Country. Can he use his Court And Campaign appearances as fuel for his white House Run . And democrats mocking the former president for what they say is an Incomprehensible Explanation for how he would fix the high cost of Child Care its not just trump, the Loud Pushback on his vps pick too. The heartbreaking scene inside a Georgia Courtroom where the teenager accused of killing four at his High School and the Boys Father come Face To face with the families of those who died. The latest details, including charges against the dad accused of giving his son an Ar15 Rifle as a gift. We begin with Donald Trump waging Battles Today and trying to argue they amount to the same thing. After appearing at a hearing in the e. Jean Carroll Case he went before cameras with multiple claims that the Justice Department is using that case and other to rig the president ial campaign. Suggested she lifted her story from an episode of law and order. In front of a judge, his attorney argued before a threejudge Appellate Panel that they should overturn Carrolls Sex Abuse lawsuit claiming the original trial judge, louis kaplan, erred so badly deciding what evidence was allowed in, the Jury Verdict should be null and void. This case is a Textbook Example of implausible allegations propped up by highly inflammatory, admissible propensity evidence. Your arguments are evidentiary issues and as you know, we give great deference to the district courts on these matters. Its very hard to overturn a Jury Verdict based on evidentiary rulings. We use phrases like Man Ness festally erroneous. Why should we order a new trial here . Its very clear there was error in the admission of the propensity evidence, the lead evidence, the Access Hollywood tape. None of those are admissible under rule 413 and 415 which is the principle reason. Another politically and legally explosive decision is expected any time today, whether trumps sentencing in the new York City hush Money Case will be delayed until after the election or go ahead as planned 12 days from now. Nbcs Vaughn Hillyard is in charlotte, North Carolina, where former President Trump will be later today. Legal correspondent Lisa Rubin is outside court. Ashley parker is Washington Post Senior National Political Correspondent and an msnbc political analyst. Kristen gibbons is a former prosecutor, civil Rights Attorney and msnbc legal analyst. A lot to get to. Lisa, lets start with what we heard. The former president saying e. Jean carrolls claims never happened, even though a jury found that they did, that the doj rigged the case, also not true. Are there any legal consequences for what he had to say today . Chris, there could be, and that really is up to e. Jean carroll and his lawyers. The reason i say that is that what he said today should amount to additional defamation of e. Jean carroll. His claims today were substantively nearly identical to things he said in the past, for which he has been found libel by a jury. However there wouldnt be additional consequences including e. Jean carroll decides to sue him all over again. Weve seen instances of former President Trump saying these types of things since the latest of the e. Jean Carroll Verdicts in the two trials that have gone on, and she has not brought additional suit. So well have to see whether she and her attorneys decide to do so. My guess is, that they believe they secured two investigations against former President Trump with a total Damages Amount exceeding 88. 3 million. That for them is likely enough. What they really want to do now is enforce the verdicts that they have and have them sustained by Appellate Courts. Lets go to that. The legal Questions Today inside the courtroom. Did Donald Trumps lawyer make a strong case that judge kaplan made mistakes serious enough to overturn the verdict . Not only did Donald Trumps lawyer not make a strong case, chris, in court before that threejudge panel, but Donald Trump himself knew that and addressed that in front of the cameras at his Press Conference at Trump Tower. Lets take a listen. Legal talent cannot overcome rigged judges, they cant overcome a 4 republican area, and im disappointed in my legal talent, ill be honest with you. Theyre good people, theyre talented people. So chris, you hear Donald Trump saying that his lawyers are talented, but that he was ultimately disappointed in their performance today. Thats because none of the three judges on the Panel Today in the united States Court of appeals for the second circuit appeared to be buying what john sauer, President Trumps attorney, was selling. His Primary Argument was that there were three pieces of evidence admitted during the first Carroll Trial that shouldnt be. The testimony of a woman named jessica leads who alleges Donald Trump sexually assaulted her on a plane, the second from a writer who allegations that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in maralago in a ballroom while writing a profile on former president Donald Trump his wife Mel Lane ya. Third the Access Hollywood Case and in all cases the judges didnt seem to be buying the fact that they were inadmissible evidence. Even if they were, e. Jean carrolls lawyer told them, she could do without all of that evidence because she introduced enough evidence for the jury to find Donald Trump libel of sexual Abuse And Defamation through the other witness testimony, that includes e. Jean carrolls own three days on The Stand and the testimony of two outcry witnesses, two friends of e. Jean carrolls who she told at the time of the assault that it happened. One counselled her to go to the police and the other take the secret to the grave. E. Jean carroll almost did, keeping it a secret more than two decades before coming forward in 2019, chris. If i can get you Breaking News and your reaction to this. We have been waiting to hear from Judge Merchan in the hush Money Case, and he said he would have a Ruling Today on whether or not sentencing would continue as it was expected to and just under two weeks or move it as they pushed for until after the election. According to sources approved by sources to Nbc News with direct knowledge, Judge Merchan will sentence November 26th, 2024, if necessary. It is going to be adjourned until november 26, 2024. Obviously, that is a couple weeks, several weeks, after the election. Your reaction and how important that might be, lisa . You know, im not entirely surprised that Judge Merchan did that for a few reasons. First, Judge Merchan isnt scheduled to rule on trumps motion to set aside that verdict for evidentiary errors stemming from the president ial Immunity Decision by the Supreme Court until september 16th. His lawyers made the argument that if sentencing was only two days later, they didnt have enough time to secure relief from either a state or federal Appellate Court between the 16th and the 18th that effectively only gave them a day. The other reason that im not surprised is that the manhattan d. A. Itself didnt oppose the request. They gave Judge Merchan a list of pros and cons, but said at The End of the day, the decision was his. That they believed that former President Trump should be sentenced expeditiously in the interest of justice, but they understood that there were factors that might weigh against going immediately to his sentencing. So im not surprised that Judge Merchan has now delayed the sentencing until after the election, but note also, that he has made the Sentencing Proceeding still scheduled for 2024 before The End of the year. That means that former President Trump could be facing a sentencing between his November Election, should he win the November Election, and his inauguration in january, or conversely, if he loses, Judge Merchan may have made the calculation, no harm no foul, the same sentence i would have given him in september i can give this man in november. I think this is what many legal experts concluded would happen, particularly after the manhattan d. A. Alvin bragg and his team, told the judge they didnt really oppose the request by the former president s team to stay Sentencing Proceedings here, chris. Let me go to you, kristen, if i can and ask you about the decision that Juan Merchan made and the importance, frankly, of him getting this done now. The argument that was being made is that it was essentially Election Interference to rule on this before people made their votes known. What do you make of this decision . Eye i really actually similar to what lisa was saying, agree with all of her points, and i think it being after the election really helps to disconvince or go against trumps narrative that the judiciary in this particular case was being politicized. By placing it after the November Election, again, to lisas point, allows trumps narrative to be cut. He cannot say that any type of decision made with regard to the sentencing is going to influence the election again because the sentencing decisions are going to be made afterwards. All the points that lisa stated, which is the Prosecution Wasnt opposing it and just requesting it be expeditiously as possible, which it absolutely is, allows him the opportunity to appeal and really seems to meet a middle ground and be an objective decision. So im looking, ashley, at what former president Donald Trump posted last night on social media. A lot of it is the stuff that we typically expect of him, that every, you know, smart person, every legal School Lashgs every expert, every brilliant lawyer agrees with the argument that he was making that it was a blatant and illegal attempt to win an election. In other words, they were trying to make him look bad before folks went to the polls. Whats the real world impact of this ruling on politics in 2024 . To look at the real world impact i would point you to his Press Conference earlier today, the Press Conference was in response to this expected ruling and also in response to what his lawyers were doing appealing the e. Jean Carroll Case and as i watched that i was struck by the fact that it may not affect his base. It may even motivate his base. But this election will not be decided by his base. You could not have scripted something better for the democrats than the former president standing up there, criticizing his lawyers as they stood next to him, attacking women, and sort of putting in these accusations of sexual Assault Front and center in an election that many people believe that suburban women, independents, people who say i like some of his policies, what he did on the economy, i dont like his personality, i dont like his behavior, when these are the people deciding the election, these cases that then prompted that performance are not particularly politically helpful to the former president. Another thing that he wrote, Vaughn Hillyard, was somehow he believed it would all work on. I dont know how, i dont know why, i dont know when, but it always does. Is the feeling, in spite of everything he said at that well they said it was going to be a Press Conference, it wasnt, he didnt take questions from the press, it was more like he just spoke for, i dont know how long it was, you can tell me, at least an hour, but is there a strong belief by him, from what you hear from people close to him, that hes got this . I think clearly the strategy on the part of Donald Trump, i cant attest for his campaign, but Donald Trump is to speak more words than not, and to play offense as a means of defense. In this particular case, you heard him directly there criticize and say that he was not happy with his own legal team. This is a legal team that, in his eyes, who did not adequately represent him in the hush Money Payment Scheme that has led to this sentencing even being a Discussion Point here. Frustrated that he didnt testify in the first e. Jean Carroll Trial in may of 2023. He didnt even show up to court in order to go before that jury. And so clearly Donald Trump has made the calculation that he is his own best lawyer, his own best defendant, his own best spokesman, his own best Campaign Manager at this point. So theres no reason to believe that he is going to take any other tack towards this over the next two weeks or over the next two months here. I think when youre looking at what played out at Trump Tower and now with knowing that the sentencing is going to come the tuesday before thanksgiving, i think hints at the point that lisa was bringing up, that would technically be almost two months before inauguration day. The scenario that Donald Trump wins the presidency, he will still face sentencing, but in the scenario he does not, it only raises the stakes of the Election Interference claims that he is already stating out loud before anybody has cost their ballot so we would expect a rocky transition as he makes claims that either there was cheating, stuffing of ballot boxes, as he has done, or there was Election Interference on the part of prosecutors as you heard over the course of hour of remarks at Trump Tower. Of course the biggest part, the biggest variable in all of this, chris, is the fact that Donald Trump is going to potentially, very well be running on his freedom. We do not know what that sentencing will look like. We do not know whether that could very well include prison time or not, but Donald Trump has not runaway from these trials. Thats why he was there every day of court for the hush Money Scheme Trial itself. He went out there, he addressed the cameras because he didnt want this to be a quiet something that his democratic opponents could use in the debate, but instead he wanted to be the political messenger himself on this front. Thats where you saw him today. He talked about some of the evidence he wanted to be brought forward. He brought up the other womens allegations. Not even e. Jean carroll. The american public didnt have the camera inside the courtroom, but he brought it there standing in front of a podium and bringing up the womens explicit allegations and then undercutting those very allegations, including e. Jean carroll, Defamation Claim that he was found to have to owe her 83 Million for. Donald trump has made that calculation and we should expect that he will, including here in battleground North Carolina, later this afternoon, be running on the idea that his freedom is on the line and if there is a way to galvanize your base of support, get your family, your friends and most loyal faithful supporters to come out there and ensure that you are in the White House in which would consequently all but stave off any Prison Sentence or any potential imprisonment or punishment he were to face at the hands of Judge Merchan. We started this hour by talking about the confluence of the political and legal fort Donald Trump, and for him often they are the same. I had a chance to get my hands on the actual statement from Juan Merchan. I want to read a little bit of it because the top line for us, would he or wouldnt he be sentenced before the election. We now know he will not this is part of a very first sentence from the judge. He said that that the potential politically prjal impact that a public sentencing could have on him and his prospects in the upcoming elections, his attempts to bolster his application by repeating a litany of perceived an unsubstantiated grievances from previous filings, do not merit this courts attention. On what did he base this, and tell us what else is in this . Yeah. Chris, lets go to your first question first. On what did he base this . The first thing he says, im going to the second page of this Fourpage Letter Order from Judge Merchan, is that, despite the fact that manhattan d. A. Told the judge they were officially neutral on trumps request to postpone his sentencing, he notes, as i did before, they raised a number of concerns about going ahead with the sentencing as scheduled in their letter. He interprets that as seemingly supporting trumps application for adjournment and said a careful reading of their response can be fairly construed as a joiner of the motion. The parties, in his interpretation, were in agreement going forward with sentencing, at least presented sufficient concerns for him to take those concerns very seriously. Then the next thing that he says, that is despite those unsubstantiated litany of Brie Vances on the first page, its not lost on him that there are 41 days or im sorry there would be 41 days until the election if sentencing were to proceed on September 18th. He says given that and the gravity of the election and not wanting to interfere with the election, that he has decided to postpone that sentencing. I want to bring you and our Viewers Attention to one other facet of this, one i think is really important, Judge Merchan was scheduled to decide trumps motion to set aside the verdict on grounds that he, Judge Merchan, admitted evidence at trial that the Supreme Court has now held could not be admit inned because it constitutes evidence of his official acts. That motion was due to be decided on september 16th. Judge merchan has now through this order not only pushed off the sentencing until late november but he has pushed off his decision on whether or not the verdict should stand until November 12th, which is also, as you and vaughn and ashley and kristen know, after the election as well. He is really pushing any further decisions about this case until after the election. Know one other thing, the amount of time between when hes scheduled to decide whether the verdict will stand and the sentencing is a short period. Its 14 days between November 12th when he will decide when the verdict stands and November 26th the date of the sentencing. Its not accidental. Its not as if shes deciding in a way that gives the trump lawyers months to create appellate mischief after presumably hell decide that verdict should stand. Rather they will have 14 days after that decision to exercise any appellate options. In the ordinary course a Judges Decision on whether to set aside the Verdict Isnt immediately appealable. You have to proceed to sentencing. Former president Donald Trumps lawyers have said given the nature of this case and given who their client is, essentially those rules shouldnt apply. Merchan here, by shortening that window between deciding his motion and the sentencing, is going to make it very hard for them, perhaps, to get an Appellate Court to intervene if he decides the verdict should stand, and he wants t