night. ♪ ♪ ♪ good evening once again. i'm stephanie ruhle. great to be back here at 30 rockefeller center. and we're starting this evening's broadcast with special counsel jack smith and his election interference case against donald trump, which is headed to trial, ready for this, in just about three months. now there is new reporting about what trump's former vice president told smith investigator about the days after the 2020 election leading up to the riot at the capitol. abc news reporting that pence gave smith's team several details about how trump, quote, surrounded himself with crank attorneys who espoused on american legal theories and almost pushed the country towards a constitutional crisis. abc says pence told the feds he was sure that days before january 6th, he told trump he still had not seen significant election fraud. but trump was unmoved. abc also reports that at one point pence had even decided to skip the generous six certification vote before his son convinced him not to. the january 6th hearings revealed the pressure placed on pence by trump and others to single-handedly overturn joe biden's 2020 victory. witnesses testified that pressure continued into the morning of january 6th. >> we were told that a call had come in from the president, the vice president stepped out of the room to take that call, and no staff or with him. >> i remember hearing the word wimp, either he called him a wimp. i don't remember you said you are a wimp -- wimp is the word i remember. >> it was a different tone that i heard him take with the vice president before. >> you remember what she said her father called him? >> the p-word. >> wow. this week, trump's legal team is revealing a new legal tactic to fight jack smith in court. the former president's lawyers are now challenging federal agencies findings that there is no widespread fraud in the 2020 election. meanwhile, the guardian reports that prosecutors in the georgia election case have no plans to offer plea deals to trump, former white house chief of staff mark meadows, and former lawyer and new york city mayor rudy giuliani. so far, of the 19 people indicted in this case, four have already pleaded guilty. we have a lot to get to on this legal front so let's get started and smarter with the help of our leadoff panel. katie benner joins us, pulitzer prize winner for the new york times. msnbc legal analysts mary mccord, she's former acting assistant general for national security of the doj. and former new york prosecutor and civil rights attorney charles coleman. katie, i think you look especially sharp tonight, some turning to you first. mike pence, a lot of what he described here, what we are learning, he also described in his book, which is public record. how is what he told these investigators any different? >> you know, it's not necessarily that what he said was incredibly different. investigators, they were talking to him, and they're making sure that when they put him on the witness stand, they knew exactly what he was gonna say and how is going to deliver information. and one of things that he does that is so important is the frames trump's final days in office as exceedingly reckless. he talks about how people were constantly telling him that he needed to accept his loss. and it comports with some of the information we've seen out of the justice department in recent days, including a recent filing where they talked about the way he handled the case. and they look at january 6th not as a one-time event, but as the culmination of trump's ongoing, somewhat reckless, effort to try to cling to power. that that violence was part of a long running effort for him to stay in office. and certainly what pence is telling prosecutors really fits in with that framing. >> charles, what does this mean for jack smith when it goes to trial? >> well, stephanie, at the heart of every case, there is a narrative. and when you are a prosecutor what you are trying to do is use your witnesses as best you can't build a narrative that's going to be favorable to your case. and in this case, what jack smith is going to be doing is relying on the people closest to donald trump to help build that narrative and add color to it, particularly when you talk on donald trump's frame of mind and what it was that he was intent on doing. so i've long since said that both might pence as well as mark meadows are the linchpins to any prosecution around what donald trump was doing. so the testimony that you are talking about with respect to what mike pence told the january 6th committee and what he is likely going to say in trial is very very critical to what the narrative they want to advance around donald trump's frame of mind is, basically knowing and having multiple people tell you you lost this election, take it in stride, and he's still insistent on pressing forward. >> mary, i almost want you to, like, close your eyes and channel your inner doj self, okay? how significant is it that a former vice president came into testify to a special counsel and could be a key witness against a former president who's accused of trying to overturn a presidential election? like, sometimes we, like, glaze over what's happening here. >> i've worked on some pretty significant cases my career, but i never put a vice president in a grand jury or on the witness stand during trial. >> have you ever seen anything like this? >> i haven't. we've had some big scandals, the nixon scandal, others in the past. but this is still very unprecedented. and i think that, you know, in her opening you also talked about the late night motions filed by the trump team last night. this is this effort now to use radiation due process arguments to do kind of scorched earth. government, you have to turn over everything from any agency, annie other office within the government that you ever worked with that could possibly aid, essentially, and i'm adding this, our cockamamie theories of defense, including that, you know, there were, there was foreign interference in our elections that might have actually meant that there was fraud. so that might support my defensive fraud in the elections, right? that mike pence was, you know, under investigation for classified documents at his home, so he might have been biased when he went in and talked to jack smith. he might have been bias to try and help himself. all of these are things that trump is now trying to use, i think, to delay, and also to just throw monkey wrenches into things. there's no question he has a right under the constitution to any information, not even evidence that would be admissible, but any information that could undermine jack smith's case, ten to suggest that, you know, mr. trump is not guilty, or impeach any of mr. trump's -- any of the evidence against mr. trump, including mr. pence. >> what do you think of this tactic, charles? because on one hand, delay is the winning hand for donald trump, or has been his entire career, and or all they need to find is one shred, one grain of sand for conspiracy theory to be built on to say, see, i knew all along, i won the election. >> well, i think that this is the most substantive and creative argument that we've seen his legal team construct, not necessarily trying to demonize mike pence and his credibility, but going after federal agencies, basically to say you are more invested in proving to the american public without concern of the actual results that this was a fair election, that you overlooked or ignored people who reported instances of fraud. that is important, because i talked earlier about the narrative, donald trump's narrative because i went after this because i had a good faith believe that somehow the election had been tainted. this is the first time we've seen any sort of pathway created by his defense team to actually support that. whether that will be successful remains to be seen. but i am actually impressed, because they haven't had much to go. once this new legal theory that we're seeing emerge through the discovery request is an interesting one. >> as far as the integrity and the reputation of the doj, how important is it that one of the key witnesses here could be donald trump's former vp? right, you've got all these folks out there who are saying this is all politically motivated, the fixes in, you know, the doj, you know, it's all right. but mike pence, we are not talking about a liberal elite. this is a true republican here. >> yeah, and i mean, this is somebody who admitted that he even considered in the final days before january 6th not even participating in his constitutional responsibility to preside over the joint session of congress. >> -- was real. >> yes, and he said partly because donald trump was his friend, at least according to the reporting. and he didn't want to hurt his friend. but he knows about the rule of law. he believes in the rule of law, and i do think he believes in the integrity of our institutions, including the department of justice, and wasn't going to, you know, do things that were not lawful. i mean, he put up arguments about not testify if, when those arguments failed, he did what he was a car to do by law, and he testified. >> and katie, he still clearly wants us to believe that at any point in history he believed donald trump was his friend when we all know they were never ever ever friends. but the fact that pence is still trying to thread this needle and somehow stay loyal to trump in some way, could that pose a problem for the government when the trial begins? >> you know, i think that for pence as a witness, what the government is going to want him to talk about is trump's own behavior, whether or not he thought that trump was violating the constitution, and whether or not he thought what donald trump is doing, particularly on january 6th, was wrong. whether not they were friends is probably not going to be an issue. one of the interesting thing about this issue, to your point, is that pretty much all of the witnesses are gonna be republicans. all of them have served and donald trump's administration. all of them are people who once supported him, once defended him, and once worked for him. so this is not going to be a weaving together of donald trump's political opponents taking the stand. it's going to be all of donald trump's former allies taking the stand. >> and it's not even like a liz cheney who's happy to go scorched earth. mike pence, not so much. mary, this judge has all sorts of motions and mountains of other stuff to get through. do you think the march 4th trial date still holds? >> i think that judge chutkan is going to do everything in her power to keep that date. that said, one of the emotions that has been pending now before her for sometime now and has been fully argued is the motion to dismiss the case on the grounds of presidential immunity. and that is a claim that if he loses before judge chutkan, and i predict that he will lose that argument, he does have a right to appeal that. because immunity means you should not even have to go to trial. you don't wait till after the trial and appeal on those grounds. so that could delay things because he would appeal to the d. c. circuit. that would get brief, they'll get argued, i think you decide expeditiously. he loses, there he could take that to the supreme court. so if this briefing takes so long it pushes march 4th, that's where i see the most likely scenario of that date getting pushed. which is why every single day i keep waiting for judge chutkan to rule. >> i'm almost afraid to ask this question, charles. the washington post is reporting that some of trump's closest allies have a new plan to rewrite the narrative of what happened on january 6th, as we head into 2024, even though we all listen to the hearings, are the very least, saw the video. how dangerous is this? >> it's really dangerous. and i think when you combine this effort along with the very consistent and steady campaign from donald trump to try to control the public narrative, it creates a hail storm and a nightmare for what this trial could look like. and what i mean by that is it's been very clear, along with the notion of delay, that one of the tactics donald trump has consistently engage has been trying to poison the jury pool, trying to poison the court of public opinion as much as possible. and as you have already pointed out, all you need is one person on that jury to side with you, and the guy walks. so when you're talking about the notion of further rewriting this narrative and changing people's opinions about how bad that catastrophe, that riot, that insurrection on january 6th actually, was it creates a big problem in terms of maintaining civility at this trial. >> different big problem, different charges down in georgia. so new topic, katie. the georgia case in this report that prosecutors are not looking to give trump, meadows, or giuliani any plea deals, what does that signal about how they're going to plant to try this case? >> you know, i think that it signals a couple of things. one, something that we all inferred, which is that fani willis believes that donald trump is that the very top of this criminal enterprise and she is really looking at these other people shoes charge to turn on him. and she's included rudy giuliani and mark meadows in that bucket is concerning for both of those gentlemen. now, interestingly whether or not other people actually do plead, do plead guilty and give her evidence, is to be seen. we've already seen four people do so. and there is a lot of time before this trump trial is scheduled. >> those four people were very close to donald trump but they were not the biggest names. mary, does it surprise you that fani willis doesn't need testimony from meadows or giuliani to mount her case against trump? >> there's a lot of other evidence out there. i think meadows could be very useful. giuliani, i think is so incredible that he would be last value. i mean certainly, charles and i have both been prosecutors, you do sometimes need to put people on as witnesses who do not have a history of credibility. you explain that to the jury, and you work with them a lot to ensure that the jury can believe them. but giuliani, i mean, lie after lie after lie, he's been disbarred. you know, i'd be much more interested if i were her and mark meadows and what he could offer. but you know, i think she's prepared and trying to flip all these other lower witnesses, that if they have their own firsthand knowledge of things, they will be able to testify about this. >> then who do you think it's a big blow to him not getting offered a plea deal, giuliani or meadows? >> meadows. and i think that's -- >> he's a more legit guy? >> he's a more legit guy. i think giuliani, his feet is kind of sealed in a lot of different ways, based on of the things mary was just do a whole l you can prove and flip what strategy. but when you file an indictment, you have already decided that you have enough on your own to move forward. that is number one. number two, that indictment is littered with a number of different counts. they do not need all of them. fani willis may not necessarily get a conviction on every single count. but there are enough charges and enough evidence to sustain enough counts to get a conviction. so, whether those witnesses cooperate or not, trust and believe, she has enough on the goods on donald trump to get a conviction. >> okay, one more topic before i let you guys go. katie, donald trump in a civil fraud trial here in new york, you've got deutsche bank executives now taking the stand. tomorrow, it's going to be trump's own banker, rosemary vrablic, who has sort of had her fingerprints all over lending to trump over the last ten years. trump's team wants to make the argument that it was normal for banks like deutsche bank to do business with guys, even guys who inflated the net worth. but if the business was so good with trump, why on earth would deutsche bank stop doing business with them? how are they going to argue this? >> you know, it is going to be a shows the necess in rela trump organizationof course, kea civil trial, there is already better ruling that certainly fraud happened and -- fighting about the penalty. but she is going to be an never met he heardkatie you all tonig what hcould another extension b if she is not ready to campaign night. tremely important wis. tram is making this kind of hl mary at is because understthat she is qortant i worked at de bank long time, never heaher, never met her, no on i the organiza had ever hear er untilhis trum mess began we wille watching kanner, mary mccord, charlen, great to se all tonight. en we cok, the temporuce betwisrael and ha set to end. wh happens next. and later, nikki haley ge serious funding ost fromery influentia political group. how much does it matter though if she is not ready to campaig against the one person who matters? we are going to get into tha with david plouffe and tim miller the 11th hour just getting underway on a very busy tuesda night. ♪ ♪ ♪ the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? 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. ♪ ♪ ♪ home of the xfinity 10g network. the sun is about to rise in gaza on a sixth day of truce between israel and hamas. without another extension, wednesday would also be the final day of cease-fire. my colleague richard engel has a closer look at the hostages who released earlier today. >> reporter: the cease-fire tonight is holding. hamas releasing this edited video of another group of hostages freed, this time nearly all of them are elderly. the oldest is 84. they are ten israelis and two thai nationals. no americans. in exchange, israel released 30 palestinian prisoners. but hamas doesn't have all the prisoners in gaza. others are held by other militant groups, and their families worried there being ignored. today in tel aviv, the beaver's family held a rally in support of a couple and their children, all hostages in gaza. they held orange balloons to evoke the children's hair. these are their before videos. >> [laughter] >> reporter: the baby giggling as father gives him kisses. at ten months, he is the youngest of all the hostages. and their toddler, four years old, driving his bulldozer. the baby and toddler have been held for seven weeks in gaza, where freed hostages say their cap in the dark, often in tunnels, with barely enough food and surrounded by masked gunman. since the beavers are not held by hamas, apparently, the israeli military says hamas handed them to another group. they've been passed over, time and again. supporters today released the balloons as a symbol of the liberation they have been denied. the beavers family is beloved in israel. tv crews follow them around, respectfully, hoping they will be on hand if they finally get word that at least the children are coming home. >> so we just wanted to raise our voice and to speak for them and say it cannot be that the cease-fire will and without them being released. it's like a shot in the chest every time their names are not on the list. >> here to discuss, lieutenant general ben hodges, he was commander general for the united states army europe. now he's a senior advisor at human rights first. and ben rhodes is here, former deputy national security adviser for president obama. general hodges, what is your take on where things stand? this truce is set to expire. >> we'll, of course, anytime you see people released, you see the families, grateful for that. but we are dealing with a terrorist organization. hamas is a terrorist organization. there is a reas