the sort of overall credibility of the case itself. But that is what we see from trump every day. Still, this is not normal when out the window about six and a half years ago. This one does boggle mind. Trumps defenders have been testing out this idea that he asked pence to overturn the election in a quote, aspirational way. Im not even sure i know that means. But given, that does the prosecution have to prove what donald trump believed . No. It does not. So stephanie, this is a part of the bigger strategy. Obviously one of the pillars of the defense is to say things that are speech. That come out of your mouth, cant be crimes. We know that is not true. Obviously, if you ask somebody to kill somebody, to do something illegal. Or you fraudulently induced somebody into an investment, that is bogus, just because you talked about it does not mean that it is not a crime. And a cousin of that is this idea that if he believed that he won the election, then nothing, and no action he took afterwards could be a crime. Of course that is not true. For example, if you think that the bank somehow defrauded you and owes you money. That does not mean that you can go and rob the bank or ask somebody else to rob the bank for you. So, this idea. The Special Counsel puts this in the indictment. He said he was free to believe what he wanted. To say what he wanted about the election. He was not free to take certain actions that are crimes based on those beliefs. Tally, if you ever lose your voice in the next nine months, we are just going to get you a little sign that goes of course thats not true. Of course thats not true. Of course not true. Kyle, let me ask you about mike pence and bill barr. They say that they will appear as witnesses if they are asked. Have you heard anything about others who could be more susceptible to be Witness Intimidation Atoms from trump . But we know those two. Guys but there are other people in his circle. And he is a pretty impactful bully. He is. Even though hes no longer president , he still has one of the loudest megaphones in the world. And is not afraid to use that to aim at people. Whom he thinks have crossed him. And there is, for putting this out that there are certain witnesses who still work for him that could be involved here. People he has leverage over currently. People whose political fortunes are wrapped up in his. And so there is going to be all kinds of entitlement for people who might be called to testify. Mark, meadows former chief of staff who a lot of people have rightly noted off the grid for a long time. Could be a key witness in this case. His political future. His role in washington may depend very much on how he is perceived in this entire matter. And others to. So i think anybody who takes the Witness Stand is taking a risk here. I do not really have a choice if they are called. And i will note, trumps attorney in his media tour said even if the government does not call mike pence, we will. Because we want him on the stand. And in fact, weve been trying to get in his head. We are already running our crossexamination questions of him. So they expect him to be there in some way. Well we will be watching. Phil rucker, kyle cheney, foreign weinstein, thanks for starting us off on an important night of what will be an important week. In a quick note of our coverage of the former president. I know some of you may say enough already, this is exhausting, i get it. And i hear you. Its exhausting for us to talk about him every night. Its exhausting for talib to have to say of course, thats not just true. The goal is not to attack donald trump. The goal is not to dog on him or keep covering him for the sake of it. We are here covering the facts. As we do every night. And the fact that i urge you to remember is the following. The former president is accused of trying to defraud you, me and everyone else in this country. That is something that we cannot just get tired of covering. We are going to cover it every day and night. Coming up, security ramps up in a state of georgia. As we wait to hear of a possible fourth indictment. And if trump is banking on a, pardon the republican governors hand maybe tied. Later, ron desantis dodged questions on trumps 2020 Election Laws for years. Apparent Campaign Reboot some changes to. 11th hour just getting on away on monday night. A big one. A big on e. Eat more pretzels. Watch movies. Watch more movies. Get airline miles. Get onekeycash. Book inapp to earn onekeycash on top of your airline miles. I was born on the south side of chicago. It has been a long road, but now im working for schwab. I love to help people understand the world through their lens and invest accordingly. You can call us Christmas Eve at four oclock in the morning. Were gonn