Federal candidates. Thats all. Not to do what the majority actually did by officially giving congress the Sole Authority to enforce the insurrection clause. Theres no basis for that in the constitution quote, the Majority Attempts to insulate all alleged insurrectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office. Were going to explain what this means in plain language and what it means for the Supreme Courts next big trump case, immunity. Because that decision could have bearing on the other cases were watching on which we also have news. Joining us now, msnbc Legal Correspondent lisa rubin, nbc news senior Legal Correspondent, Laura Jarrett and slate Senior Writer, Mark Joseph Stern. Everybody welcome. Laura, this case, you know, you read the opinion, the Majority Opinion and the you see the headline, everyone agrees this is not political at all, and you read the dissent, and other Amy Coney Barrett, threat liberals on the court, it reads like a dissent. Not a concurrence. It reads like a dissent because they have a sharp break of the court, the court is reaching out for a power grab it didnt need to do. We agree colorado went too far. Everyone on the court agrees this was not up to colorado. Individual states couldnt unilaterally be deciding the election. Again, you could quibble with that but all of the justices seem to agree on that. What they dont agree with was the next step the majority took, saying congress is the one whos going to have to enact new legislation in order to get this done for a future case. If thats what they want to do, thats totally within congresss purview. They would have to go much further. Again, that was not at issue here. Colorado was interpreting its own law, and they said basically you didnt need to do this. Theyre invoking bush v. Gore for a reason, the Ghost Of Christmas Past on that, knowing everyones ears perk up when you hear about bush v. Gore. Theres certainly a break here, and i think it explains why the decision took so long, when everyone came out of the Oral Argument, this might explain why it took a month. I keep calling the concurrence a dissent. It reads like a dissent, and im getting it wrapped and warped in my mind. When you look at what Amy Coney Barrett said, she was a solo concurrent, she seemed to not only chastise the majority but chastise her other three colleagues for inflammatory language. It seems to imply that there is a lot of tension behind the scenes in this court. Yeah, its really interesting, katy, that you say that. A couple of weeks ago, justices sotomayor, and barrett made a joint opinion, they refer to themselves wearing the same black robe. And how Justice Sotomayor welcomed her kids to the Supreme Court, and they have movie nights, and everything is happy happy joy joy and if you read justice barretts concurrence, she wants you to have that impression of the court. But then again, you read the concurrence by the three liberal justices which starts with a quote from chief Justice Roberts concurrence in the dobbs case, they say if its not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then its not necessary to decide more. These are the cleavages we have in the court. Why did chief Justice Roberts get involved here. Heres such an interesting character on the court because sometimes he sides with the liberals, sometimes the conservatives. You cant quite tell. Whats the predictable nature in the way the court operates . Is there one . The overarching principle is that hes conservative and that pervades almost all of the decisions. There have been outliars when it comes to voting and other things when he has ended up siding with the more progressive members of the court. If you were to look at his over arching legacy, i think its certainly a conservative like minded principle, and i think especially when it comes to something as politically just charged as this, kicking the republican front runner off the ballot, there was nothing at Oral Argument that made me think there was a chance. Why go further to say that congress has the Sole Authority. Why define whose the authority in the insurrection claude when the three liberal justices say your reading not supported by whats in the constitution here. If you say that states dont have authority under section 3 of the 14th amendment, you have to come up with something to support that view. The text of section 3 says nothing of the sort. Section 5 says congress has the power to enact remedial, a Hook On WhichJustice Roberts and four other justices hung their hat. One possible interpretation is because hes actually not a believer in this idea that states can do what they want resulting in a patch work. Hes a pragmatist in large part, and i think he was legitimately scared if a state like colorado could do what it did here, in future elections we could end up with Real Asymmetry and who could appear on which states ballots, depending on litigation or decisions of secretary of state. I know Mark Joseph Stern you want to jump in on this. Please do. I said a concurring dissent at the top. Why did it read like a dissent . Because, it seems, it originally was a dissent. After this opinion came down, i checked the meta data, and that separate opinion that was presented as a concurrence by justices sotomayor, kagan and jackson, that was originally Staten Island as a partial dissent by Justice Sotomayor alone. At some point very late in the process the court switched the words on the page to say that it was a concurrence in the judgment New York City longer a partial dissent, and added Justices Kagan and jackson. That is not how it read in the meta data, and probably not how it read until the last minute. We know the opinion was rushed out. The court only announced it would be handing it down yesterday afternoon. The court didnt even take the bench to announce it as it usually does. The justices hadnt planned on being in d. C. They pushed it out quickly. They made an error, an oversight. While sotomayor was haed toog a dissent, perhaps Justices Kagan and jackson were making a play to john roberts, to brett kavanaugh, to cobble together a different majority that would have issued a much narrower holding. Stopping it where it needed to stop. Not adding this overwhelming and overreaching language about how congress can enforce the clause. Something fell apart before the decision came down, and we were left with a divide that was very very sharp. Is it prudent to read into that about what could come with the Immunity Decision . I know were Reading Tea Leaves here. Its such a momentous case, moment us Oral Arguments. Can we read into this from that at all . Maybe. There was a lot of speculation after Oral Arguments that there would be a grand bargain between this case and the Immunity Decision, where the liberal justices would agree to keep trump on the ballot in this case, in exchange for votes to simply deny a stay in the Immunity Decision, allow the trial to move forward immediately. Obviously that has not happened. Instead the Supreme Court scheduled Oral Arguments in the Immunity Case for two months from now. They are actually walking that case much slower than they did this one. They are giving trump a lot more time than they gave colorado in this case. I think there was a chance there was a stab at a grand bargain behind the scenes. Just kagan who is good at Horse Trading behind the scenes was trying to find the sweet spot where she could put together the votes bs sign on to a narrow decision here, and asylum let the trial go forward, let the jury have its say well in advance of november. That has not happened. Even though justice Amy Coney Barrett and sonia sotomayor, love to talk about how they share candy and movie nights, theres Bad Blood Behinds scenes. And the liberal judges have not been able to shake a compromise out of the majority. He says in a news letter last week, i argued the Supreme Courts recent decision on diversity in High School Admissions offered a reason for americans to be less cynical about the court. On that subject, the justices seem to be following a consistent principle across several cases. Sometimes that principle disappointed the political left. Sometimes it disappointed the right. Last weeks decision feels different. When urgent action could help a republican president ial candidate in 2000, the court which was dominated by republican appointee the at the time, acted urgently. When delay seems to help a president ial candidate, court has chosen delay. The combination does not make the court look independent from partisan politics. I think we should focus on what he says about look. It doesnt make the court look independent. Even if they are independent, theyre operating independently. The appearance of the court certainly continues to be tainted. I couldnt agree more. I would add this is a court thats concerned about appearances. You know, the majority in this case went out of its way to say were unanimous on our bottom line holding. Justice Amy Cney Barrett said we agree on this baseline issue. We dont need to snipe at each other across the divide. There was an effort among six conservatives to say we are united and we are friendly and independent. Justice barrett said its a message americans can take home in this frenzies election season. The three liberal justices are not on the same page, and they would lean more in the direction that david was espousing in the piece. The liberal justices are trying to wave a red flag to the public. It doesnt look good because it isnt good. As hard as the majority tries to cover it up with words like unanimity and collegiality, were reaching dangerously bad decisions for no good reason. Dropping the nuclear citation to bush v. Gore is as clear as you can get. So if the liberals were going to tell us we should be worried, this is exactly what it would look like. I mentioned it at the top, were waiting for judge Aileen Cannon to schedule a trial date in the classified documents case. Judge mcafee says he will rule on fani willis and whether or not she can continue the Georgia Election interference case along with her entire office, d. A. In Fulton County in the next two weeks. Thank you very much. Coming up next, she voted for donald trump in 2020, and brought a lawsuit to try to keep him off the ballot in 2024, what krista kafer said she was trying to tell americans when she sued to have trump taken off the colorado ballot. What President Biden is warning if he himself wins in november. What is Benjamin Netanyahus main political rival doing at the white house today, and what it could signal for gaza. We are back in 60 seconds. And get one free. Just scan the qr code and Enter Promo Code flbogo. It only works from The Other Side of the screen, buddy. You still got a land line in your house. Order now in the subway app. man excuse me, would you mind taking a picture of us . tony oh, no problem. L man thanks. Our house. tony yes, problem. You need verizon. Get the new iphone 15 pro with tons of storage. So you can take all the pics vo tradein any iphone in any condition and get a new iphone 15 pro and an ipad and apple watch se all on us. Only on verizon. Joining us now, the woman i was just speaking with, one of the plaintiffs in the colorado case that tried to keep donald trump off the ballot. Shes also a columnist for the denver post, and with us, president of citizens for responsibility and ethics. You know him, noah bookbinder, his group Assisted Krista and the other plaintiffs in bringing their case. You voted for rump in 2020. What made you want to keep him off the ballot entirely in 2024, and what do you say to those who say that he needs to be on the ballot. This is the voters choice about who they put into the white house. Voters are allowed to vote for anyone who is eligible, and not for those who are ineligible, and somebody can be ineligible for residency or not being a natural born citizen, or having been involved in insurrection, and the constitution is very clear on that point. When donald trump decided the day after the election, the day after i voted for him that he wanted to disenfranchise 80 million voters, voters that are my fellow americans. When he decided to do that, and continued to push the false narrative to the point of inciting violence on our capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power, i knew i had to do something. Im proud of our effort. Obviously im disappointed with todays rulings but i would have done it again. I would do it again in a heart beat. You liken trying to do this, to bring this lawsuit, by putting a bell on a cat. Can you explain that metaphor to me, and explain is there another way, in your opinion, to put the bell on the cat now that the Supreme Court has said no. The old fable, which is that the mice get together and decide that because the cat is a danger for them, if they could get bell on the cat and her him coming, they could save lives. No one was willing to put the bell on the cat. I was thinking about among other things, that particular fable. We needed republicans to step up. Step up and bell that cat. It wasnt just republicans. It was republicans, independents, litigants and several democrats, an amazing grook group of lawyers that worked for us were republicans, democrats, independents, this was very very bipartisan. My disappointment with the court among others things is they said only congress can be the one that enforces this provision. If you look at congress right now, it is incredibly partisan. They basically handed a very big duty to a very very partisan group of people, who will more often than not act in their own selfinterest. In contrast to what we tried to do, seeking good for everyone. Talk to me about that, theres no federal body or federal judge that can take away the ability of somebody found to be an insurrectionist into office. The only remedy is congress itself. Obviously thats a distressing place to end up. I think one of the things that was most significant about this decision was what it doesnt have. You had nine justices writing, not a single one in there exonerated donald trump for engaging in insurrection. Theres not a sentence in there that said that he dont do it, and donald trump asked them to take that position. They pointedly chose not to do that. So we still are in a place that everybody, every Decision Making body that has substantively looked at it has found that donald trump engaged in insurrection. What the Supreme Court did do was essentially take out the Enforcement Mechanism that would allow states to enforce that, at least if we look at what the concurring justices say. The Supreme Court may have taken out federal courts ability, and even congresss Nonlegislative Ability to enforce this. Now were in a situation where as we can very clearly save from everyone whos looked at this, donald trump engaged in insurrection to try to keep himself into power after losing an election, but nobody can do anything about it, and that sends it back to congress. Congress could become functional or to the American People to essentially enforce what the constitution mandates. Do you have confidence in this court . You know, i will say that this court, that i was pleased that this court did not go in some of the really dangerous directions they could have gone like to try to find some way to say that donald trump didnt engage in insurrection or excuse president s, excuse president s who hadnt served in office, which is basically a donald trump only exception. These are the dangerous paths that donald trump wanted them to take that they didnt. Ultimately, institution after institution has been kind of stepping aside instead of using the tools available to protect the democracy from those who could attack it again. I think its disappoint, this court chose to be the next institution to not step out when it could have. Thats disappointing. What about you, krista . Obviously i respect the court. Like noah, im concerned they sort of dodged their responsibility to uphold the constitution. I think this is you know, ive always like the originalest and textualist approach to the constitution that we look at what the words say and what the words mean, not on the potential effect. In departing from that originalist, jurisprudence, this court decided, hey, were going to rule on the effect, not the actual words of the constitution. In a sense, im empathetic, it would have been disruptive. On one hand, in acting not for us, it would no longer be disruptive. I believe it will become more dangerous. This sort