It began with a Defendant Flipping in the racketeering case against donald trump. Defendant ellis tearfully. We got a Bombshell Piece of news mark meadows has been granted immunity in special counsel jack smiths election interference case. Mr. Meadows reportedly told smiths team he long believed trump was dishonest about his claims he won the election, which is certainly something new. That report has not been confirmed by nbc news, and meadows lawyer is denying it so well have lot later in this hour. We start with the absolute debacle of republicans in the house of representatives, which is entering its fourth week fourth week without afo speakerf the house. Right now republicans are holding a vote Behind Closed Doors to choose their fourth nominee for speaker in less than two weeks. This morning after five rounds of voting behind cleeds doors, the party nominated its third speaker candidate, congressman tom emmer, and four hours later he dropped out the race. A source familiar with the matter told nbc news trumps rejection had made a successful floor vote impossible for mr. Emmer. So republicans are right back to where they started. Now, one of the reasons hard right republicans oppose tom emmer is because he voted to certify the 2020 election. Here was congresswoman Marjorie Taylor greene on that very issue today. How much did i couldnt support a speaker of c the house. Admitting joe biden won the 2020 election is now hearsay in the gop. To be clear here its not like tom emmer has been a big Vocal Opponent of the big lie. After the election emmer was actually one of the republicans who signed o onto a legal brief asking the Supreme Court to step in and overturn trumps loss. Apparently that is not enough. Former congressman byron donalds, tennessee congressman chuck flieschman. Congressman mark green who called being transgender a disease and was nominated by donald trump to be secretary of the army but had to withdraw over his history of transphobia. Congressman Roger Williams who was investigated by the House Ethics Committee by adding a carve out to a deal that would have benefitted the Car Dealerships he teowns. And louisiana congressman mike johnson. The New York Times reports when republican members of congress tried to justify their votes against certifying the election, about three quarters of them relied on the arguments of a low profile louisiana congressman representative you guessed it mike johnson who the times calls the most important architect. Ift. That isnt bonkers enough r you, nbc news is reporting House SpeakerKevin Mccarthy is floating the idea to have the republican conference reinstall Kevin Mccarthy as speaker with far right congressman jim jordan as his assistant speaker. Because why have one guy who just lost when you could have two . So, yes, it is a debacle down there in the lower chamber, which seems to have led republicans to revive one of the worst ideas in congressional history. If we go to the floor you know what im doing, i mean lets make no mistake, ill be nominating donald j. Trump. I kind of like the idea of donald j. Trump quite honestly. Joining me now. Thats how quickly this is moving. What does the church suggest you to. The churn suggests a party in chaos. Trying to fulfill one of the most basic functions of governance. Really, the house in many ways in our Current System doesnt evennt have that much power. Yes, they can keep the government from shutting down, which is of coursesh a really b deal and a thing were all going to have to deal with sooner than i think anybody would like in november, but the senatewo is controlled by democrats, the white house is controlled by democrats. Thore not putting out a broad conservative agenda going to be passed into law. Their are failing at the symbolism. Charlie, this is kinetic situation down at the house. They are votingt right now and not on the floor. They are voting amongst themselves to determine who gets to be the next nominee for however long. Mike johnson apparently if im right has the most votes with 85 votes. Byron donalds is second. Now, byron donalds, florida congressman, big trump supporter, has not served a full term in congress yet. Mike johnson who the times refers to as the most important architect of the resistance to electoral certification Electoral College certification in the house, what do you make of these two shall we call them front runners of the moment, charlie . Were deep into this Doom Loop Of Crazy and absurdity, the fact wereit now down to plan and plan f and the back e this, its complete disarray, comply chaos. Theres no idea right now that is too crazy to be vaguely plausible because they basically burned through all the noncrazy options including some of the crazy options. So the whole notion of a unity ticket between Kevin Mccarthy and jim jordan, that jim jordan would be the assistant to the speaker, anis assistitant speak, a job that does not actually exist, it shows how desperate they are to come up with something. The fact we were in the fourth week of doing this is an indication there i may not be a solution. There are at least eight members not going to support any normal speaker. And there are 20 normy Establishment Republicans not going to allow a legislative terrorist. So theres no solution to get to 217 votes. Why theyre going through this this exercise of nominating somebody knowing that they may be dropping out after four hours is an indication and by the way obviously hanging over all this is the Apex Predator of the gop, donald trump who did flex his muscles. He does not have enough clout to elect one of his maga acolytes to be the speaker like jim jordan. But as he reminded us today, he can destroy any political career, and he is demanding absolute loyalty, an absolute litmus test of belief in the big lie and support for his efforts to overturn the election, if you want to have even the slightest chance of having a political future in this particular house. It is that crazy. I lisa, you have an essentia reading in the times today about the sway of Trump Begin Theay gop. Ill read an excerpt. The commanding position has turned republicans into a party of one demanding absolute loyalty to trump and his personal feuds and pet causes such as the false claims the 2020 election was stolen. Thats now the litmus test it appears for these people who wish to be speaker. I believe theres been so many different candidates today, but everyone on deck right now, and the latest vote count is mike johnson at 85, Congressman Greens at 21, other 31 present, too. But the fact other gets almost as much as the second runnerup tells you everything you need to know about the indecision here. But i do wonder given the sort of existing litmus test of election denialism, does that signal that nobody is going to get through this process who is not an avid supporter of donald trump . Well, it seems hard because as he pointed out trump can knock people out but cant get anyone in. It shows how divided the party remains. Part of whats so striking to me about this, these are deep politicalab cuts. These are not household names. Id be very surprised if many of oursu viewers right now are deey familiar and hes the majority whip. The trump the chaos being part of it is the trump brand. They either like that brand of politics or really, really do not like that brand of politics. This just feels like some people most of america has never heard of kind of tarnishing the entire party with this sort of brand of chaos and disorganization. And that concern is certainly something ive been hearing from a lot of republican strategists and pollsters and people like that. Most of them believe perhaps by the time the next election rolls around, a year or so, this will be forgotten. You havebe biden out there dealg with really volatile with war. Yeah, with war. Dealing with multiple wars. And then you have the republican kind of going back and forth on a bunch of people that most people have nerve heard of fighting about a position most of america probably doesnt really understand what it does or doesnt do. And so its d exactly the contrt democrats want right now, and all they have to do is sit back and let it happen. To lisas point, charlie, you talk about the power of the moderateser here. What continues to confound me is why moderates who understand what is happening to their own party, the fact that the house has been leaderless, speakerless going l into the fourth week no why are there not entries to democrats . Why dont moderates take the baton when we think of moderates iswe not what they ar but people who are are not actively trump acolytes, why do they not take the baton away from the maga caucus and try to milwaukee a deal with democrats . At what point do they break glass on that . Gl thats an interesting poin. To your point, though, theyre not actual moderates, and so thats one of the reasons why theyve been reluctant to do that so far because that apparently is the cardinal sin. Shutting down the federal government, paralyzing the congress at a time of International Crisis apparently is not asre bad as actually cutting a deal with democrats because i think they understand this would be in this modern political in this modern Republican Party, this would be political suicide. But at a certain point when youve gone through all the other options, this may be out there because its clearly doable and a huge number of them say lets have power sharing agreement. Nobody knows where were going. And weve certainly never seen a Political Party squander a majority or inflect wounds on itself like this party. I cant think of a parallel where a Political Party has damaged itself in the runup to the election and to lisas point their hope people will forget about all this. Well, were not close to a resolution, and were very, very close to a government shutdown. They are so g extreme, so bizar, so uncontrollable that it clearly is going to play into if youre a democrat, its hard to imagine a scenario that is more attractive especially knowing theyre going to nominate donald trump as well, the chaos candidate. Theres the process which is completely cay utic at best, and the process, again the first ballot of the evening, closed door voting among the republican conference, congressman mike johnson who is called the most important architect of the Electoral College objections of theto 2020 election, that man i the top pick at present among closed doors. We have a lot to get to on this kinetic night of news including what republican lawmaker has to say about the fate of this leaderless Republican Party and his role in the chaos. But first the whole thing about flipping they call it. I know all about flipping. For 30, 40 years ive been watching flippers. Everythings wonderful and then they get tenev years in jail an they flip on whoever the next highest one is or whoever you can go. Its called flipping and almost ought to be called illegal. Donald trump did not manage to make flipping illegal during his four years as president , but today he probably wish he had. Stay with us. Id but today he probably wish he had. Stay with us after advil dual action back pain yo. Who. Haha. [dog barks] what . My back feels better. [rewind sound] before advil [grunts] oh. Advil dual action back pain fights back pain two ways. For 8 hours of relief. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. On Election Night 2020 with votes still being counted, donald trump made that very premature Victory Announcement Launching what would becoming widespread fraudulent effort to convince voters and lawmakers and the courts that he had won. But now we know curtancy of abc news that trumps own Chief Of Staff at the time, mark meadow, believed trumps Victory Statement was dishonest. He reportedly told special counsel jack smiths team, obviously, we didnt win. And we know that because abc news is reporting tonight that mark meadows has entered into an Immunity Deal with federal prosecutors. According to their sources, meadows has testified at least three times including once before a federal grand jury. A lawyer for meadows, however, is disputing abcs reporting. A lawyer said to nbc news tonight, i told abc their story was largely inaccurate. People will have to judge for themselves the decision to run it anyway. Joining me now is joyce vance. He think he has an Immunity Deal but his lawyers pushing back against that. How do you sort of read the tea leaves in all of this . Right, so i think part of the confusion, alex, may be over the fact theres a difference between someone who is indicted and decides to conclude a plea deal with the government. They plead guilty and they agree to cooperate in exchange for favorable treatment. Thats the sort of Cooperation Deals that were seeing handed out down in georgia. Meadows, though, i think is in a different category. He has been offered immunity in exchange for his testimony and perhaps using the verb offered is a little bit misleading because when youre immunized you really no longer have the option of not testifying. You have no fifth amendment right, nothing that keeps you from testifyingch the only real question is the government giving you whats called use immunity or transactional immunity. Use immunity just means your testimony cant be used against you. You can be prosecuted but your own testimony cant be used. In transactional immunity, youre actually being given immunity from prosecution for the Subject Matter that you testify about. So it sounds like mark meadows has testified pursuant to the grounds of some form of immunity that hes not actually a cooperating witness. Ahha. Does that explain why theres no deal down in georgia since that indictment where it was first handed down. I think it could. And this is such a curious situation because you dont expect to see a witness or defendant plead guilty to criminal conduct in one place and not another place. And in essence by testifying under a grant of immunity in d. C. , meadows is preserving his ability to walk this tightrope hes been walking along where he cooperates just enough to avoid indictment, just enough to avoid getting on the criminal side of the line without really conceding hes done anything wrong. Well, mark meadows is the Tightrope Walker if there was one in the trump administration, hes be it. Abc news is reporting that meadows informs his team he repeatedly told trump in the weeks after the election that the obligations of significant voter fraud were baseless. Hes not the only to have done that, but why is it meaningful for meadows to have done that, being mark meadows is an Unindicted Coconspiratorter in a federal case. In a Perfect World every prosecutor would want mark meadows as a witness. He was with them when calls were made to georgia. No better witness to talk about Donald TrumpsState Of Mind and what he knew. The problem with meadows even if this is his testimony is that haz told different stories at different times and to different people, told an entirely different version of the facts in his book, and so with meadows as your witness you have both a credibility and a reliability problem. Will the jury believe him, or will he stick to it or move back the other direction as he did after he started cooperating with the January 6th Committee . But if hes a credible witness on this issue trump was told repeatedly and understood that there was no fraud, thats really important for prosecutors. Do you abc also reports that meadows was specifically asked by federal prosecutors if trump ever acknowledged to meadows that he lost the election, and meadows told investigators he had never heard trump say that. Is that problematic for the special counsel . Well, i think its problematic in the sense that prosecutors do need to prove that trump knew. But, look, mark meadows from the get go has been one of those witnesses where prosecutors needed to know what he would sa. Didnt really matter if it was good for you or bad for you, they just needed to know where he stood, so he couldnt take the stand, for instance, as a Defense Witness and blind side them. Plenty of other evidence trump knew that he had lost, what meadows says here isnt really material, but the certainty about what he would have said would have been important to jack smith. I do wonder, joyce, Given Another trump attorney pleaded guilty in the georgia case, how much pressure that is going to put on either meadows or how much interest there would be in terms of Fani Willis Offering Meadows a plea deal in the georgia case. So thats an interesting question, alex. We dont know if fani willis has offered a deal, if shes interested in having him sort of line up on Team Prosecution with her given the problems with his conflicting statements in the past. But certainly he has to be Feeling Pressure at this point. And if that deal is available, now would be the time for meadows to take advantage of it. He has a very experienced lawyer, a doj insider who at least this far has managed today help him avoid Indictment Up in d. C. But very different trajectory in georgia where hes on