Opening statements begin on monday. And according to the judge, quote, this trial is starting. So long we have been using the word erosion on trumps institutions and americas faith in them f. This weeks spectacle showed us any, the term erosion the flow of water, slow and steady, might be under stating the immediate danger. We should think of the harm done to the structure of our democracy like a tidal wave, Flash Flooding possible. Try as we might to board up the windows to be kept from being swept away there is damage more and more every second. Some jurors so frightened or intimidated from doing their basic civic duty that some were moved to tears in the courthouse as they were today for fear of retaliation. You can see it in the way the disgraced president lies in the case and the way everyone is in if. He conditioned his followers to Distrust Anything and everything outside the sealed mega bubble. The Executive Director of protect democracy described it to us like this. I think perhaps one of the most corrosive areas that we face is the unleashing of termites in the foundations of our system that trump and his allies unleash by sewing doubt in the trust that we historically had in our institutions. By suggesting that courts can not be trusted, that juries cant be trusted, that every actor here is acting corruptly, it is undermining that trust that is perhaps one of the greatest longterm threats to the viability and future success of this country. A democracy depends on a certain degree of trust. The systems are never perfect. We have been in the prosy of improving them. When you get trump and his allies sewing the doubt, none of it can be trusted . That is when the whole thing begins to collapse. Now, with a panel of 12 jurors and six alternate jurors assembled and empanelled with a purpose and mission of determining trumps criminal fate we are left to wonder if the Title Wave Crashing around us will get us. It is that we will get to with our favorite experts and friends. To with our favorite experts and friends. Msnbc legal analyst, but we start with my friend and colleague msnbc Legal Correspondent lisa ruben just came out of the courtroom for us. The courtroom we are in, on the 15th floor. One of the more dreary places i have been in a courthouse t. Is wood paneled but it has no art whatsoever. There are more cords than there are anything else and they are stapled to the wall. And the one thing that it is as in this courtroom clearly is In God We Trust yet that courtroom is where something extraordinary happened this afternoon. Judge had to go through things that were litigated if not once, twice. In setting forth the rulings on things, he said, i am reading from my notes you can notton submit premotion letters asking to revisit every ruling. I entertained your motions in good faith. At some point you have to accept this courts rulings. We are having Opening Statements monday. At some 90 that donald trump started to stand up and he said sir, we are not finished and sit down. Donald trump was incredibly humbled by that but peeved. When he walked out he usually scans the press in attendance at every hearing i have been through with him. This is my fourth trump trial in the last year. He looked dead straight ahead and his lips persed in that trump way and just was like shaking his head as he was walking out. Just so angry that he has finally met a wall that he can not tear down and judge merchan has been harsh with the difference but not in a harsh tone of voice. He is making clear this is his courtroom, we are going to have Opening Statements on monday. And when susan said i need to know who our witnesses are going to be. I will ask you to renew that motion from us. We are requesting to know. We dont want to have delay. Merchan cut her off saying there will be no delay. We will give you on the name of our first and our only witness on monday. We will commit to you that you will not get to cross examination. If we see that persons name in any tweets or posts by your client, that will be the last time we grant you that courtesy. Nicole . That is fascinating. It has not started yet and the prosecutors are already giving them, attorneys eyes only information because this trial needs to be protected from the defendant himself. Take me inside what the final day of jury selection, they were sleeking the final alternates today. I know today is taylor swift day and i am a huge swiftie but the theme of today if we had to put it in a song is david bowie and queens Under Pressure you saw juror upon juror, or Perspective Juror upon juror crack and show their nervousness in participating in this proceeding. We had a young woman who said that her father was friends with a, lets call him a big nemesis of the former president and eventually when she was questioned about her ability to stay impartial and her feelings burst into tears, rather mild mannered person even though she was forceful in her words she say mild manner person in her own, and yet this Perspective Juror burst into tears and taken to a sidebar to explore why she was so nervous and anxious. She was excused. A Perspective Juror who said, i dont know why i keep getting these notices but i committed a crime and i served crime in another state and i am not eligible to serve and i am here and started to tear up about the conviction, again, taken privately to a sidebar with the parties where upon judge merchan inquired with the commissioner of courts and learned why she could be eligible to serve if she had a certificate of her release it would depend on the circumstances of each case if she can serve as a juror. He excused her and she walked out and had the best line of the whole day. She sang out, good luck she knows exactly what those who are actually seated are in for. You could tell that while she was trying to do her civic dutiy and comply with the law she was none to happy about being there or ultimately faced with the prospect of serving on that jury and was relieved to be Release FloodUnder Pressure is perfect that is what it felt like as you watched the tragic events take part outside of the courthouse. Take me through what happens on monday. On monday, we will start Opening Statements. Those of us on the list of press, me included for this network. Will be in the courtroom itself. That is different from the last couple of days from jury selection. And then, the prosecution will get their opportunity to go through their theory of the case. Now, you know, in the press we are gearing to referring it to the hush money case but that is not at all. 35 counts of falsifying Business Records in order to commit or conceal another crime. I should note, that the intent to commit a crime obviously would be one that donald trump would want to commit himself but attempt to conceal that can be someone elses crime. You know that the District Attorney is going to fight to elicit from Michael Cohen he pled guilty to a federal election law violation. They will not only speak to elicit those facts but the fact of his plea and that in pleading guilty that was his formal break from donald trump under whose spell he had fallen for a number of years as the first person donald trump spoke to in the morning and the last person he spoke to at night. When he decided to plea out and confess to his crimes that was the ultimate break between donald trump and Michael Cohen who are fierce nemesis and will face a showdown in the case. Expect the District Attorney to preview that for us. In contrast what you will hear from the defense is really going to be not so much a contest of what actually happened but if trump understood what was going on here and in repaying Michael Coehen he knew he was covering up the payments. We will see when they each flush out their cases for us. Thank you very much for your service on behalf of all of your colleagues. Thank you for joining us. It is extraordinary this is where we are. Her last point there, the facts are established by trumps own justice department, right . Trumps individual one in the sentencing memo. It feels like some of there is sort of getting back to established facts that have never been in dispute. And you would look at this case and say this guy is down bad. There are 34 counts against him. It would appear that he is guilty as sin but at the moment he is out of the slammer and justice does not happen in a fortnight. Paging rv. The tortured poetry of his attorneys. Joking aside i think the facts have been long established and we can see that in this case and the 34 counts go far beyond just the Stormy Daniels case. And the hush money. Catch and kill conspiracy alleged here timed around the election. It is a bigger story to be told. I think some of the things that lisa noted that is hanging over this entire trial. We know trump had a dog whistle but he has one packed with dynamite. Every look he makes, the stern gazes she described leaving the courtroom going person by person that is not accidental. He is not excited to look each of the people in the eye because he wants to invite them to christmas. People are worried that every move in that courtroom. And designed to intimidate. It is is alarming and the judge is walking a difficult line. The dog whistle, though, when he is as there is an invasion people shoot up walmarts in texas. When there is a replacement, people shoot up Grocery Stores in new york. When he says an election was stolen they storm the capitol. That is just when he is using his dog whistle, a wink and a nod he wants them to do something. When donald trump directly identifies an enemy and highlights whose turned against him he ruins peoples lives in their entirety. What is poetic in a sense of the trial is that you will see him sitting across from Michael Cohen. If you agree or not from the charges that Michael Cohen faced and the life he served, he was hellbent on ruining in anticipation of the fact that this man, his lawyer, most trusted aids can testify against him and take him down that is what he does. He will not stop with Michael Cohen. He will make people involved in this trial he will make them pay for being involved in it. There is, everything in our system is designed to protect Donald Trumps rights. He is innocent until proven guilty. And, donald trump seems Hellbent On Perverting A System that is set to protect him. And there are a lot of things here. There are benefits, and the system is designed to ensure that the defendants have a lot of rights. It is designed, they often say, to ensure that it is better than 10 guilty people go free than that one innocent person be convicted. There are a lot of rights designed to protect the defendant. Yet as you say, donald trump is attacking that system that has all of these benefits for him. And it will tell you, their job is to preserve and protect the constitution and to make sure the system works because it has to work with the defenders and work against people who are innocent. We will see where donald trump falls. And i also think a big part of what he is trying to do here, nicole, is to condition the public. If he can undermind the legitimacy of the court and convicted it does not matter. I told you, the court isil legitimate. I make those comments myself, the thing that people ponder is that he does not have an opportunity to appeal every decision and judge merchan said that. The trial starts monday. I think it is he is in violation of a gag order that exists f. It applied to me, miles or you, if we violated it once we would be fined, twice, again, three times, four times, maybe they would talk about he violated it a dozen times. The tools that exist in the System People dont seem willing to use them on him. What do you have to say about that . Reporter oftentimes judges are reluctant to sanction defendants because they want to make sure they are giving, having a vigorous defense and free to do all of the things they want to do. I agree with you. I think there is a worry here that trump is baiting them and they are just giving him what he wants the image of trump being fined or jailed for contempt for violating the gag order is one that they can use and it will be one that he uses to attack the credibility and to raise the temperature on this. The judges want to bring calm not chaos. Calm cools down. Lets get the trial done and not worry about sideshows. Trump is all about chaos and creating all of this sideshow it is part of his game plan. So, if the judge takes the bait and jails him, i think there is some concern that the judge is taking his eye off of the ball. That is getting the case tried to and averted. I always thought the road to hell is paved with trying to figure out what trump will do. His supporters do not believe in the legitimacy of the charges. These are not in dispute by trump unlike maralago where trump is running on that. President of the United States you can do it. He is running for president alongside the other insurrectionists. He is not running on his alleged affair with Stormy Daniels or mcdougal or the checks haddie wrote from the oval office, he is not running on the facts because these are not facts he wants throughout no, and even worse that than. All he is looking to do is create symbols for more people to buy into the narrative he has created. This narrative that justice is against him. There are some republicans that dont believe it but play believe if they saw him in handcuffs because they would say that is too far. He wants to be seen as a martyr in the alt right. He is trying to bait as barb had said, the, you know, official in all of these cases to step over what his supporters would consider a line and create that scenario. I remember debating this during the Trump Administration with someone famously said they hope donald trump would be removed from the oval office in a straight jacket and he would handcuff himself to the resolute desk. I think you know come senior official i am referring to. I disagreed at the time that would send the message that this guy was out of his mind, trump knew if they had to pry him out of the white house it would look to his supporters like he was a martyr and overreach. I worry here, that on his part is going to put the judge in an extraordinarily difficult position. He does not want trump to have that. He wants to be in a manner that is consistent. It is a manner that is difficult. So, can my study of awe took autocracy, they are normal supporters. What they like, dont like, pictures they like. You know, page one by Timothy Snyder talks about the power that is given away. So it would appear if you put that lens over this, the power that is given away is the power to hold trump to the same legal standards that any of us would be handed. Trump is getting a wid with more in getting away with more than any other defendant would be for the reasons that your prior guest suggested. It does not look like he is held to the same standards. Another problem going on here, just like donald trump did with an election that he knew he was going to lose. I think he sees ahead to the fact that he is going to lose this case and whatever other trials, criminal trials will be brought against him. So, what he is trying to do is deligimate the whole thing. He is trying to do that for the courts that are going to convict him while praising the ones that may not. So, i want to contrast with you saying in this case of what he is saying about the judge in florida who made many rulings in his favor and he does not hesitate to praise her. Suggesting every judge is on the red team or the blue team. And only trust the red team judges and not the blue team judges and that is kind of a decision for ordinary antics. One of the things that autocats do is no rules of law and the facts presented are the determined outcomes in a political matter. Everything gets politicalized. That is dangerous for our future even if he is convicted and even if he loses the election. This is the kind of stain that does not go away with just one trial. You know, kim it always has a long, there is a real long ark to this. When he became president and i think he first alarmed general kelly, miles knows well, he constantly talked about my generals, my generals. He meant kelly and maddis they were not the military leaders they were my generals. I remember him saying in an interview with the New York Times he wanted his bobby kennedy. He viewed them as being on the team of the president s they served which of course is ridiculous and he talks about my blacks. Incredibly during derogatory thing to say. And the thing in the office is occupants pass through them, free and Fair Elections so people can throw the bums out when they want to. But the thing about autocracy, the office is identified with the person. So the person, you know, claims to own the office, claims to be above the constitution, and claims to be the final word in the system so that everyone put loyalty to the autocrat and not the framework. We are seeing that process advanced in the way that trump talks about all of the institutions, the military of course really pushed back on that and the judiciary is pushing back on that. Again, the concern here is that it begins to look like everybody is on one Political Team or another and i think it is crucial that your process, of the facts and the law, really come forward. I think that, what i am relieved about is that we are getting to a trial. We are getting to a trial in front of an experienced judge who has shown he is not going to take all of the nonsense with politics. Once we get to presenting evidence it might get better. Because i hope people decide inside the courtroom is not a space for politics thank you very much for starting us off. Miles sticks around for the hour. We will continue to monito