don t go anywhere. i will be back with rachel maddow and the whole gang for special coverage of trump on trial that starts right now. the ex-president of the united states. two american courtrooms. facing criminal trial in one. i will go in now and sit. and making a desperate case to avoid justice in the other. we will hear arguments this morning in trump versus the united states. tonight, new testimony of the alleged criminal conspiracy to help elect donald trump. reporter: trump turned to the business at hand and asked david pecker, how is our girl? as his argument for absolute immunity finally goes before the supreme court. this court has never recognized absolute criminal immunity for any public official. a private attorney who was willing to spread false claims of election fraud what was up with the pardon for president nixon? if everybody thought presidents couldn t be prosecuted, what was that about? if it fails completely it is because we have
and it is pretty clear those options are as i just outlined it. does that mean he couldn t find trump in violation of some other statute that has not been briefed before him? nobody has also said i m not going to summarily find contempt. these are things you have to bring before me. he has made it very clear. these are not summary proceedings. unless he actually does it in front of me, i m not going to do it on my own volition. we could keep going., we shouldn t. that will do it for us for now. now it is time for the last word with our good friend lawrence o donnell. good evening. good evening, rachel. we have convened our own version of the last word supreme court. in it, including harvard law professor laurence tribe, andrew weissman is here with us. senator sheldon whitehouse has a few things to say about it too and he will be joining us. looking forward to it, lawrence. we learned today the united states supreme court has two different kinds of justices. justices
new testimony of the alleged criminal conspiracy to help elect donald trump. trump turned to the business at hand and asked david pecker, how is our girl? argument for absolute immunity goes before the supreme court. this court never recognized criminal immunity for any public official. a private attorney who was willingly to spearhead his challenges to the election results. what was up for the party with president nixon? if everybody thought presidents couldn t be prosecuted, then what was that about. if it feels completely, s because we destroyed our own democracy. rachel maddow, nicolle wallace troy reed, lawrence o donnell, ari melber, all here as msnbc special coverage of trump on trial begins. who has the time? who has the time? you are telling me that simultaneously we have nearly three hours of oral argument at the united states supreme court of the former president claiming he is immune from prosecution for any crime he did while president and debt
there is a possibility they may see some opportunity for some immunity for some presidential decisions. if they decide it that way, it may have to go back down to the district court which could cause further delay. i appreciate you not being sidetracked by somebody who apparently wants to scream louder than anybody else. catherine, the lower courts have been unanimous that trump cannot claim immunity. does that tell you something? i can t imagine they re going to say a former president has absolute immunity for criminal acts. what will be a win for donald trump is if they re saying we re sending it back to judge chutkan to determine which, if any he would have immunity for and which he would not. that s a win because that would delay the trial, which is already delayed. so what of course obviously jack smith and special counsel is hoping for, a majority of the court will just say, no, absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for a former president and clearly jack smit
one is first of all, to some degree this has already been a victory for donald trump because this has delayed the start of the trial by jack smith and as a result has put him in the middle of a political campaign. we have a highly divisive electorate, highly divided with republicans on one side, democrats on the other cheering for their respective squads and as a result, it has energized president trump s base. the campaign reported that they had raised nearly $6 million over a five-day period leading up to this week s event. there has already been a victory for him in this. my suspicion is the biden white house is saying we want him to be held to some level of responsibility for actions that he took while in office but not as the president of the united states. but on the other hand he also like the fact that they are out there able to campaign whether as an explicitly political candidate or campaign as the president in his official capacity and talk about the things they wa