JEN PSAKI: The most intere-- and you touched on this and went over it, and this is the thing that stuck out to me so much about today is this sort of sideshow, but it's not a sideshow of these senators. It's so strange seeing J.D. Vance and Tommy Tuberville in New York. It was like a Where's Waldo moment? Like there they are. Oh, there they are in back of him at this press conference. But it tells you so much because as you said, not only did they stand there, they went out afterwards and then they put out things on social media because they're looking for approval from Trump. And that adds to what we've seen over the last couple of weeks which is, one: people who want to be the vice presidential running mate or in the Cabinet saying- confirming they don't think Trump lost the election in 2020. Two, we've started to see a number of people recently in the last couple of weeks on a number of shows suggest they might not respect the outcome of the election in 2024. That's replaying the game again. And this is the third piece. I mean, we're going to see Vivek tomorrow. How crazy will that be? I don't know yet. We will see. But that is a piece of this that tells you so much about his own political power, even if we're not clear about where the polls between the two candidates are going to be at the end of this trial yet.
RACHEL MADDOW: And can I just -- I mean if you, like, imagineer a world in which Republican politics is not rotating around the axis of Donald Trump, what are the politics? What's the political impact of these sitting senators and very ambitious Republican politicians making sure that they are seen inside of what they are decrying as a very depressing New York City courtroom? I mean, they're putting themselves in state criminal court as a way of trying to get themselves before the American people so that this is where we imagine them. I mean this is just -- it may be one thing to try to get Trump's favor.
PSAKI: Mm-hmm.
MADDOW: But this exists in its own right in terms of how they are displaying themselves, what they- how they want us to think of their milieu in politics, and how they want us to think of them when it comes to criminal defendants in the criminal process.
PSAKI: Well, they think it's a winner for them politically to some degree, to hug and to align themselves with Trump. And perhaps in their states, it is. Uh, you know, J.D. Vance, he's not up for re-election this year. Tommy Tuberville, he does a lot of crazy things, but he’s- he’s Alabama- Trump is quite popular there. Right?