6 is delayed again. >> we got the judges they had been groomed to put in the pipeline to do what they are now doing. >> how the fire right radical court keeps creating its own law. >> one side or the other, one side or the other is going to win. judge aileen cannon puts jack smith's case amid trial amid the judges who asked her to step aside. louisiana mandates religion in the classroom. >> this bill mandates the display of the 10 commandments in every classroom. >> the hollywood origins of louisiana's 10 commandments. >> those who do not live by the law shall die by the law. >> when all in starts right now . good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. all eyes on the supreme court this week again as the end of its term quickly approaches and they drag their feet on issuing some of the most hotly anticipated decisions. today the court released four opinions but no ruling on the most pressing case of the year, the one that has a clock ticking against it. that of course is trump's claim that he is immune from being prosecuted for any of his actions while in office. the court heard arguments in that case, trumped the united states in february. we have been waiting 113 days and counting for a decision while every day that passes makes it more likely that donald trump will not face legal accountability before the election for his attempted insurrection, but the voters will not be provided information of whether he is guilty. amid that backdrop, it feels like this supreme court is acting less like a court and more like a right-wing legislature appointed for life. the conservative majority included three justices appointed by donald trump increasingly behaves like they have a political agenda to carry out. as we have seen, particularly with alito and thomas, they are making ethical compromises to get it all done. there are some key differences, constitutional differences, between the court and legislature. when a new class comes to congress, they have campaigned on a proactive which ended to voters they plan to enact then come to congress and understand there's a time limit on the plans with elections happening every year sam political capitol. the tried to get moving quickly on their agenda and legislatures are not bound by precedent mac the way the court is or used to be. the party in power does not like a peace of legislation previously passed, the affordable care act, they can campaign unappealing and they're welcome to try to appeal it as many times as they like. they may not have the votes they need to succeed if it's a popular one. the supreme court doesn't work the same way it's not supposed to. the court is supposed to rule on very different matters of law and controversies as they arise out in the world. they don't have the power like legislatures to introduce a bill or a case they want to rule on. they have to wait for an issue to come before them. the key thing about this maga court is everyone in the right- wing universe fully understands they basically want to be a legislature. i do have an ambitious agenda. they feel time is of the essence. the conservative institutions and groups are constantly teeing up issues they want the court to hear. they are working together even if they don't communicate as such. we saw this and black-and-white after trump and third supreme court nominee amy coney barrett who was a clear vote against abortion rights was confirmed. days before the election. while ruth bader ginsburg had just passed away. when that happened, mississippi's attorney general saw her opening and she went back to the court because she knew there was a court to explicitly amend her filing to explicitly ask them to overturn roe v. wade. she didn't do it before but when she saw the numbers, she said let's go whole hog and it worked. they did exactly that two years ago this coming monday. the abortion pill, mifepristone, the court heard this and it was the same situation. right-wing antiabortion activist look at the court and say let's take a shot at this. let's try to ban mifepristone nationwide via judicial field. it was preposterous claiming the food and drug administration should not have approved it as abortion medication and doctors who missed out on giving birth had suffered injury and had standing . that was a step too far even for this court which unanimously dismiss the case on standing grounds last week. the same circus -- circumstances around the tax case. conservative think tank brought the case and it's a little complicated. attack sarah repatriation but what is an effort to get the court to rule preemptively against the possibility of a wealth tax, policy that progressives including elizabeth warren have proposed. the argument went too far even for the maga court. they rejected the challenge 7-2 . again, want to take a shot, right? we are seeing another case in the last 48 hours, teeing up in louisiana where republican governor jeff landry signed a bill requiring the 10 commandments to be displayed in every public classroom at public schools in the state. under current president, the law is unconstitutional, i would say even if it was not under the current precedent. there's established precedent. in 1980, the supreme court knocked down a similar law ruling it was prohibited under the first amendment. governor landry says and i quote i can't wait to be sued. of course, he can't. that makes sense because it's part of the transparent conservative plan to take advantage of this court is behaving more like a legislature, eager to act on right-wing issues. do it now while they have the 6- 3 majority before something could change. sometimes they do overstep. they tried to send things that's a little too nutty even for these justices. 9-0, 7-2 but that's for now. once you throw out the notion of precedent, the right-wing knows that donald trump is reelected, he very well make it to replace marcy's on the court and he could get an even stronger conservative majority. in the meantime, they might as well shoot the shot what the supreme court has become his an unelected lifetime legislature. majority of whom were appointed by presidents who didn't even win the popular vote. harry litman, former u.s. attorney who clerked for two previous justice. a justice correspondent for the nation and they both join me now. let me ask each of you, if you broadly agree. it's a point that my wife has made and all the folks -- it's a novel inside on my part a proactive agenda acting like a legislature in terms of what cases they are reaching out and taking. comparing it to what it used to be like when you clerked? >> vividly. it's even stronger i think than you are saying. the louisiana case is a perfect case in point. if you're court that cares about president and the role of law, what you say when a state legislature boldly and ask a flatly unconstitutional provision under the current law is forget about it. that's the law of the land in just the follow it. maybe we will change it and we will see you then. until then, please follow the supremacy clause in the law of the land. the sponsor actually said she wants people, all children to see what gut says is right and what gut says is wrong. it's a patent violation. it goes to show the broader repercussions of this hyper conservative court, because this was not done with any coordination with the court but groups were there and they were emboldened and enthusiastic. bring it on. let's get sued knowing they can act directly contrary to the constitution or at least as we now understand it, and that's another name for setting an agenda. we saw it in dobbs as well. it wasn't just when the state actually change the law and as the supreme court to do it, but other states going forward or violating roe and getting away with the. that's not the way the rule of law is supposed to do it however you think you will do change in the future. >> just to argue against myself for a moment played devil's advocate. in some ways, you can look at mifepristone, 7-2, these were teed up by these conservative groups. they were wacky legal theories. in the end, this conservative court ruled against the. you could say they really are still doing law. they are not just essentially doing the bidding of the right- wing. what do you say to that? >> no. you forgot about the guns. like any wacky legal theory that leads to mass shootings and mass deaths, guess what, the court is back on schedule, doing the nra's bidding. i went to get your question of whether this is new. it's important for people to understand that in the conservative's on mind and republican on groupthink, they are on the revenge to work. from the republican perspective, the courts been acting as a super legislator in the 60s when it ended segregation. when we had the civil rights era and that stuff. they think they have made a false equivalency between treating black people and women as people when, let's but the 10 commandments back in school. it's that topsy-turvy thing but they think they are getting their revenge on the 1960s and 1970s. they are wrong. one of the reasons why is because this idea that the court superseded elected majorities in the south is kind of wrong when you remember the 1964 civil rights act and the 1965 voting rights act were broadly popular and pass through the democratic process and not the supreme court process. that's the part of the story that republicans seem to forget. they could pass a law banning abortion, if they could pass a law allowing anybody and their mother to own guns, i would like to see them try. they would lose elections but because they would lose elections, that's why they have gone to their conservative buddies at the supreme court. >> this is the issue. something i took from january 6 in 2020 which is the law is what is sufficient critical core, people with law degrees say it is at any given level. it is what will people accept as an argument. in 2020, the arguments were too bad to get a critical mass of people whether in the white house counsel officer in courts. it's not fixed in stone. what you have is a situation where in the political sphere, the limiting condition is politics. in the judicial sphere, the limiting condition is precedent and legal reason. if you throw out the legal reasoning and do what you want to do but you no longer have limiting condition of politics, that's a really scary place to be which is where it feels like we are headed towards. >> yeah, at least in short-term. there are three things going on. the first is just, there's a difference that even in good faith, the views of the current court are out of step with what you just said. 90% of the lawyers and legal scholars would say for starters. second, they have jumped into the political realm . how wells can you make sense of the way they have shielded trump in this case and helped him in the colorado case. it's a bush v. gore problem. the agenda there when it's political is how do we help donald trump? that's not a legal principle. and this is connected with the ethical problem, there's a certain contempt, not just that they are out of step with the people but on several of them, we are, we don't care, we're proud of it. it distinguishes roberts, conservative instincts, but the viewpoint from the court is noxious and will get them in trouble. >> we have the gun case coming and this whole apparatus, the administrative state coming in this immunity thing. if you were to ask me what my guess is in terms of that contemptuous nest, do it on the last day of opinions. we are taking the maximum time to deliver donald trump. good night. have a nice summer. we made sure he cannot see -- >> they can do with then run the day of the debate. they just announced opinion day on wednesday and the most likely have with next thursday. that's the day of the debate, what better time than to give trump a gift saying he's a man from all prosecution other than the day before he goes to the debate to run for reelection. part of me is like, i also want to see the immunity decision. it's important a part to, needs people to realize they already won. they already did everything they have to do to keep trump, the fix is in. we are waiting for their reasoning behind the fix. they have already secured trump's ability to run for reelection before his brought to justice or even trial over january 6. again, when harry talks about the political rulings, it's kind of obvious for everybody to see. i keep waiting for the political branches, for the people i vote for, to do something about these guys. to lock arms, unify and say we are going to get rid of the filibuster in order to bring this supreme court to heal. we will expand the court with justices who believe in precedent as opposed to these yahoos who don't. i keep waiting for the people of 04 to realize the supreme court is a clear and present danger to their entire political agenda, to the entire separation of powers in the constitution and to take the power back from the supreme court that they have given to them these past 25 years. >> harry litman in elie mystal, thank you. the endless mar-a-lago document case, how judge cannon ignored -- it's a bombshell today. advice, strong advice, strong urging from senior judges to step aside. step aside. a slow network is no network for business. that's why more choose comcast business. and now, we're introducing ultimate speed for business —our fastest plans yet. we're up to 12 times faster than verizon, at&t, and t-mobile. and existing customers could even get up to triple the speeds... at no additional cost. it's ultimate speed for ultimate business. don't miss out on our fastest speed plans yet! switch to comcast business and get started for $49.99 a month. plus, ask how to get up to an $800 prepaid card. call today! - [narrator] life with ear ringing sounded like a constant train whistle i couldn't escape. then i started taking lipo flavonoid. with 60 years of clinical experience, it's the number one doctor recommended brand for ear ringing. and now i'm finally free. take back control with lipo flavonoid. it's been close to two years since federal agents executed a search warrant to retrieve the top secret classified documents trump stole. the ex-president still is not gone to trial even as we have seen other high-profile cases like the conviction of fraudster sam bankman-fried in the trial of bob menendez move at a faster pace. bob menendez was indicted in september i want to say? there's one reason for that. judge aileen cannon. the trump appointee has stymied the attempt to bring the case to trial at every turn. it is clear she is some combination of in the tank for the ex-president in over her head relative to her experience as a judge. "the new york times" supports if you win par, quote, shortly after judge cannon drew the assignment to oversee trump's classified document case, two more experienced colleagues on the federal bench in florida urged her to pass it up and handed off to another jurist. she wanted to keep the case and refuse the judge entreaties. mary served as a act on assert -- for national security. she cohosted the msnbc podcast prosecuting donald trump and she joins me now. i found this quite striking because we've had this discussion about this about mentorship, about trial experience, but the complexities of a trial like this versus a judge who has only done a few criminal trials. what was your reaction to this scoop? >> i thought of that very conversation because she sits in a courthouse alone with no other more senior judges and a district i had practice for my career in the department of justice and there is such a wonderful group of senior judges who take new judges under their wing and they help them understand how to manage a complicated case and classified information procedures act and might've urged, as it appears from this article that a chief judge in florida might have urged her to not take this case given the previous ruling she had made and been reversed on by the 11th circuit related to essentially holding the government ski review of this east documents pursuant to a search warrant. when i saw this, i thought i was wrong there was no mentorship. the mentorship clearly failed. i'm also somewhat surprised to see this kind of leaked out because that's extraordinary in and of itself. >> i had the same reaction. the federal judiciary is a difficult place to shake these kinds of things out of. a little more detail. one of the senior judges, chief judge an appointee, republican appointed bush is said to have made a more pointed argument. it would be bad optics for the judge to oversee the trial because of what happened during the criminal investigation that led to trump's indictment and that's a fact sheet issued that pretty well ruling, stopping the government from accessing its own evidence and appointing a special master and was summarily reversed 3-0. that was an interesting detail as well. >> absolutely. it's one thing to say this will be a very big case for you to take on as a new judge and it will involve ossified information, complicated procedures under the classified information procedures act. you don't even have a sensitive compartment facility within the courthouse which means one is going to have to be built to the tune of millions of dollars. maybe it's not the right case at the right time for you. it's one thing to say that and another thing for a chief judge, if the reports are accurate, to say the optics of this are bad. i appreciate the judge recognized that. i think we all recognize that. it's obvious to the rest of us but to say it, i guess i'm not surprised that she assumed it was a confidential conversation. still, didn't feel like we got a window into a private conversation with the reporting today. >> one of the things i was marveling at as i was considering the time line is its two years since that famous -- almost two years -- since that famous search warrant was served. part of the reason it's taken to get from the search warrant to the indictment itself is because there was massive delay in that process created by judge cannon. even before the indictment, she played a role in stringing this out and she's playing a role in stringing it out. >> that's very true. the government had to go to the court of appeals and seek a stayover order and appeal it. the court of appeals did grant this day so they reversed judge cannon twice. that takes time and you've got to divert resources to writing a brief and call to a hall the review of the evidence that was seized. there are so many different times where delay has been incurred. one question we do not know is has these type of phone calls or attempts at mentorship continued? have there been discussions about some of these motions, probably don't require hearings? i don't know. >> one of the things the times pointed out his practice against outsourced the magistrate judge is a standard matter. not for rookie judges and she's not doing that. she is intentionally increasing her workload in ways that are anomalous compared to other judges who have magistrate judges to the ruling. tomorrow, she's running a supreme court on a constitutional matter of whether the appointment of the special counsel is unconstitutional. amicus briefs from interested parties. >> not just amicus briefs but allowing them to argue which is very unusual at the district court level. it's even unusual at the supreme court general. usually the solicitor general, they get to argue, congress, but it's usually a government party and not interested law professors. it is highly unusual the way she has treated hearings and such extensive hearings, but things i think most judges would rule on the papers. that adds to delay as well. >> again, everything points in one direction which is delayed which is what we have gotten. the motivations, the reason for