handed future presidents a, quote, loaded weapon, in the words of a dissenting justice, aimed straight at the rule of law in the country. the conservative 6-3 majority of the court, half of them appointed by ex-president donald trump, two others have been faced calls for their recusal in this very case, a potentially fatal blow to council jack smith's effort to hold the president accountable for crimes committed on january 6th in the insurrection and the plot to overturn the 2020 election he lost. they ruled that donald trump and all future presidents are entitled to immunity for official acts, that they take during their presidency. now there is a question of whether a president can order a seal team 6 or assassinate a political rival, the united states supreme court said in effect, yeah, maybe. regarding jack smith's prosecution of donald trump, the court is sending that case back to judge tonya chutkan to parse out what is an official act in which trump is entitled to complete immunity and what the what is not an official act. quote, in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president's motives. you mean like a coup? going on, chief justice robs writes, this, quote, this case is the first criminal prosecution in our nation's history of a former president for actions taken during his presidency. determining whether and under what circumstances such a prosecution may proceed requires careful assessment of the scope of presidential power under the constitution. the nature of that power requires that a former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. at least with respect to the president's exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. as for his remaining official actions, he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity. of what this amounts to, according to the three dissenting supreme court justices, is that donald trump is above the law. writing for the court's three liberal justices, justice sonja sotomayor, issuing a primal scream kind of warning for her colleagues saying they have dramatically and dangerously expanded the power of the presidency creating a quote, lawfully bound president. from the scorching dissent, the president of the united states is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. when he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. orders the navy's seal team 6 to assassinate a political rival? immune. organizes a military coup to hold on to power? immune. takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? immune, immune, immune, immune. even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and i pray they never do, the damage has been done. the relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably and in every use of official power, the president is now a king, a king above the law. never in the history of our republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate criminal law. moving forward, however, all presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. if the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide by will not provide a backstop. with fear for our democracy, i dissent. end quote. that's where we start today, with some of our favorite experts and friends, former lead investigators for the january 6th select committee is here, attorney, founder of the site democracy market mark elias is here. the senior editor for slate, the host of the amicus podcast is here. with us at the table, former top official with the department of justice, and msnbc legal analyst, andrew witzman is here. andrew? >> i would like to pick up on the part that you were reading from justice sotomayor, because she talks about this parade of horribles. and one of the things that was so revealing is justice roberts does not address them. he does not talk about how the test that the majority opinion lays out in any way would give us any comfort that there's a problem, so that the -- using seal team 6, he just says these are fanciful, he doesn't in any way say why this test of, if it's official conduct, it's immune, why everything that justice sotomayor is saying is not completely something to worry about, and wait, there's more. the majority opinion says, with respect to the department of justice, that part of the criminal case that was brought by jack smith is out. why? because that is under the "take care" clause of the constitution. that is exclusively within the president's power. and so even where there is a sham prosecution, he is immune. just think about it for a minute. the relationship of the president to the department of justice is, even if the president knows it is an allegation, it's a sham case, immune. >> so let me ask you about things that already happened. because they also seem to write, in a hypothetical manner, when all of the hypotheticals have in some ways inched toward coming to pass, donald trump sought to prosecute hillary clinton and jim comey and others, as early as 2017, "new york times" broke the story in early 2018, or late 2017, don mcgahn serves as a guard disrail against those prosecutions. what does this mean if there is no don mcgahn in the second trump presidency and he proceeds with doing that? >> the people that are not immune are woo be the people under the president. they don't enjoy presidential immunity. >> sotomayor writes about pardons. >> so there's -- >> that's already happened, too. there was reporting in "the new york times" that he sought to shoot people at the border, and promised the border patrol agency that he would give them pardons. >> yes. so the normal check -- cut the word "normal," the president, under this decision, can do, can use the department of justice as a weapon, and is immune. they have taken that part of the case out. even as they say, they say the allegation, it's a sham. imagine, imagine the hypothetical i've been posing today, imagine that there is a tape recording of the president saying bring a fake case against my political rival, i know there's no proof, just bring it, and i want him prosecuted. under this decision -- >> we have that, too in the call -- >> absolutely. this is not so much of an hypothetical. and the only check would be, which was discussed during the oral argument, would that be the lower level people would not enjoy immunity, but you already have the president saying, but don't worry about it, i will commit crimes -- commit crimes for me because i will pardon you for it. so this is just -- it is, i'm going to quote from nicolle wallace, which is this is like the sixth sense, which is the supreme court in russia exists but none of us think that there is a rule of law there. when you look at this opinion -- >> yes. we should pull the curtain back on what is actually happening, shouldn't we? people are exploring options to live in other countries if they think they can be targeted for prosecution by donald trump, because targeting you, targeting me, targeting andrew would be an official act based on today's decision. >> yes, they could pardon for criminal prosecution, they could target for administrative investigation, the irs, the s.e.c., the epa, under this opinion, they could even, you know, engage in physical violence or assassination. and all of that is terribly, terribly troubling in the abstract. but we're not in the be a tract. we're in the reality. and the reality is that donald trump has said that if he is elected, he will seek retribution. he has said that if he is re-elected, he will be a dictator for at least a day. and there is a team of maga extremists who are working on something called project 2025, and related things, to execute and make much more effective donald trump's retribution, if and when he gets into office. this will not be nixon's enemies list of a few hundred, this will be donald trump's enemy list of several teps of thousands and the federal government will be his tool from start to finish. >> diane, i want to read about how this went down. because lest anyone think we are hyperbolic in our reaction to what the majority decided, with the conservative super majority, where a lot of smart people thought there wasn't any political reason to think, it the smart people thought there would be no real reason to side with the president and smart people thought there wouldn't be any reason to give him absolute immunity, he has done all of that. the court has made a mockery of all sorts of people who would think there is any respect of democracy or restraint, and don't take my word for it. let me tell you how this went down and how justice sotomayor handled herself this morning. so this is what happened in court. chief justice roberts came in and said, quote, vit opinion of the court this morning. he took a deep breath. quote, trump versus the united states. roberts' reads of the majority, sotomayor was watching and kavanaugh and ketanji brown jackson was looking away from colleagues toward the gallery, the chair slightly turned away from other members and roberts gave seven reasons why the court made the decision it did, including what roberts called a lack of precedent and issues that are quite difficult. says that lower courts didn't provide the above guidance, and the associate justice sonja sotomayor's strong powerful dissent, this is nbc's reporting, she minced no words about today's opinion, quote, it makes a mockery of our system of government. she went on to say, quote, the court gives former president trump all of the immunity he asked for and more, end quote. history matters. right? she said rhetorically, quote, except here. she took a quick second to look up from the pages she was reading from to glance at her colleagues. and she goes on to report that if this particular indictment of former president trump doesn't reach the level of a prosecutorial offense, she said this, quote, it is hard to imagine what prosecution ever would. the man in charge of enforcing laws can now just break them, she said. ironic, isn't it? she seemed to make a nod to the political leanings of some of her colleagues on the bench when she said during her dissent, quote, why is it a hard question? i don't know. do you? she then took the court through a few examples of actions she believes the president can now take, with his newfound immunity. order the navy seal team 6 to assassinate a political rival, immune. he's the commander in chief, she said with a isn't that correct. with fear for our democracy, i, along with the framers, dissent. that's from our colleagues reporting on how this historic decision went down on this historic day, from this body held in historically low esteem. >> so, the first thing i want to say, and i think this is a nontrivial point, is it is really a slame we don't get to hear that. the court has been allowing us to have realtime audio of oral arguments, and yet not allowing us to hear the decision handdowns. and today might have been a nice day to hear justice sotomayor reading from her notes on her dissent, because it just doesn't come across the same. and a handful of people in the courtroom recording it is not the same as hearing it in her own voice. to your larger point, i think we need to really understand that something has broken. i would say irreparably. and that the kinds of courts that used to hand down unanimous or nearly unanimous decisions in these huge consequential life-altering cases, that's gone. there's not even an attempt to forge unanimity, or to find some common ground, so you can bring people across the aisle. this is simply our team versus your team, my tribe versus yours. and i think the other thing that is really, really urgently important here is that the majority opinion reads like an interesting law school paper, what would you do hypothetically, if you were worried about showing bold, manly presidential action, and what would you do to protect him? and then you get this absolutely nuts and bolts, meat on the bones, dissent from justice sotomayor, saying this is not hypothetical, this is not an abstraction, please answer, what you're doing with seal team 6, please help me understand how the president can't just accept a bribe, and call it an official act. nothing like andrew says, radio silence. and so there is a way in which not only did they not attempt to say we're all one court, we're oracles, we speak in one voice, we're not even having the same conversation today. >> let me read from justice ketanji brown jackson's dissent. it gets at some of this for you, tim. even a hypothetical president, who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics, or one who indisputably int gates an successful coup, has a fair shot at getting immunity under the majority president's accountability model. that is because whether a president's conduct will subject him to criminal liability turns on the court's evaluation of a variety of factors related to the character of that particular act. specifically, those characteristics that imbue an act with the status of official or unofficial conduct, minus motive. in the end, under the majority's new paradigm, whether the president will be exempt from legal liability for murder, assault, theft, fraud, or any other reprehensible and outlawed criminal act, will turn on whether he committed that act in his official capacity, such that the answer to the immunity question will always and inevitably be, it depends. again, not hypothetical. hanging mike pence was the mission statement of the january 6th insurrection. and then told by attorneys and staffers and other officials who you had the opportunity to interview, and depose, trump was indifferent to the mission of hanging mike pence, so he don't really qualify each as a rival to be assassinated, but there was a plan to assassinate someone who wasn't carrying out his will and he was at best indifferent, at worst complicit. and the other hypothetical in here is the idea that he instigated, the whole thing is about instigating an unsuccessful coup. i'm sure in place, the next one would be wildly successful. >> right. justice jackson is putting her finger on what to me is the most frankly surprising and disappointing part of the opinion, which is the inability to consider mode of evidence. i mean as a prosecutor, when you have charged an offense that requires some showing of intent, evidence about act taken, that suggests a particular motive, are just so indispensely important to that showing. and here, not only has the court articulated the test that says if it is official, then it's immune, but it hapstrings the government from demonstrating motive and that makes it extremely difficult for the special counsel to march through that indictment and put on evidence, again, even applying the supreme court's test, without being able to demonstrate evidence of motive. it is going to create a balkanized presentation without the ability to tell the full story. prosecutors want to tell the full story. the other part of the opinion, similarly, that really hamstrings the special counsel is the inability to demonstrate evidence of official acts. even if they're not charged. they could bear upon motive, intent, common scheme or plan, all of the common kinds of things that go into painting the full picture of the defendant's conduct. that's off the table now, after this, this opinion, so it isn't just the tests that are articulated, it's the manner by which the opinion hamstrings the government presenting its case, even if some of those acts under testify. >> i committed to getting through these two hours without needing a legal sort of education, and i feel like i'm veering into the danger zone here. so let me stop all of you. and let me ask you just to underscore, to make this, it feels like the majority made a ruling as though they live in an abstract universe, and that the dissent isn't in the world in which we live, and it feels that now the supreme court very squarely lives on earth 2 with donald trump and steve bannon. and the only people trying to sift through the actual facts of what has already happened, which was a coup plot, which was an indifference to the assassination attempt of his own vice president, or the three justices, can you just back up a little bit and tell me how we got here? >> yeah, look, the court explicitly, on the face of the opinion, says we make this decision not based on the exigency of the immediacy, almost an implicit nod that the conduct, they disagree, sort of with the conduct at issue. but they are speaking more broadly to history. and these broad incentives. that doesn't work. we live in the real world. the tests that they articulate, as much as they want to aapplies to posterity and to history has very real life consequences. and all of the incentives that they talk about with respect to chilling the robust executive authority, they ignore the incentive that this creates for future presidents to go rogue, right? the license it gives them, to use their official immense power of the presidency, to do illegal things, and that incentive is just as strong, frankly, than the chilling effect that the decision to allow them, so they are living weirdly, the majority seems to be focused on this sort of pristine notion of long-term incentives, but are ignoring the real reality of a rogue president who wants to misuse the law. >> and history will look at, i think, of ignoring a reality, that the extraordinary event isn't jack smith's attempt at prosecuting donald trump. the extraordinary event is the donald trump presidency. i have to sneak in a quick break. no one is getting anywhere. this is it. we will dive into every inch and paragraph of this decision. try to understand what justice sotomayor describes basically as a new chapter for our country. we're going to continue to talk about what this means and the effort to hold trump accountable for the insurrection of the united states capitol on january 6th. lots of questions. unchecked power, what does it mean with what he pursues for prosecution or worse and those who tried to hold the january 6th accountable and how it dismantles the future rule of law for future presidents and those they would pardon underscoring how important the november election is. we will continue after a quick break. er a quick break. and ask for something for memory, i recommend prevagen. number one, because it's effective. does not require a prescription. and i've been taking it quite a while myself and i know it works. and i love it when the customers come back in and tell me, "david, that really works so good for me." makes my day. prevagen. at stores everywhere without a prescription. the itch and rash of moderate to severe eczema disrupts my skin, night and day. despite treatment, it's still not under control. but now i have rinvoq. a once-daily pill that reduces the itch and helps clear the rash of eczema —fast. some taking rinvoq felt significant itch relief as early as 2 days— and some achieved dramatic skin clearance as early as 2 weeks. many saw clear or almost-clear skin. plus, many had clearer skin and less itch, even at 3 years. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin, heart attack, stroke, and gi tears occurred. people 50 and older with a heart disease risk factor have an increased risk of death. serious allergic reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. disrupt the itch & rash of eczema. talk to your dermatologist about rinvoq. learn how abbvie can help you save. the moment i met him i knew he was my soulmate. learn how abbvie "soulmates." soulmate! 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(♪♪) what i'm, i guess, more worried about, you seem to be worried about the president being chilled, i think that we would have a really significant opposite problem if the president wasn't chilled. if someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world, with the greatest amount of authority could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes, i'm trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the oval office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country. >> again, donald trump sought to do that. all of his ranting and raving, publicly and privately, quote, where is my roy cohn, end quote, was about that, about being immune from prosecution and the supreme court has given him what he sought all along. >> i totally agree. and justice sotomayor said, and more. one of the things, it was a concession by trump's lawyer, at oral argument, walked back in the opinion, saying no, he didn't really mean it. i mean it is really horrendous. and i just want to push back on this idea that they were writing with academic sort of pristine view of what is the way this would establish the presidency. they knew exactly what they were doing in this context. and that is the reason the decision -- they decided to take the decision, the reason it was decided on the very last day, it's a reason that there was a stay that is still in place right now, so that this can never be heard before the general election, and this is with a purpose, and the scope of the immunity is so broad, let me just give you one example that relates to what we've been discussing. many people, me included, thought they might be, there might be some core presidential functions that narrowly prescribed where the president could say you know what, that really can't be criminalized, sort of certain foreign powers, certain very limited things, given direct lip in -- directly in the constitution solely to the presidency. that is not conversations within the department of justice. the "take care" clause is what was used. i don't sort of get this, with the idea that you're going to say the exclusive providence of the presidency, the take care clause, and that applies to his interactions with the department of justice, i don't know where the limits of that reflex the take care clause applies to all laws, and to say that suddenly exclusively, within the province of the presidency, opens up this huge can of worms, where i certainly never thought that the take care clause would be the vehicle to say the president enjoys absolutely immunity, even when you know it's -- you're doing it for improper purposes and illegally, and the court says nope, that's totally offlimits from future prosecution. >> and dahlia, to andrew weissmann's very fine point, practically speaking, president obama, in his counter terror policies, have broad legal authority, george w. bush, most people, thought had too much, and where do they see a chilled president in modern history? >> well, i mean i think that what they're seeing is this potential for a president to be so chilled, that he will not, again, act in some bold fashion, as though that is the central problem, and as you note, justice jackson's dissent says that's not the problem we have to reckon with. we never had to reckon with the idea that the president is afraid to talk to his vice president, or afraid to talk to his attorney general. we have the problem of you're giving the president a blank check, in every single avenue that he can call official conduct. and the other thing that i think is really, really important here, as i can see it is, throughout the last couple of years, we talked about the ways that the court blinkers itself. it blinkers itself with the adverse effects of people on dobbs and blinkers itself to the scourge of gun violence, when it does the bump stop ruling, to climate change, or covid, when it decided those cases. but i think we never expected the court to blinker it is to donald trump and january 6th. i think most of us thought there was some, five, six, number of justices who were horrified at actions, that let me just say, took place across the street from where they work. and the idea that that doesn't come up in the anderson case, the colorado case, it doesn't come up last week, in the fisher case, the obstruction statute, it doesn't come up today, except for in the dissent, where we have the dissenters in these cases saying, this isn't a theoretical question. this happened. and the choice to blinker yourself, that six justices choose to think that either that didn't happen, or they were just like tourists lost at the gift shop, that is such a shock to those of us who believe, maybe not that this was a three-three-three court, but that it was a court with some center that cared about democracy, and i think that's why we're all feeling a little speechless today, because to put the line to that, is really beyond what i could have contemplated. >> marc elias, is this clear, i think on january -- well, before january 6th, i would say november of 2020, when mitch mcconnell and kevin mccarthy made the ultimately lethal decision to let donald trump cry it out, instead of says our names belong on the ballot, too, the election was free and fair, life-long republican, close the book, bye, thank you for your service, we put in motion a slide toward autocracy that very few people recognized, and you did and that's why i think you saw that with counsel and i think we missed all of the signs that the supreme court in abandoning its own under oath testimony to honor precedent when it came to well, when it did the opposite, we weren't really, we weren't really set up for gaslighting from the supreme court. and then when ginni thomas first, and this is alito's second, proudly and brazenly associated, not just with the cause of the insurrection, but the icon graphy, right, the symbolism of the insurrection, we continue to sort of play our violin from the deck of the titanic, and i wonder when we will start talking about the iceberg. >> yeah, and i think that we run the risk, even on a day like today, of overly loitering and legalizing what the supreme court has done. let's be clear. the supreme court, as, you know, as you've heard, they knew exactly what they were doing, not just for the past but for the future. donald trump is campaigning on a platform of being a dictator for a day, and of seeking vengeance against his enemies. and you know, to do that, he needs the support of a lot of people who are going to go along with him. well, one of those people who have gone along him, learned in the last couple of weeks, number one, that the u.s. supreme court was going to narrowly construe a statute that went after january 6th insurrectionists. number two, the supreme court was going to let donald trump remain on the ballot. number three, that the supreme court was going to give him basically absolute immunity, not just for what he did last time, but what he may do in the future. and that his pardon power is absolute. so let's be clear. it's not just that the supreme court knew what it was doing with respect to the criminal cases that had been indicted, the supreme court knows what it is doing with respect to empowering his attitudes and his impulses and those of his followers as we are four months from the next election, and four and a half months from the next set of lawsuits, and five months from the next insurrection at the capitol, and then potentially four years of him seeking vengeance and misusing power to go after his political opponents, and to prosecute his case against the american people. it is a shameful day for democracy. the court has disgraced itself. and i'll tell you, every one of us needs to be steeled for a battle to stand up for the rule of law going forward. >> can i just ask you one last question, marc elias? in your view, why? >> because they agree with him. one of the things that has always struck me as odd, in this town, is that people look at a bunch of justices and they say well, you know, they all went to harvard and yale law school and they went to the best colleges, and they send their kids to the same schools that our kids go to, and you know, they enjoy a glass of wine with a coup d'etat at a reception at the supreme court and they wear robes and they speak in very flowery language, they're just like us. no, they actually believe that donald trump is the future of america. they believe that the flag should be flown upside down indicating distress, when joe biden wins. they believe that donald trump is a strongman and should have immunity. and it is time that people who are in the center right and center left and stop looking at justices and thinking they must share our value system. they don't share our value system. they share his value system. >> marc elias, dahlia, a day, depending on which way our election goes in november, that will forever be a fork in the road by democracy. grateful to get to talk to you on this day. stick around. up next for us, a member of the january 6th committee has told us, because she has been told by trump publicly, on his social media posts that he promises retribution and revenge. we will ask her what that feels like now in light of today's supreme court. ke now in light os supreme court. want the power of 5 serum benefits in 1? 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(restaurant noise) ♪♪ [announcer] introducing allison's plaque psoriasis. she thinks her flaky, gray patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. over here! otezla can help you get clearer skin and reduce itching and flaking. with no routine blood tests required. doctors have been prescribing otezla for over a decade. otezla is also approved to treat psoriatic arthritis. don't use otezla if you're allergic to it. serious allergic reactions can happen. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. some people taking otezla had depression, suicidal thoughts or weight loss. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. ♪♪ [announcer] with clearer skin girls' day out is a good day out. live in the moment. ask your doctor about otezla. the distressing thing, those of us who are also lawyers and also considered officers of the court and we're tried to believe in the impartiality of it, especially the supreme court, and i've got to say, our faith has been shaken. they look corrupt. the process used to appoint them was rigged. and they appear to be partisan hacks. and it's really a very distressing situation for our american democracy. >> the congresswoman on this program two months ago warning what became our new tragic reality our new normal today, the supreme court targeting openly the rule of law in america, effectively killing any chance of legal accountability for an ex-president who tried to overthrow an election, free and fair one, deemed so by his own administration, ahead of the next election, four months from now. one in which he is ahead in those polls. joining us is form jer -- january 6th committee member. congresswoman, your reaction? >> well, i had feared something like this. the court has basically turned its back on the proud history of our country. where no man is above the law. we overthrew a king a few hundred years ago, and they have taken steps to allow absolute immunity for the president, for what they declare is official acts, which is basically, from what they've said, probably anything he does, although they give lip service to artificial acts, i mean they basically have said, anything the president says, and does, is within the penumbra of his official acts. that's not what the constitution says. it's not what the founders intended. it's not what our democracy needs. these guys are extremists, really. they're extremists with a political agenda. and it's very disturbing. >> i mean here's what, the official acts that we know about, because of the counts, he sought to pardon border officials if they broke the law to get them to do what he wanted, extorted zelenski to dig up dirt on the bidens and did nothing when supporters said beat mike pence and beat law enforcement officials with black poles and other weapons. what do you imagine, having spent days and weeks and months investigating his first administration, to the eyes and ears of his last administration officials, what do you envision for a second term, should the polls, as they are today, hold up, and he prevails? >> well, he's been very open about what he intends to do, and that's retribution. he himself said last december, he intends to terminate parts of the constitution. i didn't say which parts. he didn't say which parts. but apparently the court is going to give him wide range to terminate whatever he wants. you know, he summoned a mob to washington, knowing they were armed, he sent them to the capitol to try to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. if that's okay, we've got a problem in this country. and certainly, in the debate the other night, he would not commit to accepting the election results this november, unless he won. so we've got a problem here. if he cannot be accountable to any president, any president cannot be held account able under the laws that exist, that's a complete departure from our history. i guess, you know, theoretically, president biden, acting within the scope of his official duties, could dispatch the military to take out the conservative justices on the court, and he'd be immune. think so? >> well, legally, andrew weissmann, is she right? >> what the congresswoman is pointing out is that one of the remarkable things about the majority opinion is they don't do two things. they don't set any limits at all in terms of addressing the parade of horribles which are both hypothetical and not hypothetical, and in any way say why those are not going to be okay. and then with respect to saying, oh, but you know what, as the congresswoman said lip service to, unofficial things, they can't even identify one unofficial act that they say, don't worry, that, he could still be prosecuted for. they're basically saying, if the president does it, it's legal. i mean this opinion is such a gift to donald trump, and to me, it is just to go back to a point i was making, it is so hard -- there are autocracies that say they are rule of law countries, where there is a supreme court, but it's not actually doing anything. there's no checking function at all. and it's so hard to look at this decision and yes, i always thought certain justices were going to be in that camp, justice alito, i'm just so shocked that there aren't, there weren't at least five justices who were going to say no, here's things that you clearly cannot do. but all of these things that the congresswoman is saying could be done, such as, are you saying joe biden could go ahead and prosecute somebody, like donald trump, for -- with no evidence, that's okay. could he order someone to be killed? that's okay. could go ahead and prosecute justice thomas for tax evasion, or for bribery, based on the facts that we know, with respect to harlan crow, all of that seems to be on the table, which is just horrendous. and the reason it is not going to happen for joe biden is because he's decent, and he wouldn't do it. but there's no -- that's not how our country is supposed to be working on checks and balances, and this takes away just an enormous check on the most powerful position in the free world. >> we need to sneak in a quick break. we'll have that conversation on the other side. the world is watching for better or worse. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. ♪ [suspenseful music] trains. 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( ♪♪ ) luke's mom: without easterseals, my luke would be a very different luke. look up. where you going? luke's mom: there's an incredible urgency to get your child into services, because the longer you wait, these motor pathways are set in stone. i knew he needed help. he needed these services. i'm almost there. yes, you are. you're so close. you're so strong. i'm gonna say hi. okay! let's say hi. hi! nolan's mom: none of my friends or people in our network have a child with these needs. and then you go to easterseals and it's such a good feeling to feel like you're in good hands. they really understand what you're going through. jaxon: at one point, i wasn't able to walk or ride my bike. the little things that other people take for granted that i need help with. sometimes those are hard because you don't want help. but you need it. but children can't get the help they need without support from people like you. go online, call this number, or scan this code and donate just $19 a month. luke's mom: these children deserve access to care, and they need help. and if the funding's not there, it's hard to reach every single family. so please, visit this website, call or scan now. it's just 63 cents a day to provide life-changing services to these children. therapist: you are literally creating an opportunity for this child to grow and to be an independent, successful adult. join now, and we'll send you this one-of-a-kind t-shirt with our heartfelt thanks. to reach into your heart and see what your donation can do for these kids. it really does make a difference. you're helping kids believe in themselves. go online, call or scan now to change a child's life forever. we're back with congresswoman zoe lofgren. tim, this is a day that justice sonja sotomayor has dissented, i along with the framers dissent. it goes like this. today's decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency. and it makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our constitution and our system of government, that no man is above the law. relying on no more than the wisdom of about the bold and unhesitating action by the president. the court gives former president trump all of the immunity he asked for and more. because our constitution does not shield a former president from answering dissent. again, it's a fork in the road moment. sometimes it's hard to feel that in a cable news cycle. but when i read her dissent, i felt it. and i want to ask you if this provides an alternate history for nixon. why would nixon have had to leave office? it sounds like he could have gotten away with all that and quoting sotomayor "and more." >> exactly right. he was pardoned because he attempted to interfere with an fbi investigation of the watergate break-in, and the acknowledgment implicit in the pardon and his acceptance of the pardon is that he violated the law and could be prosecuted. under the court's test articulated today the executive, the president's supervision of the justice department including the fbi is core protected -- the bre prerogative of the president. that would be immune. that's why justice sotomayor is understandably so exercised about this and talks about a fork in the road. the court identified three categories. core conduct, exclusive province of the president, things like the conduct of foreign affairs or the pardon authority. on the other extreme is purely personal things well beyond his status as president, a very small category. the real ball game here, nicolle, is in the middle. it's stuff that is arguably official and there's a presumption that that will be immune. and the court really doesn't give lower courts much help in what it takes to rebut that presumption. they essentially say it can be rebutted if the prosecution shows no danger or intrusion of the authority and functions of the executive branch. i don't even know what that means. so judge chutkan and other judges have to sort out if something is potentially official does it interfere, would prosecution of it interfere somehow with the functioning of the executive branch? that's why there's not a lot of confidence and justice sotomayor is correct that that's not going to lead to a lot of bad behavior that is outside the realm of criminal prosecution. >> congresswoman, you are by name and by participation in the january 6th select committee, which the convicted felon, ex-president, republican candidate currently leading in the polls calls the unselect committee. he's targeted the committee for prosecution. are you nervous? >> no, i'm not nervous. i'm nervous for our country. as you know, i'm sure, the constitution provides that members of the congress cannot be held to answer for their legislative acts anywhere else. it's the only actual immunity provided for in the constitution. trump today on his truth social said that the january 6th committee members should be arrested. then he suggested that there should be military tribunals specifically with a picture of liz cheney. and if you take a look at what the court's decision is today, that he would violate the law and the constitution appears to be okay with them. they have created -- we're three days short of the 248th anniversary of the signing of the declaration of independence. and they have trashed that today. with creating an imperial presidency that our forefathers overturned. they didn't want a king. i don't want one either. and i think voters have an opportunity to prevent this guy from becoming the authoritarian leader that he has told us he wants to be. but we also have a problem with this court that we've got to grapple with, how do we address this. the next president probably is going to appoint three justices. so if mr. trump is not elected there will be some opportunity to get back to the center away from this extremism in the court. they have shown a propensity, this court, to just completely overturn willy-nilly long-standing precedents. the next court may need to do that to get us back firmly into the center, where we were before these extremists were appointed to our highest court. >> this court has taken away a constitutional right for the first time in our country's history. this court in their opinions agreeing with that removal of a right made clear that marriage equality is in its sights, of this super conservative supermajority. this court will probably look at ivf. every family that exists because of the miracle of ivf is in jeopardy. this court has said today that an american president is a king, an absolute f you to the founders as the congresswoman says three days before the nation's birthday making a mockery of my favorite ever musical "hamilton." this court has its lowest approval rating in history. this court decided, as dalian lithwick said, to let all this go down without any audio recording of it. why? >> the other thing i will add is i'm old enough to remember that when the supreme court ruled that nixon had to turn over the tapes that you thought okay, this is the rule of law and that this truly is -- a president is subject to the law. they're a citizen sort of first. it is by no means clear that nixon decision would come out the same way. in fact, it's completely antithetical to the reasoning here, which is the court saying oh, no, we don't even want to allow any sort of criminal look or -- >> would the mueller investigation exist? would the special counsel law exist? >> well, to the extent that the president -- to the extent that he's doing something as a candidate before his presidency, yes. you can still look at that. but any sort of conduct while he's president, sort of like the firing of jim comey for -- and saying that the purpose was to avoid a prosecution, that's off the table. they're going to say no, he has absolute immunity with respect to who he chooses and who he doesn't, even if it's done for an illegal purpose. they're like no, that is off the table. and i think nixon would be decided differently because they'd say you know what, tapes that have to do with conversations between the president and his -- and the people who are advising him, off the table. this is really -- it's hard to understate the import of this decision in terms of our democracy. >> congresswoman zoe lofgren, thank you for being with us on this historic day. tim heap hi, andrew weissman. thank you so much. much more to unpack from today's political and legal earthquake out of the united states supreme court. pushing the country one step closer to full-fledged autocracy. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a quick break. white house" starts after a quick break. ndreds. with all the money i saved i thought i'd buy stilts. being so tall definitely has its advantages. oh whoa. here you go, kiddo. thanks. hi honey ready to go? 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i think it means if you're joe biden, if you're a democrat who's running for the president, your path right now is clear. you have to run against the supreme court. you have to run against this decision. this is not america. if you want to make america great again, you've got to return to the rule of law. this decision today unfortunately is a blueprint on how to end the rule of -- >> are you arguing -- >> hi again, everybody. it's now 5:00 in new york. a blueprint for how to end the rule of law coming from none other than the united states supreme court itself. today the united states supreme court ruling that despite what the conservative majority says there is someone in america who is above the the law. essentially making an american president a king, as justice sonia sotomayor writes in a blistering dissent for the history books. bringing us one step closer to living in an autocracy right here in america. the leader of the united states unchecked by the other branches of government leaving the ultimate check in the hands of voters, a remarkable fact just ketanji brown jackson notes in her dissent, writing this, "stated simply the court has now declared for the first time in history that the most powerful official in the united states can under circumstances yet to be fully determined become a law unto himself. as we enter this uncharted territory the people in their wisdom will need to remain ever attentive, consistently fulfilling their established role in our constitutional democracy and thus collectively serving as the ultimate safeguard against any chaos spawned by this court's decision. for like our democracy our constitution is the creature of their will and lives only by their will." as if the stakes weren't high enough for november, we have this now. today's ruling garnering this rebuke from former attorney general eric holder. quote, our democracy has been gravely wounded. the trump immunity decision says a president can violate the criminal law if he acts within his broadly defined constitutional authority. absurd and dangerous. there is no basis in the constitution for this court constructed monstrosity. this court-constructed monstrosity is where we start the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends. former senator, co-host of msnbc's "how to win 2024" podcast, our friend claire mccaskill is back. plus the founder and executive director of protect democracy ian bassin is back. professor of history at nyu, author of "strong men," ruth ben ghiat is here. with us at the table former assistant u.s. attorney, president of the leadership conference on civil and human rights maya wiley is here. ruth, i regretted on friday at 5:50 when you said the most profound thing in two hours that i hadn't started with you. so i'm going to try not to repeat my own mistakes and i'm going to start with you. your reaction. >> so it's as though these far right activists on the court made this ruling and all the rulings they've been making with the autocratic playbook in one hand and project 2025 in the other. and of course there's a lot of overlap between the two. and you know, authoritarianism at root is about taking rights away from the many, and that's dobbs, and also there's voting rights that come into play, and allowing the few, the cronies, the oligarchs, the leader most of all, to have no checks or fewer regulations on their lawlessness. so it's about transforming the rule of law into rule by the lawless. and so removing immunity from the head of state is the autocrat's fantasy. it's why trump admires xi jinping and putin and all those autocrats, because that's his fantasy because he is so corrupt. this is -- it's really unspeakable. and it's the product of these far right activists who are using the court to destroy democracy from within. >> you know, i, ian, wondered if we read this wrong. i look or cover the slide toward autocracy in the context of the republican party's acquiescence to trump's authoritarian impulses and affinity for orban and xi and putin. but maybe the supreme court is ahead of the political actors. what's your thought? >> i think both of those sets of actors are in a completely untenable and outrageous place. this decision is an absolute insult to the birthday of the country coming up this week. but i do agree with neal katyal that while this is a devastating legal victory for trump it also could be a political liability in this way. the supreme court has now said that he would be immune if he were to order the assassination of a political rival. and in fact, one of trump's top former officials -- that in meetings in the white house trump mused about doing such things. the supreme court has now essentially ruled that trump would be immune if he were to attempt a coup using the mechanisms of the oval office. and of course he's already tried that as well. so this is fundamentally an affront to the american people. and like other decisions of this completely out of hand supreme court could actually generate the kind of backlash that could serve as a political check on trump. that doesn't make it a good decision. it's a horrible decision. but that does provide some pathway about how we the people might do something about this. because here's the thing. petty mob bosses rig vending machines to steal the quarters. but big-time mob bosses capture the courts in order to maim and steal with impunity. trump is trying to become that latter one and not just as a mob boss but as a dictator. and those are his words, not mine. >> ian, what is the best way at this juncture -- i mean, i think that was the analysis after dobbs, that you don't need a political campaign, everyone with a uterus or who knows someone with one understands the impact of dobbs. presidential immunity is a little different. literally -- who has that conversation with the country and make sure what you say is true, that the backlash becomes a political liability for trump? >> look, i think one of the reasons we're in the democracy crisis we are in right now to begin with is because for most of the 21st century what the american people have witnessed is that the powerful seem to be able to get away with anything but those who play by the rules and work hard are the ones who pay the consequences when things don't work well. that lack of accountability by the powerful has been a galvanizing political force over the last 15 to 20 years. and right now the one person who is benefiting most from a system in which the powerful are not held to account when they violate the rules is donald trump and the president. and i think that is a fairly simple thing for people to understand. if you'd done what he'd done, you would be in jail for it. but different rules apply to him. and if you don't like that, don't vote that way. >> claire, let me read a little bit more -- let me read again from justice sotomayor's dissent. which is -- i've read it about six times. i can't get through it without having all the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. i'm going to read it again. "the president of the united states is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. when he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. orders the navy's seal team 6 to assassinate a political rival? immune. organizes a military coup to hold on to power in immune. takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? immune. immune. immune. immune. immune. even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and i pray they never do, the damage has been done. the relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. in every use of official power the president is now a king, above the law, never in the history of our republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. moving forward, however, all presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. if the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide by will not provide a backstop. with fear for our democracy, i dissent." >> listen, i'm really angry and i'm scared. and let me start with scared. i disagree slightly with ian because i worry that voters will not fully comprehend what the supreme court just handed donald trump. this trial is not going to occur before the election. and frankly, the lower courts sorting out official acts and non-official acts, making sure you can't use any official acts to prove motive, making sure the evidence of any official acts that would go toward the crime can't be admitted, all of that will happen after -- it will all come to rest after november 2nd. and i wish i believed that voters would understand that their power, it was taken way, their freedom was taken away in dobbs. this is a whole other level of power grabbing from the people that the court has just done. now angry. the nerve of these guys to talk about being textualists. talk about -- the lengths that thomas went to to say that for gun regulations there had to be something about domestic violence in the founding document. and then they do this when the entire premise of our country was to make sure there was never a king. the entire premise of why we exist is to give power to the people and not to a president. so i'm angry at these hypocrites. this is the most activist court i've ever seen. and i'm a student of the law. i've been a lawyer all my adult life. this is an activist court above all activist courts. and the notion that they want to dress this up in federalist bullshit, that somehow they are not activists and they are not bending the law to their political will is horse hockey. it's just -- it makes me so angry. and frankly just as scared because this is really a pivotal moment in our country and it feels like the last week it has just come unfrayed. and it worries me very, very much. >> you've thrown down the bullshit gauntlet. claire, i'm going to need you to say a little more. >> well, i mean, i sat and listened and had these guys come in my office asking for my vote for confirmation. and i've listened to the republicans. i've listened to the yale and harvard graduate republicans talk about we can't rewrite from the bench, we can't do things the founding fathers didn't want us to do, we can't have a court legislating. look what this court has done. out of whole cloth. i mean, the idea that they're acting like somehow a president was chilled from not being able to use their authority and power when they've watched what donald trump has done. he wasn't chilled. he can't wait to try to rip up the constitution and deprive the country from a peaceful transfer of power. he couldn't wait to find false electors and try to do things that had never been contemplated in our country before. he wasn't chilled. he was let's go for it. and they're using the fact that somebody might be chilled when the evidence of somebody needing to be checked is right in front of them in the indictment they're considering in the case. it's crazy. that's why i'm saying they're making this stuff up, they're just making it up. >> the mistake we make on year nine of the trump story is expecting anything different. and this is on us, right? this is on me. i will own this. the media puts these stories through a prism as though there will be suspense, as though we will wait and see what they decide. i think we knew all along what they were going to decide. this is a body with nine members on it. two of their spouses are one with the insurrectionist mission. one by virtue of a flag, the other by virtue of e-mails she sent from her own e-mail account to state legislators asking them to carry out the central act of the insurrection, which was to submit fake electors. when do we get a little more real with the public about what's going on here? >> well, i think we just did. i was wondering if we can drop an f bomb now. >> you know, we are post -- we're beyond that, right? >> exactly. i think if you're not as outraged as claire mccaskill you're certainly not understanding or paying attention. and i think your point, nicolle, is exactly right. and frankly, you know, we've been seeing it building for years even. right? i just want to say from a perspective of civil rights and established case law we were already seeing the erosion of democracy in 2013 with shelby when they said yeah, that voting rights thing, don't think you're keeping that. and we had politicians in the republican party explicitly saying it was to keep people from voting because they didn't like the party they would vote for. and yet we have a supreme court letting a lot of that stand. i only say that because we've gotten where we are today because we keep thinking it's rational or we keep ignoring that when we harm the rights of a few it's not going to come for the rest of us. and it has been building, and we keep expecting a rationality, but we are now all as a country in a sunken place. we are all in that sunken place trying to understand why we can't get the attention of an extremist. it's not an activist court. the only thing i'll take issue with claire on. it's not an activist court. it's an extremist court. an abbott visit court that says we are going to actively ensure that the constitution is applying to everyone fairly and justly, that's what is being called activist. in this case it's the exact opposite. it's an extremism that says yes, we will ignore -- and by the way, i think we can ignore the founders on some things. i don't think any of us want to go back to the 1700s. just saying. but in this case the fact is that we have a court that has done it every time and is going to keep doing it. we know it. they've actually said it. clarence thomas, whether it's dissents or occurring opinions like this one where he says i'm going to call into question whether we can even have a special prosecutor when the whole purpose of a special prosecutor is to take the politics out of the prosecution. that is why we do it. and they're even calling that into question. the last thing i'll say, because i'm also with claire on this one and i really want to agree with neal and with ian on this because they're both brilliant and they're right on the substance in terms of what it should be. but voters are looking at what impacts them directly. and we have so many voters out here who already feel that the law does not protect them and are unsurprised by the fact that it protects the powerful. and unless we are able to convince them that it makes a difference when they exercise the power they have -- >> how do we do that? >> by telling them exactly what the differences are. and i do think that project 2025 is a great example. if you go around, and think of it this way, i was just testifying before the house oversight and accountability committee where they were actively and aggressively saying you know that civil rights act of 1964? gone. it's actually in project 2025. if you start going through what it says, union rights are gone in the project 2025. things that helped even white men organize and get labor protections. right? everyone's interests are at stake. this is the platform that is being protected by an extremist court that is ensuring that a president can even exact retribution or go after his own executive if they don't do his bidding that advances his personal interests. to get that platform accomplished. but you have to talk about what it does to your daily life. you can't talk about it in the terms that are outside of do you want to be able to demand higher wages? do you want to make sure you can't get discriminated against if you're a woman? do you think you should have the ability to go to court? do you like the department of educates? do you want it to make schools better for your kids? because all of that is on the chopping block. and this is a supreme court that's going to make sure donald trump can do by any means necessary to get it. >> all right. no one's going anywhere. this is too important. we'll have much more from this panel as the united states supreme court puts us, in the words of the dissent, justice sonia sotomayor, in a completely different place as a democracy. one step closer to authoritarianism. plus one of the country's preeminent constitutional scholars reacts to what the supreme court did today. former federal judge michael luttig will be our guest later in the broadcast. "deadline: white house" continues after a very short break. don't go anywhere today. short break. don't go anywhere today. what is cirkul? cirkul is the fuel you need to take flight. cirkul is the energy that gets you to the next level. cirkul is what you hope for when life tosses lemons your way. cirkul, available at walmart and drinkcirkul.com. everywhere but the seat. the seat is leather. alan, we get it. you love your bike. we do, too. that's why we're america's number-one motorcycle insurer. but do you have to wedge it into everything? what? i don't do that. this reminds me of my bike. the wolf was about the size of my new motorcycle. have you seen it, by the way? happy birthday, grandma! really? look how the brushstrokes follow the line of the gas tank. -hey! -hey! brought my plus-one. jamie? want to save on some of the biggest names in streaming on the network made for streaming? x marks the spot. now you can add the new xfinity streamsaver™ that includes netflix, peacock, and apple tv+. that's xfinity streamsaver™ for just $15 a month. all your favorites. all in one place. only from xfinity. for more watching and less spending... x marks the spot. do it all on the network made for streaming, and bring on the good stuff. we're back with claire, ian, ruth and maya. i want to figure out how to get it out of the way and just keep passing this around. ruth, let me come back to you on how this informs the conversations we have with our very informed viewers and outside of our very informed viewers broader swaths of our communities and friends and people who are open in the context of the november election. >> one of the things that autocrates in is doing what seems unthinkable. when i did my research for my book i didn't realize how common it was that people were taken by surprise. even when all the signs were there they thought, for example, famously hitler and mussolini were just crazy, you know, ranting and then they were surprised when things developed the way they did. and this is amazing. even in a coup, like in chile, the coup, u.s.-backed coup in 1973, the conservative christian democrats, the establishment party, they actually thought that the junta, the military officials pinochet, they were going to, quote, restore order and then return power to them and somehow democracy would come back into being. and so this kind of delusions and being unprepared are typical of these situations. and you know, i wrote the book so that we could avoid this fate and that we could -- we have a chance to turn this around before this starts. and it's all the more important now because unfortunately, you know, not all autocrats talk about violence with such gusto openly as donald trump. he's up there with, you know, rodrigo duterte, the former philippine leader in kind of saying bloodthirsty things all the time and admiring the chinese because they can execute people and telling his former officials and people in his inner circle that he wanted to use firing squads and hanging and guillotines. and so this is an extraordinarily dangerous person who now has unlimited powers. but we have a chance, unlike the history cases of the past, to avoid all this. and we've got to do everything possible to inform people of the outcomes that could happen. >> you wrote the book so we would avoid the fate in part. are you optimistic we still can? >> i'm always optimistic because to lose hope is to become fatalist. and to lose hope is to give up on yourself and on your fellow americans. and we don't have much time, but one of my mantras is never underestimate the american people. >> ian, do you share ruth's optimism, that we have time, that we have the stomach, that we have the ability -- you're brilliant scholars. you get your touchstones from history and scholarly works. i get mine from aaron sorkin movies. and i just keep thinking of the line in "the american president" where michael j. fox says people are so desperate for leadership that when they realize it's a mirage they'll crawl through the sand and eat the sand. i worry that a lot of people are eating the sand. >> yes. but i also agree with ruth that despair and fatalism are the tools of authoritarians. so by adopting that perspective we actually concede the territory. and democracy depends on a sense of agency and a sense of possibility and a sense of hope. and so i do still have those things. but i also want to agree with ruth as well about what we need to overcome in order to embrace our agency and the future that we want to create. and that is all the delusion around us, the naivete and the delusion around us. there's two places where we're seeing delusions that i want to just address. one is the delusions of the supreme court majority. because even being generous and trying to imagine what on earth were they thinking, they are deluded. and what i think they were thinking is this. we don't want to as a current go down the road of everyone who leaves power after a presidency gets prosecuted by their political opponents. and they thought that by issuing a decision like today's they will avoid that problem. and that is delusional. because if there are maga-affiliated attorneys general or district attorneys who are hellbent on prosecuting whoever they view as their opponents, joe biden or otherwise, they are going to do that regardless of today's opinion. they're simply going to couch it as unofficial acts. this decision is going to do nothing to prevent what the majority authors claim to be afraid of. and the truth is the way that you prevent those sorts of abusive prosecutions is you trust the checks that are in our normal prosecutorial and judicial system and you ensure that officials are ethical by punishing and not tolerating abuses. but by blocking our ability to punish the abuses of donald trump this delusional court majority is actually opening the door for greater abuses in the future. and the second delusional form that is a danger to us is the delusion of those who say even if trump makes it in don't worry, the checks will hold. well, this supreme court opinion should be the final piece of evidence they need to see the window moves very, very swiftly. and three justices on the court were appointed by donald trump, as was made reference to earlier if he comes back he will appoint more. and not only will he appoint more to the supreme court but you are going to see the lower courts staffed by more aileen cannons, who are in donald trump's pocket, and even those judges already on the courts are going to see when judge cannon is the first person elevated to the 11th circuit their incentive will be loyalty to donald trump as well. those who think the checks will hold, deeply, deeply mistaken. >> so claire, i feel like i share your anger and fear, but we've been admonished by our smart friends that that is sort of playing into the authoritarian playbook. so i wonder what we do when we sort of brush ourselves off in the morning, how we get back up and fight against what feels like a pretty significant piece of the project, of the trump maga project. steve bannon's effort to dismantle the administrative state. donald trump's effort to control prosecutions in this country, which we always covered as an effort to simply prosecute his enemies, but to him it was always about protecting himself from his own administration when they started looking into his campaign's ties with russia. what does the fight look like, and who wages it? >> well, i think we all have to be committed to this fight. the most important thing that has become crystal clear over the last week is how incredibly important it is that donald trump doesn't get into power. ian is exactly correct. if donald trump's first term he had people around him who tried to check him. there were some semblance of guardrails. now, they weren't flawless and they were shaky at times. but one of the tools they had was to say he'll be prosecuted, the law will catch up with you. and now not only will those people not be put in those positions, he will be surrounded by people like mike flynn and steve bannon and peter navarro and all the ones who have been convicted and pardoned and are sitting in jail right now. they're going to be the ones in power. that's the best people that he's going to put there. and nobody's going to have the nerve to say to them you're going to be prosecuted because his court has just told him that he won't be. now, yeah, there's going to be some sorting out of official and non-official acts and i'm sure justice roberts would be sputtering right now saying oh, you're exaggerating. but i've got to tell you, one of the things that was really interesting to me was the almost patronizing way that roberts referred to the dissent. oh, you women are getting emotional. you know, it was the three women who said in the dissent that our democracy is -- and by the way, roberts never bothered to go back and explain how this would prevent a president from killing, murdering their political opponents. he never addressed that hypothetical, which he should have if he was confident that it's not an accurate hypothetical. so it really -- everything about this should put everyone on point that we have to come together. and that's a whole other subject, and it's complicated right now. but we have to come together and understand that our country desperately needs to make sure that donald trump never walks into the oval office again. >> i associate myself with all of claire's statements, especially that one. how do we make sure that donald trump never walks into the oval office again? i know you have concerns about big and important parts of the democratic coalition. >> i just want to say this to agree with everyone on hope. we who believe in freedom, who believe in the constitution, who believe in the critical importance of our democracy, are still a majority of this country. and the fact that they have captured through extremism, through rigging rules, for making it hard for people to vote, for a whole bunch of things, to start taking away our rights doesn't mean a majority of the folks in this country don't get that. and that is what's going to save us. and when we remind people that they have power and that showing up at the polls is what is going to make the difference in whether the forces that are here to protect democracy win or the forces that are here to say it's just about a few of us, that's the power we have as the majority. and if the majority shows up we're okay. >> all right. well, that part of the conversation very much to be continued. claire mccaskill, ian bassin, ruth ben ghiat, maya wiley. wow. thank you to all of you for spending time with us on this historic day. when we come back, confronting what is very clearly an existential threat to the rule of law. former federal judge, conservative icon michael luttig with his reaction to the supreme court ruling granting presidents immunity for official acts. after a very short break. don't go anywhere. don't go anyw. 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[audio logo] the constitution itself doesn't even mention immunity for a president of the united states. and immunity for the president of the united states and certainly absolute immunity of the kind that the former president is arguing for is anathema to the constitution of the united states. >> there you have it. as judge michael luttig stated on this very program months ago, the constitution itself does not mention immunity for the president. but the united states supreme court today in a 6-3 ruling decided that a president of the united states does have absolute immunity for official acts. supreme court justice ketanji brown jackson laid out the consequences for our democracy and way of governing in a scathing dissent, writing this. quote, the court today transfers from the political branches to itself the power to decide when the president can be held accountable. if the structural consequences of today's paradigm shift mark a step in the wrong direction, then the practical consequences are a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance and the normal operations of our government. joining our conversation, former federal judge michael luttig is back. judge, i don't know if you'll be pleased or displeased that i say this. but on the day that we learned that the supreme court would hear immunity you were at this table. it was my second day back from leave. and you basically laid out exactly how this would play out, including the timing and day that they would issue this decision and how they would decide. i'm curious about how you knew that would be the case. but i'm more interested in your views on what the practical consequences are should trump return to power. >> thank you, nicolle, for having me with you this afternoon. as you said, this is indeed an historic day in constitutional history as well as for the nation. today's decision represents what i have called, as you know, the unsouling of america. america's democracy and rule of law are this country's heart and soul. our democracy and the rule of law are what had made america the envy of the world and the beacon of freedom to the world for almost 250 years now. today the supreme court cut that heart and soul out of america, holding that the former president is immune from prosecution for any of his actions in and around january 6th taken in his so-called official capacity as president of the united states. no longer can it be said that in america no man is above the law. today our supreme court held that the president of the united states and particularly the former president of the united states is in fact above the law. nicolle, before today no one, no one has ever even thought that a president would be absolutely immune from prosecution, from crimes he committed against the united states of america while in office. and that is all the court had to say to decide this case today. instead, the court decided for all times purportedly that a president is absolutely immune from prosecution for any and all crimes he commits in his official capacity while in office. this is a shocking decision from our supreme court. there is no support whatsoever in the constitution or even in the supreme court's precedents for the past 200 years for this reprehensible decision by the supreme court. needless to say, the decision is irreconcilable with america's democracy, the constitution, and the rule of law. the court -- >> judge -- sorry. >> go ahead. >> i was just going to ask, you know, one of the gifts of your decision to speak out is that you legally see the world the way we thought some of them did. and i just wonder from a conservative legal ideology how they got here. >> it's beyond me, nicolle, to understand how any of the majority came to this conclusion under the constitution of the united states. as i said, the one thing that i know and everyone else who is a scholar of the constitution and the supreme court knows is that there is no basis whatsoever in the constitution and the laws of the united states for this decision today. in fact, the legal maxim that no man is above the law is principally based upon the president of the united states. that is to say, according to the maxim, in america not even the president of the united states, the most powerful person in our country as well as the world, is above the law. no longer can that be said in america. this court all but instructed judge chutkan to dismiss the january 6th charges brought against the former president by the united states. this court will never allow the former president to be prosecuted for his grave offenses against the united states on january 6th, 2021. >> i have to sneak in a break. i want to ask you what that means for an upcoming election where just thursday night donald trump refused to commit to accepting the results of the next election. i have to sneak in a quick break. we'll ask you to stick around. we'll have that conversation on the other 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[thud] [purring] we're back with judge luttig. judge, i wonder why the majority, not one of the six of them dealt with the argued hypothetical that this would perhaps allow a president to assassinate a political enemy using seal team 6. >> nicolle, frankly that's a red herring. the court obviously didn't want to address that because it would give the lie to what the court actually did in its holding today. but more importantly is what it actually did do. and that is, as you've said, to give absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for any and every crime committed by the former president of the united states and any future president, provided he committed the underlying acts in his official capacity. whatever that means. and the court itself, to add insult to injury, even said that it has no idea how to determine which acts in this indictment were undertaken in the former president's official capacity and which in his unofficial capacity. yet it remanded to the federal trial court to make those decisions in the first instance. that's an abdication of responsibility by the supreme court of the united states. though i should add and that guidance in effect tells the judge that hardly any of the allegations made in the indictment against the former president can stand because all of the acts were undertaken essentially in his official capacity. that gets to the practical effect which you asked about of today's decision. it -- the court remanded the entire case back to the judge to make individual determinations with respect to each individual allegation in the indictments as to whether the underlying conduct was taken on undertaken by the former president in his official or his unofficial capacity. but the court in doing that even said that as to most of those allegations the former president was acting -- presumptively acting in his official capacity. and it's sad that the former president -- that former -- the prosecution, the government -- this is the united states government, this is the united states of america who's prosecuting the former president. this is not jack smith. this is not joe biden. this is the united states of america. and the supreme court said today that the burden will be on the united states of america to prove that the acts and the allegations of the indictment were undertaken in the former president's unofficial capacity. and if they don't carry that burden, which will be almost impossible to carry, then the supreme court held today those acts were undertaken in his official capacity and therefore he is absolutely immune from prosecution. >> it's just a stunning, stunning decision. somehow these things feel all the more dire with your deep understanding of their legal significance. judge, we need to continue to call on you as we continue to try to understand what this means. feels like a real turning point based on the decent from justice sotomayor and justice ketanji brown jackson. thank you for you time. we appreciate seeing you always. >> thank you, nicole. >> another break for us. we'll be right back. break for us. we'll be right back. 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