these allegations ought to be in federal court judges have said, no, these acts are outside of the scope of your official responsibiliies as white house chief of staff. this involves election, which is a classic state function. under our constitutional system, elections are run by state governments. and atempts to persuade state officials to intervene in those processes are not within the job description of the white house chief of staff. so mark meadows is making a similar argument that president trump s lawyers are making in washington and courts have pretty consistently said there s a zone outside of your official responsibility that is fair game for a state court proceeding or for jack smith to charge in federal court. so carol, for audience members who might have thought this was over and removed this portion of trump knowledge from their brains, very understandably, remind us why meadows is so hell bent moved to
block the peaceful transfer of power. the first time a the president has ever tried to do that, ever since he was charged, his poll numbers have been inching upward fairly steadily. if you are jack smith s team, how do you pair for these arguments? he rebutted them in the filing. he put in with the court on saturday, which is that the founders could never have imagined that a the president would be um mun from committing crimes that were directed at overwriting the will of the people and staying in office when you re not elected. the jack smith points to the text of the constitution, which doesn t include presidential immunity. he points to history, which dumpbt include ever an instance in a criminal case of there being presidential immunity. he points to the structure of our system of separation of powers and how it really would defy that. we also see some important
as donald trump makes a third bid for the white house and is the the first votes are to be cast in iowa in just under two weeks. trump s lawyers say the 234-year unbroken tradition of not prosecuting the presidents for official acts, despite calls to do so from across the political spectrum, provides powerl evidence. no president prior toth donald trump tried to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. had his attorneys point to the likelihood of mushrooming prosecutions. and future cycles. the ex-the president snlt prolsing retribution. his al lies aren t the ones plotting to end the independence of the justice department. the most audacious argument, one yesterday. on this program donald trump cannot be tri a criminal court for role in the january 6th insurrectn because heas acquitted by the senate during his second impeachment the new york times reports
confirm that donald trump has appealed the colorado ruling, kicking him off the ballot to the united states supreme court. and asking the court to keep him on primary ballots nationwide. this as the effort to bar candidates under the constitution s insurrectionist clause is spreading. that s next. marc elias tells us what he s watching for. growing tensions in the middle east one day after a top hamas leader was killed in a targeted strike in beirut, explosions rocking tehran, leaving nearly 100 dead and sewing fears that the israel-hamas war could widen beyond gaza s borders. en beyond gaza s borders.
ballots nationwide. that is according to a report just breaking in the washington post. we ll have more on that in a moment. but that is where we start with the host of the podcast, jason johnson and professor of politics and journalism at morgan state university, the jason johnson is here. plus, host of the podcast fast politics and special correspondent for vanity fair molly john fast, former top state department official during the obama administration rick stangle and editor at large for the bulwark, charlie sykes. your colleagues at the bulwark wrote that piece, i would call it chilling. talk about why we re closer to constitutional failure today than we were, let s say, three years ago. well, because donald trump has been radicalized and radicalized the republican party. he has managed to revise the history of what happened on january 6th and any lingering hope that the republican party would serve as a guardrail or a check on his ambitions, i think