the extreme outside chance that somebody like haley could make a comeback. >> we will be talking about issues till september. tim miller, thank you for your time tonight my friend. that is our show for this evening, it is time for the last word with lawrence o'donnell. >> welcome to the black tie edition of the last word. our first guest tonight andrew weissmann and i were both at the same black tie event, he as the audience is about to see dressed so much more elegantly than i was. >> lawrence, lawrence, do not sell yourself short. you look very -- >> i wore one of these, the black tie and threw away the tuxedo jacket and put on this, i'm getting away with it sort of. >> i like the full black tie for the friday, not the friday night show for the next week show, i think we deserve it in these trying times, i think we deserve lawrence o'donnell -- >> wait to see my first guess, you will demand in the future when andrew comes to the studio that he only show up and black tie, when you see this. >> from your words to my writer, i cannot wait to see both of you in your outfits this evening, momentarily. >> thank you, alex. >> have a good show. >> breaking news, legals news tonight is undeterred by donald trump's legal delay tactics, judge tanya chutkan is preparing for jury selection in the washington d. c. trial, the judge has already scheduled to begin on march 4th. now there is more detail about the approach of that trial. tonight, the judge issued an order to special prosecutor jack smith to quote prepare a written questionnaire for distribution to prospective jurors and meet and confer with defense counsel regarding the questionnaire before submitting it to the court approval on january 9th, 2024. if donald trump's defense team object to any of the prosecutions written questions for prospective jurors, then the judge will rule on the disputes and then, according to the judge's order, quote, after review and approval by the court the questionnaire will be distributed to prospective jurors summoned to complete it at the courthouse on february 9th, 2024. so there it is, february 9th 2024 the first day prospective jurors will show up at the courthouse in washington in that case. so we have a schedule first day of jury selection in the case of the united states of america versus donald j trump, in federal court in washington d. c.. the judge's order also protects potential jurors privacy saying no party may provide jurors identifying information, to any other entity e.g. the defendants campaign that is not part of the defense team or government team assisting with jury selections. no party may disclose either in an open court or outside of court, prospective jurors names, or any identifying information. also tonight donald trump is asking the federal appeals court for an emergency stay of the gag order that judge chutkan reinstated sunday evening claiming that the gag order is quote muzzling president trump's core political speech during an historic presidential campaign. the trump criminal defense lawyers also make this argument, quote, the gag order violates the rights of tens of millions of americans to receive president trump's speech. today, in a legal filing in another court special prosecutor jack smith says donald trump is looking to delay both of his federal criminal trials. quote at any cost. jack smith told florida federal judge appointed by donald trump, elaine mercedes canon that hours after trump's lawyers urged her to delay the classified documents trial because the trial scheduled in the washington d. c. case, trump's criminal defense lawyers filed motions to delay the case in washington d. c.. one trump motion seeks to pause the washington case altogether until judge tanya chutkan rules on the trump motion to dismiss the case based on a claim of presidential immunity. trump's criminal defense lawyers write as president trump should not be required to endure the burden of defending himself or the other burdens of litigation until this threshold immunity question is resolved, the court should stay this matter, including all applicable deadlines pending resolution of the immunity motions. in a second motion donald trump asks judge chutkan to delay the deadline to file pretrial motions from november 9th to february of next year. saying president trump has worked in good faith to comply with the deadline but is unable to do so given the enormity of discovery and the time required to confer with the prosecution. today, jack smith alerted trump appointed judge cannon to last night's filings urging her to not be manipulated by trump's delay tactics. defendant trump's actions in the hours following the hearing in this case illustrates the point and confirm his overriding interest in delaying both trials at any cost. the court should not allow itself to be manipulated in this fashion. leading off our discussion andrew weizmann former fbi general counsel and former chief of the criminal division, and the eastern district of new york he is an msnbc legal analyst and co-host of the msnbc podcast prosecuting donald trump. andrew, let's start with the jury selection schedule. this really adds a sense of reality to the momentum. >> absolutely. first people should know this is standard procedure in a high profile case where you have a jury questionnaire. it allows both sides and the court to make sure that the jurors who are ultimately selected can be fair and impartial. remember, it is not required to find a jury that has never heard of the case, or has no opinions about the case, you would never be able to do a high profile case otherwise. what you need to do is you need to find jurors who can put aside whatever their issues are and be able to be confident that they can hear the case and decide it based on law, a stated by the judging by the facts in court, not the facts that they may have heard about beforehand. that is the reason why of the jury questionnaire. the part that is a little unusual here is not that the parties have to agree that they present any proposed differences, that the judge gets involved and decide what will be there, the thing that is unusual is the amount of time between getting the final questionnaires february 9th and the march 4th trial date. usually that can be a matter of days, maybe a week. here i think it is because judge chutkan wants to anticipate that she may need to do this again to -- because you don't know how many jurors will get in any batch. that is suggesting that she's thinking ahead on how to keep this on track for march 4th, and pushing back the timeline, so that she and the parties will be able to get a jury pool. >> so a federal jury selection, a criminal jury selection can often move much quicker than we see it move in some states -- >> absolutely. >> that's why you are saying february 9th let's have the jurors begin to show up for march 4th date. that might sound perfectly normal in a lot of jurisdictions, but you are saying that that is a lot of time. >> that's a lot of time, it's a lot of time because you -- lets your 500 jurors come in, well if so many people say they cannot be fair and impartial, and they get struck for what is called for cause, we want to make sure you have time to bring in another pool so you have enough people. i am confident that there will be a huge group of people who are getting the questionnaires, but the actual jury selection as you mentioned in federal court, that can happen in a day or two. in a normal federal case it could happen in an afternoon. and the parties are not generally allowed to ask questions themselves. the questions are asked by the court. the parties are there and they can propose follow-up questions. but the whole goal is in a high-profile matter to make sure that you have jurors who can be confident that state will sided the case based on the law and the facts in court. that is the reason for this entire process. >> so the gag order trump lawyer is going after judge chutkan limitation on what donald trump can say about the case. they are offering the novel argument that america has a right to left hear donald trump 's attacks, on possible witnesses in the case. >> it's the latter part is the issue the first amendment does give both the right to speak and derivative right to hear, there's nothing wrong in theory with that, judge chutkan has a limited gag order, there is nothing that prevents donald trump from attacking joe biden, from attacking the court. from saying that this is biased, from attacking the department of justice. this is what he cannot do is by name attack the prosecution and their families. it's the judges staff. the court personnel, the witnesses, that is something that you can run for office and not do those things. it is just not the case right now in america that you cannot run for being president of the united states and threatened and obstruct justice. so, i think it is a tough thing to hold for him on appeal, he was signaling that he was going to take the appeal, it's his right to appeal, i do think that the district judges decision ultimately will be vindicated. >> also, every one of these appeals points is a potential delay point. regardless of the merits there's always a reason to -- >> not the gag order, the gag order should and slow down the actual trial and the trial process. unlike the presidential immunity order that he has filed and where he is saying today you should put on hold the entire trial, even though by the way this has been pending for three months, he has woken up and said even though i've been able to go on for three months, just today on saying because i'm immune from any prosecution, because when i'm president i can violate the law that is fine, and to me that is a crazy argument, he is saying you can also put on hold this entire d. c. case. i think that the shenanigans that really happened today that jack smith called out is that just yesterday he was in florida where the judge was saying i'm not trying to do this trial because of the d. c. trial. he is saying if we go right now i'm not sure it can work because you have a d. c. trial and at no point did donald trump's attorneys say wait a second we're about to file a motion saying delay that, it will be a real test of judge cannon whether she for the first time ever can say something critical of donald trump and his defense team because that kind of shenanigans is the kind of thing that any lawyer should be called out on. if the judge is thinking you know i'm trying to balance these two things, and you know you're about to file something, you need to raise that with court. so i think this will be a real test of whether judge cannon is going to be able to do something and play this straight down the middle. >> i'm betting on her failing that test. it's also an example of why it seems to me that the judges in these cases have no choice but to just schedule their own docket, because they have no idea what is going to happen in any one of the other cases. what other legitimate delay might come up in another case? >> that is right, i think in the first instance i think what judge chutkan did when she was trying to figure out a date was she put on the record that she spoke to the new york judge to make sure that if she picked this date, was that going to be okay? that is a very typical collegial thing you do indian usual situation where a defendant has multiple cases. this of course is the most unusual because you don't have just four cases you have a number of civil cases, and the typical way this is dealt with is you know what? the judges talk to each other. and so i wouldn't be surprised if two article three federal judges judge cannon judge chutkan pick up the phone and actually have a conversation about scheduling. but you are right, it's hard to anticipate what can arise. i mean, for instance in the d. c. case, we do not know what will happen what the defendant motions with presidential immunity, the worst-case scenario for the government is that the issue goes to the supreme court and the supreme court stays the trial days while they decide the issue. that is the worst-case scenario. but there are a lot of best-case in areas which is the supreme court doesn't appear it or every court this size it very quickly. >> this point that donald trump 's lawyers make, you're inhibiting his campaign speech. the nature of that argument just changed with mike pence dropping out of the campaign. he's the only witness who was also a candidate against donald trump. so, mike pence was really helping their argument to the extent that he remained in the campaign. >> so it's interesting. i would expect that the court of appeals, if they agree with judge chutkan, it is going to expand the gag order, because if you remember one of the things that judge chutkan said is that you cannot comment on witnesses with one exception. you can comment on mike pence, because you know what? you are running against him. and so, in wayne this and wayne who he is, she carved that out. that is no longer relevant. and so, i continue expansion because he clearly will be a witness. and so, he should now be in the same category as all the other witnesses, which is defendants are not supposed to be denigrating and threatening witnesses. i know that's a controversial concept. >> it is moving ever closer, the d. c. case is really moving. andrew, please stay with us because when we come back, we're gonna have more legal trump matters. it was eric trump's turn on the witness stand in manhattan today. and tonight, ivanka trump's effort to help delay the civil trial in new york was denied. adam was in the courtroom today. he'll join us. tim o'brien, an expert on trump businesses, will also join us. oh. 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have we piqued your interest? you can get two unlimited lines for just $30 each a month. there are no term contracts or line activation fees. and you can bring your own device. oh, and all on the most reliable 5g mobile network nationwide. guy, do you think eric trump? wireless that works for you. it's not just possible. that's what he wants you to think, according to his under of testimony in court today, where he said, i'm an operator, i'm a construction guy. i build projects. i don't focus on appraisals. that's what eric trump, now witness number 23, testified to under oath today. in a manhattan courtroom as he answered questions in the civil fraud trial brought by -- against donald trump and his two codefendant sons. donald junior, and eric. donald trump's daughter, ivanka, avoided being a codefendant because of the statute of limitations. eric trump spent the day trying to say that he has no idea what any parts of the trump business are worth, even though he has made many, many public statements for years about exactly that. the judge in the case, has already ruled that the trump's used fraudulent valuations of their assets, and so each trump who has taken the stand so far has tried to avoid any connection to those fraudulent valuations. eric trump said under oath, i never had anything to do with the statements of financial condition, but when he was shown emails showing that he was consulted about such valuations, he admitted, it appears that way. donald trump jr. finished his testimony today before his younger brother eric took the witness stand. their father did not bother to come to the courtroom in their support today. instead, the posted this. so sad to see my sons been persecuted by a trump hating judge. joining our discussion now, adam klasfeld, a senior correspondent for the messenger, and was in the courtroom as he is every day. tim o'brien is with us, senior executive editor for bloomberg opinion, and author of trump nation, the art of being donald. he is host of the bloomberg podcast crash course, and an msnbc analyst. andrew weizmann is still with us. adam, you are in the room today. it seems like eric trump found himself in contradiction with eric trump. >> in email after email after email, lawrence. we have to put a fine point on this. this is emails between eric trump and jeff mcconney, who was the former controller of the trump organization, top official, and in the email after email after email, we see jeff mcconney reaching out to eric trump and saying that he's working on his dad's financial statements. and asking for help finding some specific information for these financial statements. and eric trump started off the day with a pretty strong disavowal of having anything to do with these financial statements. and the a. g.'s counsel systematically confronted him with these emails to undermine that. and one more comment on one of the things that you set opening up this segment, how he's in construction. there's also a video of him at a deposition before trial with that same theme said, and i think this is a direct quote, i pour concrete. he wasn't pain attention to the appraisals. so this was a day where he was confronted with all of that, and he's back on the stand tomorrow. >> tim o'brien, what are the chances of i pour concrete been found to be perjury? >> [laughter] well, i don't know if it's perjury, lawrence, but it's so absurd. eric trump does not have calluses on his hands. eric trump has never labored in the hot sun on a highway making sure it's smooth. you know, the driveway going to bedminster, or wherever else he's talking about. and it's sort of highlights the fact that in a family full of people who dissemble and are profoundly unsophisticated and ignorant, eric trump is unusually ignorant and unusually unsophisticated. they have so