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
no other president has been indicted like this. trump s lawyers arguing he should be immune, basically totally immune because he was president during those efforts. that is a new relatively made up claim which they lost unanimously before the respected d.c. court of appeals. keep that in mind. that is the recent precedent and context for today, and you may remember that was the now infamous hearing where the trump lawyer openly claimed that as president trump could have a license to kill american opponents. that was the kind of chilling talk that many, many people across the spectrum rebuked then. that kind of talk was back today with grave questions about murder and coups and trump s lawyer saying it s okay or it all depends. let s say this president, who ordered the military to stage a coup. orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts. i think it would depend on the circumstances. it would depend on the hypothetical.
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
check abuses of power especially the use of official power for private gain. here the executive branch is enforcing congressional statutes and seeking accountability for petitioner s alleged misuse of official power to subvert democracy. that is a compelling public interest. in response, petitioner raises concerns about potential abuses. but established legal safeguards provide layers of protections with the article iii courts providing the ultimate check. the existing system is a carefully balanced framework. it protects the president but not at the high constitutional cost of blanket criminal immunity. that has been the understanding of every president from the framing through watergate and up to today. this court should preserve it. i welcome the court s questions. does the president have immunity or are you saying there is no immunity even for official acts? yes, justice thomas. but i think it is important to put in perspective the position that we are offering the co
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