tonight on ayman, taking a stand at last. donald trump is about to become the first former president to testify publicly under of. how this will test our legal and judicial systems alike. that wake up call. senate republicans are finally condemning monthslong tommy tuberville's blockade of military promotions. what took them salon? and all eyes on ohio. reproductive rights are on the line this tuesday with a constitutional amendment to protect abortion access on the ballot. i'm ayman mohyeldin. let's get started. >> tomorrow, donald trump will become the first former president in american history to publicly testify under oath, taking the witness stand in his own defense in his new york civil fraud trial. it will undoubtedly prove to b a surreal test, ye for the u.s. justice system, with judge engoron and the prosecutors who are actually working this case. but it will actually be one for trump himself, a man whose bombastic nature, shall we say, a penchant for half truths will be restrained before perhaps like neverefore. as lauren camera writesor u.s. news and world report, the case threatens to expose the g republican nominee and ovide a record setting course correct, likely an embarrassing one, to the image and identity he cultivated for himself over several decades. donald trump is on the stand. he won't be tough london, that's for sure. the pugnacious standard bearer of the republican party for a small sliver of time, donald trump will be nothing more than a disgraced real estate magnate accused of inflating the value of his assets by billions of dollars in order to obtain more favorable bank loans. he will be a man whose blustered lies have finally have repercussions, but it seems that reality has not yet dawned on the ex president. promise commenting on the impending court proceedings, a trump ally told nbc news this evening, quote the trump campaign is ready to take advantage of all of it. the media attention, to fund raising, further galvanizing the republican base against joe biden and the democrats. and when asked what trump's mood is heading in tomorrow, the trump ally defined it has quote, defiant, saying he wants his moment to push back against the false narrative against him. kudos i suppose to putting on a brave face for almost surely be a perilous day in court for trump. but something about his defiance doesn't quite ring true this hour. after all, his family members were fighting tooth and nail to stay off the witness stand and just on thursday, ivanka trump lost an appeal to delay her testimony which is now scheduled for wednesday of this week. so, make no mistake about it. despite their bravado, and despite their swagger, the trump family recognizes that they are woefully unprepared for this test. perhaps nothing illustrates that more than a fact breaking just a short time ago, donald trump once again viciously attacked the attorney general letitia james calling her a corrupt and racists, and once again viciously attacking judge engoron calling him highly partisan and out of control. once again, he attacked the whole trial, calling it a witch hunt. joining me now are glenn kirschner, an msnbc legal analyst and former federal prosecutor and tim miller, msnbc political analyst, writer at large for the bulwark and former communications director for jeb bush in 2016. gentlemen, it's great to have both you with us. glenn, i will start with, eunice new reaction from donald trump on the eve of his testimony, going on social and media launching a tirade against both laetitia james, the attorney general and the judge presiding over his case. >> i think what would have been shocked ayman is if he hadn't have done that. this is what we have come to expect from donald trump, and i don't think it's a sign of strength, i think it's a sign of weakness right. i think we can comfortably predict that tomorrow what we will get from donald trump when he hits the witness stand's bluff and bluster and bombast and bs if i can continue the alliteration. you know that may play well to his base, to his supporters, to folks who don't seem to be all that interested in facts and accuracy and consistency in truth, but you know who the trump shot will not play well to tomorrow? it's judge engoron. if donald trump is foolish enough to think that judge engoron is so gullible that he is going to buy into anything here is comes out of donald trump's month mouth tomorrow, i think he sorely mistaken. i do wish cameras were in the courtroom, some say that would give trump what he wants, i say let the american people let him see play the fool on the witness stand. and expose him as far and wide as we can. unfortunately, georgia right now as the only jurisdiction involved in pursuing trump that allows cameras in the courtroom. but tomorrow will be a bit of a circus. i do think the more perilous testimony will come later in the week from ivanka trump. >> take me gland, into the prosecutors shoes for a moment. what does he need to say? what can he expect from donald trump in terms of answering to his possible questions? but if you were the prosecutor, what is the moment that you are trying to get in the questioning tomorrow? >> what you want to do is set him up for failure. and laetitia james attorneys, her team, they know how to do this. what you do as you ask the witnesses question that you already know the answer to and you can prove it up with some hard evidence, like a document with donald trump's signature. now the challenge they will have is donald trump doesn't have lots and lots of emails and text messages and written communications because he operates largely as a mob boss, and he knows the value of making sure his fingerprints more precisely his signature is not on much paper. but there is some. there are some documents that he will have signed. so first you ask him the question that you already have the answer to in your hand, but he may not either know it or he may be willing to lie about it -- . after he tells the law, you give him the opportunity to lie, then you hit him with the hard evidence, with the document with his signature. that's also a way to build towards a perjury charge. perjury charges are tough to bring and i don't know that the authorities in new york will opt to bring what even if donald trump does lie a material matter. but there are ways to walk people into a perjury charge, and it's not a trap, because you can escape the perjury trap by telling the truth. >> tim, this trump ally that told nbc news that trump's campaign is ready to capitalize on the court proceedings tomorrow. i guess showing he doesn't really know how severe a moment this is for donald trump. do you think they have a point? we know these trials have not been damaging when it comes to his base or the polling and certainly not among republican voters? >> i had to be put in the position of saying they have a point eamonn, but i think they have a point at least regards to the primary. ah lot of questions that were on president territory, a front runner for one of the two major parties who has been indicted, this former president, all of the stuff we have never experienced and in this. there are active court dates happening during the campaign so a lot of unknowns if you will about how that was going to impact this primary and this election. i think we've learned at this point that trump has been able to leverage the court dates for attention and to drown out the rest of the primary field. he's winning overwhelmingly in the primaries. ron desantis is getting the endorsement of the iowa governor tomorrow. i don't think any fair observer is going to think that is going to outshine whatever nonsense donald trump spouts out tomorrow during his court day. of course people will cover that more because it's unprecedented, it's more news-y and he's winning in the polls and when it seems the republican voters don't care about that. i think you will win in the primaries. what was more interesting to me, was that primaries over and we've moved over the general election, which seems almost inevitable at this point the trump will be the nominee, he's got a whole raft of court dates next year, and i do think that this will become a political liability if they try to use the same playbook next, april, may, june, i think it will be political ramifications to that. >> for the record, i totally agree with you that i think this is a done deal for trump. let's assume that there is some kind of hail mary that ron desantis, nikki haley or some republican can pull off here. what do they need to do, how do they message after tomorrow when they go on that stage for the third republican debate? what could they possibly be saying right now? >> sure. i will just say that everything i'm about to say that they should be saying they should be saying for years now, i think it really hurts the fact their credibility but they haven't been saying it. that said, clean slate, debate this week, he's gonna be testifying in trial. it's gonna be made to say your honor and be made to seem you're smaller than he likes to present himself as you said in the league on a man. i think there's opportunity there. the big opportunities what they should've been saying all the time, disguise a fraud and he's a loser, he is a fake. this was true in the election that he lost to joe biden, that he pretended that he won, it was true in his business career where he lied about how much money had. it was true when he screwed up with regular people at trump university, and the other times that he's had to go through court. that case is never been prosecuted against him for republican voters with any consistency or meaningful way. i suspect is probably too late for that, but if these guys are gonna stay in this race, no better to start making that case and. now >> let's start talking about ivanka trump right now. why has she fought so hard to delay her testimony? she is no longer a codefendant in the case. she was ruled to not have been sufficiently connected with the trump organization at some point, that -- why does she seem so scared? >> i think because she has potentially damaging testimony against her brothers and her father and she's doing everything she can to not have to give that testimony. it's very important to add a point. i think that to inform the fact that ivanka may have some perilous testimony for her family members. want, she has distanced herself from her father ever since he left the presidency. you don't see her legacy with her brothers, with these unhinged ransom rabies. she's kind of gone radio silent. she certainly distance herself from her father. second, as you say, she's been fighting mightily, trying everything from filing legal challenges to a subpoena. there were none, ticked claim claiming she has childcare issues. i bet she can afford a nanny for the day. that's the second point. the next point is that when she testified before the january 6th committee ayman she may not have wanted to throw her father under the bus but we all saw her do it when they revealed some of that public testimony where she said, i credit bill barr that there was no widespread fraud undermining the elections results. i do not credit my father. maybe she is prepared to present similarly incriminating and damning evidence on the business front and that's why she is trying so hard to avoid having to testify. >> we'll see what happens on wednesday when she does take the stand as a scheduled. glenn kirschner, thank you my friend, tim please stick around. in a moment i want to talk to you and discuss why it took some republicans so long to denounce tommy tuberville's blockade of military promotions. first my friend richard louis is here with the headlines. >> and good to see you. other stories we're watching this hour. russian officials reported successful on on intercontinental missile. it's launch to launch nuclear warheads from a summary. a week ago, vladimir putin land -- tyson foods is recalling nearly 30,000 pounds of donetsk sword shaped chicken nuggets. consumers reported finding a small piece of metal in the products, one oral injury was reported. and of course record was set to win the new york city marathon race. he broke the record books for the women's wheelchair race in her debut, and marcell hub won a record six-time the men's world chair race. congratulations. all more ayman with ayman mohyeldin more after this break. fter thi break. - ♪ unnecessary action hero! unnecessary. ♪ - was that necessary? 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great in my book! who are you? no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. >> senate republicans finally home of the xfinity 10g network. had enough of tommy tuberville 's -- which is exactly what he is doing. after months of pent-up anger over the alabama senators continued hole on military promotions. finally republicans like -- have unleashed on the senate floor, watch. >> we have done the best that we can to honor the request of a fellow senator. i do not respect man who do not honor their word. >> no matter who you believe are not, senator tupper veils doing great damage to our military, i don't say it lightly. >> we're learning from the fact that they would be stunned. and what a national security suicide mission this became. >> cover those showing no plans to stop his blockade which is over the pentagon's abortion policy had to fight th dangerous impact it's been having. this past week, eric adam smith, marine corps top officer was hospitalized for what's believed to have been a heart attack. senate arm sir -- may have contributed to smith's health saying quote, he was doing two jobs at once working from 5 am to 11 pm. here is how tuberville who's never stilled in the military reacted to that. >> come on, give me a break. this guy's gonna work 18, 20 hours a day no matter what, that's what we do. >> let's bring back tim miller into the conversation, joining me is paul reichardt, founder of veterans of america and host of the podcast. great to see you, you heard them they're calling it a suicide mission, you hear a man who's never served just recklessly and callously saying 18 hours a day should be part of the course for this marine corps. as a veteran yourself, what do you feel, what do you think when you hear these comments? >> extremism in the middle east, i think we overlook the extremism in our senate. tommy tucker vela embodies the most extreme elements of our senate. i call him radical, reckless, racist, nationalism into the military, he represents the most extreme, most damaging, most backward element of the senate. this is gone on for too long, i'm surprised it took this long for anyone, he's doing it and it's a step forward, it's been nine months of damage, he's undermining the military, he's weakening morale, he's helping our adam's -- putin love seeing this. it's long past time they hold him accountable he's an embarrassment not just to alabama, the senate, but the entire country. >> why does he think he has a mandate to take this position, this is where america, it's hard to imagine where alabama is, you knew alabama better than i do, if i went to alabama and set to them, you're undermining our national security, you're undermining our military because the senator is trying to score political points for political clout, they would not agree with. them >> no, i want to basic training and alabama and people in alabama they get a bad rap, he's giving them a bad rap, the support national security and care about our officers. we have over 300 officers being how because this guy's radical agenda. it's important to frame it that way. it's very radical, it hasn't happened in the senate, he'smapm up the works. i've been dissipated and schumer and mcconnell, this is absolutely endangering our security. if our rules in the senate can't move, change them, our military has to change, our allies have to change, our senate has the chains. -- when you start to listen to him and hear the way he talks about things, it sounds like he wants to drag our country back to the 1800s instead of recognizing that were a modern, divers, dynamic military in 2023. >> let me pick up on that point, tom, that they -- schumer, mitch mcconnell have not taken tommy tuberville hat on. what i would call a small mini revolt with some of these senators, do you think more will fall and why are they so late to actually stand up and do the right thing here? >> well, i'm surprised mcconnell in particular has not been fighting on this given the fact that he has actually fought, on the maga wing on ukraine fighting, he shown an ounce of spying recently which is something he hadn't been doing during the trump presidency. but again, there is concern here or if you're a senate institutionalist like mcconnell that if they run over tuberville that in the future senators have the opportunity on legitimate issues to exercise their power. to me, it seems like very insider v jargon in the face of a serious hold on so many people, it's not like one issuer bill that goes across our military, it's not just the marines it's the whole up and down, and those hold on ambassadors, we don't have ambassadors an 18 middle east countries. why are these republican so dame, i don't know, those speeches they just gave gave a gift to the democrats in the senate campaigns coming up next year, they can play those videos talk about how republicans are reckless to security, it's one reason. the other reason, it's a play politically in the whole state, among the republican base voters who show up in primaries this whole rhetoric, i listen to paul talk about the diverse military, the push back against that from the maga right, said the military wet rock, deep state is out to get trump, that has landed with republican voters and i think republican voters will view the military has changed over the last couple of years. it created an opening which there's