Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. We are tracking several stories tonight, including another Supreme Court ethics scandal,

time GOP appointee Samuel Alito to another billionaire on a fishing trip. We'll get into that later. It's a big story.

But our news program begins tonight with not only the criminal trial of Donald Trump,

now stated to begin on August 14th, but the broader ongoing threat of right-wing vigilanteism and authoritarianism.

Tonight, we begin with a special report on that very challenge and Trump's efforts to hijack the criminal justice system that now is trying to potentially hold him accountable.

We're talking about a range of actions that has prompted already fears of violence over the violent rhetoric and whether that could turn to action.

Tonight, we're about one week out from the federal criminal arrangement that Trump did try to prevent.

We all remember he was forced to sit silently in that Miami courtroom. Outside, cameras showed a very small crowd. The scene was nothing like what Trump had threatened for months.

The talk of riots or unrest or how the nation would not stand for his indictment. And I'll show you all that in this special report right now.

We could also tell you that heading into the second arrangement, Trump posted the message, see you in Miami.

And he did some conservative media calling for protests reinforcing ultimately how tiny his megaphone was on this score when it comes to summoning a giant crowd to protest a government proceeding.

Look, our country has to protest. We need strength at this point and everyone's afraid to do anything. They're afraid to talk. And they have to go out and they have to protest peacefully.

Now, Miami police had security ready for a crowd that could top 50,000. And after what we all saw as an under-response to the January 6th gathering, that kind of prep could make sense. You prepare for the most or the worst.

But one point that got less attention at last week's arrangement was the meager turnout of just about 500 people. No signs of militias or apparent hardliners like those who showed up for the criminal insurrection.

The number of Trump supporters was sometimes literally dwarfed by the number of media present. You could see that in certain scenes.

And there was talk of how Trump drew a fizzled response and really something that boiled down to a circus like crowd as the New York Times put it, including a Trump backer walking around and then another Trump critic carrying a pig head on an actual spike.

The low turnout had maggot supporters contemplating who among them might be federal agents. And you take this together now, we've all been through it, we've taken a breath.

And you may say, okay, well, that's a standard outcome, even a less than newsworthy outcome. So what more is there to say?

Well, there's a reason why this is our top story tonight and our special report because there's a lot more behind the scenes. Donald Trump's failure to get anywhere near another January 6th action.

It's not only a good thing for public safety and for the justice system. It is very much not a standard outcome that Donald Trump or his allies vowed to achieve.

So it's actually worth noting how we got here, why this matters tonight because even self-proclaimed serious people like Senator Lindsey Graham was out there vowing riots. Now he was wrong about what would happen.

It was also wrong to use this rhetoric to apparently threaten the justice systems of operation with the fear of riots. Graham, a former military lawyer, is supposed to know better.

...