'October surprise': Conservative shows how new criminal filing could hurt Trump's chances

A federal judge unsealed a damning narrative account of Donald Trump's efforts to pressure vice president Mike Pence and Republicans all over the country to help him overturn his 2020 election loss – just one day after J.D. Vance refused to say during the debate who had won that election.

U.S. District judge Tanya Chutkan released the 165-filing by special counsel Jack Smith's office detailing the former president's pressure campaign, and the judge must now determine which of those acts fell under his official duties and which ones are prosecutable as ballots are mailed out for the upcoming election.

"So obviously [Vance's] boss, Donald Trump, has no problem being obsessed with re-litigating the past," conservative Matt Lewis told MSNBC. "It's not like a it's a small thing. I think the question of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden actually won the 2020 election, may be one of the defining questions of our time. As to whether he gets away with it politically, I think if people just watch the debate, he would, right, because it came very late in the night. A lot of people had turned the channel. I think the real question is whether Kamala Harris' campaign can make people see it by virtue of advertisements and social media, and if she can't do it, I think it's pretty devastating."

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"Way Too Early" host Jonathan Lemire asked how Smith's filing might impact the final month of the race.

"In coincidence that moment was followed up the next day by this Jack Smith filing being unsealed, which puts Trump front and center of the 2020 election, as we said earlier in the show, saying [he was] unfazed Mike Pence was in danger during the Jan. 6 riots and the like," Lemire said. "This is, I don't know it qualifies as an October surprise, but it certainly was a moment Trump's conduct was going to be in the headlines again. Do you think it's going to matter here as we're now about a month before Election Day?"

Lewis wasn't sure how much of an impact the newly revealed evidence would have on the race, but he said there are voters who still aren't familiar with the narrative of events that led up to the insurrection.

"On one hand I'm tempted to say it's baked into the cake," Lewis said. "People who think it's bad what happened on Jan. 6 are going to continue to think it's bad, and Donald Trump supporters are going to continue to rationalize it. I have to tell you this anecdotally. I spoke to a friend in West Virginia yesterday who's a Trump supporter and asked him very earnestly why wasn't Mike Pence – why isn't he the running mate, and I explained they wanted to kill Mike Pence, and so maybe there are some folks out there who -- that this could impact."

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