nicolle wallace. with the stroke of a pen and just a handful of words, a former president of the united states once again under a gag order, intended to curb the damaging effects of his rhetoric. the court of appeals in new york has attempted to remove that gag order in the $250 million civil fraud trial gwens him, his family and his business, the trump organization. the according to rejecting the argument put forward by his attorneys that the gag order was unconstitutional. that means donald trump and his attorneys ared prohibited from making public statements about the staff of judge arthur engoron. the decision by the appeals court had come in while court wasession. the judge let trump attorneys know the gag order was back in effect and said, o quote, i intd to enforce the gag orders rigorously and vigorously, and i want to make sure the counsel informs their client the fact that the stay was vacated. according to abc news, chris kise replied. we're aware. it's a tragic day for the rule of law, but we're aware.e to what george engoron said, quote, it is what it is.t donald trump taking full advantage of this day on the gag order, repeatedly attacking judge engoron's aide. it was incredible detail just last week. new york court officials detailed a tsunami of threats againstsuhe clerk. nbc news reports that officials found that, quote, the clerk's rsal information, including her personal cell phone number and pernal email addresses have been compromised resulting in daily doxing. she has been subjected to on a daily basis, harsing and disparaging comments and antisemitic tropics. reportedly she receives 20 phone calls and 30 to 50 messages a day on socia media. half of the threats she received in the days after the gag order was temporarily lifted were antisemitic in ednature. officials added that the threats were, quote, serious and credible and t not hypotheticalr speculative. and that is where we start today with "new york times" investigative reporter susanne craig and co-host of the msnbc podcast how to win 2024. and claire mccaskill. and lisa rubin and democratic strategist and director of the public policy program atir hunt college, baswell schmeichel. is the gag order over, legally speaking? >> i think so. i want toea explain to our views how the gag order took effect to begin with. the stay was imposed because trump essentially appealed it. but he didn't appeal it in a traditional dway.tr he filed a lawsuit against judge engoron. he asked for a stay while that lawsuit was pending. that's what was denied today. the lawsuit is technically stilt pending, but there is no way for it to be resolved before this trial is over. so practically speaking, this gag order cannot be lifted, will not be lifted until the expiration of this trial, and even closing arguments in january.on o unless trump tries some sort of wild legal maneuver that i can't anticipate right now.an but the expectation is for the rest of the trial, trump and his attorneys cannot make public statements. now the two gag orders are a little bit different. the lawyers can still talk about corporate, but what can't talk about isn the confidential communications between the judge and his law clerk. trump cannot talk about courtroom personnel at all.m it will be interesting to see if the attorneys take advantage of that minor difference. >> what would that look like? >> it could complain, for example, about her partisan political aactivities, as they have in open ticourt.y that has nothing to do with her sitting next to judge engoron on the stand exchanging notes with him, whispering to him. those are the confidential communications he has forbidden them from talking about in court or outside of court. but there is a whole lot of other stuff they say exemplifies her bias that still technically speaking is fair game. and it will be interesting to see chris kise, cliff robert and the rest, if they exploit that i distinction. >> so trump team, they tried to argue that this gag order was r unconstitutional. remind us of what their legal argument was and why it failed. >> their legal argument -- >> oh, i'm so sorry. >> i want you too. sue, you start. >> i think we should let lisa go. not a lawyer, but lisa can chime in on this, but a large piece of it was a first amendment issue.a they're saying that it impinged on his first amendment rights. and i think it's important to remember that the first amendment iso not an absolute right. there are limits on a it. andts especially in this case. he is a defendant in a civil proceeding, and i think what er limited. donald trump is still free to gt on and say how much he hates the judge. he is still free to go on and talks about he hates the attorney general. he can do all of that. it's a very limited gag order just placed on making comments about his clerk. >> talk to me about the limitations of the gag order. what do you fear most given the limitations of the gag order? >> the gag order is just about the courtroom personnel, right. and so what i fear is that donald trump will pivot, as he already has, to talk about people who aren't covered by the gag order. and that includes everyone from letitia james, who has experienced anas onslaught of horrifically racist threats and demeaningth comments about her,o judge engoron's own wife, who has beenow accused, the court system, and she says falsely of posting a number of political content on twitter. she says she doesn't have a twitter account, but laura miller has accused her of making a bunch of really partisan posts about trumpis himself. trump has amplified those by th reposting them on truth social and calling the judge's wife a trump hater who is essentially the lady macbeth of the situation, whispering into one ear as the law clerk whispers in the other. >> here is the thing. trump wants it both ways, right? there is a value to him in being able to sell a narrative to his supporters that his first amendmentpp rights, and he will argue to them, incorrectly, their first amendment right as well is being violated. >> so there are two tracks here, right. one is the narrative he wants to spin. and you're absolutely right.ntan that narrative is assistant, that he is the aggrieved, that his first amendmented rights ar being taken away from him. f this big government and this big judicial system oddly enough. there are a lot of other folks that talk about the unfairness of the judicial system. but he is using it for himself to say that everybody is coming after me. he needs that. because it is something i've talked about on this show o before, that call and response. why is that so important? because whether it's coming from donald trump himself or his acolytes or his lawyers, that action of calling attention to an individual and saying that this person has somehow offended me or aggrieved me elicits a significant and hopefully not but potentially violent ll response. >> yeah. >> and that -- that should makea us all quite afraid, because there are folks out there that whether it's coming from him on the mountaintop, so to speak, yelling with a bullhorn, or it'h coming from any of his, like i said, acolytes, there is -- it's intended to bring a response.o so i'm glad that the gag order is in place. my worry is that he doesn't need to be the person saying it.in >> claire, we've seen the number of threats, the clerks, the judge, they received. it'sdg staggering. the nature is staggering. the fact that law enforcement is saying these are credible threats. do you think a gag order is enough here to make it stop? >> well, i have a feeling this judge is going to enforce it vigorously like he said. now the question is what can he do beyond fining him. and at what point does the fine actually make a difference to donald trump. i think it's important to remember too,th alicia, why doe he need to go after the clerk? >> yeah. >> therecl is absolutely no evidence that this clerk has done anything but her job. it is her job to communicate with the judge. it is her job to sit in the courtroom so that he can check with her about issues as the cases is ongoing. there is nothing she has done that warrants these kind of attacks. and now without any basis, they're going afterou the judge wife. who does this? and why? i wish his supporters would think a minute.d he can say all he wants too about the state of new york going after him.k he can even go after the judge. nobody is saying he can't be critical of the people who are bringing this case or deciding this case. but what kind of guy goes after a wife and a court employee without any basis? it is so damning to his character. >> i want to just piggyback on claire's point, he goes after these folks because he doesn't think they're going to push back. he doesn't think they're going fight back. >> well, he believes they have no resource. >> oh, they have recourse. i want to elevate, you raised her name, and others have, tish james. because the attacks that have come on herat and her office in actuallyd carrying out officia business is staggering.ge tish is an elected official. so there is some of that she is going to take and accept as a public person. but when you talks about the judge's wife and the clerk, these are not people who have said i want to be the public face of x. they're not intended to be. they didn't intend to be publicn individuals. so the factte that trump and hi supporters are going after people who are not necessarily in the public eye, they are just public servants trying to do a good job is what's so threatening to so many people that want to be engaged in the system, but are concerned about all of what comes with trying to take on donald trump. >> you've told me as you sat in the courtroom and watched this, you have a sense of where this comes from. >> yeah, i have a sense of doom when ia watch this. there are people who -- you and i havele talked about this privately. there are peopleis who comment myho twitter thread about this trial with popcorn emojis, for example, and i don't find it the least bit entertaining. i find this trial bad, a sad commentary where we a are in americary and who we choose to elect as our leaders given this person's history. but i also find it alarming and scary toin watch these lawyers interact with the same law clerk that they have accused needlessly and baselessly of a partisan bias that is not necessary.no yes, yes, the principle law clerk has made political contributions. but she is also a person who has been a candidate for statewide office. she has tried to run for judge several times. there is no j showing that in doing erso, she has run afoul o state ethics rules, much less any law. and so the danger to her, the danger even to the attorney general, the prosecutors, who are career servants who come in and out every day with armed guards, there are so many people in that courtroomar that you mit think are secret service, but actually, they are protecting a variety of constituencies. andy the people that i'm worryg most about are people like the principle law clerk and the wifa who don't have any security apparatus or governmental entita protecting them here. >> to say nothing of the institution itself, which is really what is under attack.t i do want to ask you, because there were some other developments in this trial. trump is under what is called enhanced monitoring, a court appointedg, monitor found $40 million in cash transfers.h they weren't disclosed, but should have been. why does that matter? >> the monitorship is designed to prevent the trumps from basicallyfr siphoning off asset of the companies that are defendants in this trial and moving them to other places before relief can be awarded. they were supposed to under a prior order make sure that any cash transfers or expenditures above a certain monetary threshold were brought to her attention so she could approve them. that's the whole point of a monitorship. it's basically putting someone on top b of a ceo of a company a ensuring that that person has control of what's going on. but they didn't with respect to about $40 million of transfers, 29 million of which were for tax payments. barbara jones, who is the monitor and a former federal judge says she now has received a kwat explanations for that, but the e fact that they haven' been forthcoming with her even when she has been a receiver for more than a year at this point, or almost a year at this point is alarming. it's a group of people who don't learn and are unabashed in their willingness to violate court orders. the gag order or even one, with respect to their corporate governance. >> sue, i want to stay on this point. what do these transfers say about trump's finances? >> you know, there wasn't a lot of detail given in the filing in the main one that obviously caught my attention, a lot of people's attention was the $29 million payment. it was, you know, said it was for taxes, and we understand it could be income tax. that's a big number for donald trump, for somebody who for most of his life has lost hundreds of millions of dollars and has rarely paid income tax that could have beenme a few things. we've seen in his taxes, "the new york times" obtained his " taxes. we havein a lot of visibility io his taxes and his finances. it could be quarterly payments that he waspa making. he may get them credited back later. and it b also could have been a tax payment tied to the proceeds from the sale of the old post office hotel in washington, which his family sold in 2022. and according to documents that this trial, he got a distribution off that i think off the top of my head around $130 million. so it could be that. it could be other money that he had coming in. but that was kind of the main one that everybody sort of glommed on to. just some speculation. but it could have been.t but the filing didn't really have a lot of detail in it about what exactly that was about. >> so i shared these two pieces, the gag order ruling coming down, this latest part about enhanced monitoring. you were in court. court was in session today. you weren't there. but court was in session today. what happened? >> what happened today?t in terms of just the witness that was up? >> yes. >> there was another witness that came forward, and this is now a defense witness. we're sort of going through all these experts. andth the witness today just fr a read of partial transcript that i was following, he was there to say that the financial statements, the conditions of financial statements that are under question, that donald trump submitted to the banks that are now accused that never should have done and this is the statute that he is accused of violating, the filing of 12 documents, but they were actually fairly accident. he said he has seen a lot of financial statements, and these ones were pretty good. that's sort of where we're at. i think we're going to see a couple more witnesses like that, and eric trump is up next week. and then we got a bit more clarity on the previous trial. donald trump will be up, i think it's december 11th.ec it's a monday. and then after that, we're going have a few rebuttal witnesses. and then we're looking at coming back, i think at some for closing arguments on january 11th.th and then a decision maybe by the end of january. the judge said it could take a few weeks. we're looking at still some time left. but theme actual witnesses and sort of making the case is coming to an end. >> claire, i want to go back to something you said. you were questioning someone who had attacked a judge's wife, a judge's clerk, what that says about their character. i think we're sort of done askingso questions about donald trump's character. nothing about it really surprises us as much as it should horrify us, i think abou, what lisa said about the fact that thereis is a certain sense that the rules do not apply to me. iap am not constrained by the rules of the road. and what is possible, it could be once again revealed in the course of this civil fraud trial, which he is not the business genius he purported tot be. and you step back and you look at it b in a composite. there may be members of his base.hi there may be hard-core fans that will notd- be swayed by any of those dataed points, but i haveo imagine that there are some voters out there, those in whatever is left of the persuadable who say this guyf not whowh he said he was, and ts is not the character of the person i want leading this country. >> yeah. it is complicated. i think that persuadable voters may maybe were wowed in some way by the television persona of donald trump in 2016. and they really hadn't peeled the onion back to expose that he inherited a lot of money. he had never really paid taxes. he refused to pay working people who were actually building for him. he tried to stiff them.th bankruptcy, bankruptcy, bankruptcy, banks that didn't want toba deal with him anymore so i think people now have a more full picture about donald trump in terms of him supposedly being this great businessman. now, like you said, i don't know that does any good for the people orhe's talking to. who he is talking to are the people that he has convinced that he is a victim. not that he is a perpetrator. and he's going a to continue too everything fair or unfair, tackf or untacky, disgusting or not disgusting to continue to convince thosein folks that he'a victim in this play. >> the t bar is set that low. susanne craig, lisa rubin, thank you for starting us off. claire and basil are sticking around. when we come back, with battle lines drawn in the 2024 presidential election, the biden plan of attack. that is go on offense, travel to maga country. secretary pete buttigieg joins us on that topic next. plus, newly unsealed text messages between a u.s. congressman and one of the 2020 coup architects revealing just how involved he really was in trying to overturn the election in controlling the department of justice. january 6th investigators on that. and later in the show, new reporting aboutho some potentiay damaging testimony given to the special counsel in the mar-a-lago classified documents case. all those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after this. do not go anywhere.an"d se? 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