national political reporter. that is our show for tonight. time for the last word with lawrence o donnell. lawrence, i m gobsmacked by some of these numbers. i m just gonna leave it to you while i scratch my head. ali, you know that thing happens once in a while where one of our great guests really is getting warmed up right when we have to go to commercial break because that s life on commercial television? that happened last week with yale professor david blight, who is an expert on the 14th amendment. he knows everything about how it came to be, the congressional debate about it. we are bringing him back tonight to finish his thoughts about that. that is worth watching because the most important amendment nobody ever thought about six months ago, and this is worth staying and listening to. certainly not thought about in this context. and he will follow harvard law professor laurence tribe, also an expert on constitutional law and the 14th amendment, who will give us
school of law. she is an msnbc legal analyst and co-host of the podcast hashtag sisters in law. also with us, harry litman, former u.s. attorney and former deputy assistant attorney general and a senior legal affairs columnist for the los angeles times. and joyce, let s begin with you of the breaking news of the night. you know a great deal about the workings of the 11th circuit court of appeals. mark meadows petitioning the 11th circuit for what they call an en banc re-hearing which means all of the judges on the bench, all the 11th circuit would hear the case, not just the panel of three. how common is it to get the full appeals court once the panel has rejected it? it s very uncommon. the 11th circuit argues very few cases compared to the other
circuits to begin with. en banc usually happens in this circuit in two weeks. just a handful of carrots cases will be in spring in the fall and so i suppose from one point of view it s advantageous. there would be delay involved, but the judges on the court will be actively communicating with each other to decide if this is an issue of magnitude that requires one of these rare en banc decisions. i think it s unlikely. particularly with a 30 decision offered by the judge power, there would be much movement the tightness one on. and joyce, if it doesn t go to the full appeals court, does mark meadows then try to go to the supreme court? i think he does. he s brought on new lawyers tonight, experienced supreme. court practitioners, and if en banc is denied, his time to to