We are shaming latina women on the show. Alicia and i are but somebodys now. Good to see you. Have a good day. Velshi starts now. Good morning, sunday, april 21st. About 24 hours now, Opening Statements begin in the first ever criminal trial of a former president. Tomorrow morning, the republic partys presumptive residential nominee, donald trump will be back in a manhattan courtroom as a defendant facing 34 felony counts. Those charges stem from his alleged role in falsifying Business Records to cover up payments made to suppress a potential scandal, just days before the 2016 president ial election. Those Opening Statements are going to give the public a preview of the case that both sides intend to present. Some Court Watchers didnt think we would get to this point so soon. There were predictions the Jury Selection would take a couple multiple weeks, considering the defendant is so wellknown, so wellconnected. And so intimidating. Then there were times last week the highstakes of this historic trial became evident in the court room. More than one prospective juror cried over the anxiety and pressure of participating in these proceedings. And by the end of week one, a full panel of 12 jurors and six alternates were chosen to fulfill their duties as citizens and serve on this jury. The main 12 person jury represents a crosssection of the residents of manhattan. Five women, seven men from different neighborhoods across the borough. One of the works in sales, one of them is a teacher, two are attorneys, interestingly enough. To others come from the world of finance. The fact Opening Statements are set to begin tomorrow is also a testament to how the court system is keeping things moving despite chubbs efforts to continue to the latest trial. On by the reporter but former president slayers at the Appeals Court to temporarily pause trial into labeling was made on its previous child filed motion for A Change Of Venue and an Emergency Hearing was held for it friday afternoon but ultimately trumps request for a stay was denied. Again, early indication of how the former president may continue to try to thwart this trial with procedural roadblocks in the weeks to come. The trial alone makes this a monumental week in American History but this is only one piece of a hugely significant and potentially consequential week for donald trump. In addition to his criminal trial in new york, the former president will also have to contend with battles in various other venues over the course of the week. Nearly the same time his criminal trial resumes in manhattan tomorrow, a separate hearing will be held in a different manhattan courtroom involving his civil fraud case. This concerns the legitimacy of the 175 million bond that jumped up last month. New York State Attorney general Letisha James is asking the court to void that bond. Listen to this, her office said the Insurance Company the former president uses quote, not authorized to write business in new york. Meanwhile on tuesday morning, trumps criminal trial will take up the issue of whether he should be held in contempt for multiple apparent violations of his gag order. Prosecutors raise the issue last week at a hearing that will be held on tuesday to address it. Perhaps the number one thing the former president might right now be worried for is a case that is scheduled on thursday. On april 25th, thursday, the last day of hearings in the Supreme Courts current term, the justices will hear Oral Arguments on the question of president ial immunity. Trumps claims he should be granted absolute immunity for any official act he took on his president , the Supreme Court cases obviously weighing on his mind right now. You posted on it more than a dozen times over the past couple of days. On his social media site, truth social. It is clear why. It is a wild gamble that has highstakes and high rewards for the embattled armor president. A case that has few precedents but if the justice justices said with him, it could affect one or more of ongoing cases whether his federal election interference case might be able to proceed to trial before november path is crucial residential election. Joining me, danny cevallos, Criminal Defense Attorney and legal analyst and Jennifer Rubin, Opinion Writer for the Washington Post and political analyst. She is also author of the book resistance, how women saved democracy from donald trump. A lot of technical matters are going on this week. How do you see them unfold in . We have emotions motions hearing on the Gag Order Violations. I thought that was a good move to say hundreds of people and we have to get the Jury Selection. Lets push it off and by then there might be more Gag Order Violations and we can probably consolidate it. Tomorrow is the day. Jury will get instructions in the morning, this general half hour of instruction and then we get to Opening Statements. They will not be as long as people may think. This will not be an allday affair. Look for people, the prosecution to only take a be an hour and maybe the defense even less because Opening Statements are really just a preview. You are talking about the facts you to hear. You dont argue your case. You dont get to do anything other than really offer a factual description of the case. Usually in the future, you will hear testimony. But this is also important to note the jeopardy is attached. The jury has been sworn in. Though not really, Defense Attorneys are quick to point out if theres a mistrial, that is not a Double Jeopardy situation. Mistrial is very real concern because we have already had your attrition and Opening Statements havent even begun. How do you fix that . How much attrition can you have . There are 12 seated and six alternates, that is the maximum you can have in this kind of case. Right hear if you lose a juror, and alternate steps in. I think if the court couldve had it, they would have 35 alternate jurors because look, we have already burned through jurors and Opening Statements have not happened. You do lose jurors during a trial for all reasons. Sometimes they dont follow rules. I lost a juror because he kept falling asleep. They get tossed. That rarely come i cant think of an instance where a jury gets selected and they change their mind overnight, before the trial actually begins. What if we get more of those. What if this horrific event that happened at the end of the trial on friday, a man letting himself on fire, raised Security Concerns. Or just peers. They come in monday and say, this is crazy. I never imagined it would be like this. I have to get off this case. So yes, Juror Attrition is something everybody is concerned with. A mistrial does mean a retrial, but it does also mean a delay. Jennifer rubin, the trump team asked for permission to not be in court on thursday, because donald trump has got the Supreme CourtOral Arguments. Judge mershon said, very important that you are involved in a Supreme Court case. I would imagine that you would miss that but this is a very important case, too so you are not the mike white either. That said, there are Different Things attached to each of these cases but that there is a hearing, the Oral Arguments on whether donald trump immunity is a massive deal. Absolutely. First of all, judge merchan is put imposing on trumps something hes not used to and that is roles. He is not allowed to stand up and leave the court as he tried to do. Hes not allowed to grovel. He is not allowed to threaten people. That is why donald trump is very put out these days because he has to sit there. That is the obligation, a criminal defendant has to be there every single day in a sea. That is wearing on trump and we are all on watch, when is he going to blow up. But as far as the Supreme Court does, yes, that is absolutely critical. If you recall, both checked in at the District Court and Appellate Court of the d. C. Circuit held no, you cant have president ial immunity and get out of any crimes that you commit, while you are in office and the real question i think is not whether they say, there is no immunity because very few people ask that nine votes for that. Or even five votes for that. But do they draw some kind of line. Do they say, if it is a core responsibility like declaring war or a core responsibility like exercising veto, you can be criminally indicted for that. But other things perhaps, and how they draw that line and how clear it is, so that the case can proceed on remand when it is returned to judge chutkan is something we are all going to look at and i would keep our eye on those judges that are in the middle, if not moderates. They are in the middle because they are neither on the progress of wing nor on the extreme right wing lunatic side. That would be the chief, that would be judge Coney Barrett and that would be judge brett kavanaugh. And what they ask and how they appear at the hearing is going to be critical. I want to send the case for a second because when it was the Appellate Court that was, we saw the Oral Arguments, they were stunningly interesting because most people dont listen to the things you cant see the video on but you her Donald Trumps lawyer arguing about why the president requires immunity, because he will be penalized by his opponents as soon as hes out of office. The line of questioning came up with the judge about Seal Team Six and assigning somebody Seal Team Six to murder someone became a question of, as Jennifer Rubin says, you cant be held for me and for all things. It seems the Appeals Court was not convinced of that thing. Do you think it would be different if the same argument came up with the Supreme Court . Im glad you brought up that example because much was made of that. And i might have a slightly different view of that, which is, one of the area heres what we know about immunity. In excess but we dont know the full contour of it. And when example that has not been squarely decided, but has to be true, is that generally for acts of war, president s are immune. President s like george w. Bush. You remember famous prosecutor wrote an entire book about prosecuting george w. Bush for murder after he got out of office and technically you could do it because murder has a statute of limitations. That you would never do that because on some level we understand there are some areas where there is absolute immunity and immunity that continues after the presidency is over. And distinction would probably be that acts of war are squarely within the constitutional powers given to the president. So instead, the government is arguing here, and they have to be very nuanced, is saying that look, the absolute immunity that this particular defendant is arguing for does not exist. And they will probably be happy to leave for another day, what extent of immunity implies to a former president after hes out of office. Because we all agree there are some things for which a former president must be immune from criminal prosecution after he leaves office. The governments position is just, it is not what this president did while he was in office. The former president s argument is essentially, it goes back to a nixon era case which is anything he does with any outer perimeter of president ial axes immune forever. The challenge there is that particular case really only applied to civil liability. It hasnt been extended to criminal responsibility. So the bottom line is, we know that president ial immunity exists. We know that it exists for some expresident s but we dont know the exact converse and that is what the battle is about. I suspect when the smoke clears, there will still be Unanswered Questions about president ial immunity. Jennifer rubin, a lot of people dont love this first case in new york. They think it is not the most satisfying. Is not the one they would like the most. It is in accounting case. In some cases he wrote this week that this criminal case in manhattan involves trumps quote, only successful voter deception scheme, which is an argument that has made that clear to a lot of people. Thats right and the people who actually have made it, first of all brad and second of all, the judge. The judge, when he explained the case to the jurors and they make sure that the jurors understand the case, and who are the potential witnesses and so on. He said very clearly, this is about the allegation that donald trump falsified documents in order to conceal things from the voters before the 2016 election. That is exactly what it is about. It is about, not whether he paid hush money, paying hush money isnt illegal. It is whether paying the hush money and falsifying documents, in furtherance of other crimes, that he crossed the line. And what donald trump has been trying to do, i think, although who knows what hes going to say, is make an argument that this would cover things up because i want to protect my wife. This is about sex. All these sorts of arguments. But the real issue is, did he falsified business documents, that is the books of the trump organization, in order to further some other crime. And in doing so, he really did try to pull the wool over the voters says and it worked. Remember, this was right after Access Hollywood and there will be testimony that trump and the rest of his team were deathly afraid that one more sex scandal might knock them out. It is hard to remember back then, but we had the capacity to be shot. We hadnt heard the whole crazy weve gotten used to with donald trump. And they had, not unreasonably, the concern that if these other women come forward, there will be no end to it and voters are going to leave us in the dirt and we will be disgraced and loses election. So that is what the case is about. Now what is interesting is that for donald trump, most of this is going to be done through Cross Examination. He only has a couple of witnesses and one of them is himself. And i sincerely doubt his lawyers want to put them on the stand. Theres going to be Battle Royale in that camp about whether trump testifies. He keeps saying hes going to pick he says hes going to but you have to be nuts which means donald trump may do it. But you have to be not to do it because the man cannot get on the stand with outlying. Is going to sound like an idiot. Is going to sound like a pompous jerk. Is going to sound like he can do anything he wants. And the jury wont like it so his lawyers are going to be pleading with him, please mr. Trump dont take the stand. But most of his case is going to be in crossexamining witnesses and one thing they are going to do in the presentation of the case and opening Oral Arguments is prepare the jury further weak witnesses. The prosecutor is going to say, you will hear from Michael Cohen and he has been held responsible for line. He pled guilty to some crimes, but we didnt choose Michael Cohen, this is the kind of person donald trump hangs out with. That is what you expect when you go up against somebody who is a crook. They are surrounded by other crooks. Meanwhile, the prosecutor is going to say, listen, the witnesses you are going to hear from have no ax to grind or the people who work with him like hope hicks, whos completely loyal to him, so you are not only going to have a preview of what the case is, youre going to have a prerebuttal of some of the Cross Examination that you may see later on in the case. And it is going to be interesting to see, how the Prosecution Deals with Michael Cohen and how far they go to prepare the jury for someone, who has had his troubles telling the truth in the past. But nevertheless, they think is a reliable witness in this case, because virtually all of what he had to testify is backed up by documentary evidence. I appreciate both of you. That is going to be a very busy week, which we will watch with great interest. Dennis analysis Criminal Defense Attorney and legal analyst, Jennifer Rubins Opinion Writer for the Washington Post and opinion analyst. Author of resistance, how women saved democracy from donald trump. Former Energy Secretary ernest moniz was front and center at the table during the Iran Nuclear Deal negotiations. That is a mama left. He joins me next to talk about the situation we are seeing unfold in the midd