Another. We will tell you everything you need to know about what comes next. And joe biden is working to get under his skin, and it seems to be working. I will ask ron what he thinks about that strategy. Plus i will talk to john favreau and john lovett, with god save america. [ music ] its safe to say there was a lot of legal news this week. In a courtroom in downtown manhattan, there were hours of testimony about donald trump and the National Inquirer and how they tried to kill chances for stories. Trumps lawyers were making an argument that killing your political rival would be completely fine for a president. That was the argument. It has been a lot to take in. What happens this week matters, it should matter to all of us. Its important to talk about why , especially in these moments where it feels like we are all drinking from a News Firehose. We are going to start on thursday, at the Supreme Court. When you listen to these arguments, you may have thought you cant possibly be serious. If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military or order someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which you can get immunity . It would depend on the hypothetical, we could see that be an official act. You heard that after correctly, he said it could be an official act. Thats right, if they feel their opponent is corrupt, they can take care of that by killing them. But wait, thats more. At one point, Justice Kagan asked if a resident could sell Nuclear Secrets to a foreign adversary. What did trumps lawyers say . Isil yep. Could he get away with in a coup . Maybe. If the president does it, kills, if he felt National Security secrets, its not illegal. It may have sounded like the justices were preparing for this hearing by coming up with the craziest possible scenarios, whatever shocking thing trumps lawyer would say in response wouldnt really matter, because its not something that would actually happen here. But the thing is, none of this is much of a hypothetical when it comes to donald trump. In 2020 he was reportedly involved in efforts to directly defend a secretary seizing voting machines. Thats on a coup. And he mused about executing mark millie. A staffer who leaked a story about him he said should be executed too. Former attorney general bill barr said he used to say that sort of thing all the time. So when it comes to donald trump, no, those hypotheticals that got tossed around the Supreme Court this week are not hypotheticals, are they . These are clearly still rattling around in his head, these are thingss lawyers are saying should be okay for the president to do. Heres the other really important thing to understand about all of this. The view of the presidency that donald trump has, this absolute power Above The Law mindset is literally his plan for his second turn. The far right think tank the Heritage Foundation is drafting plans to convert his calls for revenge and lawlessness into action. Its called project 2025, its nearly 1000 pages long, is online, you can read it if you like. Let me give you a cliff notes version. The goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained and prepared conservatives to to work on day one to deconstruct the administrative state. One big area of attack, the Justice Department. Which project 2025 says has lost its way, and to find its way back, it must become subservient to the white house. In Plain English, that basically means they want to remake the structure and staffing of the Justice Department so an independent branch of government looks the other way, while trump basically does whatever the heck he wants. As the New York Times put it, according to the project 2025 plan, the law must submit to the president priorities, if not, the lawyers are doing it wrong. Oral arguments arent exactly Appointment Television all the time, they are confusing and longwinded at times, but they matter, clearly in the context of the specific case, but also because the responses tell a lot about how he sees the power of the presidency, and of how he looks at a second term. Andrew is a former General Counsel at the fbi, lisa rubin is an embassy in b. C. Legal correspondent. This is like a trove of legal brains here. Youve argued more cases in front of the Supreme Court, you were in the court on thursday. What was the biggest take away most of the time when you walk out of the Supreme Court, you know whats going to happen. That was not true here, it was very hard to predict where the justices were lined up. This should have been an easy case. As you said at the top of the show, trumps lawyers are making bunkers arguments. And he was very erudite and collegial. If you werent in the courtroom, it sounded like a scholarly disquisition and not persuasion. In the courtroom, i think a lot of points did land with the justices, and i think the most chilling point came at 11 55 a. M. , almost two hours after the argument, he had been talking for more than an hour, he described the justices something that you are saying, this is not hypothetical, this is what the indictment says donald trump did to the Justice Department, pressuring the Justice Department to try to send letters to state legislatures, saying this Election Fraud and the like, then threatening to fire those staffers when they refuse to do that, and the justices did really perk up. I saw four justices, really rejecting this absolute immunity claim. Where it was the Chief Justice on this . Playing his cards close to the vest. Did anything surprise you . Its important to remember that at the outset, the court had already given donald trump the wind that he was seeking, the delay of the d. C. Trial. Going into this, it was all upside for him. He had to be thinking im making an outlandish argent argument with ramifications that couldnt possibly be squared within the text and history, and the constitution, or the history of the presidency. Its all upside if the court would actually bite on this, so what was surprising is that there were justices who were actually taking this seriously, its frankly shocking, going into this, the given was that private conduct was certainly not immunized from criminal liability, and what everyones talking about now, maybe they will think some of this is private, and they can go forward, that was what was a given going into this, and the reason people are thinking that, there seems to be justices that were really taking Donald Trumps claim of criminal immunity seriously, and i know it sounds like hyperbole, but i think your opening is so correct, we are essentially one vote away from the end of democracy as we know it, with checks and balances, to say its an imperial presidency that would be created, its frankly saying it would be a king, he would be criminally immune. That is what is so shocking, how close we are, and we are really on the razors edge of that kind of result, but for the Chief Justice. One vote away, when you put it in those terms, it is very, very stark. Amy Coney Barrett had a line of questioning that jumped out to me, im not a lawyer, but she was basically handing the distinction down between official and private, did that stick out to you . What was she trying to get at, in your assessment . I think shes trying to get at the fact that indictment mostly alleges a number of things that are private acts, despite the characterization of john sauer, they are anything but official, at one point the president advanced a defense on the basis of the First Amendment, and those things cant coexist, you cant say on one hand that hes been charged with primarily official accent on the other hand one First Amendment reduction, because that would not apply for the president but in the fact hes acting in a personal or campaign capacity. Amy Coney Barrett trying to suss out and pin down john sauer with respect to the actual allegations in this indictment were both helpful and surprising, nobody had her on the bingo card as the swing vote here. I certainly didnt, it sounds like most of you didnt either. Im going to play a moment from justice alito. If an incumbent loses a very close, hotly contested election and knows a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but the president will be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a Duck Democracy and he seems to be arguing in Plain English that immunity is necessary, because otherwise president s will feel fear prosecution and be incentivized to hold onto power unlawfully. Would you make of that statement . I thought it missed two really important things, one, the over 200 year history of this country in which thats and literally never happened even though weve always thought that president s were subject to criminal liability, and second, it ignored the powerful remarks made january 2021, when a lawyer went to the congress and said do not impeach president trump, instead, you can indict him after he leaves office, that person was Donald Trumps own lawyer. Trump, in the impeachment, was saying i cant be impeached, i can only be indicted, now that he left office, he saying i can be indicted and i can be impeached. This is all a recipe to put him Above The Law. He said a lot of things that come back to bite. Neil, thank you so much for your time and incredible Supreme Court expertise. Andrew, lisa, steve right where you are. Lisa was in the courtroom, andrew has thoughts as always, we will be back after this. [ music ] ] call or click today. 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We could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. Their connection is unreal. And we could all unexperience this whole session. Okay, thats uncalled for. In Donald Trumps criminal trial, we heard the defense team argued he was trying to suppress negative stories about himself or personal reasons, that the catch and kill scheme he hooked up with the National Enquirer and david pecker was completely unrelated to the 2016 campaign. Trumps attorney went out of his way to point out that trump is a husband, and a father, and claimed that the whole scheme is simply intended to protect trumps family. David pecker testified to the contrary, saying that the purpose was really for the campaign, in fact he said trumps family was never even mentioned, not by Michael Cohen or even by trump himself in their conversations. In the case of Karen Mcdougal, he confirmed that they suppressed her story to influence the election. And lots of details were revealed, but more importantly, he made clear he was aware that they were not only doing something unethical, but illegal. When asked point blank whether he knew that paying to kill stories on behalf of the president ial candidate was against the law, he said yes. Lisa, so much legal news for both of you. Thank you for being here. David pecker was first for a reason. You have both been part of the strategy. How did he lay the groundwork for the prosecutors case as we look to the next stage . Really only. That will have a lot to do with the homework that the manhattan d. A. S office stated. Remember, this case is not so much about the Hush Money Scheme as it is about falsification of business records, 34 counts of it. What makes it felony is that it was done with the intent of concealing or committing another crime. What david pecker did was establish that other crime, namely a conspiracy to promote or prevent the election of a particular person through unlawful means, where one or more acts were taken in that direction. He laid all that groundwork, the formation of the conspiracy, the unlawful means, the Karen Mcdougal settlement payment, and the way it was orchestrated, and thirdly, the fact that the unlawful means here was not only the agreement, but the fact that they had services in an attempt to Skirt Campaign Finance law, he knew paying her off to suppress the story with the goal of promoting trumps election was unlawful, so what he did was in that agreement to purchase on her story also provide that she would do columns or serve as ready Carpet Interviewer for one of their properties and the like. That was all a ruse that Karen Mcdougal took very, very seriously, that Pose Problems for them, because she wanted them to make good on that portion of the agreement. And really, they had done it all along to silencer. David testimony was so interesting. I wanted to go in reverse, and ask you about Todd Blanches opening statement. He made some pretty bold statements in the hearing, he basically denied trumps alleged affair with daniels. Thats not part of the necessary legal argument, but does that matter . Could it come back to bite him . When you are on trial, prosecution or defense, you need to be extremely careful about what you promise a jury. What happens is both sides listen very carefully to that, and it will come back, if you have promised something that did not come to play, you are going to hear that. The statement that denying the tryst with stormy daniels, im not exactly sure how that will come into evidence. Stormy daniels is clearly going to say it happens, donald trump, who everyone thinks is not going to testify, im sure the prosecution would love it if he did, for the same reason he never met with us in the mueller investigation, i think theres no way in gods green earth hes going to testify, i dont know how thats going to come into play. Thats the kind of thing where it may be that todd blanche felt he had to say that for his clients. He needed to say it for a sort of public concession. At trial, its going to hurt him if he doesnt prove it, in summation, you are going to hear the state saying this is what he told you, that is not true, dont trust him. It is very, very important what people say in openings. One of the things we learned this week, there are text and email exchanges for all of this. Some of that, we learned about this week. Dylan howard sent a text to a relative saying at least if he wins, i will be pardoned for electoral fraud. The judge will allow it in evidence, but doesnt it make it really clear they knew this was illegal . It absolutely makes it clear that david pecker knew it was legal, and that howard had figured it out as well. This is sort of a close call from an evidentiary perspective, most times