after 22 witnesses and 16 days of testimony, donald trump has become the first ever american president to be convicted of a crime. this trial will go down in history. but without cameras in the courtroom, americans never got to see the evidence for themselves. they didn t get to see trumps eyes close and his mouth go slack as he sat slumped at the defense table. they didn t get to hear stormy daniels salacious testimony, firsthand. i didn t get to watch the judge clear the courtroom, seemingly in anger, as he butted heads with one particularly truculent witness. instead, americans have to rely on word from the few reporters who were actually in the room, making notes, writing down, committing to memory the things we saw and experienced. things that a transcript cannot capture. take a look. that was something to behold. i could hear gasps all around me . i wasn t sure we are going to get to a place where we had any guilty verdict against donald trump, let alone all 34 counts. donald trump was crying from the oval office. he was writing checks from the white house. this is a professional jury as you can get. and you can never read anything from them. in terms the vibe from the room, you heard about it being kind of a courtroom, it s real. i was in the courtroom, his eyes have been close most of the morning. i can t say what is happening behind those lids. one simple work, guilty, repeated over and over and over. something we have never seen before. , tonight we welcome you to the special msn ec event, prosecuting donald trump a witness to history. over this next hour, andrew weissman and i will lead you through what you missed inside the courtroom. not the line by line details of witness testimony, but with the help of our msnbc colleagues, will tell you what it was really like to sit just behind donald trump as the details of the case spilled over. we will tell you what it felt like in the room when witnesses took the stand just a few feet away from the former president. the unscripted, unpredictable moments when the former president seemed to be nodding off, uttering curse words. what people said to each other in the line for the bathroom after that riveting controversial testimony from stormy daniels. from andrew weissman and best legal minds, we will hear from what they saw inside the court, that the nonlawyers, like the rest of us, might have missed. start things off with our first impressions from inside manhattan courthouse. it is a surreal moment going for the first time. and see a former president of the united states, who is simultaneously the world s greatest con artist. those two things at the same time as a criminal defendant, just spends things in a way that nothing else can. and the weirdness of that alone is your first in the courtroom. in that first hour, it is hard to take in anything other than the weirdness of donald trump. anticipating going into the courtroom, i was actually excited to do it. but first of all, because i feel like a somebody who has written a trump book and has been covering this man from the beginning of his presidential campaign on, this kind of felt like a crescenta moment for him , and for the country. it is the only trial that he is going to face. so it definitely felt like a big moment and something that i really did want to witness for myself. having worked in another investigation, and we could not charge the sitting president and donald trump, that was a department of justice rule. now, in a full-fledged criminal case, it was kind of remarkable. i thought there would be a lot of people there. a lot of pro trump people, in particular. and they really weren t. and then found my nbc pham, around the spot where we do stand up, found all the producers and camera operators and everything and stood in line for a really long time. i will say, the thing that i learned was it is not what you are wearing that makes a difference. it is what you are wearing on your feet, because where you are going to get caught is through the soles of your dress shoes, you idiot, why didn t you wear sneakers? people understand, it is not you just walk up to the courthouse and they whisk you in and it was this easy breezy kind of thing. you line up outside, across the street from center street because they anticipate a number of people showing up. so you have three different lines, it is, flake flying on an airline was actually kind of put you in a different group of people to board. two courtroom that look identical, the only difference being the judge and the jury, et cetera, are in the overflow. the overflow room hold other members of the media and also withhold members of the public. the overflow room has a very large monitor at the front of it that shows directly councils table. so you have the prosecution on one side, the defense on the other. what you very clearly see donald trump. it was like a spa compared to the courtroom. you can go to the restroom whatever you want to. you can, and there is this absence of tension. in the overflow room. that i didn t know i was feeling in the courtroom. until i wasn t in the courtroom. and it is almost like, you know, you re standing in this very difficult window all day. and then the wind stops. it is that kind of very different sensation in what seems to be the same place. the day before senator tommy tuberville of alabama had gone to the trial and said it was the most depressing building he had ever been in, and he scorned on it. and i take that man s statement with a grain of salt. but it was perfectly nice. it was a good, highly functioning municipal building. it kind of struck me how much a certain class of americans are used to very elite spaces, and they are not used to public spaces. in a simple spaces, bureaucratic spaces, you have to spend a lot of time in those kinds of spaces. elite people, people of power and money, they tend to be in grandeur. donald trump in that setting, both when he is walking past you, he walks in and out and you kind of seen for the first time. this was the first time i have seen him in person, he was less than expected the first time i was in the courtroom, donald trump was very surprised to see me because i had been mostly reporters, very few anchor types showing up there. and donald trump has hated me longer than anyone who was going to walk into that courtroom. he was once very fond of stormy daniels and you know, very fond of michael cohen. in 2011, when donald trump started about the presidential birth certificate, i said he was lying about it and i called him on the lie and donald trump had never been called a liar before in his life when he was leaving that day, he just did the stupidest thing you could possibly do, he looked right at me, in this grand way, that everyone in the courtroom could see, and he was trying to do a face that would be tough guy and scary and threatening and full of hate, but he is a terrible actor. and so it came out as just an insanely twisted face that meant nothing but madness. and i loved it. if there were cameras in the court, people all over america in all 50 states would be calling in sick to work in order to stay on and watch this thing. i mean, it is so freaking compelling in person. and the drama of this particular criminal case against trump is both lurid and cogent and full of amazing characters, and has just enough surprise to make every witness kind of a cliffhanger. it s, you can t. i don t know if trump is falling asleep or if he is just resting his eyes, but it is not boring. it is riveting. riveting is the perfect word to describe what it was like inside donald trump s trial. every trial is dramatic, it is why we all get addicted to tv shows like law and order and the wire. this is real life, and it was no exception. but it is one thing to hear the news about it, or if you are a nerd like me, to read the cold transcript. but tonight, we re going to continue to learn from people who were inside the courtroom, day in and day out, waking up at the crack of dawn to wait in line to get one of the few seats available to the public and the press at 100 center street here in manhattan. so tonight i m joined by a very special legal panel, who also spent many hours in the manhattan criminal courthouse, please welcome nbc senior legal correspondence and attorney, laura jarrett, in legal contributor, and former terminal trial attorney, katie fang, and msnbc legal correspondent, law litigator, lisa rubin. they are here with us for the whole hour, along with msnbc hosts giving us their impression from inside the courthouse. lisa, obviously, some of these witnesses got a ton of attention. they may not have been the most important witnesses. but stormy daniels, michael cohen. maybe the most surprising witness, which was the defendants last witness, the last anyone heard from bob castillo s. the big picture, what was your impression of how they did that people might not get from just reading accounts and hearing from us about what was technically said what was the sort of demeanor and tone that people might get i think the most important part about the witness that you can t get from reading the transcript, or sometimes even watching our coverage is the entrance and the exit. because all the witnesses were brought in through a side door to the courtroom, instead of the traditional back door where you walk along the entirety of the gallery, he watched through the center aisle and walked to the witness stand. here, each and every witness, no matter hostile to donald trump or friendly, had to walk by his first row of surrogates on their way into the courtroom. went by corporal security officers and those of them who had counsel, their counsel then load thereafter. in some cases, trump really wanted to have an interaction with the as with rona graff, his former executive assistant and other cases, the body language was as hostile as hostile could be. michael cohen looks like you wanted to vault over the courtroom doors so that he could avoid being even proximate to donald trump. that that entrance and exit was really fascinating to watch. katie, i had a question to you is somebody who spent so many years as a criminal prosecutor. lots of people have talked about how there should have been cameras in the courtroom, at least audio. and let s leave that aside for a moment. how do you think, if there had been cameras, that might have affected witnesses, the lawyers on either side, or even the defendant, donald trump, if this had been televised. i think it would ve increased the intensity of the experience for everyone involved, especially the witnesses. you kind of ask yourself on and off, donald trump himself would have maybe reacted to more visibly than he did. maybe she wouldn t have acted or looked like he was asleep if you knew that there was a camera trained on him. but when it comes to the witnesses themselves, it is important because if they knew, just like we have seen in other trials, that they would be on the witness stand. i think it would ve amplified maybe even performances that we saw from some of the witnesses. i think you are more hyperaware. i also think the jurors would have been aware, even if you never saw their identities, i know that they know it is important, what is at stake. but when you re in a courtroom, it is a small space. people need to understand this is not some huge cavernous federal courtroom. it is a small state courtroom and so people are within very close proximity, within feet of each other. and that is the jury. so if you know also, does not just people in the court that are watching or the overflow room, is america and the world, i think that amplifies the intensity. i was really surprised by how close the witness stand was to the jury box. really close. and actually the witness stand for donald trump was much, much further. so that was something i think you don t get from being there. much more for supersmart legal panel who were inside the courtroom, coming up. first, it is one of the most shocking testimonies of the truck, when stormy daniels took the stand, all while apparently, unbeknownst to us, wearing a bulletproof vest. after the break, our team takes us not only inside the courtroom, but inside the elevators and, wait for it, bathroom lines. where reporters try to process what they had just heard. you re watching prosecuting donald trump, witness to history. many of the journalists in the room are looking at each other think, my gosh, i can t believe that this is happening. i cannot believe this is actually being set on a public state. either way, how am i going to communicate this on television? everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new sensodyne clinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it s a great product. it s going to help a lot of patients. head & shoulders 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that bullet proof vest her lawyer says she wore to court. here are some more firsthand accounts from my colleagues from inside the room. when she came in, all of us kind of took a deep breath. no one expected we don t know who the witnesses are until that day. for a reason. right? the prosecution always protects their witnesses. resources we might figure out who witnesses maybe an hour beforehand. that morning, donald trump had posted on truth social that they had just informed of who the witness was and they had prepared and that person shouldn t be able to take the stand. and so the minute he had posted that, and then, by the way deleted it an hour later, we said, it is going to be stormy. i have compared this trial to watching two movies that are made eight years apart. and none of the central characters look the way you remember them in 2016. that is true of michael cohen, for example, as it is stormy daniels. on day one, she came in in a jumpsuit with her hair sort of haphazardly piled up on top of her head, wearing glasses, and not looking at all like the adult film star that we remembered. i have since come to learn, because her lawyer said this on another media outlet, she was wearing a bulletproof vest. and that accounted, i think, for her appearance, as well. she was wearing an outfit that accommodated her wearing a bulletproof vest because she felt that her life was at risk in coming to court and testify against former president trump and the reaction of people in margo world, who are loyal to president trump, i could just tell you this by looking at my twitter feed, reinforced why she felt she was in danger. we know trump reactions to stormy daniels thing, you can see. but there s donald trump, known to millions of people as the orange turned that has to sit there for the first time in his life and listen to himself being called the orange, his defense lawyer thinking that somehow harms stormy daniels. that she flippantly refers to donald trump as the orange turd. there s not a juror there who cares that stormy daniels refers to him as the orange turd. not one, they re not offended by it. these are new yorkers, these are people who have hurt worse in every trip on the subway. so we leave the courtroom, we walk out, there is like a row of bathrooms during breaks. everybody kind of lines up in the bathroom like you would in any kind of public place. we are all online looking at each other, giving eyes to each other. oh my gosh, that really what happened? getting onto the elevator, going down for lunch, did she just accuse the former president of this? did she just say this happened with the former president everybody s kind of mulling over and digesting what it is we all just heard the jurors, i think, have been admirably sort of stonefaced. i know i have seen reports, i didn t see it with my own eyes, but i ve seen reports of some jurors kind of involuntarily reacting to some of the more salacious details i came out, particularly during stormy daniels paths tory., the jury was like stonehenge. like they were very restrained. this is a case about falsifying business records and the defense team made it sound like a 1970s rape case. they went after her about really hard about the fact that she has been in the porn industry for years. you have been in more than 200 porn films, how could you be a damsel in distress in the hotel room? in that moment, look at right at the jurors faces to try to see if i could read anything and get any glimpse of what they were thinking. they were inscrutable. they are maintaining a poker face the whole time. this is the same courtroom that harvey weinstein was tried in. this is a storied courthouse. this is a storied prosecution team. they have done sex crimes before. this was such a momentto have the woman at the center of this case basically told she couldn t have possibly been a comfortable because she had been. she was treated so differently than other witnesses. hope hicks and david pecker, the person at the head of the national enquirer, were devastating witnesses. they are sensitive testimony is so damning for donald trump and their cross-examination was kid gloves. nobody s testimony is in some respects, more devastating than hope hicks, because of her proximity. nobody questioned her credibility but if you take a step back and you separate these women and you forget about the accident of their respective births, hope hicks, for example, coming from very wealthy, greenwich, connecticut. sort of the academy of poise and grace in the trump white house, contrasted with stormy daniels, who had, by contrast, very rough childhood, a mother who abandoned her. all this comes out on her direct examination. but the difference in how they were trusted, i think, is really palpable. sort of a toxic brew of class and misogyny. there was absolutely a judgment about her credibility based on what she did for a living. and then you have to think to yourself, well, wait a second. hope hicks may look the way that she did, but she not only worked for trump once, she worked for trump twice she left the white house in march of 2018, came back to work for the former president, and stayed after he lost the election, despite the fact that she was privately advising him that he had lost in the things that his lawyers and allies were saying about his not losing the election and his winning were fraudulent. she still stayed. i have to question, who lacks credibility now? so fascinating to hear their stories. the legal brains in the room or hyper focused on the defenses strategy to go hard after stormy daniels on cross- examination. but not hope hicks or david pecker. our panel had a front row seat to it all is back. so, katie, from your spot in the courtroom, what do you think of stormy daniels? how did she do from actually seeing her life, as opposed to just reading it cold? she did a spectacular job. stormy daniels s testimony did not come across as rehearsed. whether you liked it or not, because of the sincerity. didn t seem like she rehearsed or practiced her testimony. given, she had prepared and that is the big difference. preparing with lawyers is totally different. but she prepared for that and she did a great job and i think she knew that even though, i call it a detour, not a sideshow but 80 torr of the case took a detour to export what happened between her and donald trump because he had to create the foundation of why the payment was made by michael cohen. how it got to the level of the business records being falsified. but you needed to have that dialogue. and what is really important, everybody likes to say that this is a paper case but is about humanity in some way, right? people s courage, people s involvement with others. extramarital affairs, hush money payments, all that is a very human thing and she brought that humanity to the case. i had the same reaction. i thought, in many ways, she did better on cross, because you got a better sense of her as a person. and she was responding sort of naturally to questions that she didn t know what was coming up and she really got a sense of her and also i thought how smart. exactly. you know, the sort of assumption, as you said, are ones that are sort of, i sort of found myself checking myself saying why am i so surprised? i should not have been. so laura, so one of the more unusual aspects of this case was how it ended with bob castillo being called by the defense. i did not see that coming. lisa always thought they would call him. i thought they wouldn t do it. i am with you. one of the reasons i m with you is that bob castillo, if you remember, was somebody who donald trump said before this case was indicted, that he wanted the grand jurors to hear from you that well, okay, that is a really stupid move because it is never going to stop the grand jury from indicting, you just revealed something to the prosecution. and as a defense lawyer, one of the things you have, sometimes almost the only thing you have is surprised. and so here they sort of, it was flopped out to the prosecution a year ago. so obviously, the call record here does give some flavor to castillo. i don t know if he explains the clearing of the courtroom and how dramatic it was to be in the room with the judge who was so fired up. i thought he was going to throw him behind bars. so bob castillo gets on the stand and right away, he is combative, he is aggressive. he is rolling his eyes, he is muttering audibly. could you hear it? i am in the courtroom, lighting up the chat like, guys, this is going off the rails fast, okay? we had a sense it was going south but i didn t know it was going to go as south as it did. in the overflow, by the way. you are also communicating to your colleagues? we sort of have a bizarre pony express situation now. allow do some electronics not also we can use our phones in the physical courtroom because i think there s a concern that somebody is going to mess up and tape it, even though we had been admonished not to but we can use our laptops. and so we can send messages by email, by slack, by dm but we can t use our phones. so in the chat, we are all sitting color from the courtroom about what we are observing, that tone, about how things are going. i often just focus on the jury is i m very interested in what they re picking up on. right away, the jury is looking at each other like something is about to go down here. so it had been a sleepy morning. everybody was sort of feeling monday, all of its glory. and then bob castillo get on the stand in the afternoon and we are off to the races. so because he was so, i think, contemptuous of the judge and the process and did not like being interrupted this is a federal prosecutor who really felt like he should be respected and he thought susan hoffinger, the prosecutor, was telling him in a way that he didn t like and he didn t like interrupted when she was objecting. most of those objections were sustained. so in the room, the tension is boiling, okay? and finally, the judge sends the jury out. i go oh god, here we go. but then, robert costello is giving it back to the judge, and the judge got so upset he clears the courtroom from the press, which is highly unusual, okay? usually, there s a security situation, that is one thing. this was not that. the judge was fired up and i think he was worried about what he might say and so he clears the courtroom for only a few minutes, we should make that clear. it wasn t long. we all come back in and he is still kind of rolling his eyes for the remainder of the afternoon. there is a period, the period where everyone gets out of the courtroom other than, you have honestly the defense team, on the prosecution table. but then the public and the press are out of the room. not all of them. that is what i was going to say. so it is really interesting because i think as we mentioned, the first two rows, which were sort of friends of, like bride and groom. they are still there. but this is what, all of us have to go through, the cold record. it is chaotic. the media is screaming we have a right to be here. our media lawyers trying to object. the court officers are having none of it. everybody is ushered in. thank you, the judge to make a record of what happened. so in a couple of hours we also the transcript, we know what happened. in the moment, we all were sent out but obviously should not have happened. this legal panel the state put four more of our excellent discussion. but first, you could feel the tension in the courtroom when trump s one-time fixer, michael cohen, took the stand and came face-to-face with his ex-boss for the first time in years. he was like sammy groove on a and he just skillet and can weigh, a long line of under links flipping on their bosses. after the break, our team gives us their first-hand account of what that moment was like. the first moment when trump s lawyer, todd blanche, gets up and asked cohen, did you call me a little crying [ bleep ] or whatever it was, and the judge immediately instructs them to approach as the d.a.s office raises an objection. everyone was talking about that. 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[vroom] [train horn] [buzz] clearing the way, [whoosh] so you arrive exactly where you belong. once the testimony from stormy daniels was over, we didn t have to wait long before the next very dramatic testimony , michael cohen, trumps former fixer and loyal attack dog. now a star witness for the prosecution. and his testimony placed the former president at the center of this alleged criminal scheme. so what was it like in person? what was it like when michael cohen saw his old boss for the first time in years? and what was it like to witness the showdown between cohen and trumps defense lawyers? during what turned out to be just a brutal cross examination ? let s go back inside the courtroom with our msnbc and nbc colleagues. the jury has been waiting for this moment as long as we have. it is highly anticipated. they have come face-to-face before in the civil fraud trial, but this is criminal this is different. and he is the only one who can tie donald trump directly to this crime. he is the linchpin of the prosecutor s case and he has given up the goods. he has put him from trump tower to the oval office in a way that nobody else can. there s a few moments that really stood out. the first moment wins trumps lawyer, todd blanche gets up and asks cohen, did you call me a little crying [ bleep ]? the judge immediately instructs him to approach, as the d.a.s office raises an objection. everyone was talking about that. everybody was talking about how strange way for blanche to open up the proceedings. when you prosecute cases whenever but he has her hands dirty. that was michael cohen of the time when he was working for donald trump and doing these things for him, it always, always captivates and captures the interest of the jury when they hear from the fixer, when they hear from the henchman, when they hear from the guys that did the dirty work for the kingpin. i did not notice any interaction between the former president and michael cohen. but i did notice how closely michael cohen is making i can t with the jury, especially when he is describing some of the most emotional parts of the story. when he is describing his come to jesus moment when why he decided he is going to choose his family over donald trump i think cohen was successful in maintaining control over his own demeanor. he did not get agitated. he did not act out. there were times where he got short or little snippy but mostly maintained the kind of equilibrium throughout that i think was probably helpful with the jury. i think he did do a pretty good job of humanizing himself look, there are many people on the jury that will never know a person whose loyalty to an accused criminal defendant was as extensive as michael cohen s was by his own admission. of course, michael cohen is a person who pled guilty on two different occasions to a panoply of federal crimes. one of the federal judges called it a smorgasbord of crime. i think you humanized himself? yes. i think it is necessarily relatable? not quite. but he doesn t have to be a person that they want to have a beer with. these are some the most stunning days in court when michael cohen finally took the stand. as the piece mentioned, the jury seemed to have been waiting for that moment as long as the journalist in the room had. but being there, in person, there s some really noticeable differences between the michael cohen we have gotten to know on cable news shows or maybe his podcast versus who we saw testifying. his demeanor, how he sounded i will have to say, i posted a double take when the defense played a clip of cohen from his podcast, when you heard his voice from the podcast, and compare that to what you had heard from the stand over the last day. in that contrast is something that can play very well for the defense in summation to argue there are really two michael cohen s katie, lisa, and laura are back with us. i wanted to ask about that issue of how you thought his very polite, unflappable, even killed demeanor. solemn. which, in many ways, is what you want a witness to be. i thought that played given that they did see this other piece, they actually heard his voice and he also was describing the way he behaved in bullying people and acting as, a phrase that i hate but i m going to use, as sort of trumps pitbull. he has done that the moment is coming for a long time, for anybody getting up there, it is rattling and he kept his cool, even when things got thrown his way that he was not prepared for and that were a surprise and made him look like a liar. even he was crossed at some point about his information about his wife and his child. that i thought oh, okay, what is going to happen, i was waiting for fireworks. but they didn t come, he kept a calm, and i think that he came off as, on the stand, sort of hat in hand on his. there were times where i felt like he was sort of resisting in terms of like, well, that doesn t play alive. i thought just tell them, of course, just own it. you have already come this far. they heard two on the podcast talking about revenge is a dish best served cold. let s lay it all out there and they won t punish you for it. the jury think you re being authentic. even if what you said is horrendous, right? jurors are like drug dealers and they think they are being honest, they have to come off as authentic. so i m surprised there were times where there was like, you could feel that resistance. katie, wanted to talk to you about juan merchan, the judge overseeing this. full disclosure, i now have a man crush on him. i just think he is just a spectacular judge. the first thing when i went to court, the very first time, i was struck by his voice and we have all been in court, we have seen judges and seen judges who can t control a courtroom. we have seen judges who control a courtroom by raising their voice and through histrionics and hear, he controlled the courtroom by being the adults in the room and had such a calm judicial temperament. and i just felt like he wasn t going to tolerate and he expected everyone to behave properly. it was just, i thought, sort of remarkable. that is sort of my view. don t let me influence you. how do you think he did? this is the first ever trial of a current or former president, enormous pressures, enormous claims of violations of the gag order that he found 10 times and a lot of novel legal issues to deal with, how did you think he did managing this case? we have been inside courtrooms, in front of judges, very high-stakes cases, the one thing that we know is the person who is gatekeeping everything is the judge, right? and to laura s point that she made earlier, the jury looks to the judge, sometimes as a paternal figure or a maternal figure or somebody who is going to be there to kind of guide us through this process, which can be confusing it can be mazelike for some people. the thing about donald trump is he has introduced us to different judges, right? we have seen the brett kavanaugh s of the world, and his demeanor during a confirmation hearing. we have also seen justice arthur engoron through the civil fraud trial. we have seen judge kaplan from federal court for e. jean carroll s trials. we have seen different judges. the thing that i think is so, so poor in terms of america not being able to know judge merchan is not being able to see and hear him because he is measured and he is calm, even in the face of all the scrutiny and all these complex legal issues. why? because this man came to the united states, he immigrated at the age of six from columbia. he is one of six children. he was washing dishes. he went to school. you know, he graduated at the first member of his family to go to college. he lived in queens. he worked at the new york d.a.s office, and the new york state attorney general s office and has been a judge since 2006. if there is anyone who isn t, i beg you, find somebody else that is not more new york than judge juan merchan. a lot of new york are, when you think about donald trump having a jury of his peers in this trial, but having a man like judge or sean who is overseeing just the personalities, right? and having to be able to manage that. he has done a fantastic job and i think it is just not good that we haven t been able to see that in terms of on video. i love your response, because donald trump has attacked this judge, is not the first time he has attacked judges because, as donald trump says, he is unfair because of where he comes from, to quote. we all know what that means. and your answer tells us exactly where this judge came from and there will be controversy from this trial, one side or the other, in every trial, one side is disappointed or not, as to what happened. and the fact that we were all there, inside the court, i think we can all agree. this is such a fair trial, and such a fair process because of the judge, there are really good lawyers on both sides. whatever was happening, it is not because the process isn t working. again, it is really important, and i think the judge is primarily responsible for that. so, all right, we re not the only ones consumed by this trial. our viewers also have a lot of questions, we ll answer a few of them. you re watching prosecuting donald trump, witness to history. ya know, if you were cashbacking you could earn on everything with just one card. chase freedom unlimited. so, if you re off the racking. .or crab cracking, you re cashbacking. cashback on flapjacks, baby backs, or tacos at the taco shack. nah, i m working on my six pack. switch to a king suite- or book a silent retreat. silent retreat? 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[ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg s moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don s paying so much for at&t, he s been waiting to update his equipment! there s a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don t have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. welcome back to prosecuting donald trump a witness to history. a special report on in person, in the courtroom reporting of the first ever criminal trial of an american president. over the last 50 minutes or so, we have given you an inside look at the trial through the eyes of our msnbc team . but we know that you have lots of questions about what you saw over the last several weeks here is andrew wiseman and our legal panel. jakes, rachel. let s get right to your questions so meritor from new jersey asks, the gap city courthouse, why were special accommodations made for trump and his allies? i know you have been very fixed on the last part of his allies. for example, he was allowed to rent and against the judicial system in others and lie blatantly, and his son and allies were allowed to keep their phones while in court. so, why was that? i will give you what i think is the only reasonable argument for it, and then stipulate that it has been abused and wildly so. i think the legitimate reason is for his own security. these are arrangements that are made between the court, the nypd and the secret service. for example, trump enters through a separate entrance to the courthouse. there is a street that is blocked off for his motorcade to approach that entrance. these separate elevators, he s got his own holding rooms. when he appears for the press conferences, he comes through a set of darkened glass doors beyond which are those holding rooms however, there are some things that are going on here that definitely have been abused. the first of which is the reserved seats those are supposed to be for extra members of his defense team, and that is the way that the d.a.s office has used their side of the drive side, as you said earlier. in trump s case, he is using it for sort of rotating surrogate operation. and those surrogates not only have their phones, but they are tweeting from the courtroom. we can prove that they are tweeting from the courtroom, timestamps on their tweets or truth social post, and there often doing it to circumvent the gag order, which one of them admitted on another media outlet last week. there are some special arrangements here, that should have been made for former president security and yet they have been rampantly abused by him and his friend. including the group of people from congress wearing sort of identical uniforms, sort of mini me s of the former president. i should note, all former presidents are given secret service. donald trump has not been treated differently. from the netherlands, she asks, is the decision of the jury final? well, welcome to gain a panel of lawyers. this is the kind of question where, his lawyers don t have a great name, which is it depends. but here is like a one key answer if there is a conviction , that is something that can be appealed on the law. if there are legal mistakes that were made. the jury was instructed improperly on the law, is evidence was kept out that was material, improperly. those kinds of things can be appealed and it can take quite some time. so there is recourse there. so it s really complicated. let me just say, thank you so much to our incredible team. it is really great to be here, nerdy out with lawyers and all of us having been in the courtroom. thanks so much for your perception and insight and personal stories. and thank all of you for spending the last hour with us. if you can t get enough trump news, and you want to take even deeper, try the msnbc podcast, hosted by mary mccord and me. have a
, u know, paying it forward and trying to help people understand their sacrifice. karen davis, the nurse who survived the entrapment in the mega fire in paradise, california, says she lost everything in the inferno. battling the trauma from the flames, she decided to move to las vegas to be closer to her daughter and rebuild her shattered life. once there, karen continued her career in health care. she also decided to become a member of the henderson, nevada, community emergency response team, aiming to help others in future emergencies. a testament to her inner strength and resiliency. for more information on what you can do in a wildfire and how to combat the growing climate crisis, please go to cnn.com/violentearth. i m liev schreiber. thanks for watching. good night. [crowd shouting] [narrator] previously on secrets & spies. [ken adelman] in 1982, the soviet union had something like 33,000 nuclear weapons. [ronald reagan] they are the focus of evil in the modern world. [applause] [oleg gordievsky] the confrontation between west and east was very serious. there was really significant fear that this was going to lead to something extremely, extremely dangerous. [oleg] [crowd cheering] [narrator] this is the unseen story of the cold war. fought not by politicians. but by secret agents. [jack barsky] there was complete misunderstanding on either side. it s very difficult to determine whom you can trust. [narrator] as the soviet union faces off with the west in the early 1980s. two spies play a dangerous game from the shadows. they seek to win the upper hand while the world stands on the brink of nuclear war. these are their stories in their own words. testimony pieced together from interviews over the years. [oleg] after 11 years of secret work, maybe i develop paranoia. [narrator] .and never-before- heard recordings. [aldrich ames, on recording] [narrator] .that reveal the deadly intrigues at the heart of the battle between east and west. [alexander vassiliev] look, this is a war. a secret war. [dramatic music playing] [dramatic music playing] [ken] 83 had been a horrendous year for u.s.-soviet relations. really one of the worst. various things were done which scared the daylights out of the soviet union. you had the military exercise abel archer. [inaudible] the soviet union was unconvinced that if there was a bolt out of the blue, if there was an unprovoked attack by nato, by the united states, against the soviet union, it would be under the guise of a military exercise. we d also just gotten over the shoot-down of the kal airlines. we had gone through the evil empire speech. and so it was a real time of high, high tension. what we ve been concentrating on in the last ten days is the most important relationship in the world, and it makes an enormous difference to the world community when soviet-american relations deteriorate to the lowest point in 20 years, which they have. [tim naftali] when the competition is a nuclear competition, the uncontrollable risks of misunderstanding could have catastrophic consequences. and that s that was that s really the lesson of 1983. the stakes are uncontrollably high. it will be a miracle if there is not one or two major dangerous confrontations, direct confrontations, between the soviet union and the united states. [narrator] on the world stage, president reagan is determined to defeat what he calls the evil empire. but another battle is playing out in the shadows. [jack] for me, becoming a spy for the kgb was ideology. i am jack barsky. that s not the name i was born with. we stole the identity of a jack barsky who passed away at the young age of 11. i spent ten years as an illegal undercover agent for the kgb in the united states. i was 100% convinced that communism was the right thing. that the world eventually would wind up being one happy communist family. [narrator] in moscow, soviet leader yuri andropov continues running operation ryan. it feeds into his paranoia of a nuclear attack from the west. he has over 100 kgb spies overseas whose job is to win the struggle for global supremacy. but not all of them are loyal to the soviet union. top london agent oleg gordievsky has a dangerous secret. [ken] there is a cat-and-mouse relationship between the intelligence agencies. it was white-hot with the emotions on both sides. [narrator] in america, the cia builds a network of their own, recruiting kgb agents willing to turn traitor. and the new boss of this desk is aldrich ames. known to colleagues as rick. [diana worthen] i liked rick. i enjoyed being around him. i used to work for the central intelligence agency. rick ames was my boss there. i was loving it. [laughs] i really liked working on the soviet target. it always felt like important work to me. plus, watching my boss in action with the meetings he was going out to and what he was bringing back. [narrator] he is newly in love after a failed marriage. [diana] while rick was still married to his first wife, he met rosario. this is rick and rosario at the beach in puerto vallarta. they were in love. in a way, he was very good for her and she was very good for him. [narrator] ames s job is to protect the cia s growing portfolio of soviet agents. [tim] a very important part of the mosaic of information about the soviet menace comes from spies, human agents, each of whom is taking an enormous risk. and those spies are sending their information, ultimately, via aldrich ames. his job is to be sure that the information that these agents provide in the field is in a useful form for policymakers in washington. but he s also in a position to shape how washington uses this material. through this man goes the most important human intelligence that the united states is collecting in the soviet union on the soviet menace. through this one man. so he knows their names, and, of course, he s supposed to keep those names secret so that they don t die. [ominous music playing] [narrator] in london, one soviet double agent is more valuable than all the american assets. [narrator] the british source, oleg gordievsky, is third in command at the kgb london station. [narrator] gordievsky s intelligence revealed that the west s military exercise, able archer, provoked the soviets to seriously dangerous levels. [bianna golodryga] the security was heightened around the perimeters of the nato-u.s. exercises. russia interpreted that as not just another exercise, but perhaps posturing from the united states and nato to actually deploy a nuclear weapon. [helicopter blades beating] [narrator] yuri andropov, the leader of the soviet union, is so paranoid that one misstep could take the world to the brink of nuclear war. this misinterpretation about what the west s intentions were was something to be worried about. [narrator] and president reagan has no idea. [bianna] then the british decided it was time to start telling washington a little bit about who their new spy was, and some of the information that he was feeding them. in particular, that russia was indeed alarmed and russia was fearful. [narrator] but these insights come just as americans watch a nightmare scenario unfold onscreen. [laughing] [man] have a good weekend. [glass shatters] [ken] in late november 1983, abc put on a movie special called the day after. it was a movie of a town in kansas getting blown up by nuclear weapons. it s very powerful. president reagan watched it at, i believe, at camp david, with nancy. and he told us that he was kind of devastated by the whole thing. it was watched by over 100 million americans. and it was the rage. ronald reagan doesn t want to be seen as someone who brought the world close to nuclear brink. so he wants to be the peace-lover president. and he was flopping around wondering what to do about it all. [narrator] shocked by the reality of nuclear war, reagan offers his first olive branch to andropov. i believe that 1984 finds the united states in the strongest position in years to establish a constructive and realistic working relationship with the soviet union. just suppose with me for a moment that an ivan and an anya could find themselves, say, in a waiting room, or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a jim and sally. as they went their separate ways, maybe anya would be saying to ivan, wasn t she nice? she also teaches music. jim would be telling sally what ivan did or didn t like about his boss. they might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon. people want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. a nuclear conflict could well be mankind s last. reagan s big point was not the day after. the big point was the day before, and let s try the day before to make sure that the day after never happens. if the soviet government wants peace, then there will be peace. let us begin now. thank you. [applause] [narrator] but before any new strategy gets underway. a major tragedy rocks moscow. norman, bad news. i never graduated from med school. what? -but the good news is. xfinity mobile just got even better! now, you can automatically connect to wifi speeds up to a gig on the go. plus, buy one unlimited line and get one free for a year. i gotta get this deal. i know. faster wifi and savings? .i don t want to miss that. that s amazing doc. mobile savings are calling. visit xfinitymobile.com to learn more. doc? [reporter] it is after midnight in moscow. the soviet flag, the hammer and sickle, has been lowered to half-staff over the kremlin. yuri andropov, the soviet president, dead at 69. [ominous music playing] [nina khrushcheva] people knew that he had kidney problems. everybody knew he was sick. people were comparing his skin color whether greenish, or whether bluish, or whatever. so it wasn t really a surprise that he was dying. but at the same time, because of tensions with the united states, with the west, there was uncertainty. it turns out that yuri andropov had much more than a bad cold for the past six months. his funeral will be in moscow tuesday, and although a number of prominent american politicians urge president reagan to attend, he will not. [narrator] reagan s olive branch does not extend to a trip to the ussr. instead, he sends vice president george hw bush. andropov s death has left many russians feeling uneasy. they have now lost two presidents in less than a year-and-a-half, and that s bound to unnerve a people who crave security. [ominous music playing] [narrator] during this critical moment, british prime minister margaret thatcher is one step ahead of reagan. [lord robin butler] the intelligence reports from oleg gordievsky were very important because you are, as it were, seeing behind the curtain. margaret thatcher began to feel that there might be an opportunity for her to open a relationship with the soviet union. which would also be a platform on which united states could build. [narrator] thatcher will cross the iron curtain and attend andropov s funeral. her first visit as the leader of the british state. gordievsky s insight into the soviet leadership s mindset is critical. [woman] yes, hello, it s the duty clerk here. we have an amendment to make to the prime minister s travel arrangements for tomorrow. [narrator] gordievsky s briefings advise her to be formal but friendly, and soften her normally tough image. the soviets don t react well to shows of strength. on a human level, i think this briefing was extremely important. it s body language. it s style. it s smiling at the right moments, but not smiling at the wrong moments. it s how you appear. [reporter] [dramatic music playing] [narrator] the funeral provides an opportunity for margaret thatcher to meet the new head of the ussr. [reporter 1] the new leader of the soviet union is 72-year-old konstantin chernenko. [reporter 2] mr. chernenko had moved up to the graveside for the final salute. he s known to have had health problems of his own. moscow rumors have spoken of pneumonia, but say he s recovered. for a brief moment, he seemed to have difficulty raising his hand. now, more than ever, he ll need his strength if he s to consolidate his power. [reporter 3] the prime minister got a few minutes with the new leader and the foreign minister, andrei gromyko, immediately after the ceremony. she behaved in a very dignified way, but also in a. in a charming way. we know from our intelligence source that her behavior made a very favorable impression on the russians at that moment. we were very courteously received, and i very much valued the opportunity of half-an-hour s talk with mr. chernenko this evening. it s in the interest of the peoples on both sides of the political divide to live in peace and security. let s start on that basis and try to build up. [narrator] thatcher seizes the opportunity to put britain at the center of a new kind of relationship. a relationship that could shift the balance in the cold war. [news anchor] the new leader of the soviet union, konstantin ustinovich chernenko, immediately dispelled any suggestion that he might take a softer line with the west. [nina] for most of us, this kind of exhibition of state power was so tiresome. another old guy died, and now we re gonna have another old guy ruling over us. well, good for them. congratulations. it was a dying joke. it was an absolutely ossified system. [narrator] ronald reagan remains remarkably quiet following his ivan and anya speech. he s reluctant to invest in a leader who might not last long. [ken] ronald reagan is dying to negotiate with any soviet, but he says, they keep dying on me. they keep dying on me. he wants to have a real summit, and that chernenko was about 105 years old at that time, and drooling, and had trouble walking into the room by himself. [narrator] chernenko is so frail that there s no guarantee he ll rule for long. both sides of the iron curtain begin to look to the future. gordievsky picks up on rumors of a new young contender. mikhail gorbachev has risen quickly, from secretary of agriculture to the second in command in the politburo, a part of the country s ruling elite. [speaking russian] [in english] if it is self-evident that chernenko cannot survive very long, then the quicker we start having real contact with mikhail gorbachev, the better. [narrator] reagan is unaware about the new rising star of soviet politics. president reagan was very hawkish and had been very vocal about his views on communism and needing to break it down. not necessarily viewing the soviet union as a partner, but as somebody who the united states really needed to one-up in terms of this overriding issue of democracy versus communism. [narrator] but thatcher has moved beyond this and sees a bigger picture, thanks to gordievsky s intel. this is her opportunity to take control and steer the cold war away from its stalemate. [sir malcolm rifkind] a decision was taken to see if we could persuade gorbachev to come to the united kingdom. [narrator] they wait with bated breath to see if their offer will be accepted. [ominous music playing] [narrator] in 1984, the political relationship between east and west is as fractious and dangerous as ever. the spies continue their cat-and-mouse game to gain the upper hand. i lived in the united states with an established identity as an american. but i was actually spying for the kgb. the tensions were very, very high. the russians were trying to spy on us and recruit our people. we were spying on them and trying to recruit their people. oh, that s me. [jim laughs] i worked the soviet target. kgb, mostly. they were interested in me living behind enemy lines as an american. somebody who, if necessary, could do a lot of damage. what i loved most about the job, i think, was the, um. was the kind of the chessboard game with the russians. [jack] our goal was to weaken the enemy and eventually, you know, help the quote, unquote, working class, the suppressed, to rise up and build another communist nation. [narrator] the handling of the kgb double agents is coordinated by the fbi and cia working together. [jim] rick ames was responsible for monitoring every soviet case. all the important agent cases sort of had to pass by his desk and get his seal of approval. for him, it was probably quite an exciting time. is this motorin and martinov? they were both kgb officers. martinov was a joint effort between the bureau and us. sergei motorin was a line pr officer in washington, d.c., who we recruited. hmm! this guy i know very well. this is major general dmitri polyakov. i worked with him quite a while myself. [narrator] cia agent aldrich ames is in a powerful position. he has 20 soviet double agents all under his protection. [diana] we were responsible for these assets. it s a job i really took seriously. their lives were at stake, and they knew that risk when they were. had joined up to sign. [narrator] but ames is beginning to feel frustrated, and his endless daily commute gives him time to think. he d write these studies. everybody would read them and say, oh, that s really great work, rick. and then that would be the end of it, you know? they didn t really send it anywhere. [narrator] ames is feeling undervalued. the white house seems much more reliant on mysterious briefings from london. [starts engine] [ken] the intelligence from the cia was very good on military technologies. it was just not good at the main thing we needed. what is going to happen? you re asking to read the mind of somebody and to understand human motivations. that s tougher than what is happening or what has happened. [narrator] the intel the brits receive from gordievsky gives them just that. and there are frustrations for ames at home too. [diana] he was also having a hard time, in his mind, trying to figure out how to get the divorce from his first wife. and how much that was gonna cost him. [honking horn] [jim] he gave rosario, i think, an exaggerated sense of both how much money he had and his lifestyle. i think he exaggerated that to her. his old car was always breaking down. everybody talked about his old junky cars. why he didn t buy a new one? he probably couldn t afford one. [tim] he is leading a banal, middle-class life. with the important distinction that he has access to some of the top secrets of the united states. he feels that people don t recognize his importance. they have underestimated aldrich ames. [ominous music playing] [narrator] oleg gordievsky has proven so valuable, the british risk a bold move. they revoke the head of the station, arkady guk s diplomatic status. it forces guk out of london and back to moscow. when you do that, you open up the possibility that moscow will start asking about why the british are doing what they re doing. and moscow, which was already conspiratorially minded and paranoiac, might start doubting the loyalty of the people who were gonna benefit from the fact that resident guk had just been sent home. so that was a risk that they took. [narrator] it leaves an enticing opening. [sir david omand] with guk out of the way, mi6 could plan for gordievsky to step up a notch. could he become the actual head of the kgb residency in london? it would give him much better access to intelligence operations being run from london. [alexander] after arkady guk, the number two, it was comrade nikitenko, who was the head of the counterintelligence line in the station. of course there was a rivalry. but espionage is a teamwork, so you need a good member of a team. [sir david] mi6 have to be extremely careful. he s got to show that he s really on top of the job, and that he is the right person to lead the kgb effort in the united kingdom, yet not be so good and so provoking that jealousies and suspicions will come about. [narrator] mi6 might want gordievsky in charge, but their puppeteering can t be discovered. their strategy is a bold gesture with a potential double payoff. impress oleg s kgb bosses while making a strategic political move. [sir malcolm] with gordievsky s help, we invited gorbachev to come to the united kingdom. we waited a rather long time. then, suddenly, we got an answer. saying, i d like to come in the next couple of months, and i d like to bring raisa, my wife, with me. then we had to go into overdrive. [narrator] it s a momentous event with a lot at stake. gordievsky steps up and helps both sides to prepare. gordievsky is shown a copy of the foreign secretary geoffrey howe s brief, so he knows exactly how number 10 is gearing up. [sir malcolm] how do you get across the reality of what your actual position is? sometimes, the best thing you can do with intelligence is share it with your adversary. he s then able to, in his own words, tell gorbachev, this is what you must expect. these are the issues, for example, human rights, that the prime minister is going to raise with you. [narrator] gordievsky shares information on arms control, trade and economics, along with personal notes on thatcher. [baroness meta ramsay] oleg is telling the kgb what the attitude towards gorbachev would be, and what sort of things would go down well with mrs. thatcher, and what wouldn t. oleg was making sure that the right messages went in both directions. [sir david] the reaction of gorbachev reading his briefs was fed back to gordievsky. there were ticks in the margin. passages were underlined. it s very rare in any intelligence operation to have real-time feedback on whether you re actually having the effect that you hope to have. having someone in london who was in on the political line could produce world historically important information. that s why he was an unusually important spy. he was at the right place at the right time. a slow network is no network for business. that s why more choose comcast business. and now, we re introducing ultimate speed for business our fastest plans yet. we re up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds. at no additional cost. it s ultimate speed for ultimate business. don t miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! [dramatic music playing] [reporter] a decade after gromyko and 28 years since bulganin and khrushchev mr. gorbachev arrived to do a little ice-breaking. [camera shutters click] [sir malcolm] i was at chequers when he arrived with raisa, his wife. [camera shutters clicking] [reporter] it was an unusual affair. the man who arrived was good-humored, informal, and with a taste for well-cut suits. gorbachev seemed a new kind of russian. big smile on his face, as if he s meeting an old chum. [reporter] his wife, raisa, showed not every soviet woman was a 23-stone babushka. thatcher s deciding to be very open and very. she wasn t stiff at all. [indistinct chattering] [laughter] the photograph is taken of us all standing on the steps and so forth. now, have you got enough? -[photographer] thank you. -a handshake. madam, could we just turn. could you. [sir malcolm] margaret thatcher, in her usual taking control fashion, said, no, no, i think we have to have one shaking hands. and you ll stand on the end. -all right. -[all laugh] yes, now, i think. [robin] so at this moment, gordievsky s role was very important, actually, in creating a bridge between the british and the russians. [sir malcolm] and then the first thing to happen is lunch. she hogged him to herself for the whole luncheon. he behaved, if i can put it this way, he wouldn t have liked this, but he behaved like a western politician. [dramatic music playing] [thatcher] i like mr. gorbachev. we can do business together. we both believe in our own political systems. he firmly believes in his, i firmly believe in mine. we re never going to change one another. so that is not in doubt. but we should both do everything we can to see that war never starts again. [bianna] a lot of the tension going into these meetings, the agenda that was set, the topics that each side was going to bring up and discuss, was known ahead of time. in large part thanks to the messages that were received and delivered by oleg gordievsky. [narrator] the visit is a success. gorbachev and thatcher find common ground. thatcher immediately flies out to make the case to reagan. [camera shutters click] [susan eisenhower] imagine, in 1983 ronald reagan said that the soviet union was an evil empire. and then margaret thatcher says to mikhail gorbachev this is a man she can do business with. what an extraordinary shift. and, of course, ronald reagan was not only an admirer and a friend of margaret thatcher, but he really respected her viewpoint on this. and she gave him some political cover to begin to look at the changes that were underway in the soviet union and take them more seriously. [narrator] while chernenko is leader, full dialogue with the soviets remains a long way off. her approval of gorbachev legitimizes reagan s desire to approach the soviet leadership himself. and he is intrigued by her very well-informed insights. but the cia wants to know exactly who is keeping the british one step ahead. [bianna] the cia had this we are holier than thou position, and thus have the right to have access to all of the information that we would like. and so they were itching to find out, who is this mystery spy? [narrator] ames and his colleagues scour the list of soviet diplomats in london who had worked in denmark. [narrator] ames now knows the double agent who s been swaying thatcher and reagan s thinking. unbeknownst to oleg, there was a growing list of people in the cia who were aware of him, his background, what he was doing, and his exact identity. [narrator] and if the cia can work out who the mole is, how long until the kgb finds out? the more people who know the name of a source, the more imperiled the source becomes. if his secret is betrayed to the kgb, it s a bullet to the back of the head. the risk for gordievsky is death.
$6250 for each of his 28 years behind bars. from 2016 to 2020, 374 people wrongfully convicted of murder, 61% african-americans, have reunited with their families together they spent over 6000 years in prison. years. years they will never get back. that s all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. i am craig melvin and this is dateline. leading up to this assign what it was going to be like. i had so many thoughts leading to this assignment as to what it would be like. trying to imagine going down isoad, knowing it s a one- way trip. this moment where you get your last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is through steelman mesh. louisiana highway 66. it s beautiful countryside and undoubtedly not lost on the countless men driven to the place where they will most likely die. that road ends here. the louisiana state penitentiary, a former plantation. the size of manhattan. 28 square miles. most people call it angola named after the african country that was home to the slaves who once worked these very fields. now, angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the country where today, i will be housed with about 5500 men. i am heading into ground zero of mass incarceration. there is a heightened awareness as i walked through here with no guards. for the next couple of days, i will be staying here, exploring key issues of the person reform debate. juveniles sentenced to life without parole. we were children when we got incarcerated. the lasting effect of the war on drugs. the power of rehabilitation. your life is worthwhile. the demand by many for punishment. i think he s where he needs to be. i will stay in a cell to better understand the purpose and experience of prison all from the inside. hello and welcome to dateline. we have all heard the saying, lock him up and throw away the key. critics say that has been our country s approach for crime for two we long. they question whether mass incarceration is keeping a safer and what lengthy prison terms mean for many of the more than 2 million americans behind bars. lester holt spent three days in one of the nation mesquite toughest penitentiary and this is what he witnessed. here is his special report. life inside. life it angola prison is not what you might imagine. the vast majority live like this. more than 80 men and open dorms, sleeping on bunkbeds. i will be staying in a unit next to death row for high risk offenders are in my case, a high-profile guest. we will go down here. my home will be on a tier called ccr a closed cell restriction. the men here are locked in their cells 23 hours a day. i am given sheets, slippers, and toiletries and shown to my cell. cell 11. go in here, please. go ahead and close. naturally, phones are not allowed. all i have is my journal, a pen, a novel, my watch, and am/fm radio. i have cameras around me installed by our crew to record my experience and my thoughts. as journalists, we note to get to the heart of something have to get inside it. the closer you are to something, the more is revealed to you. i soon meet my neighbor, william curtis who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. he tells me he is locked in ccr because he has tried to escape multiple times. how far did you get? not very. he s only allowed out one hour a day. do you go out? not very often. the last time was probably four years ago. you haven t seen the sun in four years? i just want to get through the night. take care of yourself. we will be here a couple of days. i quickly learned the falling asleep in prison is challenging. the toilets flush loudly and often. cell to cell chatter that lasts well into the night. my bed is attached to the wall to curtis is so when he moves around, i feel it. the bed is not much for comfort. it s kind of a plastic mattress, but it did the trick. i slept okay. breakfast arrives at 5:30 a.m., delivered by a prisoner. in case you are wondering, it s scrambled eggs, grits and biscuits to the sound of a flushing toilet. no country on earth locks up more of its citizens than the united states. while we make less than 5% of the world s population, we lock up more than 20% of the world s prisoners. politicians, academics, and activists say mass incarceration is an american crisis. we ve gone from $6 billion in spending to $80 billion today. a civil rights lawyer brian stevenson is one of the nation s leading prison reform advocates. we have hundreds of thousands of people in prison who are not a threat. is it about safety or punishment? we created a culture that makes it entirely about punishment. you might be surprised to us thanks mass incarceration is a problem. the people who run louisiana s prison system. nationwide, we lock up people too long and too many of them. smith is the director of operations for louisiana s department of corrections. it s not working and not giving the results it wants. it s costing a lot of money. we key people that their time of danger is over. he says it s time for americans to rethink the purpose of prison from simply punishment to rehabilitation. you say it s about rehabilitation but a lot of americans think it is about punishment. this should be hell. they ve done awful things. we can make somebody worse. plenty of the incarcerated to believe it is just about punishment. another day in the field. watch it make soap scum here. disappear. and sprays can leave grime like that ultra foamy melts it on contact. magic. new ultra foamy magic eraser. (rebecca) it wasn t until after they had done the surgery to remove all the toes that it really hit me. you see the commercials. you never put yourself in that person s shoes until you re there. (announcer) you can quit. call 1-800-quit-now for help getting free medication. if you spit blood when you brush, it could be the start of a domino effect. new parodontax active gum repair breath freshener. clinically proven to help reverse the four signs of early gum disease. a new toothpaste from parodontax, the gum experts. craig here pays too much for verizon wireless. so he sublet half his real estate office. a new toothpaste from [ bird squawks loudly ] to a pet shop. meg s moving company uses t-mobile. so she scaled down her fleet to save money. and don s paying so much for at&t, he s been waiting to update his equipment! there s a smarter way to save. comcast business mobile. you could save up to 70% on your wireless bill. so you don t have to compromise. powering smarter savings. powering possibilities. lester holt: much of angola prison is farmland. thousands of cattle are raised here to be sold on the open market, and a variety of crops much of angola prison is farmland. thousands of cattle are raised here to be sold on the open market. a variety of crops are grown here as well. all of it happening with inmate labor. one of the many hot button issues and mass incarceration debate. i am on my way to the fields riding on this truck. many of the men are convicted killers including the ones sitting on either side of me. jovan t sanders beat a woman to death and stole her car. what is your sentence? life. without parole. terry mays shot a man in the neck during a drug deal. you ve been here how many years? 30. like prisons everywhere in america, most inmates get paid pennies per hour. how much do you get paid? two cents an hour. this job is not one of the more desired once? it is the bottom of the barrel. nobody want to be in the field. angola is not like any other maximum-security prison i ve ever been to. all of this is angola. a series of prisons. they call them camps. you are from camp d? yes, sir. today to today we are picking carrots. should i be worried about my safety? well, if use an inmate, most definitely. a majority of the inmates are people of color. in fact, black men in america are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men. i certainly cannot escape the optics. look around, mostly black men working on a former slave plantation under the watch of armed guards on horseback. it is unsettling to many. i know it s a sensitive subject and it troubled me a little bit. it made me uncomfortable talking to the guys. most of them look like me. african american. the history of this land as a slave plantation. do you see that as an issue? i can see how someone would have an issue with the. every land in louisiana was a slave plantation. growing vegetables, it s something given back to the prison itself. smith said the crops provide the inmate population fresh food but he says it saves taxpayers money. it costs $1.70 a day to feed each offender. this will be the life for many of these men for decades to come. some have left young children behind who are among the 5 million kids in america who have had a parent in prison. jovan t has two of them. you know the way it works. you are in prison, your dad in prison, your kids and children. are you afraid for your children? i definitely am. my father got murdered when i was three years old. i never knew him. it is hard to imagine knowing you will spend the rest of your life here. especially if you are convicted as a teenager. advocates like brian stevenson say juvenile offenders should never be treated the same as an adult. we put thousands of kids and adult jails and start prosecuting the kids and states with no minimum age being tried as an adult. we should never put children and adult jails. what about one commit violent crimes like murder? we were children and we got incarcerated. i m sitting in on a support room support group. they committed crimes before adults and given sentences of life without the possibility of parole. they are called juvenile lifers. i was 16. i was 17. i committed my crime at the age of 16. 2000 juvenile lifers like them and presented a. i was different at 17 then i am at 60 now. at 17, i knew right from wrong. how do you reconcile that? you have to be accountable. there s no excuse for what i did or what any of us done. they tell me they are no longer the boys they once were and are no longer a threat to society. how do i know they are not conning me? when we got the opportunity to show we are different, people could see. in the past few years, they have gotten new hope to make their case for a second chance. what gives you hope? right there. that s our man right there. state of louisiana. montgomery versus state of louisiana is a landmark supreme court ruling named after the oldest and longest serving member of this group. henry montgomery who is 72 years old when i met him. you were 17 years old when your sentence. do you remember what it was like to be 17? yeah. young and stupid. montgomery was indicted for murder in november 1963. the same month jfk was assassinated. he has been at angola for 55 years. i am behind 55 years. technology, i am 150 years behind. in 2012, the u.s. supreme court ruled mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional, pointing to science that says it s clear that adolescent brains are not yet fully mature. that ruling did not apply to people like henry montgomery who had already been sent away as a juvenile. that is why montgomery took his case to the supreme court and in 2016, he won. now, all juvenile lifers, no matter how long ago they were locked up can make a case that they deserve parole. mostly older guys over here? this 70-year-old clifford is one of them. i went to see him in the dorm where he lives. this is my bed right here. he has been locked up 61 years. since you have been here we have landed a man on the moon. think about that. there have been a lot of changes. six decades in prison have changed him and thanks to the man sitting next to him, hampton, he will have a chance at freedom. why do you think you deserve parole? i would not say i deserve parole. i would not use that word deserve because i took someone s life. i could say that i have earned parole. and faked, hampton and montgomery will see the parole board the same day and i will be there. how are you feeling? u feeling? lester holt (voiceover): one of the things that struck me while walking around angola was how many men i met who seemed to be focused one of the things that struck onme while walking aroun angola was how many men i met who seemed to be focused on changing their lives. one of them is dalton. i knew i had to do something different than just do time and die in prison. since coming to angola in 2004, he says he has turned his life around by taking advantage of the person s programs. i graduated with a ba, 3.91 average. he earned a masters degree from a bible college. he became an ordained minister. a couple of times a week, gospel raps his former preaching to the population. it is hard to square the man sitting across with me with the horrible crime he committed. your actions caused the death of a baby. yeah. when he was 21, he was watching a stepson. the child was inconsolable. he shook the baby so violently he died. now he is serving a 60 year sentence for manslaughter. how do you move past that? how do you become a different person? at first, i didn t know what i was going to do. it was sickening to my heart that i would have done something like that. prejean said he was filled with anger which had its roots in his childhood. this is a picture of prejean and his father shortly before he was executed in the electric chair in 1990 in this very prison for killing a louisiana state trooper. kids watch television and they are like, your daddy is about to be fried chicken. by me have been the same name, people would call my name, i would put my head down because i was ashamed of what i believed that name had meant. over the years, he said programs at angola helped change him. opportunities that were not available when his father was here and still not available at most prisons across the country. there is a movement to try to provide the rehabilitation that was abandoned. people locked up with nothing to do and we know education is transformative. education and programs have proven to reduce violence inside prison. angola was once known as the bloodiest prison in america. things began to change in the 1990s when the prison began to focus on more than simply locking up people and feeding them. now, in addition to his popular annual inmate rodeo, there are a variety of programs. these men are training service dogs for veterans. there s even a radio station run by incarcerated men. the station that kicks behind the bricks. we give them more freedom depending on your behavior. we have a lot of programs led by other guys serving life sentences. it gives them purpose. it looks like an auto shop. i talked with john, a master mechanic at the prison s auto shop. i did not know how to change a spark plug before he came to prison. he has been incarcerated here since 1988 for killing his wife with a shotgun. even though he was sentenced to life without parole, he mentors nonviolent offenders and a reentry program. when you can come in here and change his life and go back out and stay out, you know you done something. your life is worthwhile. many graduates of the program work in a car dealership outside of new orleans. it turns out his life has been changed as well. 2022, louisiana governor john bell edwards commuted his sentence, making them eligible for parole. he was released in february 2023 after nearly 35 years in prison. but there are other offenders at angola who might never get a second chance. this man, sentenced to more than a lifetime. 150 years. you will hear his dramatic story, next. story, next. and it was the worst day. mom was crying. i was sad. colton: i was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma. brett: once we got the first initial hit, it was just straight tears, sickness in your stomach, just don t want to get up out of bed. joe: there s always that saying, well, you ve got to look on the bright side of things. tell me what the bright side of childhood cancer is. lakesha: it s a long road. it s hard. but saint jude has gotten us through it. narrator: saint jude children s research hospital works day after day to find cures and save the lives of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. thanks to generous donors like you, families never receive a bill from saint jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food, so they can focus on helping their child live. ashley: without all of those donations, saint jude would not be able to do all of the exceptional work that they do. narrator: for just $19 a month, you ll help us continue the life-saving research and treatment these kids need. tiffany: no matter if it s a big business or just the grandmother that donates once a month, they are changing people s lives. and that s a big deal. narrator: join with your debit or credit card right now, and we ll send you this saint jude t-shirt that you can proudly wear to show your support. nicole: our family is forever grateful for donations big and small because it s completely changed our lives and it s given us a second chance. elizabeth stewart: saint jude s not going to stop until every single kid gets that chance to walk out of the doors of this hospital cancer-free. narrator: please, don t wait. call, go online, or scan the qr code below right now. [music playing] - [narrator] life with ear ringing sounded like a constant train whistle i couldn t escape. then i started taking lipo flavonoid. with 60 years of clinical experience, it s the number one doctor recommended brand for ear ringing. and now i m finally free. take back control with lipo flavonoid. former president trump is set to virtually meet with a probation officer later today. becomes a little over week after his conviction on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial. the sentencing is set for july 11. police in madison, wisconsin, are investigating after a early morning shooting that left 10 injured. none of the injuries are considered life-threatening and no suspect or motive has been identified. i m craig melvin. does the punishment fit the crime? welcome back to dateline. i am craig melvin. does the punishment fit the crime? it is a question at the heart of the prisoner debate especially when it comes to drug-related offenses. for the man you are about to make, parole board answer could mean the difference between a second chance at life or growing old and dying behind bars. back to lester holt with life inside. and my three days at angola, most of the men i spoke with had committed violent crimes and received long sentences. life without parole. yeah. like every person, there are nonviolent offenders serving laws sentences that might as well be life. john is one of them. i grew up in a middle-class neighborhood. he s a war vet that said he was lost and broken when he came home. i had no direction in life. in 2000, he was found guilty of running a massive drug ring that moved kilos of cocaine between texas and louisiana. it was his second drug conviction. my sentence was 150 years. that s right. 150 years and he is served 20 so far as. s case is a prime example of harsh sentencing laws for drug dealers and users the legacy of the government s decades long war on drugs. more than 450,000 people in america are locked up for a drug offense. brian said criminalizing drug addiction is misguided. we said this people are criminals and we did not have to say that. we could of said drug addiction is a health problem. is that why jails are so full? absolutely. this misguided war on drugs is at the top of the list. things have been changing. the first step act which was signed into law by former president trump in 2018 had been projected to reduce the sentences of thousands of nonviolent offenders in federal prisons. that does not affect more than 90% of the u.s. prison population which is locked up in state and local facilities. some states had already been relaxing sentencing guidelines like in louisiana which started in 2001. epstein was sentenced under the older and harsher laws so he sued the state and one co-which earned him a date with the parole board. now, he is just hours away. i am not a troublemaker. it s about debilitation. i m a little nervous. thinking about things. trying to get my mind that the possibility of me being released. you are making a way for all of us here. be blessed. his 31-year-old son, a law school graduate, came to surprise him. a three-member panel must vote unanimously to grant parole. our cameras were not allowed inside the parole hearing room. about an hour later, his family walked out first. he made it. i made it. i made it. we were there for his first steps as a free man in 20 years. oh, have mercy. [ crying ] two other people are eager to follow him out that gate. henry montgomery and clay after clifford hampton who served a combined 116 years are about to face the parole board themselves. do you think you should be paroled? i should be. i m 55 years older. i am mature enough to know i ain t going to do that again. that might not matter. this is his second parole hearing. he was denied a year before and it seems clear to many why armory is still in prison. you killed a cop. yeah. the man he murder was deputy sheriff charles from east baton rouge. in november 1963, montgomery then 17 years old was playing hooky when the deputy and plainclothes approached him. montgomery said as a black teenager living in the segregated south, he was startled and scared and was carrying a gun and he shot him. i had the gun in my hand and i shot him. i did it and i am sorry. they say it doesn t matter how montgomery feels. what does matter is he stays behind bars. attack on a police officer s attack on the very fabric of society. he is the victim in grandson and today he is a police officer himself. there is no parole for charles. his life sentences permanent. my mom, my aunt, my uncle, our belief in the system is its equal justice. the family of clifford s victim did not want to speak to us on camera but they told us they do not think he should get out either. in 1958, when he was 17, he got in an argument with his 18-year- old neighbor. he flew into a rage and brutally stabbed her to death. i realize what i had did, i walked to the home of the deputy sheriff and turned myself in ski. he has another hurdle to overcome. in 1961, at age 20, he killed another inmate. he told me it was self-defense. angola was like a jungle. that s what you had to do. kill or go under. hampton and montgomery will soon find out if they will be granted parole, but if they are tonight, they could eventually end up where i am heading next. the hospice word. when i want to feel my most powerful, it starts with venus. with five ultra-sharp blades and water-activated serums for incredible glide. i feel the difference with every stroke. feel the power of smooth. (ethan) i smoked and have had multiple strokes. now, it s hard for me to remember things. my tip is, if you need to remember something, write it down quickly. (announcer) you can quit. call 1-800-quit-now for help getting free medication. what is cirkul? cirkul is the fuel you need to take flight. cirkul is the energy that gets you to the next level. cirkul is what you hope for when life tosses lemons your way. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com. lester holt: like every maximum security prison, angola can be a dangerous place. let every maximum-security prison, angola can be a dangerous place. on this morning, knife is found and when that happens, this is the response. a shakedown. this appears to be crushed and medication. we ve seen a couple shakedowns, what do you find? weapons, drugs. they along with assistant warden said being a corrections officer is among the toughest jobs in the world. you ve had things that have raised anxiety. absolutely. i m 34 and on anxiety medicine. studies have shown corrections officers have a higher suicide rate than the general population. can you give me some specific anecdotes of things that have happened to you? i had human waste thrown at me. what can you do? he already has life. the institution is understaffed and the officers say they are underpaid. we start people off at $14 an hour. people in the free world can go to home depot and make the same amount of money and not get feces thrown at them. poor behavior is often the result of hopeless men. the assistant warden said one of the things that is help to something i was surprised to learn that the majority of the officers here are women. there is value in the female officers. we can sometimes talk an offender down a lot quicker. just because we have a calming ability. something else i did not expect to hear. they believe that life without parole sentences makes person less safer everyone. if a man has life he has nothing to lose. he knows there s no chance of going home. i heard the same from many who work your. tonya works in the hospice unit. i would love to see these guys get a second chance. i worry about backlash i would get from that. i know the outside public perception is they are supposed to be here. was there a period in your life you would ve been on the other side? absolutely. my mother worked here as a security guard and i said how can you work with those people? when you get here and you hear some of the stories, no one is the same person from when they were younger to now. decades in prison would change anyone. there is an aging crisis in american prisons. more than 130,000 inmates older than 55 are incarcerated today. that is costing taxpayers more than $9 billion a year. experts say the aging and dying are the most expensive people to keep incarcerated and yet they pose the lowest risk to society. this is what a life sentence looks like when life is running out. dying prisoners being cared for in hospice by other incarcerated men. 63-year-old frank has been in prison for 45 years. when he was 19, he and his younger brother robbed a store, crime that ended with the murder of the owner. now, dying of cancer, he has asked for a compassionate release. the vast majority of petitioners for compassionate release are denied and so was frank. how are you feeling? lester holt. oh, yeah. we are going to have a nice conversation. do you think you should go home? can you give me a candy? it helps my throat. there you go. all right. i will let you rest. he is a human being. i am not here to judge him. but, i don t know how you don t have compassion. a few weeks later, i learned that frank died in his hospice bed alone. back in my cell, i had a lot of time to reflect about everything i have seen. i wrestle with the question of his prison punishment? if it s punishment, it s pretty bad. is it a place of reform? you can see efforts to reform here. i cannot help thinking as we are talking to men incarcerated when they were teenagers, and i think of myself at 16, 17 years old, it s very complicated. and now, the two man i met who committed murders as teenagers, henry montgomery, and clifford hampton are about to find out if they will finally get parole and walked back out into the world. world. mommy, what do you love to do? (chuckling) i love to be your mom. ( ) hey, what s your name? lukie! this is luke, and he has cerebral palsy. are we going to pt? yes, we are. luke s mom: without easterseals, my luke would be a very different luke. i m gonna say hi. okay! let s say hi. hi! he wouldn t have got the help that he desperately needed. easterseals offers important disability and community services that can change a life forever. and your monthly support is critical for these kids future. luke s mom: luke, he has had five therapy sessions a week for almost. for three and a half years. the need has not changed and there are more families that need help. please join easterseals right now. go online, call or scan the qr code with your gift of just $19 a month. luke is a fighter. from the day he was born, to his time in the nicu, to luke s first time walking. now i m going to cry. (sigh) you worked so hard. i m so proud of you. i worked so hard. you did. you know, just to reach into your heart and see what your donation can do for these kids. please visit helpeasterseals.com, call or scan the qr code on your screen with your gift of $19 a month and we ll send you this t-shirt as a thank you. luke s mom: you don t know what the future has and it s very scary. (inaudible) you ve changed the trajectory of my son s life. as a mom, i can t even explain how much that means to me. please join easterseals with your monthly gift right now. her uncle s unhappy. please join easterseals i m sensing an underlying issue. it s t-mobile. it started when we tried to get him under a new plan. but they they unexpectedly unraveled their “price lock” guarantee. which has made him, a bit. unruly. you called yourself the “un-carrier”. you sing about “price lock” on those commercials. “the price lock, the price lock.” so, if you could change the price, change the name! it s not a lock, i know a lock. so how can we undo the damage? we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that s uncalled for. lester holt: if there is one state that defines mass incarceration, it s louisiana, known for decades as the prison capital of the world. if there is one state that defines his incarceration, it s louisiana. known for decades as the prison capitol of the world. 2019, the state s governor john bell edwards said tough on crime approach had not been working. let s talk about mass incarceration. i suppose there was a time it was a good thing. i don t know it was ever a good thing but we know now it was counterproductive. we had the highest incarceration rate in the nation for the last couple of decades but our crime rate was not better for it and recidivism was not better. we were not safer. it was costing a $700 million a year just in louisiana. that s third only to education and health care so we could not afford it. in 2017, edwards, democrat in the deep south signed bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation. the most ambitious in the state s history. you reduced your prison population. we have but we are number 2 at prison. it s a process. to see this happen in a deep red state. law and order south is pretty stunning. it s counterintuitive that you can over incarcerate and be less safe because of it. the reforms are projected to reduce department of corrections spending by more than $260 million over the next decade. some of the money will be invested in reentry programs for those coming home. an important investment because every week an average of 12,000 permanent prisoners in america release back to society. 95% of inmates will get out. when you do next to nothing for successful reentry, you are creating a future that is more riddled with crime. louisiana s reforms focus on nonviolent offenders. what about violent offenders like the juvenile lifer group i are the men dying in hospice. we met people in that person who do not pose a threat to society, but in your opinion, do some people belong in person because what they did was reprehensible? because what they did was reprehensible and there continues to be opposition among the victim s family. whether someone continues to pose a threat to society is a factor to be considered and whether they get released. it cannot be the determinant factor to the of all others. henry montgomery and clifford hampton face opposition from the victim s families. what will happen to them when they see the parole board? montgomery is about to find out. someone has come to support him. his name is andrew. he might look like a lawyer but he is actually the first juvenile lifer to be released because of montgomery s supreme court case. all right. today is the day. he served 19 years in prison. at age 15, he was out with a teenage girl when i got into an argument. he became enraged and peter over the head with a metal rod and try to get rid of her body by burning it. you committed a pretty savage crime. it was a horrible crime and on excusable there s nothing i can do to undo it. they were able to see how i had changed. the parole board said he changed after 19 years, what will it say about henry montgomery after 55 years? you are the first guy who got out and he is still here. there is a lot of guilt. i went to prison when i was 15, a white kid, and got out when i was 34. henry went to prison, a black kid at 17 and he is still here after 55 years. big day. the panel must vote unanimously to free him. they were behind closed doors for more than an hour. this is the audio from that hearing. my vote is to grant parole. my vote is to grant. two yes for his release. then came the third and final vote. for me, unfortunately, mr. montgomery i m going to have to deny your parole. i have a problem i think you need more programs. today your parole has been denied. i caught up with montgomery after he heard the news. he told me he had already packed his bag. you were getting ready in case. in case they said you could go home. yeah. you were holding together. i got life. i will keep my mind on trying to get out. you have to keep hope alive. clifford hampton s hope remains alive. he is about to face the parole board himself. i am realizing he has been in prison longer than i have been alive. i can t wrap my head around that. it was a unanimous vote. parole granted. i was there moments after a surprisingly subdued hampton learned the news. a new adventure begins. yeah. life on the outside. can you imagine what that might be like? excitement. a few days later, he walked free for the first time in 61 years. we will drop your stuff off at your apartment. andrew is here to help him because in 2016, he started a nonprofit called the parole project. by 2020, it had helped more than 40 juvenile lifer s reenter society. his first taste of the outside world, a fast food hamburger with everything on it. first apartment. his temporary apartment painted with bright colors to remind him he is no longer in prison. i am seeing so much that s new to me. i am excited about it all. 2.5 years later, he had the honor of assisting another juvenile lifer in his first moments as a free man. in november 2021, 75-year-old henry montgomery, the man who paved the way to freedom for andrew and hundreds of others was granted parole after serving nearly 58 years behind bars. in all honesty, henry should ve been the first one of us to come home. however, he is home today. you are going to do great. montgomery and clifford hampton left behind thousands of others who will never go home. they are today s filled with only yesterday s. something my neighbor curtis know all too well. this is my son he was killed in a motorcycle crash. in my short time here, i learned a lot about the human ability to cope. to accept. to survive. good night. as i wrote in the journal i kept, it s too easy to look away from prison and prisoners. dignity is earned. hope is essential. i m craig melvin. thank you for watching. that is all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching.
narendra modi sworn in as the prime ministerfor a record third term. the party is just getting started as celebrations kick off around the world for pride month. welcome to the programme. it is sam welcome to the programme. it is 8am in singapore and at 2am in brussels, where we start. next exit polls suggest there have been big gains forfar right parties, in elections to the european parliament. this was the first projection for the 720 seat assembly the darker colours to the right representing those right of centre parties seem to have moved to take up more of the seats. the most headline grabbing outcome appears to have been in france, where the far right national rally party has taken more than 31% of the vote. that s more than double the coalition which supports president macron. he has responded by calling an entirely unexpected snap election. translation: the rise - of nationalists and demagogues is a dangerfor our nation, but also for europe. the but also for europe. position in europe and the world. i say this even though we have just celebrated with the whole world of the normandy landing, and in a few weeks we welcome the world for the olympic and paralympic games. yes, the far right is both the result of the impoverishment of the french and the downgrading of our country. so at the end of this day, i cannot act as if nothing had happened. added to this situation is a fever which has gripped parliamentary and public debate in our country in recent years, a disorder which i know worries you, sometimes shocks you, and to which i do not intend to give in. however, today the challenges that present themselves to us, whether external dangers, climate change and the consequences, or threats to our own cohesion, it requires clarity in our debates. ambition for the country and respect for every french person. this is why, after having carried out the consultations provided for in article 12 of our constitution, i decided to put back in your hands the choice of our parliamentary future by the vote. in a few moments, i will sign the decree convening the legislative elections which will be held onjune 30th for the first round and july seventh for the second round. for the french far right, the result is one to celebrate. here s marine le pen. translation: the french have spoken and this - historic election shows that when the people vote, the people win. by giving more than 32% to the national rally, the french have just given us their highest score, all parties combined, in a0 years. it s a real emotion to see this beautiful popular force rising up throughout the country. the big question now where does this leave the european parliament? here s the president of the european comission, ursula von der leyen, who has promised to build a bastion against extremes in the eu s assembly. no majority can be formed without epp, and together, and that is important. together with others, we will build a bastion against the extremes from the left and the right. we will stop them. this is for sure. my colleague christian fraser has been in brussels, watching the results and exit polls unfold throughout the evening. he spoke to our europe editor katya adler, and started he asked what the biggest news was from the evening. the polls are closed and the finance rejection would be worked out within the 27 countries on stage. behind me, the european parliamentary president, who is about to give us the latest projections. we already know from the exit polls in these 27 countries that there has been a definitive shift to the right. in austria, the freedom party, top of the pile. geert wilders in the netherlands taking seven seats. marine le pen, a record 32% in france. the afd in germany coming second. that is one story tonight, but already this election has provided us with extraordinary news in france, where emmanuel macron, who sank to 15% of the vote, calling a snap election in the last week ofjune and the first week ofjuly. it is an enormous gamble on the back of a pretty humiliating defeat tonight in the european parliamentary elections. you can see behind me, we are about to get the latest projection, and here it is. you can see the epp, the biggest in the european parliament, is up from 176 seats to 189. big losers on the greens, 72 all the way down to 52. on the right hand side that chart, the european conservatives and reformists, up from 69, and identity and democracy, up from 49 to 58. those are the two groupings that include the populists and the hard right. there seems to be some confusion from the figures they have put up, and she did say they would continue to check the results and they will be refined through the evening, because the main polls in italy have closed just a short time ago. with 76 seats in the parliament, that will very much affect the projections they are putting out. what does this all mean at the end of the day? the big story, i suppose, aside from those rather dramatic headlines about the hard right, is that the centre and the centre right have largely held. they will control the majority of the seats. on the right, there tend to be some disparate groupings, they don t see eye to eye on issues like ukraine, for instance, giorgia meloni very much in favour of sending arms to ukraine, whereas marine le pen has been much softer on russia. it may be issue by issue where the groups on the right to try to work together, but certainly it is the centre and the centre right which will control the agenda. the question is how much will they need those parties to get some of the things through over the next five years? things like green policy, transition policy, migration and borders, the european budget still to be decided. billions of euros being put into the industrial defence strategy in europe as well. those are all big questions. of course integration and enlargement, always a thorny issue in brussels. so the impact of the shift to the right still to be worked out, i would think, in the coming months, as the parties arrange themselves in the various groupings. no question the story tonight, though, the shift to the right, and a very big backward step for the green playback the centrists. let s turn our attention to india now when arranger moody has taken the oath of office and has been sworn in for a third term as the indian prime minister. this time he will be a coalition government after his party, bjp, failed to win an office is in the general election to govern alone. thousands of guests attended the inauguration at the presidential palace, including the heads of several neighbouring nations. he was a little bit of what he had to say. translation: i little bit of what he had to say. translation:- say. translation: i will faithfully say. translation: i will faithfully and say. translation: | will. faithfully and conscientiously discharge my duties as the prime minister of the union, and that i will do right to all manner in accordance with the constitution. and the law. without fear or favour, affection or ill will. despite his victory. affection or ill will. despite his victory, why affection or ill will. despite his victory, why are - affection or ill will. despite his victory, why are these i his victory, why are these elections significant and different? here is my colleague with war. an oath that narendra modi is more than familiar with. but what follows is uncharted territory. a weakened prime minister, dependent on a coalition for the first time. there are hundreds of pictures of mr modi all over delhi today, and it s something we ve gotten used to here in india over these past ten years. his picture s been on welfare schemes, on vaccine certificates, so that doesn t seem to have changed. but what has is that while this is a win, it s a victory that feels like a defeat for brand modi. the aura of invincibility that has come to surround him has been damaged. and clues to why some voters turned away can be found here in the politically crucial state of uttar pradesh. it was considered to be a stronghold of mr modi s bjp, but it delivered the biggest shock. in a predominantly hindu village in muzaffarnagar, we met men who ve traditionally supported the bjp. but not this time, says shyam singh, who has four post graduate sons who are unemployed. translation: since four years, they have been searching - forjobs, but there are no vacancies. the government talks about development, but we can t see it happen on the ground. price rise has gone beyond limits, it s tough to put food on the table. translation: people had blind faith in modi, - but now they ve opened their eyes to the reality around them. a hindu temple opened by the prime minister ahead of the election, was expected to galvanize votes like these for the ruling party. translation: temples are a matter of faith, i but to feed ourselves, we need work. just opening temples doesn t help us. in another part of the constituency we met people from india s muslim minority who had found themselves to be the target of an overtly divisive campaign by the bjp. translation: when the results came in, we were happy - because we were worried that if they came to power with a full majority, they would make laws that would discriminate against minorities. bell ringing. a leader who s achieved an almost godlike status for his followers has been brought down to earth by the will of india s voters. for mr modi, keeping his allies together will be the test of a new skill. yogita limaye, bbc news, delhi. let s get you news from israeli aware benny gantz, one of the most senior members of the israeli war cabinet which was set up after the hamas attack in october has resigned from the group. he threatened to stand down unless he felt there was a postwar plan for gaza with a deadline set for saturday. he told reporters he was not satisfied and this is the moment he confirmed he was standing down. translation: unfortunately, netanyahu is preventing us i from approaching true victory, which is the justification for the painful, ongoing crisis. and this is why we quit the national unity government today with a heavy heart. yet we feel that it is the right decision. we are now in the midst of a campaign that will impact the fate of israel generations ahead. in order to guarantee true victory, this coming fall, when it will be the one year anniversary of this disaster, we should go for elections and reach a new government. i call on netanyahu to set a date for elections. mr netanyahu had called on benny gantz to remain in the war cabinet. he posted this message on the social media platform x. our correspondent donnison is injerusalem and put the announcement into context. well, i don t think it was a shock because he has been threatening to resign for some time. and he, in fact, was due to give a press conference yesterday and postponed that when we got news of the raid in the centre of gaza taking place. it s not going to bring down the government of benjamin netanyahu, who still maintains his majority in the knesset. but what it does do is i guess it isolates mr netanyahu a little bit at a time when he is calling for unity, and it removes a voice of experience and a more centrist voice from that war cabinet. you have to remember that the coalition cabinet is made up of, really, people with very little experience. that cannot be said of benny gantz, who is a former army chief of staff, a former defence minister, and someone with a long history in the military at a time when israel is now at war. and what it means, i think, is that those further to the right, the likes of itamar ben gvir, who is from the far right of israeli politics, are going to have more influence. and i m just seeing that mr ben gvir has requested himself that he now should be allowed to join the war cabinet. officials from the hamas run health ministry in gaza say that the israeli raid on a refugee camp on saturday which led to the rescue of four hostages led to the deaths of nearly 300 palestinians. a spokesman for the armed wing of hamas says that three hostages were also killed during the operation. we haven t been able independently to verify that claim. several hundred palestinians were also wounded in the raid. hamas accused the israelis of carrying out a massacre. that phrase was echoed by the european union s top diplomatjosep borrell, who described the deaths as another massacre of civilians . more footage has emerged of the rescue israel used helicopters to evacuate the hostages from an area around the nuseirat refugee camp in central gaza. the head of the hospital where they are being treated said none of them require emergency care or large procedures, but that they will need long term evaluations. being deprived of so many things for so long and living under this unbelievable stress is something that leaves its mark, both on the body and on the soul. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. you are live with bbc news. turning to the south china sea were a stand off between the philippines and china has seen tensions ratcheting up in the area. manila accused the chinese coins out of barbaric and inhumane behaviourfor and inhumane behaviour for stopping and inhumane behaviourfor stopping its navy evacuating six servicemen last month. the chinese foreign ministry accuses the philippines of lying and they see the philippines will be allowed to access these only forgives advance notice. chinese ships have repeatedly been accused of harassment of philippines ships, including firing water cannons and ramming boats. the foreign ministry honestly blame the us for tensions in the region. to understand the conflict as it stands at the moment, i am joined conflict as it stands at the moment, iamjoined by conflict as it stands at the moment, i am joined by a strategic and defence studies professor at the australian national university. thank you for your time here today. how seriously are you viewing these incidents? do they have the potential to spark a wider conflict? potential to spark a wider conflict? , ., ., , conflict? there is no doubt this is the conflict? there is no doubt this is the potential - conflict? there is no doubt this is the potential to - conflict? there is no doubt. this is the potential to spark a wider conflict but it depends on the resolve of the participants in this house. the philippines is not well armed and not in a position to assert itself strongly, china has more ships operating in this area, maritime militia, coastguard and navy vessels then the combined fleets of the philippines and the us navy operating in the east asian waters, particularly the south china sea. the question that china sea. the question that china has the numbers here but this has to be put in the context of your context as well. we have what my colleague describes as the full flashpoint of east asia, the korean peninsula, the east china sea, the south china sea and taiwan. my sense is that what we see in the second is the demonstration, if you like, when china is trying to say. including in taiwan and that it is prepared to press to a point by looking to not cross a kinetic threshold, if you like, not firing any bullets or guns or missiles, looking to provoke and perhaps push to the limit and perhaps push to the limit and perhaps push to the limit and perhaps trigger a reaction from the philippines or the us or someone in taiwan or elsewhere in a similar circumstances to then be there one so they can say see, we are not the starters of this conflict, you guys are. my senseis conflict, you guys are. my sense is that what we see here is not so much in the west we tend to view things in terms of war and peace and we tend to view things through a lens of traditional 19th and 20th century strategists, classing the classic one, and my sense is what we see here is not so much what could be putting the metaphor in a game of chess by perhaps more appropriately described as the game of go. in the game of go you do not remove players from the board, you flip them, you cajole and persuade them, you black male and you do not give them an option other than to be flipped. my sense is this happens with the philippines. i want to pursue one another point. basing blame the us on sunday for the increase tensions are missing a move to deploy medium range missiles in the area, dragging the region into the world is full of an arms race. allies like the us and evenjapan have fledged ironclad support but what is the level of commitment if things escalate? it the level of commitment if things escalate? the level of commitment if things escalate? it is touch and no things escalate? it is touch and go because things escalate? it is touch and go because we - things escalate? it is touch and go because we know . things escalate? it is touch i and go because we know the tribunal ruling in 2016 ruled in the favour of the philippines about its exclusive economic scene but the second is more clouded, much more grey, it says this is not something that has categorically legal recognised jurisdiction falling under the philippines, it is in there, but not the territory itself. the ship that has been lodged on this shoal having troops and people living there on a semipermanent basis is designed to provide evidence of the war that he philippines can legitimately claim that probably that is not recognised. china knows that it is the grey zone and echoes what happened 12 years ago over scarborough shoal where there was a contest between the philippines and china over who could control it, and the us did not want to back the philippines over that because it was not a clear issue in terms of the jurisdiction. similarly with the second shoal today. china knows it is putting the us into a difficult position because legally the actions of the filipinos are not ones that everybody is all that sure about, backing them over, except in terms of the fact it is inside the explicit economic zone and, of course, china did not accept the tribunal ruling of 2016 asset that dashed line does not count. ironically china did sign up to the un convention of the law of the scene. it is trying to have it both ways. i am afraid that is all the time we have but thank you very much for your views on that. main political parties in the uk will also manifest this week and they are being quizzed on how they will fund some of their key pledges was that the conservatives say they can save billions on the benefits bill but labour wants to provide more prison fleeces without having to raise household taxes. here is ian watson. cheering. the main parties are preparing to launch their manifestos this week. the whole country has been longing for and waiting for this election to come. labour s promising to provide more prison places and clamp down on anti social behaviour. now the big parties know you can t pay for policies from small change, but the labour leader wasn t keen to identify spending cuts or tax rises. instead, he insisted it was all about the economy. all of our plans are fully funded and fully costed and none of them require tax rises over and above the ones that we ve already announced. what we do need to do, just to take up the challenge that s being put to us, is we do need to grow the economy. cheering. the prime minister s keen to move on from his d day misstep. today his party wasn t talking about warfare, but welfare. they ve been looking for cash for tax cuts and claim they could save £12 billion from the benefits budget by the end of the next parliament. in my area of welfare, we ve saved £7.7 billion over measures that we ve brought in over this parliament. we cut fraud and error within the welfare system, within benefits by about 10% last year and we can go still further. the lib dems have been banging the drum for investment in the nhs to the tune of billions of pounds. they say they won t raise income tax to pay for this, but other taxes are available. we said we d increase the digital services taxes on the social media giants, the likes of amazon and google as well. so i think unlike the other parties, we ve actually already begun to show very clearly where the money for our health and care policies would come from. the snp accuse the main westminster parties of being deliberately in denial about the public finances. it s important at this election that people focus on the conspiracy of silence that is going on between the labour party and the conservative party. the tories have signed up to £18 billion worth of spending cuts, according to the institute for fiscal studies. and labour, according again to the institute of fiscal studies have not demurred from those figures. the parties manifestos will provide a political sense of direction, but they may be less clear aboutjust how rocky a road lies ahead. iain watson, bbc news. that is all for now, thank you for watching. hello there. weather for the week ahead is perhaps not the story you want. no significant summer sunshine or warmth, i m afraid. in fact, the story in armagh on sunday really sets the scene just a high of ten degrees. we had cloudy skies with light rain or drizzle with a cool northerly wind as well. now, that rain is sinking its way steadily southwards and it will clear away from eastern england and south east england during monday morning. behind it, this northerly wind and this cooler air source starts to kick in across the country. so a rash of showers, a cold, brisk wind driving those showers in off exposed coasts and drifting their way steadily south across scotland and northern ireland as we go through the morning. here s our cloud and rain still lingering across east yorkshire, lincolnshire first thing in the morning, some heavier bursts that will ease away. best of any brighter skies, perhaps across southern england down to the south west. here, showers should be few and further between. but nevertheless, that wind direction still really digging in right across the country. so sunny spells, scattered showers, a brisk northwesterly wind for many, so temperatures just below par really for this time of year, a maximum of 10 15 degrees for most. we might see highs of 17 or 18 if we get some sunshine across south west england and wales. now, as we move out of monday into tuesday, the low pressure drifts off to scandinavia, high pressure builds. it should start to kill off some of the showers out to the west. but with those clearing skies, well, those temperatures will be below path through the night as well, low single figures for some, quite a chilly start to our tuesday morning. hopefully some sunshine around on tuesday. there will continue to be some showers, most frequent ones running down through central and eastern scotland and england. further west, some brighter skies and once again, highs of 17 degrees, but for many, just a maximum of 10 15 once again. moving out of tuesday into wednesday, winds will fall lighter still for a time, but there s another low pushing in and that will bring some wetter weather to close out the end of the working week. it will gradually start to change the wind direction. so, after a drier day on wednesday, it will turn that little bit milder, but also wetter as we head into the weekend. india s prime minister begins a third term. we ll look at the challenges he could face when pushing through economic reforms. plus. how the death of an actor in the nigerian film industry comparable to hollywood is raising safety concerns. hello and welcome to business today. i m arunoday mukharji. we will start the programme in india. narendra modi has been been sworn in as india s prime minister for a third consecutive term. however, it marks the first time his bharatiya janata party has needed allies to form a government. so will that impact mr modi s ability to push through economic reforms? priyanka kishore, the director and principal economist at research company asia decoded, gave us her take. modi is actually working with an alliance which has a lot of experience of pushing through successful reforms under the government. and they will draw upon that experience. of course, i think there will be a slowdown in decision making in certain areas and the big calls that people are expecting, that won t come through. but we will not completely see a stalling. labour reforms, i think, will be prioritised. we can debate the outcomes, but the reality many people talk about is that in the last ten years, india has seen bold economic decisions as well made by the bjp government, and many feel that has worked in a way for international investors. are you likely to see that continue?
with the liberal democrats launching their manifesto later this morning. and coming up in business we ll be exploring the rise of swiftonomics as the billionaire pop star s eras tour gets under way in scotland. hello, i m sally bundock. a very warm welcome to the programme. we start in france, and in what s been described as a huge political gamble, the french president emmanuel macron has called a snap parliamentary vote after his alliance suffered a big defeat by the populist right in european union elections. mr macron said he couldn t ignore the result and dissolving parliament was an act of trust in the french people. the national rally party led by marine le pen is on course to win a record 32% of the vote in the elections for the european parliament. that s more than double the coalition which supports president macron. he responded by calling the unexpected snap election. translation: the rise - of nationalists and demagogues is a danger for our nation but also for europe, for france s position in europe and in the world. and i say this even though we have just celebrated with the whole world the normandy landing, and as in a few weeks we will welcome the world for the olympic and paralympic games. yes, the far right is both the result of the impoverishment of the french and the downgrading of our country, so at the end of this day, i cannot act as if nothing had happened. added to this situation is a fever which has gripped public and parliamentary debate in our country in recent years, a disorder which i know worries you, sometimes shocks you and to which i do not intend to give in. however, today, the challenges that present themselves to us, whether external dangers, climate change and its consequences or threats to our own cohesion, these challenges require clarity in our debates, ambition for the country and respect for every french person. this is why, after having carried out the consultations provided for in article 12 of our constitution, i decided to put back in your hands the choice of our parliamentary future by the vote. in a few moments, i will sign the decree convening the legislative elections which will be held onjune 30th for the first round, and july 7th for the second round. for the french far right, the result is one to celebrate. here s marine le pen. translation: the french have spoken and this historic- election shows that when the people vote, the people win. by giving more than 32% to the national rally, the french have just given us their highest score, all parties combined, in a0 years. it is a real emotion to see this beautiful popular force rising up throughout the country. but elsewhere in europe, voters snubbed the governing parties of germany, spain and belgium. results show that overall the centre parties will be the largest bloc in the european parliament. here s its president, roberta metsola. translation: this parliament does not work with a government and in opposition, it works with majorities, we can see that the constructive pro european centre has held and it is that centre has held and it is that centre that will be projected to build on the european project that we need to work with. the president of the european commission, ursula von der leyen, has described the results across the eu as a victory for the centre. translation: this election has given us two messages, first, there remains a majority in the centre for a strong europe. and that is crucial for stability. in other words, the centre is holding. but it is also true, that the extremes on the left and on the right, have gained support. and this is why the result comes with great responsibility, for the parties in the centre. my colleague christian fraser is in brussels and watched the results unfold throughout last night. he sent this summary. the polls have closed he sent this summary. the polls have closed and he sent this summary. the polls have closed and incoming - he sent this summary. the polls have closed and incoming hours| have closed and incoming hours the final projection will be worked out from the results within the 27 countries on stage behind me as the european parliamentary president who is about to give us the latest projects in. we already know from exit polls on the 27 countries, there has been a definitive shift to the right. in austria at the freedom party top of the pile, the netherlands goodfellas taking seven seats, marine le pen for france, a record 32% of the vote, the a b in germany coming second to the cdu there in germany. that is one story tonight but already this election has provided us with some extraordinary news from france where the french president whose party slumped to 15% of the vote called a snap election tonight, parliamentary elections coming for the last week ofjune and first week ofjuly, that is an enormous gamble on the back of a pretty humiliating defeat tonight in the european parliamentary elections. you can see behind me we are about to get the latest projection and here it is. and you can see the biggest group in the european union is up from 176 seats to 189, the big losers on the night, the greens from 70 all the way down to 52, but look on the right hand side of that chart, but as the european conservatives and reformers who are up from 69 and identity and democracy, up from a9, 258, those are the two groupings that include the populists and hard right, there seems to be some confusion from the figures they have put up there, roberto nizzolo said they needed to check these results and they will be refined through the evening because the main polls in italy have all closed, only a short time ago. so with 76 seats in the parliament, that will very much affect the projections they are putting out here. what does all this mean at the end of the day? the big story i suppose aside from those rather dramatic headlines about the hard right, is the centre in the centre right have largely held, they will control the majority of the seats, and on the right, you tend to be some quite disparate groupings, you don t see eye to eye on issues like ukraine stop georgia maloney very much in favour of sending arms to ukraine, whereas marine le pen has been much soft on russia. it may be issue by issue with those groups on the right tried to work together but certainly it is the centre and the centre right which will control the agenda, the question being how much will they need those parties to get some of the things through over the next five years. things like green policy, green transition policy, green transition policy, migration, borders, european budget to be decided, billions of euros being put into the industrial defence strategy here in europe as well, those are all big questions, of course integration always a thorny issue for brussels as well, the impact of the shift to the right to be worked out in coming months as parties arrange themselves in the areas groupings. no question what the story is here tonight the shift to the right and a very big backward step for the greens and the centrists. christian fraser covering these issues for us in brussels. let s go live to brussels now and get reaction from james kanter a politicaljournalist who produces the podcast eu scream. the dust is starting to settle a little, give us your reaction to this result, we are expecting this dominance of the centre right and far right? there was certainly an expectation that europe would be moving at right words, and after all there are a growing number of governments that are in alliance with the far right nationally. and so in many ways the result that we saw on sunday, orsort the result that we saw on sunday, or sort of a confirmation of that. now, i mean, as your previous reporter said, it does look like the centre will hold. however, the centre will hold. however, the centre of gravity of the european parliament has most certainly moved rightward. in france we have seen the immediate reaction on the part of emmanuel macron calling for a parliamentary election there. for him in particular it was a pretty shocking result? i would, this is the big story of these european elections, president micron calling these snap elections, before the olympic games notice, seen as a huge step in a giant gamble, sort of a poker move with a very uncertain outcome. and it doesn tjust put very uncertain outcome. and it doesn t just put the future of french policy in question but to some degree european policy. france and germany as part of the duo that powers the eu, and having france with a far right, potentially in government and pulling the strings, and a significantly more right leaning european parliament, that makes some big questions facing europe even more stark. in questions facing europe even more stark- questions facing europe even more stark. in terms of ursula von der leyen more stark. in terms of ursula von der leyen into more stark. in terms of ursula von der leyen into future, - more stark. in terms of ursula von der leyen into future, is l von der leyen into future, is it likely she will be re elected as european commission president question max she is holding the cards at the moment. her max she is holding the cards at the moment. the moment. her party, the centre-right the moment. her party, the centre-right dpp the moment. her party, the centre-right dpp got - the moment. her party, the centre-right dpp got a - the moment. her party, the centre-right dpp got a very| centre right dpp got a very strong result stop she could continue this traditional grand alliance with the socialist and liberals but it is not going to be easy negotiations and there still is this open question as to whether she will ally with the greens in order to ensure a very stable majority or possibly with one of these radical right groups, probably the meps from the party of georgia moloney initially, the brothers obviously. there is a lot to play here. but it looks like ursula von der leyen will have another five year term as president of the european union. ,, , president of the european union. ,, . ., ., union. she may choose to align with the greens, union. she may choose to align with the greens, their- union. she may choose to align with the greens, their slice - union. she may choose to align with the greens, their slice of l with the greens, their slice of the pie has shrunk, and the eu has been trying to be a leader when it comes to hitting climate change targets, sustainability goals etc, but thatis sustainability goals etc, but that is likely to be watered down more is it not, going forward? down more is it not, going forward? ~ . ., ., , , forward? we have already seen it watered forward? we have already seen it watered down, forward? we have already seen it watered down, it forward? we have already seen it watered down, it is forward? we have already seen it watered down, it is almost i it watered down, it is almost certain as part of these negotiations, the question of what will happen to the so called green deal will be front and centre. and one can imagine that will be absolutely centre stage with these negotiations. centre stage with these neotiations. , ., ., negotiations. james, thanks for our negotiations. james, thanks for your analysis. negotiations. james, thanks for your analysis, good negotiations. james, thanks for your analysis, good to - negotiations. james, thanks for your analysis, good to get - negotiations. james, thanks for your analysis, good to get your| your analysis, good to get your take on the outcome of the european elections, a lot more on that in business today, we will talk to a leading economist based in brussels because the european union is a huge player in the global trade market. on the campaign trail across the uk, the parties begin setting out their manifesto promises this week. labour are pledging to create more than 3,000 nurseries based in primary schools in england to ensure there are enough childcare places. the conservatives are turning their attention to policing, promising to recruit an extra 8,000 neighbourhood police officers over the next three years if re elected. the liberal democrats are launching their manifesto later this morning. here s iain watson. cheering. the main parties are preparing to launch their manifestos this week. the whole country has been longing for and waiting for this election to come. labour s promising to provide more childcare places. now the big parties know you can t pay for policies from small change, but the labour leader wasn t keen to identify spending cuts or tax rises. instead, he insisted it was all about the economy. all of our plans are fully funded and fully costed and none of them require tax rises over and above the ones that we ve already announced. what we do need to do, just to take up the challenge that s being put to us, is we do need to grow the economy. cheering. the prime minister s keen to move on from his d day misstep. today his party wasn t talking about warfare, but welfare. they ve been looking for cash for tax cuts and claim they could save £12 billion from the benefits budget by the end of the next parliament. in my area of welfare, we ve saved £7.7 billion over measures that we ve brought in over this parliament. we cut fraud and error within the welfare system, within benefits by about 10% last year and we can go still further. the lib dems have been banging the drum for investment in the nhs to the tune of billions of pounds. they say they won t raise income tax to pay for this, but other taxes are available. we said we d increase the digital services taxes on the social media giants, the likes of amazon and google as well. so i think unlike the other parties, we ve actually already begun to show very clearly where the money for our health and care policies would come from. the snp accuse the main westminster parties of being deliberately in denial about the public finances. it s important at this election that people focus on the conspiracy of silence that is going on between the labour party and the conservative party. the tories have signed up to £18 billion worth of spending cuts, according to the institute for fiscal studies. and labour, according again to the institute of fiscal studies have not demurred from those figures. the parties manifestos will provide a political sense of direction, but they may be less clear aboutjust how rocky a road lies ahead. iain watson, bbc news. around the world and across the uk, this is bbc news. the us secretary of state is embarking on another tour of the middle east in an effort to boost support for a ceasefire in gaza. it s antony blinken s eighth trip to the region since the war between israel and hamas began last october. during the three day visit, which begins in egypt, he ll urge arab leaders to pressure hamas into accepting the draft peace deal unveiled at the end of last month by president biden. benny gantz, one of the most senior members of the israeli war cabinet, which was set up after the hamas attack last october, has resigned from the group. he had threatened to stand down unless he felt there was a post war plan for gaza with a deadline set for yesterday. he told reporters that he wasn t satisfied, and this is the moment he confirmed he was standing down. translation: unfortunately, netanyahu is preventing us i from approaching true victory, which is the justification for the painful, ongoing crisis. and this is why we quit the national unity government today with a heavy heart. yet we feel that it is the right decision. we are now in the midst of a campaign that will impact the fate of israel generations ahead. in order to guarantee true victory, this coming fall, when it will be the one year anniversary of this disaster, we should go for elections and reach a new government. i call on netanyahu to set a date for elections. mr netanyahu had called on mr gantz to remain in the war cabinet. after mr gantz made his announcement, mr netanyahu posted this message on the social media platform x: let s speak to dr benjamin radd political scientist at ucla s middle east centre for development. benny gantz stepping down and pulling his party from the coalition, no surprise, what was your reaction? it coalition, no surprise, what was your reaction?- was your reaction? it is telegraphed was your reaction? it is telegraphed he - was your reaction? it is telegraphed he said - was your reaction? it is telegraphed he said he| was your reaction? it 3 telegraphed he said he would do it and he expects benjamin netanyahu to offer a day after proposal what would happen once israel did manage to rout hamas from gaza, netanyahu failing to clearly articulate a vision for a post gaza reconstruction programme leaving benny gantz little choice but to leave the cabinet if that were to happen. where does this leave benjamin netanyahu? it where does this leave ben amin netanyahuvfi where does this leave ben amin netanyahu? it leave some with a cabinet of even netanyahu? it leave some with a cabinet of even more netanyahu? it leave some with a cabinet of even more members | netanyahu? it leave some with a| cabinet of even more members of parliament, ultraorthodox parties, ultranationalist parties, ultranationalist parties now, any attempt by netanyahu to forge an agreement that would leave a post, post reconstruction coalition in gaza that includes remnants of the palestinian authority or other groups the right wingers deem desirable they will threaten to dissolve the government and bring netanyahu hoedown, he is now captive to that far right flank if he wants to stay in power. now secretary wants to stay in power. now secretary of wants to stay in power. now secretary of state wants to stay in power. now secretary of state anthony l secretary of state anthony lincoln is in the region hoping to persuade hamas via other middle east leaders to sign up to president biden s plan? this to president biden s plan? this is something to president biden s plan? ti 1 is something viewers should to president biden s plan? t1i1 is something viewers should be clear on, the plan put forward by president biden which netanyahu himself had neta nyahu himself had articulated, netanyahu himself had articulated, has yet to be responded to by hamas, they have not signalled they will sign off on it as well, it was crucial if this is to move forward hamas signalled their approvalfor this. forward hamas signalled their approvalforthis. he forward hamas signalled their approvalfor this. he he cannot secure that and it is made complicated by the fact that four hostages were rescued five days ago it is unclear what the next step will be to bring about a ceasefire. in next step will be to bring about a ceasefire. in terms of the israeli about a ceasefire. in terms of the israeli position about a ceasefire. in terms of the israeli position on - the israeli position on resident biden s plan that is very unclear? resident biden s plan that is very unclear? you have had, netanyahu very unclear? you have had, netanyahu is very unclear? you have had, netanyahu is yet very unclear? you have had, netanyahu is yet to - very unclear? you have had, netanyahu is yet to formally j netanyahu is yet to formally come out and endorse the plan, however it matches with what he himself had put forward, the understanding is it is consistent with the netanyahu vision but however with the departure of benny gantz and the rescue of the four hostages, that becomes a bit more complicated because it calls into question whether other members of the netanyahu coalition on the far right would support the plan as it stands today. would support the plan as it stands today. thank you very much, stands today. thank you very much. dr stands today. thank you very much, dr benjamin stands today. thank you very much, dr benjamin radd - stands today. thank you very much, dr benjamin radd for| stands today. thank you very - much, dr benjamin radd for your time and analysis. tributes are coming in here. here is what many are saying. he was wonderful, funny and kind. that s the tribute paid by the wife of the broadcaster, michael moseley, who s been found dead on the greek island of symi, following a four day search. he went missing last wednesday in scorching temperatures while out walking on holiday. joe inwood has the latest from symi. it was here on a rocky hillside michael mosley was found. just metres from safety when he was seemingly overcome by the heat and collapsed. the people of the silent and the greek authorities have done everything they could just fight that he was not found for nearly four four days. it was on that beach that the body which has now been identified as michael mosley was found. he was found lying just at the right side of that fence you can see over there, so really close to where people would have been relaxing and playing on this popular and busy beach. we spoke to a police source, who said the body of michael mosley had been there for a number of days. it s a tragic end to a story that had begun on wednesday, when michael mosley left the beach where he d been with his wife, clare, atabout1:30pm. he was then picked up on a camera at a coffee shop here, a second one at a restaurant here, and then finally the one at the marina, before he walked out of the town, heading towards agia marina. but despite an extensive search and rescue operation involving police, fire, helicopters, dogs, even members of the public, in the end he was found by accident. it has emerged a greek television crew were filming with the mayor, and only noticed michael mosley s body in their shot when they got back to edit their pictures. translation: when we returned here in symi and the footage - was prepared to send to athens, we spotted the body of a man. we informed the mayor and the authorities were immediately mobilised with the doctors. michael mosley s death was confirmed by his wife, clare. she said. a medical team carefully moved him to a waiting coastguard vote and two roads for postmortem. there has been a sense of sadly after the disappearance and death of michael mosley. a man most had never met. imagine then the pain of those who knew and loved him. joe inwood, bbc news, on the greek island of symi. so much more on oui’ so much more on our website about the death of doctor michael mosley. spectators at a rodeo in oregon got a little too close to the action when a bull jumped over the fence during the night s finale. this is the bull called party bus circling the ring along with two riders on horseback during the musical end to the night s activities. all of a sudden, the bull decided to make a bolt forfreedom clearing the fence, running through the arena s concessions area and into the car park. he was eventually caught by wranglers who managed to get him back into a pen. organisers said three people suffered minor injuries. more then you were perhaps expecting at that event. back with the top business stories next, including swift own onyx, you knew? you will soon, i will see in a moment swiftonomics. hello there. weather for the week ahead is perhaps not the story you want. no significant summer sunshine or warmth, i m afraid. in fact, the story in armagh on sunday really sets the scene just a high of ten degrees. we had cloudy skies with light rain or drizzle with a cool northerly wind as well. now, that rain is sinking its way steadily southwards and it will clear away from eastern england and south east england during monday morning. behind it, this northerly wind and this cooler air source starts to kick in across the country. so a rash of showers, a cold, brisk wind driving those showers in off exposed coasts and drifting their way steadily south across scotland and northern ireland as we go through the morning. here s our cloud and rain still lingering across east yorkshire, lincolnshire first thing in the morning, some heavier bursts that will ease away. best of any brighter skies, perhaps across southern england down to the south west. here, showers should be few and further between. but nevertheless, that wind direction still really digging in right across the country. so sunny spells, scattered showers, a brisk northwesterly wind for many, so temperatures just below par really for this time of year, a maximum of 10 15 degrees for most. we might see highs of 17 or 18 if we get some sunshine across south west england and wales. now, as we move out of monday into tuesday, the low pressure drifts off to scandinavia, high pressure builds. it should start to kill off some of the showers out to the west. but with those clearing skies, well, those temperatures will be below path through the night as well, low single figures for some, quite a chilly start to our tuesday morning. hopefully some sunshine around on tuesday. there will continue to be some showers, most frequent ones running down through central and eastern scotland and england. further west, some brighter skies and once again, highs of 17 degrees, but for many, just a maximum of 10 15 once again. moving out of tuesday into wednesday, winds will fall lighter still for a time, but there s another low pushing in and that will bring some wetter weather to close out the end of the working week. it will gradually start to change the wind direction. so, after a drier day on wednesday, it will turn that little bit milder, but also wetter as we head into the weekend. far right parties put pressure on the centreground as results roll in on europe s parliamentary elections. what does that mean for economic policy? we get an expert view. translation: our reputation in the world has translation: our reputation in the world has never translation: our reputation in the world has never been - translation: our reputation in the world has never been as - translation: our reputation in the world has never been as bad j the world has never been as bad as it is now. economically speaking, we are on the way to becoming a developing country. that s the head of germany s stock exchange who provokes politicians with sharp criticism about the performance of europe s biggest economy. following the death of nollywood starjunior pope, we have a special report from lagos on the safety of the nollywood film industry. and we ll be exploring the rise of swiftonomics as the billionaire pop star s eras tour gets underway in scotland. welcome to business today. i m sally bundock. more now on the results in europe as the bloc s parliamentary elections come to a close. as you ve been hearing, we ve seen a surge on the right across the region. we ve seen a surge to the right across the region. in france, the strong showing for marine le pen s national rally triggering a snap election in france called late yesterday by president emmanuel macron. the outcome of these elections are of significance because the politicians in the european parliament will be agreeing on the bloc s budget and economic policies and its position on trade. the european union is the world s largest trading bloc