Have seen in the Biden Administration toward Bibi Netanyahus government. With Vice PresidentKamala Harris publicly, anyway, leading the way in what is a break with the netanyahu governments policy, the Vice President yesterday unequivocally called for a ceasefire in gaza. It seems like a very important turn in the way the administration is handling this. Yeah, and, i mean, theres all sorts of interesting Politics Around it, but to me its signaled that i dont think the white house would be doing that, i dont think Vice President harris will be doing that if that was something that was impossible, at least that is sort of what my heart leapt to what i heard her say it, that if she is saying that, it must mean they think that it can happen. If they think it can happen, god hopes it will. We are just going to roll the tape later of what the Vice President had to say. She had a lot to say about it. Were going to see that later in the hour. Well, yesterdays republican primary has become the standard vote split of 63 to 33 , but this time, nikki haley got the 63 and donald trump got the 33 . It was in the smallest Republic Primary so far. It was in washington, d. C. In a city of 700,000 people, exactly 676 of them voted for donald trump. The reason that tiny vote is significant is that Donald Trumps jury pool for special prosecutor jack smiths case against donald trump for his crimes leading up to and on january 6th will be taken. That jury will be taken from those 700,000 people who spent yesterday not voting for donald trump. The odds of one of the 376 trumplicans who did vote for donald trump in washington, d. C. Yesterday ending up on his jury there are worse than your odds with any Lottery Ticket you can find anywhere. The most important washington, d. C. Voters for donald trump, though, are, of course, the nine of voters on the United StatesSupreme Court. Yesterday, all nine of them agreed that donald trump, who three of the justices called, an with Breaking Insurrectionist, cannot be barred from president ial ballots on individual states by Section Three of the 14th Amendment. Section three of the 14th Amendment, as most of you know by now, barrs anyone who took an oath of office and then engaged in insurrection from ever Holding Office again. Donald trumps lawyers lost on several arguments that they presented to the court. They argue that the presidency is not an office. The Supreme Court ignored that argument. The Trump Lawyers argued that the president is not an officer of the government. The Supreme Court ignored that argument. Most importantly, the Trump Lawyers argued that donald trump did not engage in insurrection and that the attack on the capitol was not an insurrection. The Supreme Court ignored that argument and left standing the finding by the colorado Supreme Court that donald trump did indeed engage in insurrection. The Supreme Courts opinion simply said that the individual states are not allowed to enforce the provisions of Section Three of the 14th Amendment against candidates for federal office. The opinion said that the state of colorado could enforce Section Three of the 14th Amendment against candidates seeking state and local offices in colorado. The five republican men on the Supreme Court, two of whom were appointed by donald trump, extended their Majority Opinion far beyond what the nine justices were willing to agree on in the essential ruling by indicating that the federal enforcement of the 14th Amendment would require the congress to pass implementing legislation. The three justices of the Supreme Court appointed by President Obama and President Biden wrote a separate opinion of only six pages where they referred to donald trump as an oath Breaking Insurrectionist four times and said, quote, legislation of any kind, however are, is not required. Section three of the 14th Amendment is self executing, meaning that it does not depend on implementing legislation. Ketanji Brown Jackson and elena kagan said, quote, Section Three provides that what an oath Breaking Insurrectionist is disqualified, congress may by a vote of two thirds of each house remove such a disability. It is hard to understand by the constitution would require a congressional Super Majority to remove a disqualification if a single majority could nullify section 3s operation by repealing or declining to pass implementing legislation. It is worse than they know. It would not take a simple majority to decline to pass implementing legislation, to vote against implementing legislation. It would only take 41 out of 100 senators to block implementing legislation which, according to the procedural rules of the United States senate, requires a 60 vote Majority Threshold to pass. So, if a group of 59 senators agreed on implementing legislation tomorrow for Section Three of the 14th Amendment, it could not become law. It could be blocked by 41 senators who support an Oath Breaking insurrection and want to see insurrectionists and want to see an oath Breaking Insurrectionist become president again. There are now 49 republican senators and only one of them, theyre retiring mitt romney, has said he is opposed to the oath Breaking Insurrectionist donald trump becoming president again. That leaves 48 republican senators who would refuse to ever approve any implementing legislation for Section Three of the 14th Amendment. The last judge appointed to the court by donald trump, amy coney barrett, wrote her own paragraph concurring opinion, saying simply, i agree that states lack the power to enforce Section Three against president ial candidates. That principle is sufficient to resolve this case. I would decide no more than that. Justice barrett then added a second paragraph to her one page concurrence which did not have a single word of jurisprudence in it. It was a political speech aimed at the three other justices who agreed with her. The majority of five on the Supreme Court went too far in their opinion. Justice barrett, though she apparently agreed with those same justices, decided for political purposes that their language was too harsh. That is a political choice, now you jurisprudence your choice. In a political statement unlike any that i have ever seen in a Supreme Court opinion, Justice Barrett wrote, in my judgment, this is not the time to amplify disagreement with the stridency. In her view, no doubt stridency means using phrases like an oath Breaking Insurrectionist to describe donald trump. Justice barrett continued. The court has settled a politicallycharged issue in the volatile season of a president ial election, particularly in this circumstance, writings on the court should turn the National Temperature down, not up. For present purposes, our differences are far less important than our unanimity. All nine justices agree on the outcome of this case. That is the message americans should take home. Its written not like a Supreme Court justice, but like a political Speech Writer the message americans should take home. Justice sotomayor and Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson highlighted the wild inconsistency of the Roberts Court by quoting chief Justice Roberts himself who wrote this when he joined the Majority Opinion in overturning roe v. Wade. Quote, if it is not necessary to decide more to dispose of a case, then it is not necessary to decide more. The three justices then said, that fundamental principle of Judicial Restraint is practically as old as our republic, yet the Court Continues on to resolve questions not before us. In a sensitive case crying out for Judicial Restraint, it abandons that course. Today, the majority goes beyond the necessities of this case to limit how section 3 can bar an oath Breaking Insurrectionist from becoming president. Although we agree that colorado cannot enforce Section Three, we protest the majoritys efforts to use this case to define the limits of federal enforcement of that provision because we would decide only the issue before us. We concur only in the judgment. Today at the florida club where donald trump cannot afford to live without charging other people money to use his home, the oath Breaking Insurrectionist thanked the Supreme Court for their opinion and then spent most of his time asking the court for another favor to grant him total immunity for any form of criminal prosecution for crimes that he may have committed while he was president. In fact, most of his statement was begging for that criminal immunity. He did say this about todays opinion. Frankly, they worked very quickly on something that will be spoken about 100 years from now and 200 years from now, extremely important. Well, he is absolutely right about that. It will be spoken of in history classrooms 100 years from now and 200 years from now where he will, if the country remains lucky for the next couple of centuries, be identified as the only former president in history who was once blocked from president ial ballots by states invoking Section Three of the 14th Amendment and those History Classes will all note that the Supreme Court opinion which allowed him access to the ballot repeatedly referred to him as an oath Breaking Insurrectionist. Leading off our discussion tonight is professor Laurence Tribe who has taught Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School for five decades. Professor tribe, thank you so much for joining us tonight. I have to confess this one required me to read and reread it, especially the concurrence is which read like dissents. Ive had to remind myself, no, they are agreeing with the ultimate vote here. Can you clarify for us what the contest is here between the four and five in the majority and referee for us who is right here . I will do my best, lawrence. In this case, the Court Appears to the naked eye to be deciding something nine to nothing, but when you peel back the appearances, it is really a 5 to 4 decision about a fundamental principle, a principle about the viability of Section Three of the 14th Amendment, a crucial protection for the country against oath Breaking Insurrectionists. The decisive fifth vote in the 5 to 4 split, i add, was the same as the decisive fifth vote in bush versus gore. It was Clarence Thomas who some people believe had no business taking part in the case. Let me set that aside. The key question is, what is the big difference between what all nine justices agree, namely colorado alone should not be able to make this decision, and what only five justices believed, and that is that, unless you have implementing legislation by congress, the ban in the 14th Amendment against Office Holding by oath Breaking Insurrectionists, that ban who is going to be effective . The constitution explicitly says that you need two thirds of the house and two thirds of the senate to lift the ban and enable an oath Breaking Insurrectionist to hold office. The five justice majority in this case said, no, we are going to rewrite that for various reasons. We are going to rewrite it to say that, unless you have legislation that requires, as you point out, not just a majority of the senate, but given the Filibuster Rule requires a Super Majority of the senate plus a majority of the house, unless you have that legislation, you cannot enforce this provision. An oath Breaking Insurrectionist can hold office as long as minorities of the congress are on that insurrectionist side. That turns the 14th Amendment upside down. It rewrites it without any defense in the text or the history or the purposes of the 14th Amendment. What was the problem that led these five justices to turn the 14th Amendment upside down that way . Well, it was something which appealed to all nine justices, the idea that colorado alone or any other individual state should not be able to make this decision on its own. When that was brought up in the oral argument, the lawyer for the voters who challenged donald trump said, no, we are not saying that colorado should have the last word. We are saying that you, the supreme, a federal institution, should have the last word. You should exercise it by reviewing the decision of the colorado Supreme Court, carefully reasoning the elaborate explanation of why what happened in this case was an insurrection and why donald trump engaged in it. Based on a trial whos fairness not a single one of the nine justices questioned in which donald trump had ample opportunity to present evidence, so all of the Supreme Court needed to do to avoid allowing anyone state to impose a rule on the nation or to impose what it thought would be chaos to 50 different states going 50 different ways was to remember something that this court normally emphasizes. It is the Supreme Court of the United States. All they have had to do was affirm the decision of the colorado court, saying there is ample evidence here in a trial which was fully fair and applied constitutionally appropriate standards, ample evidence to disqualify this oath Breaking Insurrectionist. In other words, they couldve gone in either of two directions and theres only one possible region reason for going in the direction they did. That was that they were doing a favor to both Breaking Insurrectionists, in particular, one donald de trump. That is not the way a court should behave yes, 100 years now, that is still going to be a lesson in how court should not decide cases. It will be a lesson in how a court by a 5 to 4 decision can fundamentally destroy the constitutions deliberate protection against Office Holding by oath Breaking Insurrectionists. I can only imagine Harvard Law School students eyes widening 100 years from now and you have years from now when they read this case. Professor Laurence Tribe, thank you very much for starting off our discussions tonight. Thank you. Coming up, Donald Trumps long suffering and fully humiliated accountant Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty today to perjury in