and we begin this morning at the u.s. supreme court, where right now, the justices are hearing oral arguments on cases challenging two biden administration vaccine policies. it affects tens of millions of workers. one involves an emergency rule requiring companies with more than 100 employees to ensure that workers are fully vaccinated or tested once a week. the other involves a requirement for workers at health care facilities that accept medicare and medicaid funds to be fully vaccinated, but with some exceptions. with me now, nbc news correspondent, ken dilanian. he is outside the u.s. supreme court. and former acting u.s. solicitor general, neal katyal, who has argued dozens of cases before the supreme court. he s also a professor at the georgetown university law center and an msnbc legal analyst. ken, let me begin with you, what are the people and groups who brought these cases hoping to accomplish? good morning, jose. well, the stakes are high here.
for our republic. i will be watching with my colleagues and we will be doing the people s work. congressman joe neguse , thank you for coming to the last word. joining us, former acting u.s. solicitor general and msnbc legal contributor. january 6 committee thompson said that they are investigating trumps silence during the attack and that dereliction of duty causes us real concern. if a criminal referral would be warranted, there d be no reluctance on the part of this committee to do that. so, what kind of evidence with the committee need before issuing a criminal referral? a criminal referral would occur if the committee finds that trump either by action or inaction violated the criminal statute and i think the most likely criminal statute is one
i ll be in washington with my colleagues and we will be doing the peoples work. congressman of colorado. thank you very much for coming to the last word. joining us now, neil former acting u.s. solicitor general. thanks for coming back. january 6 committee chairman told the washington post the panel is investigating trumps silence during the attack. and dereliction of duty causes us real concern. i can assure you that if a criminal referral would be warranted, there would be no reluctance on the part of the committee to do that. neil, what kind of evidence would the committee need before issuing a criminal referral? so, a criminal referral would occur if the committee finds that trump either by action or in action violated a criminal statute. the most likely criminal statute
the electoral college vote to those who organized or encouraged the mob attack on the capitol. to decline from the outset to investigate would be appeasement, pure and simple, and appeasing bullies and wrongdoers only encouraging more of the same. leading off our discussion tonight is neal katyal, former acting u.s. solicitor general and msnbc legal contributor. when it s a supreme court case, we turn to you. this is a trump legal filing that was filed today. i didn t quote any of it because it s like all trump legal filings, such a peculiar document. what the committee filed with the court made enough sense to me to present to the audience. but i leave it to you to tell us what we need to know about the trump filing and what the supreme court might choose to do. yes, lawrence, i think you re right.
lawyers saying that moving quickly is warranted because of the indisputable importance and urgency of the select committee s investigation. the efforts under way to hold those responsible for january 6th to account is where we begin this hour. joining us now, neal katyal, former acting u.s. solicitor general, now a georgetown law professor, msnbc contributor and quite adept downhill skier. also with us, mike murphy, codirector of usc center for the political future and kurt anderson, the cocreator and host as well as an author of countless books, most recently, evil geniuses. good to see you. thank you for coming off the slopes again to see us. i know you re bummed we didn t get to talk at 4:20, which was our original plan, but i ask you, the assess the legal merits of what the president is trying to accomplish here and what the likely outcome of those efforts are.