Order including alvin bragg and his own family. That ruling came in an order last night following a filing from alvin Braggs Office and in the wake of repeated attacks and ongoing ones by trump on the judges daughter. The kind of stuff so completely nonsensical and baseless and Out Of Bounds that most normal criminal defendants would not contemplate launching attacks like this. But donald trump is no ordinary criminal defendant, is he. Next expresident. With just two weeks to go before he goes on trial. He was intent on turning the proceedings into a circus. To benefit him politically, because he knows that winning the white house may be his only way out of his now many legal trev ails. The judge dismisses the claim that hes exercising his First Amendment right to free speech when he charges the judges daughter, and that is judge talk for a lie. This pattern after tacking Family Members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injected fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings. Not only they but their Family Members are fair game for the defendants vitro ol. A ex president who knows exactly what hes doing and what happens and what can happen when he lashed out at someone. Even someone with no bearing on the case like the daughter of the judge and anyone involved in this case is a threat of violence. As the judge said, all citizens called upon to participate in these proceedings, whether as a juror, a witness, or in some other capacity, must now concern themselves not only with their own personal safety, but with the safety and the potential for personal attacks upon their loved ones. That reality cannot be overstated. All of this means that the time for action is right now. The ordinary conventions around imposing a gag order do not apply once again from judge, courts are understandably concerned about the First Amendment rights of a defendant when they are a public figure. But because of the impact of an indictment on the General Public is so great, that few defendants will be able to overcome it much less turn it to their advantage. The Conventional David Versus goliath is no longer in play. It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings. Threat is very real. Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on selfrestraint. The judge in the new york Hush Money Trial taking no chances with defendant donald trump is where we start today. Contributor and Nyu Law ProfessorMelissa Murray is here, the coauthor of the new book, the trump indictments, the Charging Documents with commentary, it has soared to the top of every bestseller list. Michael steele is here, jump if i have this wrong, you were on the air when this news came down and you dealt with it live. Well hear your thoughts on it now. You have a second to read it because i know what that is like and the former chairman of the rnc and cohost of the week show. And with me director of the Public Policy program at hunter college, basil smikle and the host of the Fast Politics Podcast and Special Correspondent for vanity fair, molly jong. Michael steele, two things. When it happens here, you bring it to us and it takes a minute to sink in. So i want your thoughts on this and i want to widen the lens because it blows my mind to read these words. The judge said that the normal stuff doesnt apply because trump is flo normal defendant. Now hes not and we spent years saying hes not a normal president. Hes the most damaged human being ever encountered and now the most abnormal criminal defendant anyone has ever seen. Well, you know, what is so striking about the opinion, which is relatively short, when you consider all of the other opinions that have been handed down in trump cases, is you realize he reached the same point that so many of us have reached in real life a long time ago. That he is not a ordinary defendant. And oh, guess what, we can no longer treat him as such. Were going to have to bring the weight of the court against this particular defendant because he is prone to misbehave deliberately. And so what was fascinating, just watching all of the light bulbs go on as youre reading this, and thinking to yourself, well, yall didnt see this coming, you didnt know this about this man. How many times did it take for him to actually break the gag orders that were already in place. I mean, you watch the man who got handed down an 83 million judgment against him in the e. Jean carroll case and what did he do literally after that opinion after that decision came down . He went out and went after her again. And what did they do . They dragged his behind back in court and got another 5 million judgment out of him. So the reality of it is, this is what he does. And it is good to see the system, nicolle, finally catch up to this behavior. This is how hes going to act. And so now the question is, in light of what judge had to say last evening, the clock is ticking, when does he break that particular gag order. Well see. Hes going to find a way to do it. And the system ultimately is going to say, you know what, as ive said a long time ago, nicolle, put his behind in jail. Because that will shut him up. And when you said it, you didnt say behind. No, because i dont want to offend. Let me just follow up quickly. I think what youre talking about is a particular judge in a particular criminal case, sort of processing what is before all of our eyes and ears and faces and that is he, of course, has a right to due process. And he exploits the system to a way that puts him in a category where hes receiving a totally different and separate set of advantages. Because he doesnt just take his right to due process, he smears the judge, he harasses the judges daughter, to the point where you talk to any parent in any field and if there is someone with 50 million followers threatening and attacking their daughter in this Political Climate on tv, that is that is already had an impact. A terrifying her and who knows, i wouldnt project on to the judge what he feels about it but it is done what trump intended to do. Which is change the Power Structure and put himself on top. And i wonder, you go back and look at day after mueller testifies, he called zelenskyy and the day after he gets out of his first impeachment, he puts himself he puts in Motion Efforts to claim fraud before anyone has voted. Hes always on to the next grift and scam and i wonder if you think there is time or if you think it is too late . No, i think in some respects it is a little bit too late because the damage has been done. This is the place in the very beginning. I mean, it is not just donald trump as president that was suddenly seeing the evidence of this. You have donald trump as a business man who actually behaved this way. One of the first things Michael Cohen and others told us, that donald trump is going to appeal, appeal, appeal. Hell turn the system in on itself. Hell take something that no other lawyer would say, oh, yeah, lets do that, and his lawyers will do it because what else are they going to do . They want to get the check, which never comes. But they theyll go along with the game plan. So, this is part of his pattern. Not something that oh, he just, you know, made up as a former president , i think im going to behave this way. This is how hes always behaved. And so now you are taking in the totality and you begin to appreciate the full dimensions of the what Donald Trumps universe is like. It is chaos because that is how he wants it. And so now you have that sort of flowing into what is ordinarily or arguably a stabilized judicial system after what weve seen what hes done to stabilize the political system, that is now playing out here. And you and i have had this conversation on your show about how he twists the system into knots. And even the very smart lawyers and prosecutors that we have coming through our network to talk about this still cant reconcile the impact of this. And still cant articulate why hes able to do it so successfully. And that is the biggest flaw right now that ive seen in terms of your question, is it too late . Yeah, it is. Because the damage has been done. The jury pool has already been tainted and the witnesses have already been threatened. What left is there to do . Listen, and Melissa Murray, youre one of the smart people that we turn to. Ill let you respond. But i want to associate myself with the conclusion and i guess my thesis is that it is a failure of imagination. A lot of people have pointed this out, president ial historians that our founders didnt imagine someone who would threaten the peaceful transfer of power within. That wasnt contemplated. Liz cheney has talked directly to the Supreme Court and is sort of willed them not to intervene and indulge his immunity claim. Because it has the effect of denying the public a right to see the facts in the insurrection case adjudicated. I want to show you what a former assistant new York Attorney general adam pollack had to say again on this topic of trump receiving different treatment. Ordinarily, a normal defendant b you would send them to rikers. Very quickly, woe figure out in rikers what the right way to behave before a trial is but President Trump is not every other defendant. It is practically difficult for the staff of rikers to have trump there. I think it is very difficult. On the other hand, he does speak money. He is interested in money andez worried or scared of fines and so there could be a fine that is commensurate with his wealth that could put him into place. Your thoughts . I think that is right. He has received not just due process but maybe the dueest of processes. What kate shaw has said. But hes definitely getting treated differently not in the way he suggested to his followers. It is unlikely that he will be thrown in jail because he is such a high profile defendant and no one wants to be seen as persecuting him and that is how it will be framed by him and his followers if he is thrown in jail for contempt of court. So everyone is treading very carefully and because of that, he could get away with quite a lot. Now the question is, will a fine be something that he will respond to . Given that hes had to put up a fair amount of money,al although he has the case that some kind of hit to the wallet would be something of a deterrent, but again it would have to be quite significant. We saw in the judge engoran case that there was a fine and it doesnt have much of an impact. So if there is a fine, it would have to be very substantial. But i think the time is past for people to start taking this seriously. It is not what donald trump said, it is what his responders and his supporters respond to. And again were only a few years out from the moment where judge salas saw her husband and son shot and her son killed by someone who decided to take things into his own hands with regard to a judge. The same kinds of fears could be happening here. These are not hypothetical at all. These are serious consequences. Yeah. And molly was here yesterday. Talking about that. Because i think as we read too you more of what the judge said. The judge in the receiving end, he and his daughter of trumps attacks today. Defendant and his opposition of april 1st, 2024 desperately attempted to justify and explain away his dangerous rhetoric by turning the tables and blaming those he attacks. The arguments council makes are at best strained and at worse baseless misrepresentations which rely on innuendo and imagination. Put mildly, the sort of allegations presented at facts and cobbled together result in accusations that are not rational. Photographs that were necessary and appropriate in the current environment is farcical. What is interesting to me is that trump does this because it works for him. Right. It has worked for him with the Republican Party. It is worked with him from everyone from Lindsey Graham to tim scott. These politicians have come into line for him. And so that is why he keeps repeating this behavior. Because he knows he has thissee enormous following and this is something that hes done. So i do think, you know, hes getting a different kind of justice that a normal defendant, that is for sure. But he is also, just to quote will hurd, who ran against him in the primary, he is running for president to stay out of jail. Correct. And he actually isnt even hiding the the enchill auda from his base. Im it, if you keep me out of jail. Let me show you one more piece. This is judge reggie walton, again just, it is extraordinary for a judge like judge esther salas, who was here yesterday, like judge luteig who speaks out all of the time to our democracy and our judiciary, but this is a sitting judge talking about why these threats are so dangerous. It is very disconcerting to have someone making comments about a judge and it is particularly problematic when those comments are in the form of a threat. Especially if theyre directed at ones family. I mean, we do those jobs because were committed to the rule of law and we believe in the rule of law and the rule of law could only function effectively when we have judges who are prepared to carry out their duties without the threat of potential physical harm. Now, d. A. Alvin bragg quoted the judge in his filing. There is no constitutional right to target the family of this court. And let alone the blatant falsehoods that have served as the flimsiest of the attacks and the defendant knows what he is doing and everybody else does to and we know what he intends because hes said for decades that it is part of his lifes philosophy to go after his perceived opponents as visually and violently as he can. The suggestion that the defendant is merely engaging in political counter speech is an obvious fiction that this court should reject. This issue is not complicated. Family members must be strictly off limits. I know there is some sort of conventional wisdom among chatters classes that that is not the case. Ive always disagreed about that. It is about cheating an lying and cheating in your election and lying about both lying and cheating and lying about that he doesnt cheat. Literally and figurely. But i think that this is the moment, the treatment of a judge and a judges Adult Daughter is going to tell us everything about the country we live in for the next seven months. It is. And consider the fact that this is a guy who is selling bibles. How christian of him engage in this kind of behavior. It is laughable. But, you know, we talk about his tactics being delay, delay, we need to insert intimidate in there. Because it is central to his strategy. To make sure that people are intimidating, they feel like they have to push back on the heels and they should not engage because that is how you push people away from limb and off of him and get them off his trail. That is central to who he is and what hes trying to do here. So, i go back to michaels point about the system. Because the concern that i have is that the system is going to be pushed to a point where it would break and fall apart and i dont know if were prepared for that. For the first time, the first time. Im starting to see contraction to where it should be in that it is treating the circus and that it is treating him. That people who dont normally speak out, like the judge and like this judge that you just said, judge walton, are saying i dont have to speak his name, but the reality is we all know who were talking about here and we have to get rid of this guy. And i feel like people who did not talk before then and now understanding that it is so dire that they need to step up and speak to this. And going out every time he has to go to court and hold this rally in the hallway of a courthouse. Would is putting a stop to that . And we have to start thinking about all of the quack forms that he uses, as the average voter, think about all of the platforms he uses to promote all of this hate and this anger and it is intimidation. It is the hall that we pay for in your taxes that you pay for in your taxes and youre letting him do this and i feel like the system, hopefully, is starting to wake up to itself. Youre letting him do this but with a straight face and saying Law And Order. Hes one of four criminal trials. That is right. And that is why even the whole selling the bibles is ridiculous. We see it. Why cant other people see it. But if they do, they are afwrad to speak out and now there is a little more runway for them to do it. Sarah longwell is here, she said i live in permission structure. No one is going anywhere. When we come back, the nominee for president getting a Life Looipline from a protrump billionaire helping him out big time while he appeals the half A Billion Dollars civil fraud judgment against him. What we know about that deal ahead. Plus florida is becoming an interesting state to watch. This Election Year after yesterday and the conservative state Supreme Court ruled that voters will get to weigh in on the issue of Abortion Access. But there are still challenges for women there and throughout much of the south. How florida could change the game again. Into and later in the broadcast, a new look at Who Stormed The Capitol on january 6 as the ex expresident s embrace of the inmates is a new normal for him and his extremist supporters. Harry dunn will be our guest. All of those stories and more when deadline white house continues after a quick break. Dont go anywhere. Ading app makes trading easier. 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