Welcome to the beat I'm Ari Melber and we begin with that breaking news.

Donald Trump's federal coup trial is back on.

That is because this court as mentioned is ruling against defendant Trump today. They're green lighting the trial

sought by special counsel Jack Smith. This ruling sets a historic precedent for

holding a former president accountable. We have special coverage for you

tonight that we've been working on all day since this broke early on the

East Coast today. We're going to go through it with you. We start with the

basics. You don't need to be a lawyer or a constitutional scholar to understand

this.

The ruling rejects Donald Trump's very far-fetched arguments that his job history as president

should mean that he could never be arrested, indicted, or tried for anything related to his time in office.

Trump's lawyers had argued that he should basically retain a kind of a permanent immunity

from the fact that he used to be president.

Well, the court is rejecting that today.

And we're going to begin, like I said, with the clarity of this single spare sentence.

Quote, for the purpose of this criminal case former President Trump has become citizen

Trump. That's it. If you don't want to read the whole thing and we're going to give

you more context but that's the ruling right there. That term, Citizen Trump, is this

High Court saying that this individual is subject to prosecution and a trial and

possible incarceration like any other citizen.

That is the top line.

That is the key.

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