Watch The 11th Hour With Stephanie Ruhle Highlights: April 16

We already have seven jurors on the second day. That's extraordinary. Yesterday I felt like we were hearing that it was going to take weeks and weeks. What's your take on where this trial is right now? Yeah, you know, like Laura said, it was kind of a first guy. from slow and then all at once, I think the main reason we have this quickly, Steph, is because Merchan at first let 48 people go, anyone who said, I don't think it can be fair in other cases with fewer jurors to choose from, that would be had graduation discussions before retail, can you really what do you think?

He just said let's get rid of them now and get to work on the people who aren't trying to say they can't be fair and that faded away quickly. to a point where they had to play their cards, which is the golden ticket of a peremptory challenge or argue the challenge for a cause and now boom, we're on s and you're right at this rate, we could be done in no time, I still need 18 and it's going to get dangerous because each side has used six of their 10 peremptory challenges that they can use for any reason unless it's racial animosity and they're going to be left out and they're going to have to take some risks it's going to be heartbreaking we're not going to be safe. but still at this rate you know it could be as soon as tomorrow and that would be or I mean as soon as the end of the week and with opening statements on Monday Mark, did you expect us to be here so quickly? seven jurors on the second day.

I keep wondering what those seven people are doing tonight at all. It's a surprising change from Monday's rather slow pace, as Harry said and I believe. a really positive sign that this trial will move forward than many of us feared, including myself, you know, one of the big bets in bringing this case in New York is that, as everyone knows, the jury pool will lean toward Democrats, I always knew that Trump's lawyers were going to take advantage of that not only to delegitimize the charges but also to try to prevent 12 men and women plus six alternates from serving on that jury, to say that it is simply impossible to find enough impartial New Yorkers who They can sit and judge impartially. a former president, a Republican president of the United States, and the judge in this case has admirably put aside all those concerns.

I think he really excelled at differentiating between just knowing Donald Trump. You know, the jurors who say, of course, I know who. is, but I don't have strong feelings and others who come saying yes, I know him, I don't like him, I don't want to be here and again, as Harry said, by doing that he was able to realize a series of Clearly impartial and impartial New Yorkers seem to be Democrats registered, at least some of them, eh, but that shouldn't matter and in our judicial system you are allowed to sit on a jury like this with your own views on politics and even politicians, as long as you feel you can get in to that courtroom, put it all aside and decide whether or not prosecutors have proven these charges beyond a reasonable doubt, yes, and remember this is happening in a New York courtroom because that's the state where alleged crimes were committed I saw Alina Haba today on television saying that it was no coincidence it is pure strategy that this was happening in blue New York it is happening in New York because that is where the crimes she is accused of were supposedly committed Susan , our colleague Von Hillard actually spoke to a jury after she was fired and I want to share what she said about the former president.

He'd never seen it in person before, you know, and you see someone exploited in such a big way than life in the media for so long. many years um, seeing them in person is very jarring um and you get the feeling that it's like, oh, this is just another guy, I guess when you're on a jury you have elements of that person's future in your hands um, so yeah Was it Trump or was it a stranger on the street in Manhattan I had never heard of before. Um, if you commit to being on the jury, you can change that person's life forever.

Susan, the nation has seen this man sworn in as the leader of the Free World we have seen him under investigations we have seen him through impeachments we have seen him through seemingly countless political scandals what might be the biggest challenge for these jurors you know it's a lot to ask an ordinary American to go out of his or her daily life and basically decide the fate of the Free World and you know there are huge potential consequences for this case and for the other three criminal cases that are still pending, we don't know yes there will be trials in those but it is a huge burden, our system provides for a jury of your peers, but let's face it, Donald Trump is very generous in a way, he is not just an average citizen in this context, and the burden in this case and In all cases, uh, it's the credibility of the legal system, it's the credibility of the individual jurors and, of course, it's the question of whether we're going to have someone who's going to be a convict or the president of the United States, those aren't They are the general terms. the options that we present to ordinary Americans, so I'm very sympathetic, you know, to these people who come here and, by the way, inviting scrutiny, all they did was respond to a subpoena from the state of New York to show up for jury duty and then you have Donald Trump's lawyers going through years of his social media in a case I was looking at today, one of the jurors, it was her husband's social media accounts from years ago that were being reviewed. by Donald Trump's lawyers, that has to be It was a jarring experience for even the most jaded New Yorkers.

Some of those characters also appeared today, but it really underscores how extraordinary I think this moment is. Imagine you're an average New Yorker who deferred jury duty. three times, right, you have a vacation, you have a dentist appointment, you have a work assignment and then you get hit with this today. Harry, this is what I really want to know because the judge made it very clear that it was his courtroom when he told Donald very sternly. Trump couldn't intimidate jurors Donald Trump now has to sit there day after day in a situation he's never been in a situation he has no control over and he's not special in, he knows all this evidence is coming out With witnesses about to expose him under oath, what is this going to do to him?

What are we likely to see from Donald J. Trump? Yeah, I think this is a huge factor that people haven't really absorbed. He's a guy who goes where he wants when he wants. He wants, he does what he wants, he says what he wants and he has to stay in that chair today. He was promoted basically because of a little murmur to the crowd and the merchant just walked up to him. He can't go to the Supreme Court argument next week. the judge is considering whether he can

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his son's graduation, he is not in charge and this is a guy who not only has always been but a big part of his image is doing exactly what he wants and now there are long periods that are bored in court we saw him possibly fall asleep a couple of times and he just has to lay there and accept it.

I think he'll be really furious inside and we'll see if things explode in court. I think some of the jurors, uh, the final kind of fights over the jurors will be more shocking and passionate, we'll see that happen, but this has to be, in some ways, their worst nightmare, just having to sit there and like a bad student in the corner who hasn't done his homework, that's not Donald Trump's life and it's never been Susan, how is he going to handle it right? This is someone who has never worked for anyone else, has never obeyed anyone else, you wrote a book about how he operates, what is this going to be?

Like, look, Donald Trump is forced to sit quietly and keep his mouth shut. This is going to be a huge personal challenge for him, but you know, I'm really impressed by the idea that, you know the criminal defendants, in a way that it's a very, not dehumanizing experience, but you're actually out of it. your control as you face these charges, you are under the control of the state, you are under the control of the judge in court, you have to do it. by the way, it shows up when it's a criminal case and not just a civil case and here's this man who is so close uh according to polls many polls show that he is leading the effort to return to the Oval Office to have the power over America's vast nuclear arsenal and he has to sit in this courtroom and listen to a judge who doesn't like it when he mutters under his breath.

I mean, it just strikes me that this is perhaps the most jarring ju too we can imagine in To me, this election year encapsulates the tragedy and absurdity of 2024 in so many ways, but if it blows up, it's certainly possible, but it might as well fall asleep . Well, it will be visual either way, okay. Check out the new issue the Supreme Court has. I heard this case about the obstruction charge used in the January 6 prosecutions. Help us understand what is at stake here. What did you hear from the judges? Explain it to us. Yes, this is a charge that has also been used in 350 January 6 prosecutions. forms the centerpiece of special counsel Jack Smith's indictment of Donald Trump for his own efforts to steal the election, is an important component of the Biden administration's effort to hold people accountable for January 6 and what happened, and led to it and yet I hear five or six conservative judges seem very skeptical that this particular law, this particular charge is not being applied fairly or legally to the people who fell on January 6th.

I have heard several justices such as Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, and even Brett Kavanagh suggest that the purpose of this law was not really aimed at obstruction of an important congressional proceeding, but simply at individuals destroying or altering evidence, which in my opinion is a quite narrow and incredible reading of the text. I mean, this was a law enacted in the wake of the Enron scandal that specifically says it will be a crime to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding, including a congressional proceeding. What we had here on January 6th was the attempt to obstruct the counting of electoral votes on January 6th.

I believe that is the case for the application of this Law here. It's very clear, but conservative justice has continued to say over and over again: could this apply to peaceful protesters? Could it apply to someone who pulled a fire alarm to stop a vote? Neil Gorsuch mentioned that clearly alluding to Rep. Jamal Bowman, about a year ago. makes and suggesting that it was too broad or too vague to apply to these cases if the court holds that this would be a huge shock to the entire January 6 prosecution because not only would it mean that hundreds of existing prosecutions and even some convictions are on the ground very shaky or perhaps even overturned would mean the court would cut out the heart of the January 6 impeachment against Trump Jack Smith would have to return probably add new charges reorient and redesign his theory of the case that would extend this case even further and probably delay his trial if it ever happens even later.

I am not going to resign and it is, in my opinion, an absurd notion for someone to bring forward a nullification motion, it is not useful to him because it is not useful to the country, it does not help House Republicans advance our agenda , which is what's best for the American people here, but I'm going to tell you that I'm not worried about this, I'm going to do it. my job, well, it has to be somewhat concerned and it can't be that absurd because the Speaker of the House felt the need to respond right there. House Speaker Mike Johnson took the extraordinary step of publicly promising that he would not resign from his job.

He did it. of course, because that same day Republican Congressman Thomas Massie announced that he would join Marjorie Taylor Green's motion before Al Johnson again, both Republicans, he is the Republican Speaker of the House, this is all because Johnson revealed plans to introduce separate aid bills for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. This is an unmitigated disaster and on Friday House Republicans will be left with a single-seat majority leaving Johnson's presidency in its most vulnerable place since he won the gavl six months ago. For more, let's bring in political reporter axio, my old friend Hans Nichols, and Amanda Carpenter.

The writer and editor of Protect Democracy and former senior staff are two Republican senators, Jim Mint and Ted Cruz Hans. For weeks, it looked like this effort for OU Johnson was dead in the water, so how did he come back? Only the math is correct. I mean, his margins are so thin I don't know how dead everything was like this was always this is Damic's sword hanging over him uh you know we can all do the math it's pretty basic even I can do it and it's it loses two republicans. He'll need two Democrats and it's a similar dynamic for all three andPotentially a fourth bill in the future, for every little or a lot of Republican support that leaks from your boat, you have to find more Democratic support to achieve it. up and you know there's not much room for air Amanda, there's a chance Johnson survives this, but how long can the House GOP survive being at the mercy of these extremists?

Every time more water escapes from the ship, the ship weakens, yes. here is the reality that Mike Johnson faces, if he wants to have a functional chamber, he will have to make deals with Democrats and Republicans based on reality, because if he decides to try to get Margorie Taylor Green's approval for every bill he impossible task and she threatens him every time he makes a move she doesn't like and I mean he doesn't want to admit this but that's the reality he's stuck in and until he decides to make a power move and say that this It's the way I'm going to run. this chamber and have an assertive role that I don't expect him to take because no Republican leader has been able to do this so far will be subject to the demands of Margorie Taylor Green for the remainder of his term as long as she sees fit, but he went to Mar Lago last week to hug Donald Trump, didn't Marjorie Taylor like that?

Green, how did things get worse this week? It was just in Marago like five days ago, yes, but we have to look at the kind of power role she's playing here. We don't want to admit this because, like Donald Trump, she's kind of a circus figure, but look what she's doing, she's making the Speaker of the House respond to her. directly saying I will not resign she is an impeachment manager presenting the articles of impeachment to the senate as you know Americus and she has a leadership role in this chamber and it's like no one wants to admit this fact because it's very embarrassing, but that's how it is. what is laid bare here every day this continues Hello everyone, MSNBC has a new and improved app, you will receive real-time alerts and analysis, live blogs, in-depth essays, video

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