Alex Wagner Tonight

Judge Juan Merchan denied Donald Trump's motion to dismiss his hush money case in New York and scheduled a sentencing for January 10th, which could mean that Donald Trump will officially be a felon when he is sworn in as president. Lisa Rubin, MSNBC legal correspondent, and Kristy Greenberg, former federal prosecutor, explain what options Trump has left and what is likely to happen.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett talks with Ali Velshi about the Republican chaos threatening to entangle House Speaker Mike Johnson in a familiar, embarrassing fight to retain the speakership into the new Congress with a tiny majority and having squandered the good will of his colleagues across the aisle who might otherwise save him. 

A special two hour edition of Alex Wagner Tonight.

Plus, Trump's anti-immigration plans face resource challenge at the state level

Republicans are mired in chaos and infighting as they humiliate themselves on the national stage again without being able to pass a spending bill to keep the federal government open. Elon Musk is only making matters worse, but that hasn't deterred a faction of the Republican Party from wanting to give him a more formal leadership role. Musk, meanwhile, is only a portion of the corporate feeding frenzy taking advantage of Donald Trump's weaknesses.

After Elon Musk expressed his opposition to a new spending bill, Donald Trump and his MAGA supporters followed suit, undermining House Speaker Mike Johnson and steering the U.S. toward a federal government shutdown. Meanwhile, Democrats are stepping away from the Republican chaos, leaving the GOP stuck in its own inability to govern.

Donald Trump is pressing his grievances with the media through lawsuits, but his case against the Des Moines Register over poll results he didn't like is so poorly conceived from a legal standpoint that his real goal of using the court system as an intimidation weapon is hard to miss.

As some Senate Republicans recoil at some of Donald Trump's more extreme picks to serve in his administration, Trump is turning up the pressure on anyone who would dare defy him. Eric Cortellessa, staff writer for Time, and Tara Palmeri, senior political correspondent for Puck News, discuss.

Despite making a promise of lowering prices an inflation a central part of his presidential campaign, and admitting that that promise was key to his being elected, Donald Trump is now waffling on whether that's even possible. Michelle Goldberg, columnist for the New York Times, and Faiz Shakir, founder and executive director of More Perfect Union, talk with Alex Wagner about Trump's walk back and what his post-election rhetoric suggests about his actual economic priorities.

Alex Wagner reports on Donald Trump's pick to lead the FBI, Kash Patel, who espouses conspiracy theories about the "deep state" and describes the organization he is potentially about to lead as essentially corrupt. Plus, the shifting of voters within the groups that make up the Democratic Party coalition in the 2024 election are prompting a new consideration of how to understand voting blocs like Latino voters and Black voters and women voters and whether those groupings are as relevant as they once were, and as relevant as public policy would suggest. Jelani Cobb, dean of the Columbia Journalism School, discusses.