About trump and russia. Putins fine. And the president s fixer threatens to break his silence. People are seeing through the nonsense. All in starts right now. Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. In one hour the president will announce his decision on the most consequential Supreme Court nominee in a generation at least. Washington is abuzz with speculation on just which potential nominee has won the president s favor. The New York Times has reported that just hours ago one of the reported final four was spotted leaving the u. S. Courthouse in washington, d. C. Accompanied by four black suvs believed to be secret service. Another spotted back at her home in indiana, where she was clearly not getting ready for an announcement. But here is the truth, and its important to keep focused on this. The real decision for Supreme Court nomination was made for trump, and the nominee will be another from the list by the conservative group the Federalist Society and its current effective leader in this enterprise leonard leo. Leonard leos a man who also has strong ties to the judicial crisis network. Thats the rightwing organization which helped block scores of obama judicial nominees and was key in the pr blitz to outright deny a hearing to president obamas last Supreme Court justice pick, judge merrick garland. Helping Mitch Mcconnell effectively steal that Supreme Court seat. Leonard leo is also connected to the dark Money Organization called bh group which according to the nonprofit Watchdog Group open secrets, donated 1 million to the Trump Inauguration though it tried mightily to keep it a secret by donating anonymously. President trump during the campaign asked leonard leo, the founder of the Federalist Society, to assemble a list of possible Supreme Court justices for him to pick from. Mr. Leo was not only aware of candidates trump preferenced for a Supreme Court that would reverse voe v. Wade. He himself spent his career in pursuit of it. No one has been more dedicated to overturning roe v. Wade than the very man who chose the list of 25. So any one of President Trumps picks is essentially a leonard leo pick. And that nominee will hold in their hands the future of legalized abortion, of roe v. Wade, the almost certain collision course as well between President Trump and the mueller investigation, with questions about whether the president himself is above the law, as well as of course a whole raft of questions about civil rights, labor rights, consumer rights, regulation that have already been chipped away by the courts majority. Senator richard blulen thatll, member of the Senate Judiciary committee, joins me now. I want to start with something that your colleague senator bob casey said today and get your reaction. Well see what they do tonight but im going to be a no, and thats because its a corrupt process. When you can only pick from 25 people from a list generated by and developed by the Heritage Foundation and Federalist Society and funded by the corporate right i cannot support that. Its a flawed system. Do you agree with him . I agree totally. And the reason is quite simply that every one of the names and nominees potentially on this list has been vetted and screened to meet the trump litmus test. Lets be very, very blunt here, chris. I was a law clerk to Justice Blackman in the year after he wrote the majority opinion in roe v. Wade. Of all the cases in the United StatesSupreme Court, four of them, never before has a president outsourced the decision about Supreme Court nominations in this way. Never before has a president in effect made the Federalist Society take him as a puppet, the president of the United States has become a puppet here of a far right fringe group, and at stake are the potential rolling back rights involving health care, millions of americans protected from a preexisting condition, but also taking us back to a time when abortion was criminalized, women were prosecuted, they died and they were denied access to contraception. So real impacts on real lives, more than just the chipping away. The possible overturning because of this corrupt process. Let me just make sure i understand you. I said do you agree . Casey says he is a no already. Doesnt matter who it is. Are you a no already . I hesitate to advance the president s process. If it is one of those nominees, i would be almost certainly a no, and i believe that my colleagues will join me because at stake are not only those rights but also as you mentioned earlier the idea that we could have the swing crucial vote on whether the president has to comply with the subpoena to the grand jury, whether he can pardon himself or others, whether he has to obey the emol yooumts clause. The chief federal protection against corruption. Ive sued the president of the United States along with 200 of my colleagues to compel him to obey that clause. I think this nominee has to commit to recuse him or herself. But i would be a no vote. Do you youre familiar with the you just told me you clerked on the court, a biographical detail that i did not know actually. There is this argument, right . That this is all people who are fundamental fundamentally trying to call balls and strikes in the words of justice roberts, that its all sort of process driven and, you know, that us on the outside were so concerned with outcomes and were focused on that but the people like leonard leo and others, theyre not testing for a litmus test on how someones going to decide, its about judicial temperament and their approach to the constitution. Do you buy that . You know, we have heard these phony platitudes again and again and again. We heard them from neil gorsuch. We heard them from now chief justice roberts, about adhering to established precedent. Just a couple weeks ago we saw an established precedent 40 years old overturned by the court with roberts and gorsuch supporting that step. We know that these evasive canned rehearsed answers are absolutely meaningless when they are accompanied by refusals in response to my questions and others to state that brown v. Board of education was correctly decided or roe v. Wade was correctly decided or loving versus virginia, or bergapel or other established principles of law. Sought answer to your question is no more business as usual, no more deferential or courteous acceptance of these phony platitudes. That sounds like it would make for interesting hearings one way or the other. Senator blumenthal, thank you for some time tonight. Thank you. Harry lipman, former assistant deputy general. He clerked for Justice Kennedy on the Supreme Court. And vinta gupta. Former assistant attorney general at the Justice Departments civil rights division. Heres to me the preamble for tonight. The right has felt like it was done wrong time after time. They felt like they were done wrong with justice bork when he was voted down, then that they got suter and they got kennedy, who upheld the core holding of roe. And basically my read is they have developed a process over the years for vetting that out. Trey gowdy was complaining about suter and those folks. My feeling is we should take them at their word ha they figured out the process to make sure that that doesnt happen again. I take them at their word. And really they developed this since before then. Kennedy was preceded by bork, and then ginsburg. They didnt have the direct political line, the automatic okay from the president before there were camps that would choose one nominee or another. But i absolutely take them at their word their word that they have sussed it out, they are at point of dominance for a generation and theyre not going to mess up. Vinita, what do you say to people that say you cant know ahead of time that judges are going to make these decisions in front of them as you look to evaluate what the stakes are for who the president names tonight . Look, i think everything is at stake tonight. And this process has really been corrupt because not only do you have the Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, ultra conservative organizations that as you say have sussed out the process and vetted for the extreme agenda that they represent, but in this care, and this is what is unprecedented, you have a president who has been more than explicit about having tests, about wanting otake away womens freedom to control our bodies, about wanting to take away health care for millions and only appointing judges who will do that. You have a president who over the past year has lifted up nominees who have told the Senate Judiciary committee that they will not say that brown versus board of education was correctly decided. I mean, this is a no norms apply at this moment which is why given how much is at stake with health carew womens freedom, with civil rights, the Supreme Court is usually a backstop to prevent other institutions from rolling over constitutional and civil human rights, and that is what we are faced with today, with nominees who have been vetted and who have met trumps clearly explicitly stated tests and vetted by these ultra conservative groups. President at one point in the campaign trail said it would be almost guaranteed that roe would be overturned if he got two or three and thats how he came to have this list in the first place, he wanted to signal im going to do right by you on this list. And it was totally unprecedented. It was this very explicit bargain. There were people saying dont trust this guys because cant trust him on judges. He said what do you want . Give me a list. And basically thats what we got. Zbln only thats what weve got, hes executed it. For all the chaos and fecklessness of every other area, hes not just on the Supreme Court but the court of appeals, he really has played it by the book. And i think vanitas word is exactly right. Its been a backstop now for 30, 40 years, and thats exactly whats going to be going away and its going to move to state courts and democracy. Ill tell what you we wont have today. Remember, within 45 minutes of the nomination of robert bork ted kennedy was out with his speech defining bork, robert borks america. We will not be able to hear about thomas hardimans america or Brett Kavanaughs america. Why not . Because just answer that question first, harry. Why not . In short, it wont sell in the same way. Vanita. And chris, i want to say, look, we are at a point in this country where millions of americans who never thought of themselves as activists before are literally enraged by the vision of america that this administration is putting out. And the courts are a huge part of defining what fleemd looks like, what liberty looks like, what our civil and human rights look like, what health care and access to health care and womens rights are going to look like. And women are leading the charge. And i think that now is a moment where progressives who care so much about the kind of what this currents about, and the kind of america we deserve are going to stand up and say look, yes, the democrats dont have the majority in the senate but there is a majority of senators who do believe that there should be access to health care in the millions affordable by the Affordable Care act and who do believe women should have the 23r50e78d to choose what toe we do with our bodies and who dont want to he soo a rollback on civil sxriets Voting Rights and lgbtq rights. And thats what were seeing is the energy burgeoning all around the country coming to bear on the fight to save the court. Thats tape of gop senators getting on the bus to go to the white house tonight. Quick point, speaking of majorities, gorsuch is the first justice in history to be nominated by a president who didnt get a majority of the vote and confirmed by a senate that together doesnt represent a majority of the vote. And this justice will surely be the second. I would say not surely with this caveat. They have 50 votes right now. Of people that can vote in washington, d. C. John mccain still receiving treatment for cancer back in arizona. Thats a very thin margin. Lots can happen. I think it will be very interesting to see what happens here in the reaction to tonight and how it plays out over the summer. Harry litman and vanita gupta, thank you both. Michael cohen sending signals he is ready to cooperate putting him on a collision course with the president. The latest on the fallout between donald trump and his former fixer after this. Keep it comin love. Keep it comin love. 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Wifi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. In many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40s. As we await the president s Supreme Court announcement tonight, Donald Trumps former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen appears to be embarking on a new legal strategy. And its putting him on a collision course with his onetime boss. Cohens latest moves proclaiming his loyalty to country and family in the interview and then adding longtime clinton ally lanny davis to his legal team have seemed to signal hes willing to cooperate with federal prosecutors that are investigating him. Now, according to the president s outside counsel Rudy Giuliani they are eager to see cohen cooperate. Michael cohen should cooperate with the government. We have no reason to believe he did anything wrong. The president did nothing wrong with him. So weve gone through every document we can. You have no concerns at all about anything that Michael Cohen might tell the prosecutors as long as he tells the truth, were homefree. But cohens newest attorney, at forementioned lanny davis, responded in a tweet this morn, did Rudy Giuliani really say on sunday shows that Michael Cohen should cooperate with prosecutors and tell the truth . Seriously . Is that the trump and giuliani definition of truth . Trump giuliani next to the word truth equals oxymoron. Stay tuned. The truth matters. For more on Michael Cohens impending showdown with the president im joined by former watergate prosecutor nick akerman and former u. S. Attorney joyce vance, both msnbc legal analysts. That strikes me as a pretty clear signal in one direction or another from lanny davis. Am i right . A signal because he hired lanny davis . That he hired lanny davis and the first thing lanny davis does under this new contract is essentially tweet a warning shot. Yeah, he does, but this is not unusual. During the watergate investigation it was amazing how many nixon people actually went out and looked for democratic lawyers in order to try and appeal to this idea really . Yes. That somehow they thought that by having something thats like former senator tidings represent them in our office they kind of bought into the idea that we were a bunch of kennedy democrats, which was not true. So they were hiring lawyers thinking they could appeal to us and somehow get a better in if they came in with these lawyers. You even saw jared kushner, hes retained the woman who was Deputy Attorney general under clinton. Yeah. A democrat. I think its the same sort of mindset, that people dont realize that what you ought to be looking for is the best possible lawyer. Giuliani, joyce, has been playing this game now for several months on moving the goalposts of when theyre going to cooperate under which conditions, robert mueller. He threw a new one out over the weekend. Take a listen. We would not recommend an interview with the president unless they can satisfy us that theres some . Basis for this investigation. Weve got to see something. I mean, something started this investigation. What were asking them for is is this the witch hunt that a lot of people think it is or is there a factual basis for this . I mean, what do you make of that . Its interesting. Giuliani is negotiating over the president s interview with the public, with the press, thru but theres no appearance that hes negotiating with mueller or any of his prosecutors at this point in time. So i think at the point where we see mueller scheduling an interview or grand jury testimony well find out if this is posturing or just if its for real. But chris, i think we all know there was never any legitimate intention on the part of this president to sit down with these prosecutors for a real interview. Simply too risky for him.