. a very good day to all of you, i'm alex witt in for chris jansing. the supreme court strikes down a trump era ban on bump stock, the devices that allow rifles to fire faster, almost like a machine gun. the heated reaction coming into the decision. also breaking a major health update on the princess of wales, what we're now learning about her treatment and plans for a major public appearance tomorrow. plus, peace, according to vladimir putin. the russian president lays out his terms for a cease fire, more than two years into his gruesome war in a ukraine. what reception is that getting in kyiv. and did donald trump just empathize with joe biden? his surprising comments about being a father and having to deal with hunter biden's conviction. our nbc news reporters are following the latest developments for us. we're going to begin with nbc's julia ainsley who joins us from outside the supreme court. julia, welcome. so break down this major decision on the rapid fire gun accessories. >> reporter: believe it or not, this is a gun case that didn't hinge on the second amendment. this is about whether the atf went too far by defining guns that have bump stocks that allow them to fire rapidly was a machine gun according to laws that congress has set out. the majority opinion here was divided along ideological lines. the majority opinion said, yes, the atf did go too far, and this should not count as a machine gun. in writing the majority opinion, justice clarence thomas said you could only count a weapon with a bump stock as a semiautomatic weapon, the same way you could a person who happened to have a lightning fast trigger finger, but in the dissent, we heard a sharp dissent and joined by the other liberal justices saying if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and sounds like a duck, i'm going to call it a duck. meaning a gun with a bump stick is just a semiautomatic weapon by any other name, and we're already hearing from the biden administration today. again, turning back to the reason why the regulation went into place in the first place, is that the deadliest in u.s. history, mass shooting in las vegas in 2017, that killed 58 people, wounded over 500 others. the biden administration today, president biden saying that thoughts and prayers, we know, are not enough, and he called on congress to pass a law that explicitly bans guns with bump stocks. >> and indeed, i should say with regard to sonia sotomayor, part of her response there was saying that this is going to hamstring the government's efforts to keep machine guns from gunmen like the las vegas shooter. it is a profound ruling we have come across. thank you so much, julia ainsley, for going through that. nearly three months after she revealed her cancer diagnosis, the princess of wales is set to make a much anticipated public appearance. let's go right to nbc's meagan fitzgerald, who's outside buckingham palace for us. this is very good news. what can you tell us about it. >> reporter: good to be with you. this is extraordinary news, just within the last hour here where the princess of wales saying that she will attend the king's official birthday parade, trooping the color tomorrowment she'll be riding in a carriage alongside her three children, and will appear on the balcony, in one of those highly anticipated moments of the celebration. in fact, i want to read a part of a statement she released a letter that she wrote to the world. she says i am making good progress but as anyone going through chemotherapy will know, there are good days and bad days. my treatment is ongoing and will be for a few more months. i'm looking forward to attending the king's birthday parade this weekend with my family, and hope to join a few public engagements over the summer, but equally knowing i am not out of the woods yet. also the king has said he is delighted to know she will be attending this event. look, anybody who has cancer or knows someone who's been struggling with cancer, this is really a humanizing letter. you know, the good days with the bad days, the fact that she relishes in the good days and in the bad days she surrenders to her body. she's trying to do what she can, working from home. as she mentioned in the letter, she's going to try and make appearances throughout the summer. the palace is very clear to say that, look, this does not mean that she is returning to public duty. she said she's not out of the woods yet. she's going to be doing what she can. this was certainly a welcomed surprise. a lot of people speculating on whether or not we would see her tomorrow. just last week she apologized for not being able to appear at the rehearsal. the first time, alex, that we would will seeing her since she made that announcement three months ago. >> i am confident king charles will be more than happy to share the spotlight with her on this day that they celebrate his birthday, which we should note, i know you have done that before, his birthday is in november. thank you so much, meagan fitzgerald for that. meantime, vladimir putin is laying out his conditions for peace talks with ukraine. richard engel is joining us from ukraine. there could be an immediate cease fire. now he's laying out these terms, they're his terms. how much space is there between what he wants and what ukraine and its allies will accept? >> reporter: at this stage, he gave this speech to diplomats, he was taken to his own foreign ministry. it seems he's trying to state the message that diplomats in russia should carry out to their embassies and consulates around the world. this is now officially policy, and his statement made it seem like russia is being very generous and conciliatory. russia's position is give russia, forever, four provinces in ukraine, and these provinces are large. each one about -- think of it almost like a state in the united states. give russia these four provinces, which it doesn't control. it only controls part of these provinces, which it occupied illegally, ukraine is fighting back to reclaim the territory. whether it holds them or not, russia is saying, putin is saying, give us these four provinces, have ukrainian troops pull out of them, make sure that you never join nato. demilitarize particularly in the east, and then we can talk about peace. so vladimir putin is asking for the land that russia already controls, which it occupied by force. plus the area that it is trying to capture by force right now. it is something that ukraine won't even consider. they haven't gotten to the stage where they're in serious peace talks with russia. in fact, just this weekend, there's a major summit in switzerland, where they're trying to frame what a possible peace deal could look like, and that is why we saw the timing of president biden announcing this major new package, defense security packed between ukraine and the united states ahead of this summit on peace this weekend in switzerland. now vladimir putin is chiming in saying, okay, while you're meeting in switzerland, here are my terms. here's everything i have, plus i have been trying to capture in eastern ukraine. it is something the u.s. is clearly not in a position to accept based on the fact that the u.s. just signed the security pact. his audience could be a future president trump if he returns to office because it is the kind of deal that potentially president trump might except considering he's expressed reluctant to continue support for ukraine, both while he was a presidential candidate and while as president. and in time since he's been another candidate. >> yeah, 100%, and donald trump has shown his disdain for nato. what putin is asking for is ukraine to refrain from the possibility of joining nato and the relative security that comes with it. that is clearly a nonstarter at this point. richard engel, thank you very much, we appreciate the long distance connection with you. let's go to surprising comments from donald trump when it comes to hunter biden's conviction. nbc's dasha burns is covering the trump campaign for us. welcome. trump spoke after, not with, president biden and confirmed he will not pardon or commute his son's sentence. of course coming from president biden, but what all did trump say about it? >> so, alex, a moment of empathy from the former president for the current president. he was asked by a fox news reporter yesterday what he would do if he were in president biden's shoes as a father himself. take a listen to what he said. >> i understand that whole subject. i understand it well. we have it with people in the families, it's a very tough thing, a very tough situation for a father. it's a very tough situation for a brother or sister. and it goes on and it's not stopping, whether it's alcohol or drugs or whatever it may be. it's a tough thing. >> so, alex, the former president's own brother fred struggled with alcoholism. he died in 1981, and trump has always had a sort of soft spot, if you will, for folks that are struggling with whether it's alcohol or drugs or what have you. this was a moment where, you know, he kind of did put himself in the shoes of someone else in a topic that he and his family are familiar with, alex. >> and, indeed, i believe the effect of that and fred's struggle with alcoholism on the president has left him, he never consumes alcoholic beverages, i recall that. thank you so much, dasha burns. democrats on the attack in battleground, wisconsin, how they are tearing into trump for allegedly calling the city of milwaukee horrible. of milwaukee horrible so this is pickleball? it's basically tennis for babies, but for adults. it should be called wiffle tennis. pickle! yeah, aw! whoo! ♪♪ these guys are intense. we got nothing to worry about. with e*trade from morgan stanley, we're ready for whatever gets served up. dude, you gotta work on your trash talk. i'd rather work on saving for retirement. or college, since you like to get schooled. 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(dog bark) it's just smarter, healthier pet food. it's amazing what real food can do. donald trump, after he called milwaukee quote, a horrible city. here's a look at the billboard they're putting up around the city slamming trump for that remark, which was also featured on the front page of the "milwaukee journal sentinel", and the mayor is fighting back against the former president arguing he might regret saying it come november. >> it's not the right move. it's kind of bizarre in a way. so i think at the end of the day, in a state that's decided on a razor's edge, that may ultimately cost donald trump the election. what i said earlier today was, look, if he thinks that cities are horrible, then we should work in this city and cities all across the country to make sure that he doesn't have to live in another city that he probably thinks is horrible as well, and that's washington, d.c. >> well, the trump campaign denies the former president even made that remark, with adviser steven chung said it was about how terrible crime and voter fraud are. joining us in the studio, basil smikle, former chair of the new york state democratic party, democratic strategist, and msnbc political analyst. as i welcome you, milwaukee is not alone here. he has slammed baltimore. he has slammed new york, but the question is are there some racial undertones in your mind, taking on urban america, given all of your work in state politics, do you think that that will come back to bite him you know where, and is it the fact that voters are capable of distinguishing between urban and suburban areas in states? i mean, bring me into that. >> sure. he's done that both for cities and countries, remember the asshole countries, right. so yes, this is racialized, urbanized. we should remember that he tends to take these kinds of jabs against leaders of color, if you incorporate tish james and alvin bragg, certainly folks that have him in legal trouble, however, he takes shots at leaders of color. i would say that the tactic he uses is not something unlike what republicans have used in the last few years. they try to point to issues that may be representative of cities and get that to expand into the suburbs. we saw that in new york in congressional races and the gubernatorial election in 2022. there are ways in which they try to take these urban problems, expanded, extrapolated from the suburbs to move suburban voters to vote on issues that aren't specific to them. and so, yes, this is rationalized, it is urbanized, it's a tactic that republicans have used quite extensively. and i do think -- >> effectively? >> i don't think it's as effective as i think it is. it's a dog whistle. democrats have been very good at, as you mentioned, drawing that distinction. you know, democrats have good candidates, and because they have been able to sort of turn and pivot from those kinds of remarks, democrats have found some success. so i think we'll see it more and more often from donald trump and republicans but i do think, like you talked about the dnc, putting up these billboards, you know, democrats are fighting back. >> there's a new piece in semafor, and sought to interview black with a focus on race being influenced by black men he has been around over his life, and when asked about how he responds to black voters who call him racist, trump said, i have so many black friends if i were racist, they wouldn't be friends, they would know better than anybody, and fast, they would not be with me for two minutes if they thought i was racist, and i'm not racist. >> yeah, the old black friends thing. we've heard that a thousand times before. just because you know some black people, doesn't mean you understand or actually get what african-americans are going through. the fact that you, going back to your first question, the fact that you attack african-american leaders, the attacks on milwaukee are done in conjunction with the attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion, republicans have lumped that in. what does that say? that tells a voter when you see someone in a position of power, particularly in they're african-american that they are not competent at that job. so what he does is he aligns himself not with black leaders or with black community leaders but black celebrities because he believes that that celebrity connection is how you talk to us. that is not how you talk to us. he won't go into communities and actually do the kind of ground work that that 2012 moratorium after the election that republicans said they were going to do, they didn't do it. so it's just a lot of talk, and it's actually pandering. it's condescending, and it's insulting. >> thank you for saying it as you see it. i think a lot of people agree with you, basil smikle, as usual. thank you so much. a day of reckoning for conspiracy theorist alex jones. the ruling just in as he tries to pay more than a billion dollars for his lies about sandy hook. s lies about sandy hook (man) every time i needed a new phone, i had to switch carriers... 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(mom) my turn. reaction is coming in to the supreme court's decision to strike down the ban on bump stock devices from the nonprofit gun control organization brady. united against gun violence bump stocks essentially turn semiautomatic weapons into machine guns, weapons of war should have no place in our communities. joining me now is the president of that group, chris brown. i'm awful glad to see you. i'm sorry about these circumstances. i imagine there are several implications you are not welcoming relative to today's decision. >> yes, i mean, i was at vegas, one of the deadliest shootings we have had in american history where 60 people were killed. over 500 injured with a shooter equipped with bump stocks. basically what bump stocks do is they make a semiautomatic weapon function as a machine gun, and those are banned for a reason in 1934. the accessibility of bump stocks which the atf had banned and the supreme court just overruled means that we are making available on the market tools for any person to transform a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun, completely circumventing the 1934 law. it's a ruling that defies logic as sonia sotomayor said in her dissent, if something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck. it's a duck. what we have here with bump stocks are clearly devices that americans want banned. over 80% of americans wanted this to happen, and i have to say, they were banned under the trump administration following vegas. so i'm very perplexed, deeply troubled by this ruling. >> in fact, donald trump called for it himself. let's listen together as i play a clip from a witness to the 2017 las vegas shooting who testified before a senate hearing. here's that. >> i am not someone who is antigun. i'm very pro second amendment, but i support senator feinstein's bill to ban bump s