governor wes moore. why he issued a pardon for thousands of marijuana convictions. and the nation's top doctor calls for tobacco style warning labels on social media. his urgent health alert as the 11th hour gets underway on this monday night. >> good monday evening once again. i'm stephanie ruhle and we are now 141 days away from the election. and president biden's campaign is putting donald trump's criminal conviction and his other legal problems front and center. >> in the courtroom we see donald trump for who he is. he's been convicted of 34 felonies, found liable for sexual assault, and he committed financial fraud. meanwhile, joe biden has been working, lowering healthcare costs and making big corporations pay their fair share. this election is between a convicted criminal, who is only out for himself, and a president who's fighting for your family. >> i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> that ad is part of a new $50 million pushed by the campaign. it could be a preview of how president biden will go after trump's criminal conviction in the first debate, which is scheduled for just 10 days from now. the president is also warning voters that if trump is elected he could pick two more supreme court justices and that would cement a conservative supermajority on the highest court in the land for more than a generation. that warning came during a star- studded fundraiser in l.a. over the weekend and the president had plenty to say about the current state of the court. >> the idea that if he is reelected he's going to appoint two more flying flags upside down is really -- i really mean it. >> could this be the scariest part of all of it? >> i think it is one of the scariest parts but look, the supreme court has never been out of filter as it is today. >> with that, let's get smarter with the help of our leadoff panel tonight. my friend john allen is here, nbc senior national politics reporter and yamiche alcindor, washington correspondent for nbc and former new york prosecutor and civil rights attorney charles coleman jr. john, this new ad is a lot more aggressive than what we have seen so far. wife is the campaign making this choice and why now? >> there are two messages that this campaign, the biden campaign has to communicate. you're seeing both of them in the sad. number one, that donald trump is unfit for the presidency, and number two, that joe biden is actually working to get things done for the american public. that's there wording. but i think it would be -- political malpractice for joe biden's campaign to leave donald trump's convictions on the table and not go after them. number one, the biden base is going to be energized by that. that's going to get them excited. they've been waiting to see their candidate get a little tougher. and in order for joe biden to win over persuadable voters, and we have not seen this movement yet, is going to have to make the case that donald trump's convictions in the criminal court and with the finding of liability for sexual assault are something that independent voters make a decision on. obviously is not the only thing they're going to make a decision on. the economy is number one, according to voters of all categories and classes but this is part of the argument biden needs to sell to those persuadable voters that they simply don't want a convicted criminal in office. all the things that he says in that ad, all the things that his campaigns is in that ad were true about donald trump, which makes it unusual for a political ad. >> yummy's, this ad is titled character matters but donald trump's character has never mattered to any of his voters, not since the day he went down the escalator in trump tower. >> what's interesting here is that the biden campaign is really trying to appeal to the persuadable voters that jonathan was just talking about. this isn't about obviously appealing to the people who were excited when donald trump came down the escalators and said a number of things that people found to be reprehensible about immigrants, about other americans across this country. they're trying to get to the voters that may be still looking at this race and saying i'm not sure who i'm going to go with, and i talked to a lot of those voters. some of them are so-called double haters, people that we really talked to who don't want to see a rematch at all. but when you sort of dig in with those voters it comes down to, well, which one of these people do i like the least, and that's probably not going to be the person that i'm pushing. so here you have president biden making the case about the economy but also really not just talking about the criminal convictions but also talking about the idea that donald trump has been found liable for sexual assault, the idea that he had financial fraud in his background, really trying to tear at the character, not just the fact that he's a convicted, will be a convicted felon if he sentenced and when he's sentenced, but also that he's someone who has sort of sold with a would consider, the biden campaign, to be a lie that he's a good businessman, which is what you hear from a lot of voters who are interested in donald trump or even people who are in undecided or saying donald trump is good with business and there is joe biden trying to make that art in africa this is really something that i think to appeal to the people that are still on the fence, even as we are getting closer and closer to the election, stephanie. >> i'll make that correction for them. donald trump personally and professionally is not a good businessman, but for certain business people they believe he is going to provide them with policies that they like for their business. but all of them know he's not a successful business person. charles, you heard jimmy kimmel say at the end of that clip, this is the most important thing and he was talking about the supreme court, where the president is urging people to understand that trump in a second term could choose two more supreme court justices that are conservative, giving them a super majority on the highest court in the land for a generation. can you help us understand what that would mean for our country? >> stephanie, conservatives have figured out how to weaponize the supreme court and the judiciary to enact their agenda pretty much at every level, so when you're talking about things like the heritage foundation's project 2025, for example, the only way that that has actual peace, even if democrats in congress seek to legislate against it, is if the supreme court and other people on the bench are going to uphold that as law. if they're going to allow that to take place. so when you talk about extending the already conservative super majority on the supreme court, that's what that looks like. it becomes a weapon for the right to enact this agenda and to remain ironclad regardless of what congress does. so this is why this is so important. i think jimmy kimmel was right in terms of bringing that up because what you're talking about is giving the teeth to the actual ideas, the ideology of what we are seeing from the right and being able to survive in a way that's very problematic and the supreme court even tipped further to the right in a conservative way, we could be in big trouble. >> the supreme court is not a typical kitchen table topic for most voters but obviously the impact of the supreme court that's that conservative for the foreseeable future is huge. how does the president get the american voter to understand that? >> this is very much an issue for the biden base. it is something that i think those persuadable voters we've been talking about in swing states are going to pay a little bit less attention to. we heard a little bit of hyperbole there i think from the president saying that the supreme court is the most out of kilter that it's ever been. we have a history of some pretty terrible supreme court decisions, whether it's talking about dred scott, plessy versus ferguson, on and on and on. but i think the president's point here that whoever is elected president may have an opportunity to make one or more selections, of course we don't know what the future is for samuel alito or clarence thomas, both of them younger -- >> they'll be fine -- >> and joe biden. what i mean by that is we don't know that they are necessarily going to retire. we don't know if other justices might retire. it could be zero, it could be nine but the point joe biden is making, and stephanie, i'm sorry to cut you off there but the point joe biden is making is salient with democratic voters, which is that they have seen what the supreme court has done since donald trump made history appointments, including the repeal or the overturning of roe versus wade and many other decisions that they don't like, whether you're talking about the bump stock band that got overturned or you're talking about some very pro- business decisions this court has made. >> and you did not cut me off, john. i rudely interrupted you. one week from today is the second anniversary of the dobbs decision that obviously overturned row. i know you have some exclusive reporting on the biden campaign's plans on reproductive rights, what they're going to do going forward, what they're going to tell us. what should we expect? >> that's right. i got these exclusive details and it really is the biden campaign leaning in on this issue. on the weekend going up into the dobbs anniversary and on that monday of the dobbs anniversary, what we're going to see is something, more than 30 events across this country in battleground cities like detroit and philadelphia. they're also going to have new ads out telling the personal stories of women who had health scares or health crises related to abortion resurgence. they're also going to be holding what i think is really interesting, in person and online storytelling training, so they're going to be really trying to reach out to voters and volunteers and say if you have a story where your life was put in danger, you had a sort of striking thing that happened to you because of an abortion restricted, we want to hear from you and we also want to train you how to talk to your family members and your communities about that issue. another thing we're going to hear over and over again is what, despite the fact that former president trump has said let's leave abortion to the states, he said a bunch of other things, too. the biden campaign, though, is going to be saying donald trump is elected he cannot be trusted, that republicans will be pushing for a national ban, which is really scary for a lot of people. i talked to a woman named caitlin kass who had to leave the state of texas to get an abortion after the baby she was carrying had a birth defect and she told me she's really scared of this idea that a federal ban could go into effect sever messages going to be to those battleground states and especially women who might feel like they're seeing places like california and new york. she's going to be saying, look, if donald trump is elected you won't be safe because he could do something nationally, stephanie. >> charles, let's move back to the supreme court because republican and donald trump supporter byron donalds of florida is encouraging the supreme court to step in on trump's criminal conviction. can you explain to our audience and to the congressman and to former president trump and our viewers, that's not how any of this works. the supreme court doesn't tap in and fix this. >> you know, stephanie, i suppose that there is possibly a reality that exists where i can appreciate byron donalds going as hard as he can to try and become donald trump's vp pick but showing yourself as having absolutely no knowledge of how our actual government works is not the route that i can support. this is not a starter anywhere. donald trump was convicted of criminal acts here in new york state, in new york city, in a local court. the supreme court is not just going to tap in, in this issue, absent a controversial question that deals with the constitution and has standing and is ripe. none of those things are here. the parties have not appealed this to the supreme court. it would have to go through several appeals before it got to the supreme court, and for anyone who's out there and wondering, this is not a partisan issue. recall, jack smith tried to get the supreme court to jump the line earlier when we had conversations about the presidential immunity decision, and the supreme court declined to. why? because that's not how it functions. this is not even something that, generally speaking, would fall under the purview of the supreme court, absent an appeal which brought up an issue that would sit before them. so again, while donalds maybe wanting to play nice with donald trump so that he can gain favor to become his vp, none of this is how government functions and for him to be a member of the house of representatives and saying this is an embarrassment to government and how democracy is supposed to actually work. >> charles coleman taken us to school tonight. john, i want to go back to something you mentioned a moment ago. we saw the court's impact when it overruled the bump stock band but you wrote that was always the plan of donald trump anti-gun lobby, and it's amazing because i think back to when he did something on bump stocks and so many people said, like wow, maybe he's not beholden to the nra. maybe this is something that could be good for most americans. explain this to us. >> i think it's really important, stephanie, to go back to that moment in time. there was such public outrage over the las vegas shooting and this device that basically allows a semi automatic weapon to be converted into an automatic weapon, to fire like an automatic weapon. donald trump had a choice and his choice was do-nothing and please the hard-core gun rights activists or to legislate and basically go through a process that might have resulted not only in banning bump stocks permanently but also potentially more gun control legislation. every time we see a poll we know the american public is overwhelmingly in favor of more gun restrictions than we have now and what trump chose was a third path, the one that was laid out by the national rifle association, and what they said was use the atf to create a regulation that bans these bump stocks and the nra knew full well, in fact, in their statement they pointed to this question of does the semi automatic rifle actually convert into an at automatic rifle which clarence thomas cited in the majority opinion. they knew full well that there was a very good chance the supreme court, particularly one with more conservative justices on it, would decide that the bump stock band by the executive branch for that regulation rather than legislation would get knocked down and that's exactly what we saw happen. sometimes it takes a long time for a plan to come together, but in this case, donald trump and the nra eventually got it seven years after the original tragedy. >> translation, trump was never going to stray from the nra. john, your niche and charles, always good to see you all. when we return, a historic mass pardon. maryland governor wes moore is here to talk about his forgiveness of thousands of marijuana convictions. and later, with just 10 days to go before the first residential debate, we've got new details on what to expect. here's a clue. the circus went becoming to town. the 11th hour just getting underway on a monday night. ay his #2s are perfect! he's a brand new dog, all in less than a year. when people switch their dog's food from kibble to the farmer's dog, they often say that it feels like magic. but there's no magic involved. 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