very good to beac you for another hour. i m alex witt in for katy tur. we re continuing our breaking news coverage of a legal setback for special counsel jack smith in his election interference investigation into the former president. the supreme court has just put out a single line order statement denying smith s request to immediately settle trump s presidential immunity claims, meaning the issue now heads to the court of appeals in d.c. we do have the date for those oral arguments. so what this decision all means for timing and how quickly the supreme court could take up the case once that court rules, there s a lot to get into. we re going to dive in right now joining us, justice and intelligence correspondent, ken dilanian, and msnbc legal analyst, and former assistant d.a. with the manhattan district attorney s office, catherine christian. ken, first off, were we expecting a sidestep like this? because that s essentially what it is. it s a punt, if you will, from the su