Good day, i am Chris Jansing along with my colleague katy tour. This is a historic day for america. A fair and functioning judicial system. Today in two courtrooms, two very Different Cases but with one central character, donald trump and one central question. Will there be consequences for his alleged attempts to break the law either now or in the future if hes reelected. Here in New York City, also even more testimony from david pecker and the Hush Money Trial about the lengths to which he, donald trump and Michael Cohen, went to protect his image during the 2016 campaign. Were going to tell you exactly what he testified to along with a phone call that david pecker says he received from donald trump three days before the 2016 election. Also, how donald trump is reacting and he was reacting. At the same time, in washington, the Supreme Court spent hours hashing out Donald Trumps claims of president ial immunity. The questions of whether a future president is Above The Law threatening to change the very nature of what it means to be commander in chief. Joining us now outside the Supreme Court, nbcs justice and bell correspondent, ken dilanian, along with andrea outside the court is joyce vance, former u. S. Attorney. Neal katyal, former u. S. Solicitor general who has argued before the court many times. Also with us, former fbi General Counsel and a former member of Robert MuellersSpecial Counsel team Andrew Weissmann. Joyce, neal and andrew are all msnbc legal analysts. Neal, i have to start with you because you were inside there. We could hear it, but you could see it. What is your big takeaway from today . Well, it was obviously a historic moment. I think thats how people treated it inside the courtroom from the very beginning. You know, President Trumps lawyer actually wound up, went into the courtroom, he sat on the wrong side initially. He wasnt quite as familiar with the court as his adversary, the Special Counsels lawyer. It was really two contrasting styles, and i think thats reflected already in some of the earlier reporting making it seem like, well, the Strident Trump made a lot of points. That lawyer was very strident in contrast to the Special Counsel who acted almost like a counselor to the court, not as an advocate. Went on for hour after hour explaining his position. At the end of the day, i think if i had to count votes and ive seen over 400 Oral Arguments at the Supreme Court. Its often hard to predict, and i think this one is a bit hard to predict, but i think some things came out. Number one, Donald Trumps claim that he is absolutely immune from the criminal law i think got pretty much nowhere with the majority of the court. You had Justice Barrett saying in response to the Special Counsels lawyer saying this would put the president above the la and it would be radical, she said i agree. That was towards the end of the argument. You had the Chief Justice raising concerns about this as well, along with Justice Sotomayor who began the argument by saying, look, youve told the lower court if your argument is true, navy s. E. A. L. Team six could go out and assassinate the rival of a president under a president ial order and that would be okay. Justice sotomayor said are you still sticking with that, and the answer was yes, and Justice Kagan said, you know, does that mean the president could launch a coup or order the military to launch a coup, the answer was yes. Justice Ketanji Jackson towards the end of the Trump Lawyers argument said, wait a minute, youre saying i understand your concern about the president being attacked with frivolous prosecutions, but what about the concern on the other side that the president is Above The Law. So i saw at least five votes for that central proposition that a president is not absolutely immune from the law. He did get some support from Justice Kavanaugh who talked about a Justice Scalia opinion 25 years ago and from justice alito, but i dont think it commanded the majority of the court. Heres where i think that the decision is going to go. The trump team had two fallback arguments. One was this idea that every statute has to say, you know, something is a crime, and by the way, the statute applies to the president. That got some purchase, particularly with Justice Kavanaugh. I dont think it will get a majority of the court, Justice Barrett pointedly said thats ridiculous. There are only two or three statutes in the entire federal code that mention the presidency. We shouldnt require that. The other thing is this compromise that says, look, there are some acts that are private, not official, and as to those, the president doesnt have immunity. I think the members of the court were somewhat surprised with trumps lawyers answer to that in the first part of the argument when he admitted that some of the allegations in the indictment were private acts, not subject to immunity like launching a list of fake electors and the like. Several justices raised their eyebrows right when that happened. The Special Counsels lawyer Michael Brie Ban picked up on that and really hammered the point home, and i can tell you it took a while, but at 11 55, almost an hour and a half into his argument, he was chilling. He talked about the allegations in the indictment that trump took the Justice Department, tried to get them to issue false letters to different states about the election problems. Those lawyers refused, and that trump then threatened to fire them. At that moment, you could hear a pin drop in the courtroom. It was everyone was focused on exactly that. And so if i had to predict where the courts going to go, i think theyre going to focus on that and say, look, thats absolutely not immune. That is what the criminal law is all about. We cant countenance that kind of behavior. Now, if youre talking about other things that are within more core president ial duty, then its a very different matter. The question, the Hard Question is how long is all of this going to take . The court could issue an opinion as early as tomorrow, frankly, that says that, that says were not going to go further into all these complicated issues, but just leave it at that and start this trial. Or they could take months, write a convoluted opinion thats got to be interpreted by the District Court with, you know, more and more proceedings and argument in briefing, and then that could delay the trial past the election. Its all in the courts hands. Neal, i want to ask you about that and bring joyce in as well. There was the view by several of the justices that it could be remanded to the District Court to determine what is an official act and what is a private act. Once they seem to be agreeing that official acts could have immunity and that truly private acts could not, if they had to argue all over again what is official and what is private, thats a District Court argument, District Court pretrial hearing, then that can be appealed, and then you get all the way back. And i believe neal, you and joyce are the experts on this, that those Writing Dissents are given as they were in dobbs, are given the time to write their dissents. So this could go to the end of the term, which is the end of june, the beginning of july. Neal, then you joyce. Yeah, i think thats right. So basically i think the way the rules work is theyre going to go vote right at lunch and decide the case. The Majority Opinion will be assigned. If someones dissenting, the senior justice will in the dissent will be able to authorize whoever writes that. And traditionally, the court is given a lot of leeway for the dissents to take as much time as you want. Here i think the chief understands probably the timing here and will try and push for the dissents to be done early. But you know, this could take a while, and that is clearly the trump strategy. I mean, the trump lawyer spent so much time on absolute immunity, but was very clear midway through the argument what he really wanted was this compromise option. He even said send it to the District Court not to the Court Of Appeals. That would truncate the proceedings. This is a major delay, joyce, just jump in. It is a major delay issue, and Justice Barrett or rather judge chutkan has already told the defendant that there are about 81 days left on the clock. 81 more days for Trial Preparation even after the case is returned to her. Now, that would provide her with time to make decisions, say about the distinction between what acts were official and cant be used and what acts were private and can be used. But beyond that, even if the decision is made and i think neals assessment is a very good one. If this case goes to trial on a theory that says that only private conduct can be the basis for a prosecution, there are difficult evidentiary issues the justices hinted at, he wants to be able to use evidence of official acts like decisions about who can be the Attorney General or the Pressure Campaign against mike pence as evidence of Donald Trumps knowledge and intent. All of this involves more delay, more consuming time before trial. And katy and chris, you know that were in such a time of polarization, but this has always happened out here in front of the court and in front of congress, you have protesters and thats what we have here today. Of course, but you know what i find interesting about that particular sign behind you, andrea, is that its, you know, directly out of Donald Trumps mouth. That allegation of fake news, that was coined by donald trump, and thats whats repeated. Which makes it interesting were talking about Election Interference and january 6th, its all about what sort of influence donald trump had. I want to ask you about remanding it back down to judge chutkan. Is there a way to have her go through the official acts but then let the private acts as conceded by the trump attorney there just like, you know, the calling of doj to try to get them to send these letters pressuring them or threatening a firing, could that keep going while the rest of it gets sorted out . So its really interesting because Amy Coney Barrett was sort of asking that basically, couldnt you if we just make this distinction between private versus official and we say theres no immunity for private, dont you have enough . Couldnt you just streamline the case and go with private . And Michael Dreeban was like if i have to. You know what you cut out of that, you cut out of that what happened at the Department Of Justice which neal was referring to and sort of how devastating that is. Think about that, thats somebody using his public role to help him in his private game, which is to win the election. Thats a more horrible crime than the fake elector scheme. Why would you want to cut that out. But yes, there is a way that depending on how the court rules that you could streamline. One thing that i think people should keep an eye out for is if this goes back for the District Judge to have a hearing on this issue of what is private and what is official, you may not get a trial before the election. Because thats going to get appealed, right . But wait, yes, it can get appealed. Thats what youve been saying. Thats what andrea has been saying. If there is not if this gets all delayed because an opinion doesnt come out until june, theres there definitely is and weve all been talking about its very hard to see how this trial would go. If they send it back for a hearing, the judge can hold a hearing and it can be a factual hearing and witnesses can be called, and she does not have to wait 81 days. She can say, fine, lets have the hearing, two weeks from now, lets go. What does that mean . It means that the evidence that donald trump wants to not ever see the light of day can happen in the District Court. She could say i want to know more about these allegations. I want to understand the factual record. She can have witnesses testify so its not a trial, but she can have a hearing to satisfy whatever the standard is about private versus official so that there could be that sort of Public Hearing and she doesnt because its not a trial where she has said 81 days, but joyce has been referring to, shes not bound by that. But is that less likely than you hold hearings and it delays this for months . I think the chances of having a trial are slim to none. To use something recent, its like having an eclipse. Its very hard to see how thats going to happen. Its possible, but it is not terribly likely. So then you think what are the second best options . You have Donald Trumps lawyers saying, oh, send it back and make it about this, you know, make a decision about official versus unofficial, and then we can appeal it again. My point is, when it goes back to the District Judge, she has leeway to have a factual hearing. And that is exactly what donald trump does not want. If Donald Trumps not elected again, does this trial just go forward as usual unless president biden, if hes reelected pardons him . So leaving the pardon aside, this case could go forward under a second term, and the issue is what exactly the courts going to say about immunity. I agree with the Point Ken Dilanian said, which is there are not five justices who say this case is over. Theyre not saying that for unofficial private acts that theres going to be president ial immunity. The issue is what is the definition of private versus official, and thats why this the argument was somewhat hard to follow because it really got into the weeds about what if you have somebody doing something that seems like its part of their official acts but their motive or their intent is impure. So differentiating private from public acts can get very complicated. Exactly. And thats why, just to be clear, what Michael Dreeben was arguing was twofold. He was saying there should not be criminal immunity for official acts except for a very small Core Function of the presidency. So you dont get to this issue. He said for official acts, there should be no criminal immunity except for things like pardon power, you know, appointment power, sort of very things not at issue in this case. His second argument was that there shouldnt be immunity for unofficial acts and this case only involves unofficial acts. And i want to pick up on that point and ask neal another question and joyce here, because neal, one of the examples, the hypotheticals that Justice Roberts early in the argument against john sauer, the attorney for donald trump, was, well, what if a president appoints an ambassador and then takes a bribe from them, so the appointment of the ambassador is part of a president ial act. Taking the bribe is a clearly criminal act. How do you separate those two things . Yeah, and i think the answer to that really revealed the difference in styles and i think maybe even impact the outcome. So what the trump lawyer said basically was, hey, thats an official act. The president can take a bribe. Cant really prosecute him, and the chief and then also other justices on the court jumped on that, including even Justice Gorsuch and said that cant really be right that a president can be bribed for the performance of his official duties and get off scotfree. By contrast, Michael Dreeben, the lawyer for the Special Counsel took the opposite approach always acknowledging the harm to the other side from his position. At one point, he even said to the court, look, im as concerned about Executive Privilege and undermining the office of the president as anyone. Heres why were striking the balance weve struck. Its the balance that weve had for the last 200 years, and i think that made a lot of headway in the room. So thats why i think the ball game is really whether something thats an official act has to be determined right away or a private act. Is that going to be sent back to the District Court or will the Supreme Court give us some clear guidance now as to whats a private act and whats an official act, and how muc