'Americans need to see this!' Morning Joe calls for TV in Trump trial

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called for Donald Trump'selection subversion trial to be televised, but a legal expert said there are obstacles to putting cameras inside a federal courtroom.

Special counsel Jack Smith's office filed a motion rejecting an argument by Trump's attorneys to televise the trial, which had been requested by a consortium of media organizations, and a "Morning Joe" panel debated how and why the courtroom proceedings could be broadcast.

"At this point, the trial is unlikely to be televised, given the federal criminal proceedings have never been aired on television," said co-host Mika Brzezinski. "What's more, Judge Tanya Chutkan repeatedly stated she will treat Trump like any other criminal defendant, that broadcasting his trial would be a major departure from the norm. What do you think, Joe? Secondly, it's going to be really hard to treat him like any other criminal defendant, but I guess she can try. I mean, he gets special treatment the minute he walks in the door – he has Secret Service, people can't put him in jail necessarily [with] the Secret Service. How does this work? How is he treated like a normal person?"

Scarborough said cameras would be necessary to prevent Trump from misrepresenting what happened in court, even at the risk of him turning the trial into a circus.

"Donald Trump wins when Donald Trump is able to play the disruptor, when he is able to go outside of the courtroom and yell and wave his arms and tell America what just happened inside the courtroom," Scarborough said. "We've seen it. We saw it with Robert Mueller, I'm afraid we're seeing it now with Jack Smith. People are saying, 'Just by the book, let's go by the book, head down, we're doing this like any other case.' Americans need to see this case, they need to see it."

Scarborough said he was surprised and disappointed that Smith objected to televising the trial, because the case was rooted in the rule of law and constitutional order, but legal analyst Barbara McQuade said the issue was not quite so clear cut.

"I'd love to see this televised, I think, otherwise, Donald Trump will misrepresent what is going on in the courtroom," McQuade said. "However, Jack Smith is saying isn't that we don't want it to be televised, he is saying the judge lacks the authority to televise it. Federal Rule of Procedure 53 prohibits cameras in the courtroom. Any advocacy on this issue has to be taken up at a different level with the Judicial Conference, the group of judges who make up the rules for what happens in court. Her hands are ties, so I think the judge lacks the authority to do this."

"I think what the media companies are arguing is that she should strike down the rule as unconstitutional," McQuade added. "If she makes that finding, then I suppose so. Other courts already found that it is, so I think she lacks the power to do that. The place to advocate is with the Judicial Conference to change the rule, and they have time to do that before this trial begins."

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