it is 10:00 eastern. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. more critical supreme court decisions just moments away. we have a dozen cases left, but the public did get a preview of one of them after a stunning supreme court error. a document on moyle versus the u.s., the case concerning on idaho's strict law and whether doctors gave the green light to provide emergency care to provide care to the woman if the woman's life is at risk. this appears to be the decision or at least a draft of it. they got ahold testify before it was removed from the court's website, and if it holds it indicates the court will allow emergency room doctors in idaho to perform emergency abortion care. nbc's ken delainian is outside the supreme court and nbc correspondent lisa rubin is here with me in new york, and we're also joined by former acting solicitor general neal katyal and an women's advocate. thanks for joining us. what more do we know about this document that was apparently accidentally posted? >> yeah, good morning, ana. absolutely shocking that this happened two years after the unprecedented release of the dobbs decision, with millions of dollars being sent to update its cyber security and all the court is saying about it issuing a brief statement acknowledging that the court's publication unit inadvertently released a document and the decision in this case will be released in due course. we don't know if this was a draft opinion or actual opinion, although common sense suggests the most likely situation says it is the actual opinion. someone was getting ready to post it and hit the wrong button. on procedural grounds this throws the case back to the lower courts which is a victory, a partial victory for abortion rights advocates because it would put in place a ruling that says that the federal law requiring basic emergency room care across the country trumps, overcomes this idaho abortion ban and perhaps the abortion bans of other states, and that's a significant interesting pullback, really the second one on a major ruling. you know, you had this brewing gun decision that said that there had tobin analog for any gun regulation in american history, that the founders would have had to understand it and recently we had the decision that said actually, no. it's okay to ban domestic violence -- people convicted of domestic violence from possessing a gun, even though the founders viewed domestic violence much differently. that a pretty significant pullback, and now if this abortion opinion is as we believe it might be, it's a pretty significant pullback from the dobbs decision written by one of the most conservative members of the court that says there's no right to abortion in the constitution and that matter is left for the states. except in this case, according to this decision if it's the right one. it's not left to the states in every case. there's a federal law that overcomes the strict state abortion law so a lot for legal scholars to chew on here, ana. >> we want to be careful because it wasn't the official decision that was given by the court. that's out there, and we're still waiting on those official decisions being released today to come through. we did get one. it wasn't one of the big ones. i know we're reading in to see more about that particular case, but coming back to the accidental posting of this law involving idaho's abortion ban, lisa. this is the second major abortion decision that has been sort of put out there in a botched way. what do you make of it? how does that happen? >> i don't know how it happens, but one way that it potentially happens is that the opinion is ready for publication, was handed off to the court's publication office which we know was involved in the mess-up here based on the court's spokesperson statement yesterday, saying the publications office inadvertently posted this. how then does the publications office get ahold of this opinion? in all likelihood there's some staging going on here. in other words, they are in possession of what is likely -- i want to say likely because we don't know a final opinion, and yet not yet ready for release to the public. i think the biggest takeaway that i have from this, ana, is we have long understood that the supreme court releases opinions when they are good and ready to do so. tradition lit chief justice decides when an opinion is good and ready with the loose ascent of the other justices. what appears to have happened here is that this opinion who is either ready for publication yesterday because it has yesterday's date on it, on the first page, or perhaps in the coming days, and it was inadvertently put in a place where even a web program could have found it. in other words, i'm not sure that bloomberg had a reporter who saw it on a website the way that ken and i keep hitting refresh so much as perhaps a bot or a scraper find this opinion on a non-public website or url that we wouldn't have known where to look and took that down, and so that suggests to me the court has a strategy for releasing opinions, and that's contrary to what we have always understood, that the court is just releasing opinions when they are finished. this suggests that's not at all what's happening, and it's consistent with prior reporting about how the court's internal machinations record. you'll recall jody cantor of "the new york times" that they agreed to hear the dobbs case months before the publication on the website. >> i understand that we got one of the semi-big ones that we've been waiting on, involving purdue pharma and the sackler family. what do we know about this decision. >> ana, i've said that this decision would kill the $6 billion settlement with sacha family and big farm ark. the justice department had actually come in and oppose this settlement as well as other parties, and now the supreme court is saying that in fact this settlement cannot go forward under these provisions. that is a huge deal. a lot of states were counting on this money. a lot of plaintiffs were counting on this money, those advocating for it said this was the best deal that they were going to get from the sackler family which, remember, is accused of knowingly peddling opioids to millions of people even after it became clear that they were addictive. they, of course, deny wrongdoing. made billions of dollars from their ownership with purdue pharma. there was some accountability through the civil court process and now apparently the supreme court has blocked the ruling on this. >> neal katyal, we know the district court -- sorry, forgive me. i'm going to go to lisa with this. the district court had initially ruled against the deal. it was the appeals court that then overturned that, and now we have this decision by the supreme court. any surprise by this decision? >> in some senses no, because what this deal hinged on was a release to individual sackler family members who are not themselves declaring bankrupty, and by giving them a release it would mean that anybody who was a claimant here couldn't sue those individual sackler family members for their liability with respect to the opioid crisis. there were a number of people who cried foul saying even if this $6 billion deal is what the purdue pharma lawyers and the sackler family lawyers are saying is the best we can do, it's still not fair to release them when they are not giving us a full accounting of their assets, putting all of their assets on the table and certainly not declaring themselves bankrupt. it's a get out of jail free card, metaphorically because there's no criminal liability for these family members. the original department from the department of justice there should be no deal if the sackler family members were being released in exchange for not what is traditionally involved in the bankruptcy declaration. >> i want to go to the professor of law at the university of michigan, leah, to get your take on this decision and the potential impact on, again, families who have been really impact in a deep way by the opioid crisis as well as it when it means for other bankruptcy cases. >> so it's a really interesting lineup among the justices. justice kavanaugh dissented and was joined with the chief justice together with justice sotomayor and justice kagan and said this decision is devastating for the hundreds of families who relied on this settlement in order to get some relief from the opioid crisis and the devastation that it brought. the dissent also notes that all the 50 state attorneys general had signed on to this plan because they thought this was only chance of relief. as lisa noted, part of the impetus for the entire bankruptcy case is that the sacklers allegedly drained money from the company and effectively held a settlement hostage and would only agree to it in the event that claims against them individually were released, and what the dissent says is, look there, isn't going to be any settlement. these victims are not going to get any relief until the sacklers are allowed to negotiate an agreement under which they themselves individually cannot be sued, and so what this does is it blows up a settlement that was going to give some money to the states and individuals who were victimized by the opioid crisis. >> and let me go to or ma meesh who has been reading in on this particular ruling. what more do you have for us? >> it's interesting to read justice kavanaugh's dissent here writing in part decision is wrong on the law, devastating for more than 100,000 opioid victims and their families so what justice kavanaugh is saying there might not be a second deal, the deal that shielded the sackler family from having liability, that hurt opioid relief victims. it's interesting in this deal. what's interesting is that we talk about the opioid epidemic and how it impacted families. the sackler family has become well known in pop culture talking about the impact of the family saying that the bankruptcy code doesn't support the way this deal was structured. justice kavanaugh in his dissent said at the end of the day who may need the supreme court and other justices concurring in this, maybe the people they think will get some relief will be hurt by this court's decision today, ana. >> lisa, what does this mean exactly for the families that thought they had a deal. does it mean a whole new settlement needed to be work out and how long could that take? >> it could take months. the reorganization plan was stayed and based on this ruling the organization plan has to be renegotiated because what the court is saying you can't offer a release to people who are non-debtors, meaning people who don't go through the bankruptcy process themselves without consent to all the claimants in the deal. i want to be clear that while all 50 state attorneys general agreed to the deal, there were individual family members all across the country crying fowl saying even though $6 billion looks like a whole lot of money, given what the sackler family did to the company, given that they allegedly drained $11 billion from the company, almost 75% of its value, this was never a fair settlement, even if in the negotiation of a deal this is what everyone represented was the best they were going to get. they may get better now that the supreme court has said you can't release these people, right? if these people know now that they can be sued civilly by the claimants, they might be willing to come to the table with a greater amount of money based on this ruling. >> maybe there's a better deal to be worked out. let me turn back to the other decision that we've been discussing and awaiting right now. we're still waiting for the supreme court to say we're done releasing decisions today, so we may still get one of these big ones, the one involving the idaho abortion case or presidential immunity or january 6 rioters' charges, but we do have at least an inkling of where the case involving the idaho abortion ban may be headed, neal, so let's talk more about that one because there was this opinion that was put on the court's website, as we've been discussing, that has been taken down. we don't know exactly what happened there that was a draft. if it was a decision that we we're just waiting for them to finalize and put out there, and the fact that it got out there and what we know of it, are you surprised by the outcome, number one? and number two, how much more pressure is there now for the supreme court to release that decision? >> before getting to the abortion thing, i want a macro picture on what we're bringing this morning. we've seen two 5-4 decisions written by justice gorsuch. in one justice gorsuch writes, this is the ozone case, and he's joined by thomas, alito and -- and the chief, thomas' line-item veto and justice cav vaug. justice barrett writes the ascent wrints the three more liberal justices and in the other case justice gorsuch is joined by justice thomas, barrett, alito and ketanji brown jackson. you've seen interesting crisovers. the dissent was joined by the chief just sent and two of the more liberal justices, sotomayor and kagan. we're seeing something interesting in the early opinions. we're now at a point where the chief justice is announcing the opinions he's written. we're towards the end of today. i suspect we'll only get one more opinion. with respect to the abortion case, i think, you know, look, technological mistakes happen in every big institution. i don't think this says something particular about the competence of the supreme court which is what a lot of the critics are saying. i mean, to meet criticism of the court is it's not that they are incompetent or don't know what they are doing, it's that they know exactly what they are doing which is largely restricting our rights on things like abortion. in this particular case, it seems like they flinched a little bit and have said that this federal law will supercede idaho's very strict prohibition on abortion, so it's -- you know, if this draft opinion is the opinion of the court, it does look like it's, you know, some modest welcome relief for reproductive justice, but the bottom line is this is the same court that overturned "roe v. wade" and restricted abortion massively, far more than any time in our lifetimes, and it seems to me that's where the discussion should be. >> and if the decision is what we think it is based on what came out and was published on the court's website before taken down, it doesn't really decide the case on its merits. it simply says we took this case prematurely. let's take it down to make its way back up. so what would the decision mean, if it is what we think it is, for women and emergency room doctors in idaho? >> i mean, you're exactly right, ana. i mean, this decision -- to quote justice ketanji brown jackson dissent allegedly, reported dissent, she said this is not a victory. it is a delay, and what this means for women in idaho currently is they do have some temporary relief, but it's quite problematic that the court did not decide this case on the merits. they had a chance to address preemption. does the federal law protect women who need abortion access and emergency care across all 50 states? they did not do that. they kicked it back to the lower court, and this is really troubling because we already know that a trump hhs and a trump fda -- first, hhs, would rescind this law. project 2025 and trump's cronies and allies have laid out recommendations to rescind this law should trump become president. also, this is so similar to the medication abortion case we just heard where they, again, punt on -- they punted on a technicality, right, on standing. they did not address medication abortion, so once again we have a possibility of a trump fda removing authorization to medication abortion, an incredibly popular and majority of abortions in this country are done by medication abortion. so, again, we really believe what ketanji brown jackson lays out in her dissent, in this case which is this is shameful. the court had an opportunity to save women's lives, and they punted, and that is not okay. we have a lot of work to do. >> let me just quote briefly from her dissent, and she -- she actually concurs and then dissents. she concurs in the fact that this shouldn't necessarily go through, right, that the idaho side shouldn't be allowed to stand -- they shouldn't stay the lower court's ruling to allow that abortion ban to continue in all cases, including this emergency abortion care, but she also is dissenting this idea of just punting on the merits saying we should decide the merits right now, and then she says today's decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in idaho. it is delay while the court daudles and while people experience medical emergency positions they remain in precarious positions as doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires. i want to bring in anthony coley works served as chief spokesman for attorney merrick garland. you were still working in the justice department when this law, the emergency treatment act was brought up, as something that the administration could use to try to navigate all of these state aboard laws that popped up after the dobbs decision was overturned. what are you thinking about how this has landed? >> i'm telling you as someone who was there there was zero hesitation in the biden justice department in bringing this lawsuit. that's because the federal law is really quite clear as it relates to if a woman with health conditions presents at a hospital that receives federal funding, then they must provide stabilizing treatment, including for an abortion. now what was so interesting to me about this, i'll just call it a draft opinion, a pre-published opinion, is how the justices got there, and i think -- i think neal katyal hit on something. he said these justices know exactly what they are do, and i think neal is absolutely right. i think justice amy coney barrett, when she wrote here and i'm going to read, that the court had miscalculated in a grant to take this case before the appellate court has weighed in, i think she reads the same newspapers that you and i read. i think she saw and the court saw all of the electoral results that have happened across this country, an every time now, ana, every time when abortion access is on the ballot, including in deep red states like kansas, it wins, and i think the court was deliberately trying to get itself outside of this box that it created for itself. it doesn't smell right how we got here. >> do you agree with that? >> i do. there's something odd about the fact that in order to hear this case there had to be a vote of at least four justices and now at least according to the document that was posted yesterday, there are six justices who are saying the case was, quote, improv bentley granted and needs to be dismissed with justice barrett's point made yesterday, she is trying to rationalize why they took the case in the first place and trying to rationalize now why, oops, they made a mistake and her rationale is because the cases have substantially shifted. that each party's position has been different now when it was when the case was first presented to the supreme court, but if you read her concurrence there's nothing about idaho's position that has changed since the court agreed to heart case in january of 2024. it is true that there were some concessions made by the solicitor general at oral argument on behalf of the united states, but justice barrett's overall rationale here, there's essentially less sunlight between the two sides than she previously understood just doesn't carry the day for me and smells, to anthony's point, kind of smells bad, like a post-hoc justification to try to legitimize the court when it was read closely >> i believe it was justice jackson's opinion that we're seeing that she kind of points out the fact that even if the lawyers are suggesting that the two sides aren't as far apart on the surface as it may have seemed, there's still not clarity in the law itself, right, and so that is the -- the thing that kind of remains out there, and i'm wondering on that point, like there are so many other states that have similar laws to the idaho abortion been and the restrictions involved in that where they do have that exception when it comes to the life of the mother, but that's problematic here, according to the doctors that we've spoken to, including doctors who have left idaho, ob-gyn doctors because of the lack of clarity, what's the threshold for being able to care for a patient who comes in who is bleeding works may have an infection, an ectopic pregnancy or some other pregnancy complication that would require termination of the fetus in order to help that woman and to respond to her medical needs, so what kind of confusion are you hearing from women and from doctors in -- in states beyond idaho? >> i mean, so much confusion. i mean, since dobbs we've got this patchwork of abortion regulations across the country. 21 states with abortion bans and restrictions, so much confusion about exceptions. you may remember the case in texas about this same issue. we've got so much abortion bans with so-called exceptions, but, look, from our perspective and our analysis, exceptions are designed in large part for political messaging tactics by extremists in these states. they are not designed to work. do you really want a committee of hospital administrators or insurance representatives deciding or lawyers at a practice deciding if you need emergency care right when you need it in the stories we heard out of idaho in the oral arguments for this case were incredibly shocking and stark. women getting air lifted out of the state last minute, not knowing if they would live or die. you know, we've seen an escalation in these stories about life-saving abortion. the fact that republicans are so -- so -- spend so much of their campaign collateral talking about the exceptions that are not designed to work and yet still protesting this entire regulation tells you a lot about what they really believe about exceptions such as life of the mother. >> and everybody we just got this case, we're told, as the decisions have continued to be released from the supreme court. this one is now officially released. of course, our team is going to read into the decision to compare it with the decision that had been put out on the docket yesterday to make sure that we're getting everything correct as we move forward in our conversation around this. but i'm -- i want to ask you, neal, as we let our team look more closely at this decision. what are you looking at specifically here, and can you also weigh in on what we heard, you know, anthony and lisa discussing about the supreme court knowing exactly what it's doing and the idea that they may have some political calculus here to not give a definitive answer on this particular case? >> yeah. so looking at the decision that was just released just in the last half minute, it does look like the decision that we saw briefly on the website from bloomberg, so i -- i don't notice any discernible differences. here's why that's so important. you know, it's basically the two-year anniversary of the supreme court issuing the dobbs decision and overturning "roe v. wade" which was one of the most massive changes to the law in our life tyms, and if you were to just look at the headlines this year of the supreme court's two abortion decisions, you would think, hey, they are trimming things back. in the mifepristone case they unanimously said that mifepristone could remain because there was no legal standing, no ability to challenge it on the part of the private doctors that brought that case, and similarly here, if you look at the decision, one way of reading it is saying things are good and now safe for women in emergency situations like idaho. in both of those are overreadings of what the court did this year. in one case, mifepristone it was technical. it was on standing. they in fact, you know, opened the door for other people to file the same challenges, the same i think bogus challenges in my mind to mifepristone that were filed, and here, as has been point out, this is just a temporary delay in this kind of lawsuit about the meaning of the federal law. this isn't settling it or giving it the last word and certainly not providing reproductive justice for americans, and so i think, you know, good. these are welcome, you know, modest victories, but that's all they are. >> and i -- i have been told that our producers who are looking at this opinion say it appears to be identical to the decisions that were posted yesterday on the court's website and then taken down. lisa, i know you're digging into it right now, but just remind our viewers, again, what this decision means when it comes to this idaho abortion law and this federal law, this state versus federal conflict, it appears. >> yeah, well, for right now it's a temporary reprieve for women in idaho and their physicians from the very strict statute in idaho that prevents doctors from providing abortions unless necessary to prevent a woman's death. that having been said, i think jackson's concurrence and dissent in part really spells out the reality. it's not permanent. it is a delay. it is a temporary reprieve, and that's all it is, because one of two things can happen in the future. either, as many already laid out, if former president trump were to win election again, we have signals that the figured would walk away from its challenge to idaho's statute, a it would no longer continue this litigation because, remember, this litigation was brought by the united states saying our law is supreme to idaho's law. you need to comply with the federal statute governing emergency treatment of women and stabilize their condition in your emergency rooms, idaho. in a trump administration, this case may not continue. the other problem is this case is going to be returned to the lower courts, and it's going to go through the conventional appellate process. as justice jackson lays out, whether that means a series of months or years this, case will percolate back up to the supreme court either from idaho or one of the six other states that solicitor general have mentioned have very similar statutes. one way or another, the dispute between the federal government as the defender of emtala on the one hand and these very, very red states trying to forbid abortion in virtually any and all circumstances is going to come back before the court. it will live to see another day. this is just kicking the can down the road, but for now it is a reprieve for women in idaho and their doctors. >> big picture, this was a political decision by a court that is supposed to be above politics, and the fact remains that there is a sustained assault on women's reproductive rights in this country of the right now, ana, one in three women of reproductive age live in a state with an abortion ban. one out of three, and this court had its way over the next year or two, those rights across the country are in danger for many more women than we are seeing in idaho and in those states that are subject to those bans. >> let's go to yamiche alcindor. what is your resnacks. >> this is not a split. ketanji brown jackson both concurred with the idea that this needed to be stayed and this law from idaho did not trump federal law, in other words, that women should still be able to receive emergency abortions in the state, but she also wrote a dissenting opinion here, and i'm reading part of what was put out yesterday. it's pretty much nearly identical to what is out now. when you read it, you can hear the frustration in her writing because she says that really this court should go further here and they are not doing enough to say in fact that this law from idaho, that it should be completely out of the door and that federal law should trump all state laws that have near total bans stock option a woman from getting an abortion. today's decision is not a victory but a delay while the court dawdels and women are kept in a precarious position. the court had an opportunity to bring clarity to this issue and we've squandered it. for as long as with delay this, pregnant women in texas and elsewhere will go on to pay the price. she says how long must pregnant patients wait for an answer until we confront the pending petition that the government filed with us under this court? she also said many will keep punting this issue altogether allowing chaos to reign. whenever a court allows states to flagrantly undercut federal law. in this decision can you here ketanji brown jackson's frustration saying, yes, this law should not go forward and this law should not trump federal law. she's saying this court should do more, saying states like texas and other states that have a near total ban on abortion, that would stop a woman were getting an abortion that she needed if it dealt with her health, not her life, that those things should have been made in clear today. in talking to reproductive rights groups today and with democrats ahead of the debate, they are echoing the language of ketanji brown jackson saying this is really a temporary win but that women in idaho, while they can right now get emergency abortions, it's not clear that that's the case for years to come. i think it's a really important point that she's making here, and i think we should remind people between the difference between life and health and writes in her dissent. part of her dissent is women could go into emergency rooms and not be on death's doors or could wind up with future infertility. this issue needs to be given more claire tie to women and their doctors. >> ken delainian, you're reading through the opinion. give me your view. >> i'll give the opposite view and the frustration on the right side of the court. justice alito who wrote the dissent here is furious that the court didn't hold emtala wasn't applied here. he wrote apparently the court has lost the will to decide the easy but emotional and highly politicized question that the case presents. that is regrettable. that's interesting to me. alito is the author of the dobbs decision. haddy convinced a majority of justices on this court that there's no right to abortion in the constitution, but in this case he was not able to convince a majority to come around to his view and in that sense it is a pullback from the ultra conservative views that are articulated in the dobbs decision, as we saw with the gun issue from bruin to rahimi, so while it's certainly, you know, taking all the the points that this is a temporary procedural victory, it appears nonetheless to be a victory or at least the ones conservatives on the court are really mad about. ana. >> thank you. let me bring in dr. jess cass evans wall, an i'd hoe e.r. physician. dr. wall, thank you for taking the time. this is official now. a reprieve for a moment for you when it comes to treating your patients and those patients who may need some kind of abortion care on an emergency situation. what is going through your mind right now? >> you know, there's a little bit of temporary relief right now knowing that we can take care of the patients who come in and need emergency care, regardless of whether it is a patient who need an emergency abortion or other care. i appreciate that we have this momentary reprieve. however, it doesn't feel like there's enough clarification. i think a lot of us are still feeling like we need a lot more clarification around emtala, the emergency medical and labor act stands in comparison to state laws. i think our frustration here remains that our goal as physicians is to take care of anyone who walks through the doors for any reason and provide them evidence-based appropriate medical care and not spend time trying to figure out legal jargon or have patients' care delayed by us trying to contact our legal teammates and making sure that we are not only providing appropriate medical care but that we are well within legal parameters. that frustration remains. >> let me remind our viewers that under idaho's abortion law, it makes it a felony for doctors to perform an abortion that can be punished by up to five years in prison, and there is an exception for the life of the mother, if the mother's life is threatened, but what i've heard from talking with other doctors, doctor, is that there is a gray area for you when you see a patient in need of medical care when their health may be threatened. while they might be in an emergency situation because of pregnancy complications. does this decision or ruling give you any clarity in terms of when you can take action? >> it doesn't provide the clarity that i think we had hoped forment i think right now it still allows to us focus on making sure we are under the emtala act so we're still providing life-saving care to patients when they require it. i think the concern is that with there still being some issues around clarity between the state and federal regulations, that we're still going to end up seeing patients being transferred out of state for care. the other thing that -- that this leaves for us is that because of this lack of clarity and the fact that there's going to be an ongoing issue, we are having a hard time maintaining dock considers in the state and we're also having a hard time recruiting new physicians to come to the state so not only are the physicians that are here are struggling to provide appropriate care, there's areas where there isn't appropriate care because of this. >> it's report that had one in four ob-gyns have actually left the state or retired, according to the idaho physician well-being action collaborative. is that a decision you yourself have considered, and what -- what is your thinking around that? >> yeah. so, both my husband and from here originally and left for medical training. my husband is a nurse, and we came back specifically because we wanted to provide care to our community here in idaho. we have absolutely thought about, you know, what is the long-term goal for us and our family? however, right now we are really committed to staying and trying to provide the best possible care we can to our community. >> well, dr. jessica evans-wall, thank you so much for all that you do and for taking the time to offer your perspective and your passion on this issue, in particular really appreciate it. let me go back to neal katyal because as we will be at this decision, it does stand out to me just the conflict that we see within the two opinions between justice jackson and justice alito who wrote for the three who dissented in this case, but let me read you part of justice jackson who says will this court just have a do-over, re-hearing and re-hashing the same arguments that we are considering now? just at a comparatively more convenient point in time, or maybe we'll keep punting on this issue altogether allowing chaos to reign wherever lower courts allow states to flagrantly undercut federal law, facilitating the need for urgent med cam treatment. she's saying we should decide this now. similarly, justice alito is saying we should decide this nabut he sees the law on the other side saying no question that the idaho abortion law should trump emtala, the federal law cited as part of the emergency medical care that these doctors, like dr. jessica evans-wall has been discussing, so why wouldn't they decide on the merits now? i just don't understand that. we know that there's another case in texas that has already risen to the level of in the supreme court's lineup, it's very similar, although in texas it was decided -- the lower courts decided on the other side essentially saying texas wins out versus idaho's law on pause. why wouldn't they decide the merits? >> so two things, ana. first, on the whole abortion and why are they deciding it now? you're absolutely right. normally when you have the two phalanx of the court saying decide this issue and have diametrically opposed views, that's exactly when the supreme court comes in to decide a case. here, there's obvious prudential concerns that led them to a different result. i think they think that at least what they are saying is that the law -- that the interpretation of the law may have shifted from between the time they agreed to hear the case and where they are right now, and so for those reasons, they have decided to not decide effectively, and we see from that doctor who was just on air with us, the human consequences of failing to decide which is to leave her and all the other doctors in the state in a state of limbo, not knowing what the rules are and risking their professional licenses and other things to provide reproductive justice to women in idaho. the second thing more broadly is we've actually had some news in the last few minutes about the supreme court which is we now know that the supreme court is like -- almost certainly going to go into next week for its opinions, so at the end of the term, at the end of june, i'll go to the court every day and i'll watch and right at the very end, second to last day, the chief justice will say tomorrow is the last day of opinions. he didn't do that here. so what that means is we will have opinions tomorrow, and we will have opinions next week, and in particular we're waiting on i think two really importantments. one is one that we've all been talking about, is donald trump absolutely immune from the criminal laws, something i wouldn't think you would need a supreme court to answer, but nonetheless here we are. the second is this case about so-called deference, two cases which is about the rules that govern you and me and everything from climate regulation to food and drug rules to tobacco and the like, and here it looks like the conservatives are poised to really radically reshape the law in ways that will totally change the nature of government regulation between individuals and the government and corporations and the government and the like, so watching both of those cases, we may not get either of them tomorrow. we may be going into next week, and that's just further evidence that this court has delayed the trump january 6 federal prosecution, you know, again and again and again, and now it looks like perhaps going into july. >> wow, thank you for breaking that news for us, that we are going into july, anthony and lei safe. i mean, here we go, and how unusual is this? >> it's really unusual, but i've got to tell you, ana, the delay is the decision we've been waiting for, and we can have an honest conversation about whether or not the delay is intentional or not. i happen to think it is intentional, but the effect is the same, and that is keeping donald trump from facing criminal accountability before this election, and not just the supreme court election interference case but also the classified documents case down in florida, and one thing about this case is in classified documents cases, federal prosecutors win 90%, 59% of these types of cases and that's because when they bring these cases, the evidence is overwhelming, just like it is with trump and the retention of his classified documents, right? there's video graphic evidence, photographic evidence, witnesses, and -- and you have a similar scenario with the election interference case. i mean, we know that donald trump told his attorney general to just say that the election was stolen and let him and the gop congressmen just handle the rest. we know that there are audio recordings of this president on the phone with the republican secretary of state just saying just find one more vote than would be needed so that donald trump could declare victory in the state of georgia, and this was after, ana, multiple recounts in the state, including hand recounts, so the facts and the law in both of these federal cases are clear and convincing, and the only reason donald trump isn't facing criminal accountability in both of them is because the supreme court and the federal district court and the southern district of florida are dragging their feet, and i happen to think that's intentional. >> your thoughts on just the ongoing waiting that we are going to endure with the supreme court on these major decisions, consequential decisions that affect every american out there? >> virtually unprecedented. the last time we experienced something like this was in the middle of code of where the justices were not able to work in person together and had to device like the rest us mechanisms, you know, to work together, to write opinions. given that they are usually in the same building rand trying to maintain the security over their work product at the same time, that was an unusually challenging time for the court, but none of those circumstances are present now. all they have is a series of hard cases. what this tells me is a couple of things. either the justices are purposefully not releasing decisions during the we be of the first presidential debate so as not to put their thumb on the scale and change the tenor of tonight's debate, or there are truly unresolved differences of opinion and there is last-minute scrambling among them. you and i were discussing before we went to air today, i went home this morning and listened again to the oral argument in trump versus united states, and one of the things i was struck by is justice barrett's guess that case because she got trump's lawyer to admit that even for all of their argument that he should be immune in this case, there is a small window of cases for which a president still could be prosecuted for his official acts, and throws if he's impeached, if he's convicted and then if the statute has a clear statement that it applies to the president, then the lawyer admitted a president could be prosecuted. well, that's a big admission. that's the former president's lawyer saying even if the sphere of official acts there are some for which he could be prosecuted. justice barrett is a very incisive questioner for a reason. to the question that there's anything to praise about her emtala decision, she really tried to narrow the disagreement between the two, and there she's the vote that i'm looking for in the presidential immunity decision, what is she going to do? >> thanks so much, everyone, for the conversation and analysis. the other big story we're following with just a few hours left until the first presidential debate, biden and trump set to be in the same room for the first time in nearly four years. the final preparations that both men are making. years the final preparations that both men are making power e*trade's easy to-use tools make complex trading less 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stakes are sky high? so much to discuss. vaughn hillyard is live in atlanta and also with us the chief white house correspondent for "the new york times" peter baker and msnbc correspondent ashley analysts. vaughn, what are we learning from the final hours of preparations from both sides? >> right, we expect joe biden, who has been in camp david since now thursday to be flying in about midday here into atlanta. several hours after that we are expecting former president trump to fly in from his mar-a-lago estate. we know joe biden has had multiple mock debate performances behind lecterns and with lighting that is supposed to be reminiscent with what they can expect on the stage here in atlanta. on the other side of this, donald trump's team has been quite quiet about how donald trump is actually prepping for this. they've skujed he's not doing in any mock debate performances. donald trump in his own words said he's been preparing his whole life for this and he didn't need to be tucked into a room for multiple days to prepare. of course that's exactly what he did do in 2016 and 2020. for donald trump that is what they want the american public to believe, that the republican presumptive nominee is doing here ahead of this moment. also they're dangling a vise presidential pick is looming in the weeks ahead. >> vaughn, can you remind us of the rules tonight and how it might impact the dynamics on the stage because it's quite different than past debates. >> exactly folks called back in 2020 they were talking over each other, making the comment donald trump did not how not to interfere back and forth and by the second debate they took a step back and suggested it was not fitting of a president and did not help him up on the debate stage with joe biden, and that's where tonight's debate is going to be unique. there's going to be two moderators, but at the end of each of their speaking times, their respective microphone will shutoff. and so viewers when they're watching this should be unlikely to hear what the individual whose time is not up is saying out loud even if they're continuing to speak here. this is going to be 90 minutes. there's going to be two commercial breaks. the two men are not allowed to talk to anyone on their campaign teams. there is no audience. again, it's going to be 90 minutes for these two to go mono e mono with one another. >> peter, today politico is calling this debate the most important night of the 2024 election. is that how you see it? what does tonight mean for the candidates? what does it mean for the voters ? >> well, it could be. it's very possible this is the only time we'll see these two candidates together. they have a debate still scheduled in september, but who knows they'll go forward with that. i think it's the earliest we've seen a presidential debate in part each of these candidates has a reason to try to reset the conversation. for joe biden he wants to remind voters that, yes, this is your choice. you may not be happy about it, but these are the two candidates you have. it's not a referendum on joe biden. it's a choice between him and donald trump, and he wants to remind those biden voters in 2020 who slid away from him why they didn't like trump in 2020 and why they should come back to the present whatever after the conviction of 34 felonies, there's a chance for him to be on the stage with the sitting president of the united states and look more presidential han obviously he did in a courtroom where he was defendant and eventually a convicted felon. so for him it's a chance to then try to recapture momentum and make sure he's seen on the terms he wants to be seen on as well. >> how do you see it, ashley? what does trump need to do, what does biden need to do? >> well, they both have very different mandates. president biden needs to clear the stunningly low bar that former president trump and some americans, frankly, have for him. if he can come out and be energetic, not lose his train of thought, not make a verbal stumble since he and frankly former president trump have done when using the names of countries and leaders. if he can have a redox of pretty much his "state of the union," that's what he wants to do. and he wants to as peter said remind voters of who donald trump is, which he is a chaotic, crass, boorish, poorly behaved former president who you voted out of office once. and former trump's mandate of course is hopefully to throw president biden off of his beam, to make the caricature he's too old, too feeble and try to behave i hate to use this word in a un-presidentialal way himself. what they don't about trump it's less about policy. they have policy concerns with trump, but it's more about behavior and for 90 minutes if he cannot be the person people dislike. >> he's known for jabs. peter, let's look at some of those over the years. >> this little guy has lied. we can't lock ourselves up in a basement like joe does. nasty guy. i never attacked him on his look, and believe me there's plenty of subject right there. i've given my answer, lying ted. we don't need a weak person being president of the united states. that's what we would get if it were joe. a basket case. he doesn't want to say law and order because he can't because he'll lose his radical left supporters. this guy's a liar. >> i'm not going to answer the question because. >> the question is -- would you shut up, man? >> peter, do you expect that same trump to show up? >> well, yes, i do. obviously that's his technique. that's what he tries do. he tries to get his opponents off balance. he calls them silly, mocking nicknames. he's the shock jock candidate if you will, he's the insult candidate. the last clip you just showed with him and joe biden and biden gets frustrated and says the most memorable line in last time's debate, will you shut up, man, which may have channeled the views of a lot of voters after trump's four years in office. you can't see that this time because of the muted mic, the organic back and forth interruptions and all that, it'll be interesting to see how trump adjusts, if he's able to use the time he does have before the mic cuts off to go under biden's skin. biden has been going after trump in a way he hasn't done in recent months, calling him sleepily don because he kept falling asleep during his criminal trial in new york and reminding voters that he is a convicted felon. it'll be interesting to see how much he brings that up. i think you'll see both of them try to throw the other off balance. again, because of the rules it's going to be a different kind of dynamic. >> and of course part of that is there will not be an audience. trump has taken issue with this point telling the washington examiner, quote, you have no audience to read. to me it's easier because it's telling you exact lewhat's going on with applause or not applause, this room is a sterile dead room which is i guess what they want. ashley, with no audience what do you suggest the impact? >> that's a fairly self-aware quote from trump who's someone not wildly introspective, but he's someone that absolutely feeds off that audience and energy, and you said himself if he understands something's not working, if he should double down on something. so the lack of an audience which is one of the conditions the biden team setout could be in theory a disadvantage for someone like trump. >> quickly both of you, peter, if you were moderating tonight what would you ask? >> what a great question. i think you would want to ask obviously president biden is how is he going to reassure voters who are concerned about his age. and i think you have to ask donald trump the same question honestly. we forget he's 78, and he has shown cognitive issues of his own in the last few years. i think that's a test both of them have to meet tonight. they have to try to reassure voters their up for the job and that's the subtext as we talk about tax policy, health care policy and how capable are these two men demonstrating their ritality and ability to lead. >> ashley, we have about 30 secondsch you moderated one of the primary debates in 2020. >> these moderators in a unique situation where most of these men are current president and former president. and so they're incumbents in a way, trump a quasi-incumbent. it's not campaign promises and what you would do in hypothetical term or hypothetical administration, you can actually dig down into what they did do and have done and kind of probe those substantive policy differences there. >> ashley parker, peter baker, thank you so much. and keep it right here tonight. rachel maddow and team will lead the analysis hosted by cnn. watch tonight beginning at 7:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. and 9:00 p.m. eastern you can watch the debate right here followed by analysis and coverage all night long. that does it fors