Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melber. Tonight we have a lot for you, including the Justice Department trying to get the Supreme Court itself, the highest court in the land, of course, to slap down Donald Trump as he tries to appeal in that Mar-a-Lago case.

We have that for you and Michael Cohen live on the beat tonight talking about how Trump and others have tried to subvert justice and what matters right now.

I also have one of my special reports for you tonight. This one is about Justice in America and Rikers Island. We have been working on this. It's our special report. We think it matters and by the end of the hour, we will share that with you.

But we begin with this battle for the control of Congress right now.

You hear that music and you know we are into the season. The midterms, exactly one month away, early voting underway with issues like abortion and inflation, driving people to the polls. Many say democracy itself is on the ballot.

We have some special stuff planned but want to get right to it with Michael Steele, the former R&C chair and MSNBC analyst. You know the music, sir. You know the beat.

I go out well.

When you hear that early voting is underway and you look at what's going on out here. I'm coming right to you. Regular BBU is no sometimes we have a whole set up. We show a lot of history right now. Come on right to you.

What do you see right now in this home stretch?

When I see right now our voters deciding to hunker down around a vote. The early voting as you noted has started.

And so there's some anticipation and some trepidation. The anticipation is that voters are going to take seriously not just their concerns about the economy.

That's being stressed by some. But also the democracy that it will matter the kind of men and women they select choose to be an extension of them to be the best representative for them in the state house in the governor's mansion in the US Congress.

So this is an exciting part of this game if you will where the campaigns you know almost kind of not much more you can do per say because voting has started.

But on the back end of that you still have opportunities to convince those voters who are going to either vote same day or who are going to have to take an absentee ballot.

A little bit later on to convince them that this case you're making is the right case for the right time. Yeah. You look at some of these races where there has been a big echo from 2020.

There was this exchange with JD Vance who was a huge Trump critic. He did the whole green room circuit. The Republican so concerned about Trump.

Now he is running completely on Trumpism and really according to his opponents on making common cause with actual defendant insurrectionists. Take a look at this exchange.

JD Vance raised money for the legal defense fund of the insurrectionists. This is the kind of extremism JD that we wholly reject. Can you imagine one guy saying out of one side of his mouth he's pro cop and out of the other side of his mouth he's raising money for the insurrectionists who are beating up the Capitol police.

The one guy tried to raise money for got four years in prison. Talk about law and order. Michael not everyone is going to take up this position. I will still say of course these people have the right to defense whether it's a public defender or private council.

No one is questioning their right. But Mr. Vance can support any any number of people. What does it tell you that he is putting his time and supporting the money for what Mr. Ryan said there. Do you think that plays in this campaign or does it risk while important? Does it risk having voters say why is the Democrats still talking about Jan 6 what about jobs?

I don't think voters are saying they're talking you know why are Democrats still talking about January 6th. In fact recent polling but from NBC and in Wall Street Journal showing that this number two issue now.

Guess what six months ago democracy was not even in the top five now is the number two issue after the economy for voters which tells me the yes there's still concerned about inflation and price of fill in the blank.

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