Hello there I'm Chuck Todd. This is the Chuck Todd Castle on Monday a federal judge in

Washington DC set March 4th, 2024 as the start date for the first of former President Trump's two federal

criminal trials. The next day is March 5th, which is Super Tuesday.

Just one example of the way the legal and political calendars

are mixing and combining for the former president.

And I'm left wondering, do we really think Trump's going to

clinch this nomination under this calendar? Will he be convicted? both happen could neither happen this is speculation territory that is worthy because I think we haven't thought about every scenario there is

I'm sitting here with the rest of the NBC News political unit.

Mark Murray, Ben Camissar, Bridget Bowman,

Sasha Marques, all co-authors of First Reef.

We are literally here to try to break down this crazy calendar and yes, it's going to be speculative in the various scenarios, but there's a reason we wrote on Monday when I said on Sunday is the biggest mistake we can make is assuming Trump can't lose.

We made the mistake that Trump couldn't win in 16 collectively and look what that got us.

So here we are. Let's not pretend we know how this is going to play out,

because we have no idea, Mark.

This is a, this is, this is, this is, this is,

we've had different moments where worlds like this have collided in an election era,

but I can't think of anything like this.

Chuck, I think there are two important things to consider when we're talking about the

collision of the legal calendar and the primary

calendar and that is one that the Republican race is a race for delegates and

through beginning in Iowa and New Hampshire and then going all the way to Super Tuesday and beyond this is

about accumulating the delegates needed to win the Republican nomination and

...