get connected on the day of your move with the xfinity app. can i sleep over at your new place? can katie sleep over tonight? sure, honey! this generation is so dramatic! move with xfinity. katy tur. >> and this hour we're going to be exploring the political and the practical consequences of thursday's momentous decision. we'll dig deeper into how donald trump's sentencing will play out when he's back in that new york city courthouse 41 days from now . >> it is just a handful of days before the republican national convention, but we're going to start right there on the political side, on the ledger with the republican party seeming to relish what would have once been the unthinkable, backing a convicted felon as their presidential nominee. that decision won't officially come until the rnc convention mid-july. again, just days after donald trump's sentencing, but it seems all but assured based on the party's near total embrace of the former president since his guilty verdict came down, with speaker mike johnson taking the lead. >> this is a purely political exercise, not a legal one, and everybody knows that. they know intuitively that it's wrong and the people are outraged. people see what is going on. they see that the democrats are so desperate because president trump is crushing joe biden in the polls, they see the democrat party on the left so desperate to stop him that they'll risk the destruction of our entire legal system to do it. that is not hyperbole. that's what's going on here. >> the ferocity of the outcry from rps has been remarkable, tossing aside the usual restraints that lawmakers and political figures have observed in the past when refraining from criticism of judges and juries. only one republican senate candidate larry hogan called out what he calls toxic partisanship speaking in favor of the rule of law. well, there was a five-word response from trump senior adviser chris lacivita quote, you just ended your campaign. i want to bring in yasmin vossoughian, former missouri democratic senator, claire mccaskill, an msnbc political analyst and co-host of msnbc's how to win 2024 podcast. matt dowd helped lead the bush cheney 2004 campaign, david french is an opinion columnist for "the new york times," and with us on set, host of the bulwark podcast, tim miller. also an msnbc political analyst and former communications director for jeb bush's 2016 campaign. what a power panel we've got. thank you all for being here. claire, let me start with you. is it at all surprising in any way that your former colleagues, republican colleagues in congress aren't just complaining about this verdict, they are complaining about the justice system itself. they're making what sounds like threats to people who support the justice system and what are the consequences of that? >> well, first, i think you can look at the various responses and discern a little bit about the politics of the folks behind the words. i will be honest, i was surprised about mcconnell and susan collins. i don't know on what basis mcconnell thinks this is going to be overturned on appeal. this was new york law as passed by the new york legislature. he certainly understands that. i was surprised that susan collins talked about it would certainly be overturned on appeal. i just don't think there is a legal basis to make that. so the fact that everyone is falling in line, you know what it tells me, chris, it tells me they are so worried about taking the senate. they have outsize worry about republican senate races and the problem they're going to have if they don't stay united, and so i think that's what's behind it. it's not right. it's not healthy. it's particularly bad for the rule of law in this country that they are all shopping the idea that somehow somebody made up these facts and somehow this law was not on the books. this is just simple. there were facts in evidence and law, they were presented to a jury that was duly selected with input from both sides, both the defense and the prosecution, and he was convicted. it's not complicated. >> david, i know you've been -- you've written about how you've been a little bit nervous about the political implications of all of this. plain your thinking now that there is a conviction, 34 felony counts. >> the conviction is not surprising at all. the prosecution had a very compelling story to tell about donald trump was covering up an affair right after the access hollywood came out. stormy daniels approaches and says i've got a story to tell, and it was the last story he needed out in the public square at that time. he pays the hush money. we now know from the testimony of the case, this was an extremely very exploitive encounter, very much how he described how he behaved in that access hollywood tape. it's not surprising that under the facts of this case which are very bad for donald trump. the note of caution is the underlying legal theory that transforms this from a misdemeanor to a felony, tieing this to, for example, a federal campaign finance violation that was not prosecuted, that is untested. okay. so there is an untested legal theory. that does not mean specious. that does not mean meritless, but one concern that i do have is that a jury that find the facts properly, that he did what the prosecution said that he did, but then you would have this case potentially overturned on appeal because the legal theory is untested. i could be wrong about that. that is a very real risk here. >> let me follow up, david. the appeal will not happen before the election. so if it is overturned on appeal and i was involved in a state case before when i was covering the governor of the state of maryland, he was convicted, sent to jail and then it was overturned by the supreme court, and he came out and said something like -- something similar to the labor secretary under ronald reagan, he said where do i go to get my reputation back. that was many, many years ago. that could be overturned on appeal. this is a novel case and all of our lawyers have told us that. it's never been done before quite in that fashion. still, as has also been pointed out, this was a jury where the trump defense only used one peremptory challenge. this was a jury of his peers, and there was someone on that jury who said in their media preferences that their media preference was truth social. there was a pretty good mix on that jury, even though it's a manhattan jury. so david, between now and the election that's not going to happen. a lot of other things could happen. >> right. right. you're exactly right. i mean, the attacks on the jury are specious. like, the jury -- >> and dangerous, i should point out. people are outing them, their names and addresses. >> it's horrible. they literally -- they're literally risking their lives to serve on this jury given the way maga responds, and so attacking the jury is dangerous and it's specious. the prosecution just presented a much better case than the defense. it had a very easy story to tell that trump paid hush money to coverage up an affair at a crucial moment in a campaign and then tried to conceal that fact. that's a very simple story to tell, and the defense just was inadequate is the kindest way i can describe the defense. the actual jury verdict here is no surprise at all. the question is the appeal, but as you said, the appeal won't happen until after the election. and here's what does worry me. if you have an appeal where like a number of these other public corruption cases bob mcdonald in virginia and you can go through some others, the conviction is reversed, that will be extremely upsetting to a number of people, rightfully so i might add, if there is a campaign run on trump's a felon, trump's a felon, trump's a felon and then it turns out six months after the election, no, actually, our bad. this wasn't a felony. that's a problem, and i think people need to understand that that is a potential outcome here. >> what do you think, claire, though, the chances of that are? and this is part of our system too, right? the system that most people we hope believes works, that if you're convicted, you get the right to go back and appeal, and sometimes appeals are successful. i recognize this is not any case, but what do you think about what you're -- what this conversation and what we're talking about and the chances of a successful appeal. >> well, you know, i get the point that david is making, and i understand it. however, it is -- having read the new york law, it appears this is all what they intended, what the new york legislature wanted to do was to make it a misdemeanor to file a false business record, but if you did it in furtherance of any other bad act, if you did it in furtherance of any other crime, it didn't specify what kind of crime, but if you did it in furtherance of other crimes, that makes it a felony, and so if you look at the legislative intent, it seems to me this set of facts falls firmly within that legislative intent, clearly there was a reason they were hiding these records and what they were trying to do is keep information from the public. they were trying to use it in a way that helped his political campaign, and it cost money. so listen, i'm not saying it's not possible it's overturned on appeal, but for the people who are saying with certainty it's going to be overturned on appeal, i'm not sure they've read the law. >> interestingly -- not interestingly, consequentially donald trump has been running on we can't trust our elections. 2020 was stolen. can't trust it. now we -- it seems like he's also running on you can't trust our courts. they're all corrupt, and democrats can't prosecute republicans, and -- >> and the other members of the republican party are piling onto that. >> they're signing on to this, tim. except for the former governor of maryland, notably. does the republican party, do they have any regret? will they have any regret for -- i'm serious -- for attacking yet another institution, yet another way in which this country functions? we don't function well right now. and it is only getting worse. why do they believe that it's okay to do this? what bargain are they making? >> i hope they have regret. there's no sign of any regret. we're almost a decade into this now, katy, you and i have been doing this since 2015. >> and the line keeps getting further and further away. every time you think that's got to be the line, it gets crossed and you wonder how you could ever draw a line. >> i remember when we were on the campaign trail and we were like he called him low energy jeb. >> norm breaking. >> there was an exclamation point. >> that was not my fault. look, i think it's really dangerous, and i think there's huge downstream consequences, and i think people are going to have regret a decade down the line, but they're all making short-term political calculations, and i think there is this bunker mentality in the republican party right now where these people, they only talk to their own friends. they only talk to their own media outlets, and they have taken in donald trump's grievance and they've taken it upon themselves, and they feel aggrieved. they feel like they're being treated unfairly, and they're lashing out. it's delusional, but it's a real feeling. >> having covered the senate and you now see mitch mcconnell, john thune, bill cassidy it's been pointed out, they want to regain the senate. i mean, this is confirmation. this is everything, this is the agenda, and you just saw, by the way, that, you know, that joe manchin has reregistered as an independent in west virginia. >> yeah. >> that could be the pivotal case. i mean, we realize that he's running up against jim justice and he's got a real problem there. so he's now disavowing the democratic party, which is kind of creating a reality. >> here's the thing, andrea, i just listened to you say that. that rationale is what got us january 6th literally, right? there were those two senate runoffs in georgia, january 5th, so why did mitch mcconnell who knew better, who knew the stop the steal thing was nonsense, why did he go along with it for those two months? i'll be the senate majority leader and we'll take care of donald trump after that. it's the same rationale. we'll just go along with it through november so we can hold the senate. then that justifies these attacks on our system. but you can see there are downstream consequences of those kinds of attacks on the system you can't predict. >> let me suggest there is a downstream consequence that's not so downstream that the city of kharkiv is at risk right now of falling to the russians. the president of the united states has changed the policy about being able to go to fire into russia. that just happened in the last 24, 48 hours, that all happened because of the stalemate in the senate and the house on the supplemental from february on when lindsey graham flipped over because of a golf game he had, and he discussed this with donald trump, and everything that transpired and during those several months, that's when i was in munich, and that's when zelenskyy said we're going to have to start retreating, and they did. . >> you're right. >> they don't care about -- >> congressional dysfunction is not new, but this is -- >> is this life and death. >> -- and the things that get ignored is a new level. >> you can talk about the border, donald trump went after immigration today, he started his campaign going after immigration. he's still doing it today. there was a fix in congress. maybe it wasn't perfect, but there was an attempt to fix what is happening at the border, to slow down the stream of immigrants that are crossing. it gave president biden the power to close the border. this is what republicans wanted. it was a bill that leaned republican. it didn't go anywhere because donald trump got on the phone with republican lawmakers and put it out on truth social. what are the republicans running on? are they running on just put us in power? because we'll be angry for you, or are they running on actually doing something? because they're not doing anything right now at the behest of donald trump. >> well, we're in a politics where rational fixes give way to emotional responses, and donald trump operates in the field of emotional responses, and he wants an emotional response on the border and immigration is an emotional response. i don't think the republicans would have gone along with him but for they also, i think, calculated politically the case among the republican base. i would argue when we look at this thing politically, i think too often we defer to, what are the republican -- what are the base maga voters doing and how are they responding to what happened, and what's going on in this? they're not going to change their mind, but they only represent about 30% of the elect rat. about 30% of the electorate is the maga hardcore trump vote. what really matters in how this thing unfolds, his verdict and everything related to the republican party is three groups of voters -- and i can tell you this from an event that happened with bush in 2000, the three groups of voters that matter and how they're going to respond to this are soft trump voters who don't like him, people that don't like donald trump but are voting for him, they're soft. what do those people do? undecided voters, i know it's a small group, it's 5% or 6%, and the third which we often forget about is what does this verdict do in what donald trump has said and done over the last few months in the course of this, how does it affect the democratic base and how it will motivate the base? i'll take you for two seconds down memory lane. in 2000 -- i don't often want to recall this -- >> in 2000 george w. bush had a dui that no one knew about. it was in maine that no one knew about. it got reported on on thursday before election day against al gore. most people thought, oh, it's not going to have any effect. people have already baked in their feelings about this, we -- and i did these, we commissioned polls that weekend. we lost 3% across every electoral state in all of the key states between thursday and election day. we thought we were comfortable in some places we no longer were. and who moved in that five days or four-day period were undecided voters and soft bush voters. that's who moved in those five days over a dui from 30 years ago. >> and i'd just point out that when jim comey came out on the sunday before the election with another reminder like that last minute 11 days earlier laptop thing, that was not a deal so it's okay. the tracking of the clinton campaign showed that that was just another reminder of what they really didn't -- what suburban women perhaps did not like about hillary clinton, the suspicions, and that really tanked them. although they went straight down for those last 11 days. but yasmin, jump in here because you were there and the former president, katy was there, of course, and we all watched when he was speaking, and the fact check is just extraordinary. 15 pages we just pointed out earlier of inaccurate statements that need to be corrected. but bring us your take on all of this and how his grievance campaign will now become more so than ever, the center of his candidacy. >> right, more so than ever, i think that's the keyword because it has been the center of his campaign since 2015 when he announced his candidacy to run for president back then. it's been a grievance campaign since then. now he actually has something more legitimate to grieve about as the victim, right? he said if this can happen to me, it can happen to all of you to try and bolster his popularity as he's tried to do since those 34 counts came down as guilty. and also, to mislead the public about what took place in that courtroom, right? he talked about his witness, right? the former fec chair bradley smith and how juan merchan would not allow bradley smith to testify. that's not what happened. what happened is judge juan merchan said he cannot testify to the law. that is my job during those jury instructions. we got those 55 plus pages of jury instructions in which the election law was in there, right? that was the direction from judge juan merchan. it was not that bradley smith cannot, in fact, testify. he cannot just testify to the law, and that is why he did not take the witness stand. i want to take little bit more of a listen to what the former president had to say in trump tower behind me, and then we'll talk on the other side. >> we're losing our country, and i really think that this is an event, what took place yesterday with this judge. look, we have conflicted, but he's a crooked judge, and you'll understand that and i say that knowing that it's very dangerous for me to say that, and i don't mind because i'm willing to do whatever i have to do to save our country and to save our constitution. i don't mind. >> reporter: i think matthew dowd is exactly right. i think it's going to be interesting to see how this plays especially with independent voters, right? i think we know how this is going to play with trump's base of support. he has had a significant amount of support out here this morning. it has now kind of gone down to a certain extent. earlier today as he was speaking, he had a significant amount of support, and i think the real question is as we looked with the indictments, right, the poll numbers, they spiked with the former president, when each and every one of those indictments came out. i'll be interested to see how he polls after this verdict came out yesterday and how it plays with those independent voters because when asked about whether or not if we were to be found guilty, if they were to continue to support him, oftentimes they would say they would have to rethink that. it was about the jack smith d.c. election case, it was not necessarily about the hush mon