>> approximately 140 police officers were injured on january 6th when a violent mob stormed the capitol. one of those officers was james blasting game, a 17 year veteran of the capitol police. this is how he described that day to pbs news hour. >> you just hear just noise and people running at me, as far as i can see, from the crypt all the way to the north side, center side of the capital, is running at us. as bad as it looks on film, believe me, it was much worse, they can stitch together as much footage as they want to, and i'm telling you, and anybody that was in that scrum will tell you, there was much worse in person than anything you will see on film. >> officer blassingname and another fellow officer became the first members of the capitol police force to sue the person they say is responsible for that attack, not any of the individual rioters and not the far right groups that helped organize the riot. those officers sued the man at the very top, donald trump, who urged the mob to descend on the capitol with the hope of overturning a legitimate presidential election. now, these capitol police officers filed civil lawsuits in march of 2021. i was just two months after the attack. but those lawsuits have been languishing in the federal courts for more than two years now. the d.c. circuit court heard arguments in those cases nearly a year ago. but that court still has not issued a warning. according to statistics from the administrative office of the u.s. courts, which tracks this sort of stuff, the deliberation here has taken nearly three times as long as an average ruling from this court, the d.c. circuit court. and that delay matters, not just for those capitol police officers seeking accountability here. the extraordinary delay also matters to special counsel jack smith and his federal criminal case against donald trump. and that is because in both the civil cases brought by the capitol police officers and a criminal case brought by jack smith, trump's lawyers have made essentially the same argument, they are using the same line of defense. they argue donald trump is immune from prosecution. according to their defense, trump's efforts to overturn the election riled the crowd. but those efforts were all somehow part of trump's official duties as president. and therefore, trump is immune from any liability, criminal or civil. he should not have to stand trial. judge tanya chutkan is being asked to rule on that very question right now in jack smith federal case. but anything she decides there could be overruled by the judges on the d.c. circuit court, the ones deciding the merits of that same argument, trump's presidential immunity argument, and the capitol police officers civil suit. and so, judge chutkan is taking her time here in what some people believe might be an attempt to wait for the d.c. circuit court to issue its very long awaited ruling first. now, any decision that trump gets on this from either judge chutkan or the d.c. circuit court could be appealed. and it could be appealed all the way to the supreme court. and remember, it has to be resolved before donald trump goes to trial. but if it goes all the way to the supreme court, it could delay trump's federal criminal trial for weeks or even months. so it really matters what the courts do here, and how fast they do it. could they get this all done before the republican convention this summer? couldn't get it done before election day? how long do american voters have to wait before they know whether a man who could be nominated or even elective present before they know whether he is a convicted felon or not? so all that is playing out as we are learning new details about what special counsel jack smith has in store for donald trump at that criminal trial, whenever it starts. abc news has reporting today about what vice president mike pence has told prosecutors and what he might testify to a trial, that trump acted recklessly ungenerous sixth, that pence allegedly told trump that there was no idea more on american and the idea that any one person could decide what electoral votes to count. and when we're counting a phone call with donald trump on christmas day on 2020, pence wrote in his book that he told trump you know, thomas, i don't think i have the authority to change the outcome of the election on january 6th. but pence illegibly told smith investigators that the khama, that comma never should've been their. pence -- admonished trump. you know i, don't you know i don't think i have the authority to change the outcome. so potentially damning testimony here from trump's own former vice president. tebut the question now is will a jury get to consider any of it before the 2024 presidential election? joining me now are kimberly atkins store, lost and kobe opinion columnist, and joyce vance, former u.s. attorney for the northern district of alabama. both are co-host of the sisters in law podcast. kimberly, let me start with you. the idf presidential immunity here, on its face to the casual observer, and i will put myself in that group, it seems sort of preposterous that trump's actions in and around january 6th would be part of his official duties. but talk to me about the merits about that line of defense, if you would. >> yeah, so, donald trump and his attorneys would essentially have to make the case that his actions leading up to and on that day were a part of his official duties as president of the united states. they weren't a campaign event, they weren't outside of those duties, it was his job as president when he was speaking at that podium and urging people to go, encourage the members of congress to do what they were doing, he was speaking as president. i am with you. i think there is a reason why he didn't give that message from the white house itself. it was because it was, clearly, a campaign event, at best, or something outside of the realm of the presidency. keep in mind, that privilege does not extend to illegality. so something was -- if he was creating -- engaged in some sort of crime, that could be seen outside of that. if a judge deems that this was a political and not a part of his duties, that could be outside of that. but because this, like so many things running donald trump and the events leading up to and on january 6th are so novel, these are things that have never happened in our republic before, we need these courts to evaluate it and make these rulings before going forward. and the problem here, as you outlined, these interlocutory appeals could slow the pace of these trials so that they don't happen before the next election. >> yeah. i'm gonna try and not use the phrase interlocutory appeal. but i absolutely understand what you are talking about. and joyce, while kimberly very rightly points out these are novel cases, they're also particularly fraught, right? any decision here is gonna be one for the history books. do you think that's why the d.c. circuit court is taking so very extraordinarily long to issue a ruling that could have a serious effect on this federal criminal case? >> yeah, so it's an interesting question, alex. it's tough to say when we look at the statistics from the administrative office of the courts that these appeals are really taking what we might characterize as too long. that's because not all appeals are the same, and the d.c. circuit here is some very simple appeals from some very basic criminal cases. and it also here's complicated ones from administrative decisions involving agency functions. so from my point of view, the year mark is not really an excessively long period of time. mike we read into that the court is maybe holding all of these opinions to release them together? i suppose that could be the case. but that's not typically how courts would handle this sort of a manner. the civil cases could be decided, and the court would make it clear in its opinions that it is setting up the standard for civil cases. and that would leave the issue still to be decided in the criminal context. the defenses are very similar, they overlap to some extent. but they still have very different nuances when they arise in the civil and criminal amphitheater. so i suppose i'm not answer your question directly -- >> [laughter] >> other than to say will simply have to wait for the courts to do what they have to do here. they don't give us a lot of advanced warning about what they're thinking is. >> i mean, again, to the casual observer here, kimberly, a sore seems like a game of hot potato. i mean, judge chutkan is waiting. this decision has made before trump goes to trial in the federal case. the d.c. circuit court is doing whatever it's doing, but it almost feels like no one really wants to hand down the ruling on this. am i over reading the situation? >> yeah, again, joyce is right, we really don't know, only the judges in this case know for sure. but that could quite possibly be. it could be a combination of all of those things, of busy docket, plus this novel question, plus it is a hot potato that will be in the annals of history forevermore. but so justice often operates solely. and in this case, when all the fraught issues we are talking about are in play, it can be even slower. >> i just, i guess the sort of acceptance that justice works its way slower. there's a lot of merit to justice working fully. but there is a story in the new york times today that effectively the generous sixth trial needs its own rocket docket for, i think reasons a lot of our readers will understand, this is not a proposal for a course to act in the present fashion. the outcome of the legal process is not the point. the point is that the country deserves to know that outcome before it chooses the leader, the next leader of the free world. i mean, the supreme court, the court system moved very quickly in bush v. gore. why cannot move expeditiously in this incredibly important very limited window it has to tell the country whether donald trump is guilty or not? >> yeah, i think that's exactly the question that we should be asking. and there's no reason that the court can't move quickly here. what we're waiting on now is for judge chutkan to rule on some of these motions that could give rise to what we're not calling tonight an interlocutory appeal -- >> [laughter] >> that is to say an appeal that takes place before the case goes to trial. you know, we let most issues wait till after a criminal case has been resolved. that way, if the defendant is acquitted, you don't have to have an appeal if the defendant is convicted, here she can then get their appeal and court resources are not wasted. but here with these constitutional issues, there will be an appeal before trial. and we've seen appellate courts act very quickly. the 11th circuit acted swiftly when it was considering the first trump case in front of aileen cannon that involved whether trump could prove -- justice fire from using the surge of the fruits of mar-a-lago in advancing that criminal case. the 11th circuit acted very rapidly. no reason that the 11th circuit could not take a look at these issues, which have been thoroughly briefed in a very prompt manner. and while the supreme court has the ability to take the case and here it, and perhaps they will, they could act quickly, or they might be satisfied with the court of appeals decision and remit that stand. so lots away for the appellate courts to move this case forward so that a trial can begin on schedule in march, if they are of a mind to do that. >> i wonder if and when the trial gets underway, presumably this year, kimberly, how damaging do you think the patents testimony might be, given what we're learning from that abc reporting this evening? is your expectation that he will be called to the stand? >> yes, he is going to be one of the most crucial witnesses in this case because he is the highest ranking current or former official who has key evidence directly weighing on what donald trump did and said in those days leading up to and on january 6th. i, mean i would have loved the testified about this under oath before he wrote in his book. but he's under oath, now having spoken to the prosecutors and have winning already testified in a deposition. so this is crucial evidence that not only to donald trump have mike pence telling him that this was not a valid avenue to pursue, but that there were lawyers within the administration who were telling him this too. and he made a choice to pick and choose who he listen to. and he listened to the giuliani and sidney powell in a circle, as opposed to even his own vice president. that could cut very deeply into his defense that he was only following lawyers advice. you cannot just pick and choose law, is cherry pick the ones who are telling you what you want to hear, for that defense to hold. >> kimberly brings up the name rudy giuliani, and i'd be remiss, joyce, if i did not get your opinion on the news today that fani willis, the d.a. down in fulton county, there is reporting that she is prepared to offer plead deals, or has left the plea deal door open, if you will, to all of the named coconspirators in that fulton county case, except donald trump, rudy giuliani, and mark meadows. to some extent, trump does not surprise me being a name on that list. but i was in fact surprise that giuliani and meadows are not people she is seeking to turned prosecution witnesses. were you? >> no, not at all. i think she is certainly not looking to hand out deals to them. in a r.i.c.o. case, there is a lot of advantage to trying the people at the top, the general and the left tenants together, to get in all the evidence about the r.i.c.o. scheme. in some ways, and we've seen trump already trying to do this with some of the co-defendants who are cooperating, if they are all cooperating against you, then you give that general of a defendant, in this case, trump, the opportunity to say they were doing all of this, i didn't know anything about it, i was, you know, sitting in the oval office trying to carry on the nations business well rudy giuliani and mark meadows were freelancing. so by seeding them all the defendants table together, you really uniquely have the ability to do that, and particularly, when you've got many of the lower level defendants cooperating, i think willis has four right now, she is certainly trying to get more of this codefendants to become cooperating witnesses, they all continue to point the finger at different ones of the defendants. that looks like a good r.i.c.o. case. >> [laughter] that r.i.c.o. case not held up by the same dc circuit court of appeals or the deliberations of judge chutkan on trump's presidential immunity defense. so we keep our eyes on this one. kimberly, joyce, think you so much for being here tonight. we have a lot more this evening, including the world's richest man, elon musk, resurrecting the pizzagate conspiracy theory. plus, more hostages freed in the temporary cease-fire in gaza, while negotiators, including a high-ranking american, try to extend that truce. we will talk to former cia director john brennan about the possibility of a more lasting peace. that's next. vy is a vaccine used to prevent lower respiratory disease from rsv in people 60 years and older. arexvy does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. i chose arexvy. rsv? make it arexvy. having triplets is... -amazing -expensive. so, we switched to the bargain detergent, but we ended up using three times as much and the clothes still weren't as clean as with tide. so we're back with tide, and the clothes are clean again. do 3x the laundry and get a tide clean. it's got to be tide. >> on the fifth day of the now what causes a curve down there? can it be treated? stop typing, and start talking. it could be a medical condition called peyronie's disease, or pd. and it could be treated without surgery. find a specialized urologist who can diagnose pd and build a treatment plan with you. visit makeapdplan.com today. extended cease-fire between israel and hamas, 12 hostages held captive by hamas were released, ten israelis and two thai nationals. this video shows some of them crossing out of gaza into egypt, including a 17-year-old girl carrying a pet dog. there were no americans among them according to the white house. nine american hostages remain in gaza. in exchange for today's hostage release, israel released 30 palestinians who were being held inside israeli prisons. according to the israeli military, the 12 hostages have arrived safely in israel, where their families eagerly await reunions, like this one. the young boy seen here hugging his mother's 12-year-old eatan yahalomi, an israeli-french citizen. eaton was released yesterday, but his father remains captive somewhere inside gaza. the truce that allowed for these exchanges is set to expire tomorrow night. but tonight, cia director william burns is in doha, qatar, in a round of new negotiations aimed at freeing more hostages. a diplomat with knowledge of those talks tells abc news that groups other than women and children are part of those hostage discussions. joining me now is john brennan, the former director of the cia and now an msnbc national security and intelligence analyst. director brennan, thank you for being here. one thing that has struck me over an interesting facet of all of this is that these negotiations are being led by a representative from mossad, and one from the cia, of course in addition to the qataris. how unusual is that set of talks, if you will, between mossad and the cia? >> well, the cia has had very strong and long-standing ties to mossad. and it's not surprising to me that cia is involved heavily in these discussions because the negotiations with hamas are taking place through intermediaries. in this case it's mostly the qataris, but also the egyptians. the cia also has contacts, some very close relations, between the qataris and egyptian intelligence. so therefore massage, being external intelligence organization of israel, also has dealings with egyptians and the qataris. again, it's unsurprising with these very sensitive negotiations are taking place in intelligence channels. i think with great confidence in players, the director of mossad, as well as director, burns are very close. i do believe the progress has been made over the last five days is the result of hammering out these discussions and the terms of the arrangements. the terms of the agreement have been followed through so far. tomorrow is going to be a very critical day, the sixth day of this truce and the exchange of hostages and prisoners. i am confident that director burns is doing all he can to extend that truce and to get more of these hostages free. >> can i ask you what you would assume that the sort of next group of hostages might be after all the women, after the remaining women and children have been freed from hamas custody or custody of other radical groups? >> i think hamas is going to keep the israeli defense force personnel. they're not going to give those up, certainly, at this point. the israelis have been insistent that any extension of the truce involves the release of 10 additional hostages. after the scheduled release of hostages tomorrow, i think the number of hostages will be about 150, 153 or so. the numbers are coming down, which is good. hamas may try to draw out this truce and offer fewer hostages for every day that the truce can be extended. clearly, i think, hamas wants to buy additional time. it is using the time to reposition its forces, and i think to prepare for the day after the truce, given that netanyahu is determined and has said publicly that israel will relaunch the military campaign. and so i do believe that hamas wants to be able to make as much preparation as possible for that eventual day. >> how significant a challenge is it that nearly a quarter of the hostages that remain in captivity are not actually in hamas custody? >> it's difficult. one of the things that i think is positive is that at least hamas leadership has still retained command and control over the hamas units that had control of these hostages that have been released so far. but whether or not the palestinian islamic jihad and some of the other terror organizations in gaza are going to be willing to give up their hostages to hamas, that's a real question mark. there are reports that some of these hostages, including the israeli military personnel, were traded or sold among these various gaza militant organizations. hamas may be trying to use this period of time to gather under their command and control more of these hostages that they can trade to the israelis. >> i've got to ask you because you may know to the fact that hamas is likely preparing for the day after the truce ends, the administration, the biden administration, has been encouraging if not urging israel to fight surgically, that is the term being reported in the new york times today. what do you think that practically means and how feasible is it, given what we've seen from israel? >> the number of palestinian civilian deaths, in excess of 14,000 or so, really demonstrates that the israelis have been using rather broad targeting parameters when they engage in these strikes. so the question is, if they go after a terrorist leader, a hamas leader, an operative, or whatever, and they know where this individual is located, are they willing to strike the target knowing that they're going to kill a dozen, 50, or 100 palestinian civilians in order to accomplish that strike objective? what i am hoping is happening is that the biden administration has convinced the israelis to lower that proportionality number so that there is not going to be these bombings, as the footage shows, against these apartment buildings, these refugee camps and others, where the israelis may have been successful in killing a handful or even a dozen of hamas terrorists, but at the same time, they kill scores of palestinian civilians as they do that. clearly, the israelis know that these civilian deaths will take place when they strike these terrorist targets. the question is, having the israelis scale back the scope and the extent of these strikes so that, as you point out, they are much more precise, surgical, and they're not going to incur the number of civilian deaths that we have seen, tragically, so far. >> yes, 13,000, according to our latest reporting, and a humanitarian catastrophe over there. john brennan, former cia director, such a pleasure having you on the program. thanks so much for your time and thoughts. we have lots more ahead tonight. can the koch brother's super pac do for nikki haley's presidential campaign what it has done for the fossil fuel industry? we're going to talk about the great gop megadonor push to nominate not-trump. but first, you will not believe what elon musk is up to now. or you shouldn't believe it. more on that, after the break. i got this $1,000 camera for only $41 on dealdash. dealdash.com, online auctions since 2009. this playstation 5 sold for only 50 cents. this ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. i got this kitchenaid stand mixer for only $56. i got this bbq smoker for 26 bucks. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. >> the richest man on the planet, elon musk, flew halfway around the world yesterday. he donned a flak jacket and he got a personal tour of a kibbutz that had been attacked by hamas in southern israel, a tour led by prime minister netanyahu himself. and mr. musk was pretty transparent about why he was there. shortly after landing, musk posted on x, formerly known as twitter, which he owns, musk posted actions speak louder than words. now, mr. musk did not specify which words he was referring to in that post, but this very public display of unity with israel and with prime minister netanyahu, that comes as elon musk is in the hot seat. he is there specifically for endorsing an antisemitic conspiracy theory on x, calling the antisemitic theory the actual truth. that, surprise, surprise, led to a mass exodus of advertisers from the platform, which then appears to have led to this public musk apology tour yesterday. you might think, given that he had just flown around the world and toward the site of a massacre to clean up the mess he had made for publicly endorsing a conspiracy theory, you might think elon musk would think twice before endorsing another conspiracy theory. but apparently not. today, elon musk posted a meme posting a conspiracy theory that is literally the most clear-cut textbook example about why pushing a conspiracy theory is dangerous, pizzagate. in december of 2016, a 28-year-old man entered the comet pizza parlor in washington d.c. and pulled out an ar-15 style rifle. the staff and patrons at comet, including children, all fled. but the man, edgar welch, who had driven six hours through multiple states to get to this particular pizza place, he stayed inside. he shot the lock off a closet and he moved all the furniture. edgar welch was looking for proof that the pizza parlor was actually the, let me check my notes here, the home base of a child sex trafficking ring run by hillary clinton. that conspiracy, known colloquially as pizzagate, was spread online, primarily through fabricated news articles with headlines like fbi insider, clinton emails linked to political pedophile sex ring, and it's over, nypd just raided hillary's property, what they found will ruin her life. all of that was fake. it has been debunked over and over again. but it still convinced a man to storm a pizza parlor with an ar-15 style rifle. and that history here of fake news leading to a real world attack, that makes it all the more astounding that the particular pizzagate conspiracy theory that elon musk pushed today was also based on a fake news story. it came from literally doctored new york post headline that read award winning journalist who debunked pizzagate pleads guilty in horrific child porn case. reuters fact-checked this months ago, that headline did not actually ever exist. and pizzagate has been, again, debunked, over and over again. but still elon musk bought into it. a few hours ago, mr. musk deleted the pizzagate post. maybe this time he's learned his lesson, or maybe not. coming up, could dark money saved the republican party from a trump nomination? that's next. and i saved hundreds. with the money i saved, i started a dog walking business. oh. [dog barks] no it's just a bunny! only pay for what you need. ♪liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty.♪ >> i have been underestimated in everything i have ever done. and it's a blessing, because it makes me scrappy. no one is going to outwork me in this race. no one's going to outsmart me in this race. >> today, just seven weeks before the iowa caucuses, nikki haley's scrappy campaign got a major endorsement from americans for prosperity action, a super pac founded by the conservative billionaire koch brothers. the group happens to have a lot of influential dark money, money that has funded efforts to advance climate change denialism and antiabortion activism and the national rifle association. so its endorsement and its dollars carry some weight in republican circles. in a memo, the super pac explained why nikki haley, citing internal polling that showed haley outperforming trump by 8 to 14 points in a matchup against biden in key battleground states. she may have to outperform trump against biden, before she can get to that there is haiey against trump. her recent poll, from morning consult, shows are trailing donald trump by 54 points. joining me now is charlie sykes, editor at large of the bulwark and host of the bulwark podcast. charlie, thank you for being here. first, i want to get your thoughts on how important, how influential the koch dollars can be to a campaign like nikki haley's. >> let's start off by stipulating that it's still highly unlikely that nikki haley is going to be able to defeat donald trump. the 54 point hole is pretty deep. but having said that, this is potentially quite significant, because, number one, it provides her with a good deal of money. it provides her with the organizational infrastructure that afp brings. and also it is a signal to other donor donors that she is the one person, she's going to be the last woman standing against donald trump. as mrs. bennett said in pride and prejudice, it will throw her in the way of other rich man. we have been talking about the possibility of the consolidation of the field, that in order to defeat donald trump, the field has to consolidate. you can't have eight candidates, nine candidates, that's what happened in 2016. now, this sends a real signal that this has become a three person race and is about perhaps to become a two person race. it's still donald trump's to lose, but this is a significant move because the koch network did not have to endorse, they saw the same polls you cited. they understand the dynamic that donald trump is likely to win this nomination. and yet, they decided to get in right now and put a lot of their credibility and their resources behind this. >> i think the consolidation piece is perhaps what's most interesting in terms of her ability to do just that. i was struck by the fact that in announcing their pick to get behind nikki haley, the super pac had what almost sounded like an apology to the desantis campaign. all read an expert. our thanks, this is as they endorse nikki haley, our thanks in appreciation's to governor desantis, who is when a tremendous leader for the state of florida, we understand some of the governors supporters will be disappointed in our decision. however, as the 2024 primary season heats up, we are entering a time period that demands choices. it almost seems like they're trying to do some of the work for haley and bring desantis supporters over. i wonder if you think a desantis supporter is someone, and she has risen and taken ways some support from desantis in recent weeks, but they are so different as candidates. and seemingly different on some key policy areas. i wonder whether you think it's possible for her to bring his 18% of primary voters over to her side of the aisle, as it were? >> now the key question, isn't it? in order to consolidate, you have to get to 50%. and that's not gonna be easy, because a lot of the desantis supporters will go to donald trump, because they think of desantis as a basically trump -ism without trump. they might as well go with the real thing. but i do think that there is a sentiment out there. how big it is among republicans who say let's just move on, thank you for your service, donald trump, ron desantis. but what is significant to me about afb getting involved is how urgently they seem to think it is to stop donald trump. that's what i would focus on. they see donald trump as a real threat to the nation, and not just to the causes that they care about. they have had some real significant differences with nikki haley on foreign policy. they're kind of a libertarian organization, and they have gone at a very different direction, on a variety of issues including aid to ukraine. but apparently they decided that they are willing to put all of those differences aside because they recognize the urgency of now coalescing behind anyone who can stop donald trump. that's a statement. it's an indication that if you squint just a little bit, you can see maybe what normal republicans might do, and that nikki haley has become the chosen vessel. and she's been showing a little momentum, i suppose as much momentum as anyone, since that first debate. and it certainly will not hurt her in iowa or new hampshire or south carolina. >> i think, charlie, your point about kochs tryinjg in electing anyone besides donald trump is significant. i think cnn got access to the liz cheney memoir coming out next week. we'll have an interview with her, our colleague rachel maddow, on monday night. but i do wonder whether -- there's an excerpt in the book, and i would love to get your reaction to it. cnn reports that liz cheney sent george w. bush cheney a private message of support after she voted to impeach trump for the january 6th attack. on some level, that's not surprising. but why are republicans like george w. bush still withholding their public criticism of donald trump? >> well, alex, we've been asking this question for seven or eight years now. when are republicans going to say in public what they've been saying in private? it is striking. i'm gonna look at the other side of that. when you think about the number of people from the trump administration, the people who've worked most closely with him, his former chief of staff, attorney general, his former secretary of defense, his former national security adviser, all of whom are now very publicly and openly saying donald trump is not fit for office, he is dangerous, we cannot allow him back in the oval office. and you wonder whether or not, as this moment of choosing the afp describes, will lead them to come out? i think we know what liz cheney is going to say. but liz cheney is going to be a unique voice to pry some of those republicans lose because, first of all, she's a cheney. she's an insider. she's all out of bleeps to give. she has a great deal of knowledge of what has been going on, both in your experience in republican leadership, and in the january 6th committee. and she is going to spend, i'm thinking in the next year, holding her fellow republicans feet to the fire and saying do you really want to do this? choose honor or dishonor. this is the moment of choosing. do you want to go down in history the way that history will remember, say mitt romney, or do you want to become just another lindsey graham, potted plant, in congress? i do think republicans, this moment of choice, republicans have already made their choice. i think that this is donald trump's party. but what happened today is an indication that there are some folks who have considerable resources who are not just going to roll over. now, of course the question is whether that actually matters, whether or not the big money, the dark money, the billionaire donor class money actually matters anymore in the republican party. we're about to find that out over the next few months. >> liz cheney and the koch super pac, moral compasses for today's republican party. charlie sykes, it was good to see you. still ahead, the fight to stay alive while pregnant in the state of texas has reached the state supreme court. i will talk to reproductive freedom for all representative about the 22 women who say out of their operating rooms. that's next. [laughs] [laughs] and struggle. ♪ and struggle with cpap. you should check out inspire. ♪ no mask. no hose. just sleep. inspire. sleep apnea innovation. learn more and view important safety information at inspiresleep.com lowering bad cholesterol can be hard, even with a statin. diets and exercise add to the struggle. today, it's possible to go from struggle to cholesterol success with leqvio. with a statin, leqvio is proven to lower bad cholesterol by 50% and keep it low with 2 doses a year. common side effects were injection site reaction, joint pain, and chest cold. ask your doctor about twice-yearly leqvio. lower. longer. leqvio® shingles. some describe it as pulsing electric shocks or sharp, stabbing pains. ♪♪ this painful, blistering rash can disrupt your life for weeks. a pain so intense, you could miss out on family time. the virus that causes shingles is likely already inside of you. if you're 50 years or older, ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingles. >> 22 women say texas abortions bans have harmed them personally. some of them began suing the state, and right after hours of detailed testimony a state district judge partially judged texas's heartbeat ban at law. she says women with pregnancy complications or nonviable pregnancies should have abortion access. texas attorney general ken paxton promptly appealed that ruling, taking a position that texas law already has a vague medical exception. today the state's highest court heard oral arguments. >> while there is technically a medicalexcection to the bans nobody knows what it means, in the state won't tell us. >> a court would be saying that a patient needs to have blood or amniotic fluid dripping down their leg before they can come to court. >> texas state supreme court is expected to rule in just a few weeks. joining me now is mini timaraju president and ceo of reproductive freedom for all, known as -- pro-choice america. i think it's worth noting that there were five plaintiffs in this suit, initially, and now there are 22. what does it signal about the gravity of this law? >> first of all, kudos to our friends at the center for reproductive rights, top-notch legislators, running an impressive program, but it definitely says the longer these bans are in place the more horror stories that are emerging and as we continue to see the impact on dobbs across the country, but especially in texas, where spca was in a fight before the draft dobbs decision, the cases are just piling up. you are seeing more and more brave women coming forward and thank goodness, because their stories are really helping shift the narrative in the country but also they're really critical to pushing back against the texas legislature's significant overreach. >> when you talk about shifting the narrative, many of the women in these cases want to have children. something happens, either with them or with the fetus, and termination is the only option. i wonder how you think that maybe shifted the traditional political divide on the subject of reproductive freedom? >> you know, women coming forward and explaining how they very wanted pregnancies went awry, how they almost went to sepsis or shock, almost died, molly dwayne's point about having to have amniotic fluid dripping down your leg for the state the state of texas to consider you eligible as a plaintive in a case like this, this is important because it rips away the lies and disinformation about why folks get abortions, when folks get abortions, and what circumstances they have them in. these cases clearly illustrate an abortion's health care. they also clearly illustrate why exceptions don't work and how texas has specifically designed such a vague exception that the state can't even articulate what it means. doctors have to go to court to get them to explain it. >> it has made the physician-patient relationship that much more fraught. what is your expectation here, as far as what the courts do? >> this is all about that lower court decision, the lower court injunction. i know our friends at crr feel very strong in their suit and their argument they're hopeful that there will be injunction will be upheld and there will be further explanation for what these exceptions are supposed to mean. i think what i want to underscore, though, in texas, this supreme court has nine republicans. the question today whether the was definitely not without its own disinformation and bias. these attorneys and attorneys and plania plaintiffs are compelling, and their case is strong. what we have to pivot to at the national level is continuing to fight for federal protections, because in a place like texas, if crr is being surgical center for reproductive rights, we don't have -- this is a gerrymandered supermajority of republican extremists in the legislature, the best for texas is federal legislation codify roe and make federal right to abortion again in this country. >> mini timaraju, thank you for your time tonight. i do appreciate it. that's our show for this evening. now it is time for the last word, with lawrence o'donnell. , good evening, lawrence. >> good evening alex

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