Sarah Burris is a long-time veteran of political campaigns, having worked as a fundraiser and media director across the United States. She transitioned into reporting while working for Rock the Vote, Future Majority and Wiretap Magazine, covering the Millennial Generation's perspective during the presidential elections. As a political writer, Burris has had bylines at CNN, Salon.com, BNR, and AlterNet and serves as a senior digital editor for RawStory.com.
MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski showed Donald Trump as he entered the New York courthouse on Monday for jury selection in his hush money election interference and fraud trial.
After Trump spoke inside the courthouse, the "Morning Joe" host noted he was "making a few lies there" — particularly as he repeated his claims that the case has no merit and it's a political witch hunt orchestrated by President Joe Biden.
"The first one is that every legal scholar thinks this is unfair. That is definitely not true," said Brzezinski. "And also, this is a case that has nothing to do with Joe Biden. This is a criminal case in a Manhattan court. It has to do with a hush money payment to a porn star that might ultimately be election interference because they were using fraudulent ways to get the money to her."
Prosecutors claim the payment happened as Trump was running for office in 2016, and feared details of the alleged affair would turn off voters.
"This is historic, obviously, salacious, of course, because of the porn star hush money and other testimony we'll hear from other women who had what they will say were sexual experiences with Donald Trump, triggering for him, embarrassing for him given his personal situation," Brzezinski continued.
However, it was legal analyst Joyce Vance who explained that the gravity of the situation seemed to have finally caught up with the former president.
"Today, we start with jury selection," Vance explained. "It's not always the most interesting part of the trial, but you can see Trump's demeanor as he approached the courtroom today. He looks a little bit shrunken in on himself.
"The reality of a trial often doesn't hit the defendant until they get to the courtroom and have to look at the people who will sit in judgment of him. I've seen this happen with defendants before, who talk tough until they actually have to look at the people who will sit in judgment against them."
She went on to explain that the jury will take an oath to be fair and deliver a verdict based on the evidence.