a very good day to all of you from msnbc world quarters here in new york. welcome everyone to alex witt reports. we begin with some breaking news. a dramatic turn in a texas abortion case. the state supreme court now stepping into pause a lower court ruling effectively preventing kate cox from having an abortion. her baby is unlikely to survive the pregnancy. i'm gonna be talking to a legal expert in just minutes about what this all means. also this hour, president biden is on the west coast. he and the first lady will be in california for fundraising events tonight. before that he stopped in las vegas to highlight a major infrastructure success. >> we are building the first high speed rail project in our nation's history. part of a 2.8 billion dollar investment. ten major rail projects across america. reaching tens of millions of people. >> also new today, outgoing congressman kevin mccarthy is now endorsing donald trump for president, saying he is open to serving in trump's cabinet. >> i will support the president, i will support president trump. >> would you billing to serve the trump cabinet? >> in the right position. look, if i'm the best person for the job, yes. i worked with president trump on a lot of policies. we worked together to win the majority. we also have a relationship where we are very honest with one another. >> meanwhile, a late ruling from the federal appeals court that upholds but narrows the gag order in trump's d.c. election interference case. and a trump pack paid about $900,000 for expert witness testimony in new york civil fraud trial. trump will be taking the witness stand there on monday. we will begin this hour with that big trump trial news. joining us in the studio former federal prosecutor kristy greenberg, hugo lowell federal prosecutor lawyer for the guardian. you go, let me start with you here. what do we know about this expert witness in this particular case? $900, 000, nearly, paid? what is he testifying about, and why was it worth that much? >> he is billing at an extremely high rates -- >> i guess! >> trump testimony is definitely build higher than deposition tone, yet it is an extraordinary number. although trump did get what he wanted. this professor got on the stand said, well, the financial statements war materially misstated. there were some errors, that was just an inadvertent error. i think trump got the testimony that he, effectively, paid for. >> okay. i think about 650 hours he claimed that he spent on this, mr. barr toffee. said it was equivalent to, what? three months of a 50 hour work week the whole thing is quite an storden airy. is it common practice for a defense witness to be paid this handsomely? maybe they charge more, to hugo's point, but this much? >> it is interesting. he says he spent 650 hours on this. you wonder what he is actually looking at over that time. to be fair, in comparison, the prosecution witness was paid about four and 50,000. he has been paid more than double. clearly, like hugo said, he is getting what he paid for. he is someone who's going to come out and say, there is no fraud. something like the size of the apartment, it is ridiculous. triple the size. well, that is an inadvertent error? >> here is the other thing to think about, that much money! is it going to undermine its credibility at all? you were paid and, dot, dot, dot. >> 100%. this is a bench trial. you have a judge here, not a jury. the judge is smart. he understands what was happening here. he was paid a handsome sum and he said what trump wanted him to say. pointing to 70 different examples with, well, there is no such thing as and objective valuation. this is our, not science. no, it is matt! you realize profits on seven homes, zero were built. tripling the size of an apartment. looking at mar-a-lago they are valuing it as selling a private residence when really the d says it is only a social club. these are objective facts, that is fraud. that is not an inadvertent mistake. they got an expert, they paid him a lot to be a to say something that i think quite a lot of experts would not have been prepared to say. >> what are you expecting monday when donald trump takes the stand? what was he say? how combative might this get? >> who knows? last crime trump was on the stand, we had a trump infomercial. he was talking about his properties. how he may or may not have built one property. he said that is why we bacon on realize value. but this is not how accounting works. it'll be interesting to see whether he incriminates himself, or his businesses, further with speech this argument, frankly. or whether he will say more problematic things. it is only the bit of a lottery with trump. >> he also has cross-examination. what do you expect in that? how testy might that get? when you think about it, what would you want to ask him? >> oh, that is a great question! i think much of his testimony, he is now a defense witness. i do not expect when his own attorneys are questioning him to be as combative. i think it is going to be a lot of the salesmanship and a lot of reiterating the things that this expert was saying. trump was in the room for that expert because he wanted media coverage about that expert was saying. you're gonna say, just like you heard my experts say, there was no fraud here. just like you heard my experts say. we will go through a lot of that. i think there will be some cross but, again, they have already questioned him. whether or not they were really go through a detailed crosser or whether or not they will cut their losses and say, the judge gets it, it is clear he is with us. the judge is getting a lot of latitude with these experts talking about things that are well beyond the scope of what their expert he threw the is. he doesn't want to be overturned an appeal. the judge has said that. if you think it from a legal perspective they don't need to really do that much on cross. we will see what they do. >> let me get to the bombshell report that you just released. i want to make sure i get all the details right. you are revealing that georgia prosecuted predicting jail sentences for these defendants in the trump 2020 election case. that you had access to.e emai written two defense lawyers last month. fulton county d.a., fani willis, said long after these folks are in jail we will still be practicing law. how do defense attorneys react to this? >> i don't think they were particularly pleased. i thought they were presumptuous. a month from a potential date, the d.a.'s office seems to believe that they will win and there will be jail terms. it's not even clear that there will be jail terms in this case. not least because of georgia's first-time offender law. we have seen people who have pleaded guilty and plea deals already. i think they are also upset because seeing through the lens of plead ill. they have seen multiple people be offered, or be in negotiations for plea deals. when they see talk about potential jail sentences or the implication of jail i think the defense lawyer saw that as pressure, inappropriate pressure on them -- >> i just want to double check. there has been no talk of plea deals for donald trump, mark meadows, and others, correct? some of the top echelon? >> someone reported the three main targets in this investigation, at least for now, it would be trump, meadow, and giuliani. they are drawn the line. there these three are at the top of the conspiracy pyramid. not people we are willing to entertain. for everyone else we understand that there have been discussions. >> that brings me to you. do you think that this was put out there? this could be interpreted as we are looking for plea deals other than those top three that he'd go just went through. is that something you think they are saying? look, this is what is gonna happen to you now. you might as well try to work with us. >> it is an odd way to do it if that is what they are trying to do. put something like that in writing to a normal email discourse with a defense council with discovery according to hugo's great reporting there the speech was whether or not a complete transcript from what rudy giuliani was produced. it was unclear necessarily how we got from routine discovery, we will be producing at the next time, two people are going to jail. we will still be practicing law. >> if not intentional, could be interpreted that way? >> certainly she has been very tough. d.a. willis has been very tough. any suggestion there is about how to do her job, any questioning of how she's doing her job. we have seen that when she has fielding congressional requests. she responds -- she is not going to pull her punches. she is very tough in response. i don't know how much of a tactic it is. what the evidence is the evidence. she can talk all she wants. they will have the discovery. they will consider their defenses. they see how strong a case they really have. trump and the top guys are going to trial no matter what. >> could they go to jail based on what you read in that? do you think that is a goal? those top three, i'm talking about. >> they certainly could. the charges are incredibly serious for those top three. these are r.i.c.o. charges. they carry significant jail time. again, i think when you are in the day today as a prosecutor going through routine discovery disputes, you can have defeats with defense counsel all the time. not sure why we are talking about jail time in the course of those discussions. again, i have not seen those emails but it would not be a routine thing, necessarily, for a prosecutor. >> excellent reporting as always, hugo. great analysis as well, kristie. you were gonna stick around. i have a little bit more to ask you about. particularly the situation with this woman in texas. we'll be talking with that in the moment. for all of you later this hour we will talk about trump to point out and what might already be in the works. former trump white house deputy press secretary, sarah matthews, gives us her take on that and something specific liz cheney said this week. this breaking overnight, a major development in that closely watched abortion case in texas. state supreme court laid -- blocking a pregnant women from getting the procedure. doctors say the baby has a fatal condition. the mother's health is at risk. >> we are going through the loss of a child. there is no outcome here where i take home my healthy baby girl, you know? it is hard. >> and heartbreaking, obviously. let's go to nbc's julia tsirkin following the story for us. juliet, welcome. we heard yesterday that this woman was granted permission to get the abortion. what happened overnight? >> granted permission by a lower court. the judge siding with cox and her lawyers who made the case that she qualifies for texas is-limited exceptions when it comes to life of the mother. cox says that her mother told her that she could experience life-threatening complications. complications that could lead to the mother of several children unable to have more children in the future. something she told our colleague, laura jarred, something she desperately wants. the supreme court overnight blocked a lower court decision. that was a state supreme court. after the state attorney general, ken paxton, filed a petition. he said that cox has not proven that any of her complications are a result of this fetal abnormality in her baby, the 20-week-old pregnancy. she's carrying the child the doctors have said will likely die just within a few days. here is more of what cake cox had to say about this. watch. >> i think forcing me to continue the pregnancy, the pain and suffering, the risks of continuing the pregnancy the risk of childbirth again especially given how my last to when i think it is cruel. >> you can see the emotion in her voice just how painful this is. the next steps here are the supreme court and the state of texas are going to hear arguments. they are going to hear other considerations in this case. the pathway for to cox get this abortion that she needs, that her doctor says she needs, is not over but it will be challenging. of course, every day that goes by cox faces more and more complications. she says she has already been to the emergency room four times in the last couple of weeks. she suffers from amniotic fluid leaking which, of course, is a very dangerous condition. the clock is ticking for this woman who running out of time. >> absolutely. thank you, julie. we will bring back former federal prosecutor kristy greenberg to get more insight on this. -- >> we need more medical proof about this pregnancy and that it could be harmful to a baby. no mention, by the way, of her potentially being left infertile for the rest of her life. that doesn't matter to him at all. the question is, are we looking for more proof of what? i mean, this is in the legal round. the doctors have already said this. >> the standard for texas, they are looking for is their immediate and irreparable injury to the mother. the state of texas's position at this stage was forcing a woman to carry to term a pregnancy where you know that baby is going to die, that is not an irreparable injury to her. knowing that, again, there is not an irreparable and injury to the woman when you tell her, this will cause her to never be able to have children again? it is -- >> it is unbearable! >> it is beyond cruel. it is dangerous, dangerous, rhetoric for the state of texas to be involved in what our personal decisions between her, her family, her doctor. how dare they! >> trina pointed out, she is 20 weeks pregnant. she does not have a lot of time before that could pose not only serious complications for her medically but, obviously, the emotional disruption to her life. we saw part of that they're in evidence. how long is going to take to get settled? >> it is already being appealed now. we will see how long it takes to go through the court system. this is the kind of case, it is such an extreme example. this would've been an example where they could've said, okay. yes. we have these very strict bands but we are prepared to be reasonable when the circumstances require it. the state of texas wasn't even willing to do that. this is something that could go to the supreme court. but the question is, how long will that take? if they don't want to answer this particular question, by that point it will be moot because she will have already had the child. one will hope that the justice system will not delay in circumstances like this. i have no confidence of that. >> here is the thing, texas does allow certain exceptions, right? >> right! >> i'm curious if this will, long term, how to define those exceptions better. it seems very, very, vague what qualifies as an exception. >> risk to the mother's life. this seems like it should certainly qualify in that exception. there's also an exception for fatal, fetal,. i'm not sure why that wouldn't be the case here. what more do you need? in every case like this, is they're going to need to be a hearing? a doctor or someone else comes in and explains what the medical need is. is that where we are headed here? the threat from ken paxton, any hospital that performs its procedure -- >> that's right. which doctor is going to want to take this on? >> they can not only be sued by the state of texas by any private assistance and in texas. it is vigilante justice at this point if the woman who's suffering. >> this is something we're gonna talk about with you, i'm sure, again. we will also talk about this with wendy davis in our next hour. looking forward to that. thank you in the meantime. coming up for all of you up next in the big what if. it is the topic of the latest issue of the atlantic. i have a supersmart guest joining me to talk about this piece. trump voters are america, too. we'll be back in 60 seconds. in 60 seconds. 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