thank you so much for joining us tonight. remember you can watch the night cap again on saturdays at 11:00 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. if you liked tonight, you will love it tomorrow. for tonight we're signing off. i wish you a very good night. from all of our colleagues across the networks of nbc news, thanks for staying up late with me. i'll see you at the end of monday. on october 1st, 2017 a uniquely american tragedy unfolded on a scale never before seen. >> in a matter of seconds a country music festival turned tragic. a storm of gunfire raining down on a crowd. >> he was shooting everybody and there was dead people everywhere. and i don't even know what was happening. it was just shooting randomly. >> reporter: in the end a massive loss of life and hundreds injured in the worse mass shooting in modern american history. >> the 2017 las vegas shooting was the worse mass shooting in modern american history. over the course of 10 minutes 58 people were killed, several hundred were wounded and two victims later died from their injuries. there have been more than 3,500 mass shootings since then according to the gun violence archive. but the las vegas shooting still remains the deadliest. and there is a reason for that. the shooter used a bump stock. america is the most gun friendly democracy in the world yet even here it is illegal to own a fully automatic machine gun. but a bump stock, essentially transforms the average semi automatic rival into a fully automatic machine gun. s that is how the shooter in las vegas was able to maim so many people in such a short time. even the president at the time, donald trump, the nra's favorite leader felt pressured to do something. he issued an executive order essentially banning bump stocks. now it wasn't comprehensive gun control nor was it banning assault rifles it was just a way to make sure a prohibition on machine guns could stay in place despite this new technology. even president trump could not ignore the pressure to do something in the face of such absolute carnage. in the end though, it didn't matter. today nearly seven years later the conservative majority on the u.s. supreme court struck down president trump's ban on bump stocks. in a 6-3 decision that split the justices along ideological line, the supreme court has decided to put automatic machine guns in the hands of anyone who wants one. it is exactly the kind of ruling we have come to expect from a court that has been radicalized to push a conservative agenda against the public interest and against public support. in 2022, the court made it significantly easier for anyone in this country to carry a concealed weapon. that decision came in the same term that the court conservatives gave the right wing the thing they had been fighting for for 50 years, overturning roe v. wade and ending the right to abortion. the court ended race based affirmative action at universities. it's fairly evident at this point the roberts court is working to enact a conservative agenda. whether that's catering to the nra or shrinking the policy, or by enabling a conservative majority who seeks to hold on to power using undemocratic means. and there's still more of this work ahead. right now we are waiting yet another abortion ruling from the roberts court. one that could significantly hinder doctors ability to provide critical abortion care to people who need it. we're awaiting another firearms decision from this court. one that will determine whether people accused of domestic abuse can purchase a weapon. we are waiting a set of decisions where the court could decide to curtail the government's ability to regulate the safety of the food we eat and the safety of the water we drink. we are awaiting a decision that could oversee charges or convictions tossed out for hundreds of insurrectionists who storm the capital on january 6th. and we are very much still awaiting a decision on donald trump's request for absolute presidential immunity. where at best the court would have significantly delayed justice for a president who tried to overturn an election. or looking to assassinate his rivals without consequence. if it feels like this is just a mountain of major decisions, that's because it is. as mark joseph stern writes, the justices are preparing to hand down 14 extraordinarily high profile opinions, triple or quadruple the number of an ordinary term. it should be said that even in cases where the court did not immediately hand a victory to conservatives the justices have signaled that they might do so in the very near future. yesterday the court unanimously decided not to curtail access to one of the most widely used forms of abortion in the country. but, they ruled so on purely procedural grounds. not on the merits of the case. and that in term allowed justice clarence thomas to offer a path way to try again later. to come back next term with changes in the case that would make the court's conservatives more receptive to their fundamental the áp argument. hint, hint. in the end all this roberts court needs is to enact laws despite whatever american residents have to say about it. joining me, michelle goldburg, an msnbc political analyst. i know it's kind of a lot to deal with on a friday night, michelle. but i was really struck yesterday by the reaction in and around the ruling. on first glance okay they're not curtailing restriction to the most used abortion medication in the country but as you read deeper into the actual opinion you see, thomas is leaving bred crumbs to come back and -- bread crumbs to come back and dismantle the whole thing. >> these doctors, a dentist saying they should be able to ban for you know this kind of really convoluted and ridiculous reason. so they ruled purely on this ridiculous ground of standing. but matthew kesmirick the radical christian nationalist judge who first voted to ban the drug. he's allowed three red states that are angry about people mailing abortion pills into their state's who are blue states. he's allowed them to join the case. they might have a better claim to standing and it basically needs this whole thing is going to wind its way back. >> to the supreme court. >> yeah. >> i was struck by some of the terms even in kavanaughs statement. it is quite clear these conservative justices are sympathetic to the argument, am i misreading that. >> no. and i thinking by dismissing the case on standing grounds they basically didn't have to answer the questions that were raised in the case about whether for example the fda was correct to originally approve, whether the regulations extending access allowing it to be provided via tele medicine are awful. nor did they allow the law to be banned that wouldn't actually have to go through congress but some future republican president or attorney general could enforce. so what they did is they just said, we're not going to resolve any of those issues now before the presidential election and that essentially puts the issue in the hands of the voters who are going to decide whether to elect someone who wants to enforce the concept act or someone who doesn't. >> well, and i mean, there's not settling it before the election also helps republicans who know this is a losing issue for them electorally. i do wonder though, there's not the same amount of smoke and mirrors when it comes to the gun lobby, michelle. and what your reaction to their ruling on bump stocks is. especially in the light of the ruling they're going to make about whether domestic abusers can have access to guns. >> on the merit it's this kind of ridiculous highly technical argument that about what a machine gun is, and whether the function of the, whether kind of the single function of the trigger is about what your finger does or what the internal mechanics of the gun does. really recondice. and i think sotomayor had it right. if it looks like a duck and it walks like a duck. it's a duck. >> if it looks like a machine gun, it's a machine gun. >> this is a kind of shows their radicalism but it's not a, in this particular case, this isn't a second amendment decision. it's a. >> that's an agency call. >> they also have a big ruling coming up where a lot of people expect them to basically gut the ability of not just the bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms but kind of all federal agencies to pass regulation. >> to do what they do which is to regulate. >> right, so this is. i think that this is, you know an auger of a shocking remaking of the federal government. >> i think michelle is talking about the chevron cases and jarksy i'm not a supreme court reporter but there are two big chases that michelle is referring to here leah. that would basically under mine the federal of federal agencies to do their work. first of all the fact that, clarence thomas is weighing in on the machinery of a bump stock clip. in relation to machine gun, this is not what supreme court justices traditionally dos that the work of the atf. the court doesn't want atf regulating bump stocks so basically took their power away to do so today. and they have even bigger fish to fry in these forthcoming cases. do you think we're going to see a wholesale revisitation of judicial reference to federal agencies. >> i think we're going to see a massive realignment within the federal government. under the current system, the chevron doctrine as you're explaining allows administrative agencies that fill in gaps that are left by statutes that congress enacts. if the court does away with the chevron doctrine it will be assuming that power for itself. that is the people who just use six pictures and an animated gif in order to justify unleashing bump stocks on the american people. those are the people that are going to be deciding the future of health, safety, medical, food, drug, environmental regulation that would under sue. there's also a bill about a climate regulation. ohio versus epa. this june is just a catastrophic to happen. >> it's just a staggering number of cases to begin with that they took on of huge national import. and it's, it's not july yet. it's june 14th. they're going to dump these opinions on the american public and the american press. you know, in a way that threatens to overwhelm anyone's ability to make sense of them. >> i think that's correct. and this is in some ways the new normal. the court is taking on a smaller number of cases. but a larger number of these huge high profile, ideologically significant cases that could remake the american government and then loading up those decisions at the end of the term so that people are as you suggest, just overwhelmed. i mean last term, in a single week we were getting affirmative action decisions on west virginia versus epa. the future of clean power plant. the case about lgbtq equality and whether laws guaranteeing lgbt equality could be enforced in all cases. the term before that it was about the future of gun control in bruin coupled with dobb. those decisions came back to back. the court is loading up these decisions, taking on smaller number of cases but also bigger more significant cases. and i think attempting to skirt the public radar. >> yeah, well it also seems pretty clear setting aside the specific cases, the court has become this central lever by which republicans can or conservatives can consolidate minority rule. this is all about a tyranny of a minority. i will call attention to the writing of buoy in the times again. the comments that justice alito was caught on tape making. there are irreconcilable conflicts. will the republican stand or will we fall into a future of minority rule? a huge part of that seems to be the court, michelle. >> right, and alito sort of makes no pretense of being a neutral. this is a zero sum contest and he's going to do whatever he can to advance his side. i think as to this point about how many big kind of hugely influential cases they're taking. they're moving at this sort of breakneck speed to remake american life and remake american government as fast as they can. they're putting their fingers already just by taking this case about donald trump's immunity which i think a lot of people expected to be laughed out of court because it was so o preposterous. i think there's no reason that anybody should believe that this is anything but something kind of partisan. >> thank you both for your time tonight. really appreciate you spending this friday with me. >> thank you. tonight donald trump turned 78 and yet all the attention remains on president biden's age. there is a very unusual strategy behind that. stay tuned. but first republicans are continuing their pursuit of merritt garland as pay back for their front runner prosecution. the top democrat joins me to discuss that, coming up. what causes a curve down there? is it peyronie's disease? will it get worse? how common is it? who can i talk to? can this be treated? stop typing. start 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we could all unsubscribe and switch to xfinity. their connection is unreal. and we could all un-experience this whole session. okay, that's uncalled for. today the department of justice announced that it would not be pursuing the contempt of congress charges levied by house republicans against attorney general merrick garland. the doj explained its reasoning saying the attorney general's actions did not constitute a crime. republicans decision to hold mr. garland in contempt, that decision was an act of political retaliation and one that seemingly failed. but tonight, republicans remain unbowed. speaker mike johnson is threatening to continue this feud in court. in a new letter he says i will be certified the contempt reports to the u.s. attorney for the district of columbia. we will also move to enforce the subpoena of attorney general garland in federal court. this is precisely the kind of cynical games manship the attorney general himself warned about in a rare op-ed this week. garland cautions that efforts to bully and intimidate career. the man called the agent traitorrist and said, trump is going to win the reelection or you can steal another election and then the guns will come out. joining me now is connecticut congressman. let's hear what they said. they're going to take this fight to federal court. what is your reaction to that? >> well first of all, let's remember what this is all about here. they're angry because the attorney general hasn't produced the actual recording of the interview of president biden. now he has produced the transcript. as i think was appropriate and there's a legislative purpose for this. we know the reason why they want the recording is they can mess around with it, clip it or take it out of context in a way to embarrass the president. that's not a legitimate purpose for a subpoena. let's also not forget that navarro of the trump administration is in jail over contempt of congress. steve bannon is on his way to jail for contempt of congress and back when donald trump was president, contempt of congress was like a daily thing like breakfast or exercise. even the speaker of the house, even the speaker of the house will do whatever, anything, absolutely anything to please you know the dear leader donald trump. you know look, donald trump came to capitol hill this week. look at the photographs of the senators and the members of the house representatives looking at donald trump the way that a 13-year-old looking at taylor swift. just look at that and you can see that the congress has been turned into a tool to do the work of donald trump. this is what they do now. >> the tape of republicans singing happy birthday to trump are certainly embarrassing at least to those of us on the outside. the central grievance the republican congress has with merrick garland is a release of the audio tapes of the president's sit down interview with robert herr for retention of documents. it's as absurd and fantastical as this grievance are. they have poisoned some americans certainly against the general. paoáepl people are trying to attack agents. there are others like that in this climate. do you worry about more of that as republicans continue on this campaign? >> of course i do, alex. it's profoundly dangerous to basically vilify the federal government. i was in the chamber on january 6th when thousands of americans attacked the seat of their own democracy. they beat up on police officers, they soiled the very center of our democracy. that happened because people like donald trump and his many accolades in the party convinced as you put it, pretty substantial minority the american population that the election was stolen. despite not a shred of evidence that that was true. it's just the weaponization. who is the one person who was convicted by a federal prosecutor? it's the current president's son. that's not going to stop this very dangerous rhetoric. dangerous also because overtime a, i don't believe in majority but a substantial part of the american public because they've stopped thinking ant the facts are going to lose faith in the fbi. in the department of justice in their government. i don't know what an american looks like when half the population doesn't believe in government. that sounds like anarchy to me. >> i'm looking at the two appointments that speaker johnson made to your committee the intelligence committee. and scott perry from pennsylvania and ronny jackson from texas two of the most outspoken trump supporters involved in the effort to overthrow the 2020 election. do you worry these guys are going to have access to classified information. they love donald trump. donald trump is running for president. are they going to share classified information with don tphad -- donald trump. it does not seem possible to suggest. >> the speaker himself said he put these two on the intelligence committee without by the way telling chairman turner or consulting chairman turner. who has spent the last year working with me to make this economy as serious as possible. look i'm not going to open up on mr. perry and mr. jacks