good day. 2:00 p.m. eastern, 11:00 a.m. pacific, i'm jose diaz-balart in today for chris jansing. we are following multiple big stories including a push by donald trump to get his classified documents case thrown out. the battle over special counsel jack smith's authority and why there are also questions swirling about the judge. plus, donald trump's veep stakes enters the home stretch. the top three contenders who have emerged from a list that once included 20 names. and breaking news from the supreme court, the major decision on whether domestic abusers should be able to own or have a gun. and the one justice who dissented from the other eight. but we begin here in florida where the trump appointed judge overseeing the former president's classified documents case is growing under some scrutiny for holding hearing after hearing after hearing without ever even setting a trial date. and it's happening again today. judge aileen cannon holding what will be the first of multiple days of arguments on whether the top prosecutor in the case, special counsel jack smith was improperly appointed but the fact that the hearing is happening at all is what's getting a lot of attention since similar challenges involving special counsels like robert mueller were quickly rejected. the "new york times" describing it as the latest example of judge cannon's quote unusual handling of the case has now become business as usual. i want to bring in nbc's ken dilanian outside the court for us in fort pearce, florida. also with us, criminal defense attorney, and msnbc legal analyst, danny cevallos, and msnbc's katie phang. so, ken, what is the latest from the court at this hour? >> reporter: what's unfolding in the courtroom this afternoon is something extremely unusual. judge aileen cannon is hearing from so-called friends of the court. outside lawyers who are coming in to argue both sides of the question of whether the appointment of jack smith as special counsel is constitutional and proper, and therefore whether this case should be dismissed if it's not. cannon agreed to hear from two different parties arguing that it was unconstitutional, and one party arguing against that side. that's in addition to hearing from the defense and the prosecution. legal experts and, danny can speak to this, this just isn't done in a federal criminal trial r bringing in so-called friend of the court. it's adding to the time of a lengthy process. and as you said, jose, this argument that the special counsel appointment is unconstitutional has been tried and failed with respect to two previous special counsels, robert mueller and david weiss who was prosecuting hunter biden. the only different wrinkle here is that jack smith has never been confirmed by the senate, and part of donald trump's argument here is that jack smith is wielding too much responsibility for someone who wasn't reviewed by the legislative branch. the counter argument to that is, in fact, it's merrick garland who's supervising his prosecution. merrick garland can block any action he deems unfit by jack smith. whether she rules it's constitutional or not, the up shot of all of these hearings, as you said, this case has been delayed and delayed, and there's really very little possibility it's going to go to trial before the november election. >> ken dilanian in fort pierce, let's talk about that. the weather is constitutional, the special counsel, jack smith's case to be there or not. i'm thinking like on standing on this, is this where this argument should be made? >> this is a long shot argument. i have seen similar motions filed. they are rarely successful, and it's based on the idea that jack smith is either not senate confirmed or he's an employee. that's what some of the professors are arguing that he's not even in an inferior officer, he's just an employee. the bottom line and ken dilanian explained the difference very well that he was never senate confirmed. it's a long shot, we defense attorneys are duty bound to make long shot arguments as long as they're not patently frivolous, and it's probably not going to succeed. judge cannon is already apparently skeptical, but i will say that it is unusual to have friends of the court actually come to oral argument. this is the kind of thing judges usually decide based on the papers, without a whole lot in the way of evidentiary hearings. these are really novel concepts in cases of great import, so it may be highly unusual, and i think it's fair to criticize judge cannon for taking this much time and resources, but i guess you could argue that it does give more factual evidence, more scholarly evidence into the record. >> katy, let's talk about that, friends of the courts being allowed to argue inside the courtroom, you know, and danny was talking about the unusual nature of it. but isn't this whole process unusual, and is this something that could be grounds for, i don't know, any legal movement going forward? >> well, you mean in terms of being able to appeal it if something happens? obviously whatever disposition of the hearing, the motion to dismiss, if it's granted, you can expect jack smith to appeal the decision to the 11th circuit because not only has it been challenged before, this idea of an appointment of a special counsel, and if you've heard the arguments from special counsel's office as well as from matthew seligman, one of the friends of the court lawyers who have showed up today and argued in court on behalf of the appointment of jack smith, there's precedent, united states v. nixon says that you can have special counsel in these rules. what's kind of wild is if you look at what trump is arguing, jose, and if you look at what the friends of the court in support of trump are arguing, they're complaining there's not enough oversight by anyone like merrick garland, for example, to jack smith. if you think about it, can you imagine the factual scenario in which merrick garland was monitoring on a day-to-day basis the litigation. you would have an argument from donald trump and others that there was too much interference. >> the ag's responsibilities don't normally include that, do they? >> that's why you call them independent special counsel. they operate independent of the attorney general and i will bring this example up, jose. hunter biden has independent special counsel that prosecuted him and continues to prosecute him for certain violations of the federal law, and so that is why it's a disingenuous position to be taken by trump, and the thing that's wild is we're spending hours on television, we have people in force pierce, and the judge could rule on the merits, based on the filing. >> you talk about the days spent on this, we're a year in and there's still no forward path that's been clarified by the judge. >> yeah, so we were all collectively duped when we got a trial date in may of this year, and some of us believed maybe naively there would be an adherence to that. everybody says there's this complexity to this idea that the classified documents case needs to be done -- and listen, there is a statute that is governing, the classified information procedures act, governing the processes and procedures, but this is one of the most important cases donald trump is facing, in terms of violations of national security, violations of the espionage act, and it's also one of the easiest cases to be prosecuted because you're not supposed to keep these documents period. i think it's frustrating for a lot of people that want to see justice move efficiently, that we've got a judge who seems to be looking like she's putting her thumb on the scale right now. >> the hearing comes after "the new york times" reporting that judge cannon suggested suggestions by two federal judges that she stepped aside. initially, we talked about this on, well, all kinds of legal experts about her selection, how big of a deal is it that these two judges urged her to step down. here is the question to you, danny. have you heard of this ever happening before? we should not be hearing about this even if it does happen. how unusual is this. >> it's so unusual, part of it may be the fact that i have never been a federal judge. maybe this goes on and we don't know about it. it seems so unusual that two judges would go to another district court judge and suggest she not take the case. at the same time, that doesn't necessarily mean that the district court judge should listen to them. that is part of the broad independence that the framers put into the constitution for federal judges, and look, i mean, once a federal judge has the case, she's under no obligation to listen to that judge, even if it is the chief judge, suggesting, as long as it's just a suggestion, that maybe you're not experienced enough for whatever reason, if true, she decided to keep the case. and she's on the case until such time as there's reason for her to be recused. and whether or not we've gotten there, reasonable minds can differ at this point, but keep in mind, the entire essence of a federal judgeship is to be immune from outside criticism. that's why they're appointed for life. they're the closest thing we have to royalty. so you're supposed to, especially the lawyers before that judge, we're supposed to complain about them. we're supposed to not agree about how they're handling the case, and they're generally supposed to be immune from that criticism. however, of course, i think there's a lot of fair criticism leveled against judge cannon and how she has handled the case. when it comes to managing the docket, we give the federal judges near complete authority over the management of their docket. it may be that this is a future and not a bug of the system. >> you need to have humility no matter what, and if you're a federal judge, especially, with a lifetime appointment, you have to respect justice, and in this particular instance, jose, the problem is if you are judge cannon, you have to be able to understand if you're outside of your depth and capacity to handle a case like this, and that is when you have the humility to step aside and have somebody with more senior ability to do it. >> you don't know. if she would have said no. >> it would have been a random assignment. >> but you would have seen the other judges that are on this bench and they would have been a lot better. and "the new york times" article made it clear, they had to build a skiff in fort pierce because she kept this case when miami had one, and i'm speaking on behalf of all lawyers that practice in the southern district of florida, we have exceptional judges that could have done a much better job on this case. >> thank you so much for being with us today. i appreciate it. catch katie phang every saturday right here on msnbc. and now to breaking news from the supreme court. the justices upholding a law that bars domestic abusers from owning guns. it was an 8-1 decision with justice thomas filing the lone dissent. walk us through the big decision today. >> really this all started two years ago in a decision that expanded gun rights. it fit into a pattern for the supreme court, basically since 2008 in a series of these rulings that have expanded gun rights. that one two years ago, said the second amendment expanded outside the home. it wasn't the case that the second amendment only allowed someone to have a gun at home. since that decision, lower courts have really had a lot of trouble figuring out what exactly the supreme court was trying to say. it spurred a lot of confusion in lower courts and different opinions at the appellate level, going in different directions. what the court is doing is bringing back guardrails and guidance to their decision two years ago, and giving these lower courts some interpretations of what they intended too. not something gun supporters would have loved to hold up as a poster child for gun rights or the second amendment. it was an individual who engaged in domestic violence. had a restraining order against him. disobey that restraining order, the mandate that he not have any weapons. his gun license was retracted and he was supposed to give over his guns. he kept them and went on five incidents firing a gun in public. in one case, he was a drug dealer, firing an ak-47 through the door of someone he had dealt drugs to. bad facts in this case, and it would have had a tremendous impacts and real life consequences for women had this not been upheld because this was something that kept dangerous weapons out of the hands of people threatening their domestic partners. >> ryan reilly, appreciate it. we are back in 90 seconds with breaking news on the veep stakes, the three finalists to be donald trump's possible running mate. ump's possible running mate anthony: this making you uncomfortable? 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>> reporter: every time i have come on the show with an update, we have slowly winnowed that list down. we have three contenders. the top two are doug burgum and ohio senator j.d. vance. you have seen burgum on the campaign trail with the former president. he has been fundraising for him. he's someone the former president sees as akin to him, he was a businessman. he has made a lot of money. trump likes that. he's a handsome guy. he talked about how he's sort of out of central casting, something the former president really values, and he's not necessarily threatening in the way some other contenders might have been. he had a run for president. wasn't very successful, but he's sort of a solid, traditional type of republican. then you have senator j.d. vance, more of a fire brand. has a real connection with the maga base. he's a strong ally of donald trump jr. it's the former president's son that has been pushing for senator j.d. vance. he's also younger and seen as fiercely loyal as he has been defending him on the air waves lately, and then you have florida senator marco rubio who has some allies in the trump campaign team. a lot of folks from florida have known rubio for a long time, have those relationships but he has been vocally critical of the former president in the past, when he was running against him in 2016, and there's a small constitutional hangup which might not be so small after all. he's a resident of florida, as well as former president trump, and there's a rule that delegates cannot vote for a president and a vice president from the same state. it doesn't take him off the table but it adds a complication to his candidacy. there's also the question, jose, of timing, of when to announce this. there's a debate between basically three different optionings. do you announce before july 11th, the date the former president is set to be sentenced in new york city. if you announce before, you have an extra moment for fundraising. if you announce during, that's an option that's on the table to try to sort of overshadow, what could be a damaging news cycle or as the former president has said, he's thinking about announcing during the convention. that's option number three. but from our sources, that timing is still very much under debate, jose, as is a central tension in this decision. which is the team and trump himself want someone who's not threatening. who is not going to overshadow trump, but someone who can still be seen as serious. someone who can carry the mantle of the future of the republican party. all of those factors, all of those pros and cons on the table right now, jose. >> i understand. well, thank you so much, dasha burns, for that reporting. really appreciate it. i want to start with you, chuck, the three main contenders, according to our reporting, north dakota, ohio and florida. chuck, it seems as though florida is kind of already a given for trump. north dakota also a given. ohio kind of important. what do you see in these three, chuck? >> look, i don't think trump is making a traditional sort of geographical alignment here in that decision making. you know that. my own reporting has indicated the following. you know, he's looking obviously for someone to be loyal, but it's more than just loyalty. he did like how mike pence worked with him. and how did that work? well, pence did the grunt work. think about the coronavirus pandemic. who was on the conference calls with the governors doing the detail of logistics and walking him through what the federal government is doing. it wasn't president trump, it was vice president pence. president trump likes to come in for the touchdowns, he likes to come in after the ball is on the 2 yard line and do that. he doesn't want to talk marginal tax rates with the chairman of the house ways and means committee. mike pence loved to talk tax rates. what did trump like most that pence brought to the ticket, that's doug burgum. doug burgum, also, i would argue, offers more balance between the sort of two wings of the republican party. your populist outsider wing that is all things trump, and j.d. vance is in some ways, more of the same versus burgum who is, look, he's becoming -- he's sort of maga agenda, certainly his state is very conservative. i have spent a lot of time with him. this is not sort of, you know, he is more of the traditional republican businessman's view of what a republican looks like going back to when you and i were kids, jose. so, you know, and i'm going to throw in one extra asset here. trump loves burgum's wife. he brings it up all the time. i know these things usually shouldn't matter. to trump, those things matter. >> interesting. carlos, when it comes to burgum, he has been using some of the same language we heard from trump. take a listen to this. >> under joe biden, we're living under a dictatorship today where he's bypassing congress on immigration policy. he's bypassing congress on protecting our border. he's bypassing congress on student loan forgiveness. he's defying the supreme court. those are the things that authoritarians and dictators do is they don't follow our democratic processes and they just assert their own liberal view, and that's what the biden administration is doing. >> so wh