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
lawrence, i m gobsmacked by some of these numbers. i m just gonna leave it to you while i scratch my head. aly you , know that thing happens once in awhile where one of our great guests 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 back tonight finishes 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 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 his view of how the 14th amendment, how it has the power to keep donald trump off the ballot in some states. i look forw
does not bar them from running for office. and it does not bar them from being elected to office. it just burns them from holding office. what you do you make of that distinction? well, it s word salad. it s nonsense. it s a miss reading of section three of a 14th amendment. without a doubt. you mentioned earlier, when you are talking to professor tribe that the supreme court ought to be, i don t know, doing its homework or something. so why not? let s give them some homework. they obviously or their clerks, i hope, our reading all the great debates of the winter and spring of 1866 when the 14th amendment was debated. incredible debates. these were men reinventing a constitution and fighting like hell over it. they can also start by reading
they can also start by reading chapter two of the book the second founding. it s called toward equality. it s a single chapter on, how do these parts of the 14th amendment come about? they can read that in 20 minutes. then they can go spend hours on the great debates of 1866. and they should especially learn the speeches by john bingham, it was bingham who voiced that quote i use the other day, put them in terror of their laws. that was bingham, and by the way, bingham was an anti slavery genuine abolitionist republican from eastern ohio. almost over to pittsburgh. he never made it into the senate or ran for the presidency but he s one of the great unsung heroes of american history. he authored section one, and he had a lot to do with author-ing section three of the 14th amendment. and if you re giving me a little time on section three