Released a recording. The president reads supporters any email that they got from ginni thomas. I got an email today from ginni thomas, justice thomas's wife. I want to read that to you. You guys have filled the sales of many judges. Can i just tell you think, and this is all caps, thank you so so much. To really understand how inappropriate that email is from the wife of a sitting supreme court justice you have to first understand what it is that they do. We are the nation's largest law firm exclusively supporting religious liberty. We have recently won four supreme court cases. We win over 90% of our cases which is unheard of that the legal world. At the supreme court the record is nine wins and zero losses. That is correct. The organization ginni thomas was thinking so profusely the law firm that specializes in trying to change the law by bringing cases before the supreme court. That court where her husband clarence thomas is a sitting justice. Even if you don't know them by name you may know some of the cases the group has brought before the high court. They sued to strike down the state of maine ban on using public funding to pay for religious schools. They represented the bakery in oregon whose owners refused to make a cake for a samesex wedding. They brought a big case opposing vaccine mandates for religious groups. All of those cases made their way to the supreme court and first liberty won all of them. That actually isn't the work ginni thomas is praising. She was thanking the group for their work on this kind of stuff. Now they are coming right out and saying it. Political elites from the radical left want to overthrow the supreme court. How do they plan to go about this? flooding the high court with additional justices. Enough cronies to game the system. Their pet political projects will win every time. In other words by installing a permanent automatic majority. What would you call an attempt to overthrow an entire branch of our government. Let's call it what it is. A supreme court coup. Where have we seen acute coup like this before? venezuela. In the wake of numerous and recent scandals many of which involve clarence and ginni thomas , first liberty has been playing defense. They've been publishing articles, running ads and operating like a pr shop. They even made a website devoted to what they call the liberal supreme court coup. Amazingly in the recordings that were obtained, the president and ceo says the quiet part out loud. He explicitly says that first liberty is scratching the court's back by defending the court in public because the justices themselves cannot do so on their own. Here is first liberty president kelly shackleford referencing a case where first liberty defended a group of navy seals who did not want to take the covid vaccine. He does that as a way of explaining exactly what first liberty is doing for scandalous supreme court justices. It reminded me of when the seals know how to fight they can't fight in court. We came to them. They were so appreciative because we were doing something for them they could not do. These judges are that same thing. They can't go to the political sphere and fight. They are trying to protect the existence of the court. It is neat that those of you on the call are part of protecting the future of our court. They really appreciate it. Really appreciate it. That is the group ginni thomas is thinking for their work. That was after she held a meeting with a staffer. A staffer from a group that is fighting for her husband clarence thomas in the court of public opinion. A staffer for a group that will undoubtedly continue to bring major law changing cases before her husband at the supreme court. The fact that ginni thomas and a conservative activist group like first liberty are this cozy is a real problem both in theory and in practice. The supreme court is supposed to be a neutral arbiter of the law. The reality is that it is dominated by incredibly conservative justice with clear ideological agendas that may, in fact, be significantly influenced by outside conservative activists. Today we got a powerful reminder of why that really matters right now. Today was the first hearing and former president trump's federal election interference case since he was granted limited immunity or than two months ago. It was the first hearing in more than 11 months because it was put on pause while the supreme court deliberated. The first order of business was for the prosecution and defense to present their cases as to what can and cannot be charged given his limited immunity. On that front, judge chutkan was incredibly candid. We are hardly sprinting to a finish. We all know that whatever my ruling on immunity is it is going to be appealed and the taking of that appeal will again stay the case. Judge chutkan knows that whatever she decides it will all end up being appealed very likely all the way to the supreme court. The court were clarence thomas sits. The other issue before the court was the argument from trump's lawyers that the entire case should be thrown out on the premise that the appointment of jack smith was unconstitutional. To advance that argument his lawyers cited who else? justice clarence thomas. Specifically they cited his note, i guess is what we will call it in the immunity opinion which called into question the appointment of the special counsel. Here is his lawyer. What i'm saying is the court should consider the issue and justice thomas in effect directed us to raise this issue and suggested we do it immediately in light of his view and that concurrence. Judge chutkan. Thomas directed you to do that? trumps lawyer. I should not say he said to do it but when you read the opinion it's absolutely clear that it is something we have to do now to preserve the issue. Joining me now is former u. S. Assistant attorney for the southern district of new york and former federal prosecutor and senior writer for political magazine. Thank you for being here. Clarence thomas being cited directly and all of that. It's very clear that the lawyers enjoyed his direction or at least paid attention to it. I want to talk about what unfolded in the courtroom today. Judge chutkan seemed incredibly resistant to the argument trump's lawyers were making which is handling this before the election would be bad news. She says, quote, this court is not concerned with the electoral schedule. Trump's lawyer. We are talking about the presidency of the united states. Judge chutkan. I'm not talking about the presidency of the united states. I'm talking about a four count criminal indictment. What did you think of that? she is resetting and making clear to the parties in the case and the public that this is just like any other case and it will proceed according to the schedule that any other defendant would be entitled to or subject to. That, she repeatedly said that. She made very clear. I think the defense counsel at some point said we should not rush to judgment here and reporting from the court she kind of chuckled and said, this has been over a year and it has been tied up in litigation in the superior court's. I think she just made clear that we are going to do things the way we ordinarily do and not give special dispensations despite justice clarence thomas. She sat a pretty tight schedule after the proceedings were over. As much as she said she's not driven by the election and the case is not driven by the electoral calendar, the briefing on the immunity issue will be completed before the election. That's how it would be for any case. It's happenstance of the calendar not the campaign or the election. Let's look at the calendar for a second. The immunity arguments on the calendar is september 10 turnover all required evidence. September 26 if you are following along at home that is the deadline for the special counsel to submit their opening brief. October 17 trump's team can respond to the filing and october 29 is the deadline for the special counsel to file its reply. Election day is november 5. October 29 is the conclusion of what we expect to be an intense back and forth between these teams. How much do you think we will see publicly of the information presented? that is the big question. You are exactly right to instruct people to circle the day on the calendar. I did that on my phone this afternoon. Digitally. Not literally. The government said it is prepared to submit a large body of evidence to the court including information concerning plaid and unplayed facts. That means facts that are not in the indictment. That could come with grand jury transcripts, interview summaries, documents from discovery. They made clear they intend a robust presentation. The big caveat is whether or not the government believes it is appropriate to put some or even most of that information under seal which is something alluded to today. That process could get messy. I imagine media organizations would fight the effort. Judge chutkan may not go along with it but she may agree. Ordinarily material is not supposed to be kept out of public dockets in public court proceedings except narrow circumstances like classified information, potential harm to witnesses or prejudice to an ongoing investigation but it is pretty clear to me from just reading the transcript this afternoon that the government is treading kind of lightly here. Even though not explicitly is trying to be a little cautious heading into election day. I am hopeful we will see a lot of new information but we will not know until we get closer potentially on september 26. Do you read anything into chutkan's refusal to concede to the political realities of the day as a sign that she might charge forward and say there are rare exceptions to keep this under seal so i will make it public. I do. I think at every turn she's signaled she's not giving special dispensations to this particular defendant. If she deems after she receives the briefings that it is necessary or important for this information to be made public assuming that the government even tries to seal it it ultimately is her decision. She will decide whether it should or should not be sealed and whether she will have an evidentiary hearing. I think she will do what she ordinarily will do even though it is just days before the election. The other piece of this is whether or not special counsel jack smith should be taken off this case entirely because he was appointed. The calendar for resolving that dispute, october 24 the trump team submits the motion to dismiss. Halloween, the special counsel replies. November 7 which is two days after the election, lord knows what will be happening, is the deadline to apply. She did not seem to favor the opinion that he was wrongfully appointed. She said she found judge cannon's really not particularly persuasive. Is that unusual? it is not that unusual for district court judges to disagree on subissues. In this particular issue is unusual because cannon's decision was a real outlier. As pointed out in the hearing today there is controlling opinion on this point that binds her. Even if she wanted to agree with cannon and she said it was unpersuasive as you noted she couldn't because she is bound by the circuit ruling. That's not to say that the argument will eventually not carry the day as we go through some years long process. But for now i do not expect her to give it much credence. You summoned the specter of clarence thomas i have to ask. Judge chutkan seems remarkably resigned to the appellate process that any decision she makes will be appealed. Is this destined to land in the lap of the supreme court? yes. It will. It's a question of how long and once the election is over i guess that is the only if. If trump should win a second term all bets are off and perhaps the whole case will be dismissed. In that event it likely won't be appealed. I think judge chutkan very squarely said she's not setting a trial date because she understands it will go up the circuit again to the supreme court so what is the point. So you don't have to circle that in the calendar. It could potentially be years before the trial begins. It feels like the beginning of a faceoff between a district court judge and the conservative supreme court. Thank you for giving us the scoop. Coming up, combating the rising cost of childcare the solution is to call grandma. The presidential debate does not take place until next week but donald trump's are declaiming it is rigged against him. Why he might be doing that, after the break. Indigestion iberogast bloating iberogast thanks to a unique combination of herbs, iberogast helps relieve six digestive symptoms to help you feel better. Six digestive symptoms. The power of nature. Iberogast. (bell ringing) someone needs to customize and save hundreds with liberty mutual! (inaudible sounds) (elevator doors opening) wait, there's an elevator? only pay for what you need. liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty. for more than a decade farxiga has been trusted again and again, and again. farxiga farxiga farxiga farxiga ask your doctor about farxiga. A test or approve a medication. We didn't have to worry about any of those things thanks to the donations. And our family is forever grateful because it's completely changed our lives. Kamala harris and donald trump have never met faceto face. In only five days that will change. Next tuesday they will be on the presidential debate stage together in philadelphia. Yesterday abc news released the official rules which both campaigns agreedupon. Despite that trump is insisting that abc has somehow rigged the debate which would seem to be his version of the prebottle just in case he flames out. Abc is the worst network in terms of fairness. They are the most dishonest network, the meanest, nastiest. That is what i was presented with. I was presented with abc. Her best friend is the head of the network. Her husband's best friend is married to the head of the network. They are going to get the questions. I've already heard they are going to get the questions in advance. Joining me now is charlie sykes. Charlie, we all know that donald trump does not like legacy media, media as an institution. I read a little bit more psychologically into this. Do you have a working theory on why he's doing this right now? it is classic donald trump. It's very much on brand. He does not play chess. He do