Transcripts For MSNBCW Trump 20240704 : vimarsana.com

Stephanie ruhle, all here for msnbcs special coverage of these Court Arguments on the disqualification of donald trump. Welcome to our Primetime Recap of the historic proceedings that the United States Supreme Court. I am Rachel Maddow at msnbc home base along with my beloved colleagues, Lawrence Odonnell, and joy reid, and chris hayes, happy to have you all here. No cameras are allowed in federal courtrooms, including the United States Supreme Court, but today, for the arguments about whether china for having an insurrection against the u. S. Government, the justices did allow for the sound of the proceedings, the audio, to be livestreamed here on msnbc, we carried the audio of those Oral Arguments live unfold. That was starting just after 10 am eastern time. But we also know that people have lives, jobs, school, other responsibilities and might make it hard to take two hours out of a thursday to stare at an Audio Speaker for hours trying to figure out of that was gorsuch, or a Leader Yelling at that port lawyer. We are here to recap what happens in primetime. In the 1970s, Watergate Hearings are also broadcast live during the workday. Recognizing how consequential and how important those hearings were. News networks during that time started recapping yesterdays Watergate Hearings that night on tv and primetime. Nobody would miss out on that incredibly important history in the making. We then did the same during the daytime hearings of the January 6th Investigation in congress in 2022. We know from what weve heard from, your beloved viewers, that that was valuable, it was a useful thing. So here we are, together, again, tonight, with basically the same approach. The United States Supreme Court is now considering whether the leading candidate for the republican president ial nomination should be banned from running again. Or potentially, might be okay to allow him to run again, to allow him to be on the ballot, to allow him to compete and potentially even when the election whereupon only than he would be prohibited from actually taking up the job. Now, why would you allow someone to run for an office if they are ineligible to hold that office. I dont know. But for the non lawyers among us, i think that we could all take comfort in the fact that that idea sounded just as cockamamie and nuts today at the United States Supreme Court as it would if you tried to explain it to somebody on a street corner. I think it would create a number of really difficult issues if the court says that there is no procedure for determining President Trumps eligibility, until after the election. Then, what happens when members of congress on january 6th, when they count the electoral vote say that we are not going to count electoral votes cast for President Trump, because he is disqualified, that is kind of a disenfranchisement and constitutional crisis in the making. It is all the more recent to address those issues now on a judicial process on a full evidentiary record. So that everybody could have certainty on those issues before they go to the polls. If we think that the states cannot enforce this version for whatever reason in this context. In the president ial context, What Happens Next in this case . I mean, is it done . If this Court Concludes that colorado didnt have the authority to exclude President Trump from the president ial ballot on procedural grounds, i think that this case would be done. But i think it could come back with a vengeance, because ultimately, members of congress may have to make the determination after president ial election if President Trump wins about whether or not he is disqualified from office and whether to count votes cast for him. If he might be ineligible to hold office in the United States, but states are not allowed to keep him off of the ballot, how does the constitutions ban on insurrectionists Holding Office to get in forest. Think about it logically, if states cannot enforce it by keeping people off of the ballot before the election, then congress would have to enforce the ban after the election. Which would mean that congress would have to decide after the election, but before inauguration on january 6th, 2025, they would have to decide then and there whether they will count electoral votes for trump or not. Based on whether or not congress believes at that point that trump is eligible, or ineligible for office depending on whether in their infinite wisdom, congress thinks that he engaged in an insurrection the last time around. Congress will work it out in congress on the spot, on january 6th itself. What could possibly go wrong . You just heard jason marie who did most of the arguing today for the plaintiffs, who successfully sued in colorado to keep trump off of the ballot, we will speak live with jason marie in just a few moments tonight. But that same point about how strange it would be to do what trumps lawyers proposed, to not start to decide whether trump is eligible to be president until after the election, until after he has potentially been elected president , that same point was also made slightly differently by the second lawyer. By the colorado Solicitor General who today, also defended colorado taking trump off of the ballot. The petitioner contends that colorado must put him on the ballot because of the possibility that there would be a Supermajority Act Of Congress to remove his legal disability. Under this theory, colorado and every other state would have to indulge this possibility, not just for the primary but through the general election and up to the moment that ineligible candidate was sworn into office. Nothing in the constitution strips the states have their power to direct president ial elections in this way. In other words, do not make us do this. In other words, dear justices, rule that he is eligible for office, but do not force a situation in which he must be allowed to run, but he might not be allowed to serve if he is elected. If you thought last january 6th was bad, just wait to see what he did lead for the next one if we followed this course. Here is chief justice, john roberts tonight. Counsel, what if somebody came into a State Secretary Of states office, and said i took the oath, specified in Section Three. I participated in an insurrection, and i want to be on the ballot. Does the Secretary Of State have the authority and the situation to say no, you are disqualified . The Secretary Of State couldnt do that. Because even if the candidate is an admitted insurrectionist, Section Three is still a lousy candidate to run for office, and even when election to office, and then see whether Congress Lifts the disability after the election. Even though it is pretty unlikely, or it would be difficult for an individual who says that i am an insurrectionist, and i had taken the oath, that would require two thirds of votes in congress. Correct . This is a pretty unlikely scenario. It is a pretty unlikely scenario. So that is 0. 1 from todays supreme Court Arguments. The proposed remedy here from the trump side, which congress has to enforce, the ban on an Insurrectionist Serving in office, that that ban could only be enforced after the election, but trump has to be allowed to run even though he might not be allowed to actually serve if he wins, the practicalities of, that what it might mean for the country, those implications that are both bizarre and daunting as described in the case today, i think that is point number one. We will talk about a second fundamental point that didnt necessarily go as expected today at the court. It is the very basic question of whether or not former President Trump did engage in an insurrection. Everybody knew that this was going to be something that was going to have to come up today but there was less discussion today than many observers expected. What there was was quite punchy, though. We will start with Justice Ketanji brown jackson, and Jonathan Mitchell who is the lawyer who argued for former President Trump. The colorado Supreme Court concluded that the violent attempts of the petitioners supporters in this case to hold the count on january six, qualified as an insurrection as defined by Section Three, and i read your opening brief to accept that those events counted as an insurrection. But then you are apply seems to suggest they are not. What is your position to that . We never accepted this was an insurrection. What we said in our opening brief is that President Trump did not engage in any act that can plausibly be characterized as an insurrection. What is your argument that it is not . Your brief says that it wasnt because, i think that you say that it didnt involve an organized attempt to overthrow the government. That is one of many reasons. But for an insurrection and needs to be organized, and an effort to overthrow the government of the United States through violence. And this and the point is that a chaotic effort to overthrow the government is not an effort to overthrow the government . None of these criteria were met. This was a riot. It was not an insurrection. The acts were shameful, criminal, violent all of those things but it didnt qualify as an insurrection as a term is used in Section Three. Thank you. Thanks. If it was chaotic, it wasnt an insurrection. The way that you can tell something is an insurrectionist because they marched in lines. That is part of what does a little right have to do with anything . Justice Brett Kavanaugh elicited some of the strongest pushback on this point, this point of whether this was an insurrection and the implications of that. He elicited some of the strongest pushback on that today from jason murray. One of the lawyers for colorado voters. In trying to figure out what Section Three means, to the extent that it is elusive language, or vague language, what about the idea that we should think about democracy and think about the right of the people to elect candidates of their choice, of letting the people decide. Because your position has the effect of disenfranchising voters to a significant degree. What about the background principle, if you agree, of democracy . I would like to make three points on that. The first is constitutional safeguards are for the purpose of safeguarding our democracy. Not just for the next election cycle but for generations to come. And second, Section Three is designed to protect our democracy in that very way. The framework of Section Three new from painful experience that those who had violently broken their oath to the constitution could not be trusted to hold power again because they could dismantle our constitutional democracy from within. So they created a democratic safety valve. President trump could ask congress to give an amnesty by a two thirds vote but unless he does that our constitution protects us from insurrectionists. Third, this case illustrates the danger of refusing to apply Section Three as written, because the reason we are here is that President Trump tried to disenfranchise 80 million americans. Who voted against him. And the constitution does not require that he be given another chance. Thank you. The constitution doesnt require that he be given another chance. And the constitution protects us from insurrectionists. We are going to talk tonight about the justice is discussing what it would mean to prosecute trump federally for the crime of insurrection, rather than having it adjudicated for example, in a colorado trial court. We are going to talk about the justices debating trumps lawyers claims that he is the only former u. S. President who cant be banned from office for committing an insurrection. All of the others would be banned from office for creating an insurrection, but trump personally cant . We are going to talk about the justices asking why one state should be able to do something this consequential. That is why one of the questions went out like cannonballs but the questions were pretty good. We have a lot to talk about tonight but we will start with these first couple of takeaways here. Was this an insurrection, and if there is a ban in the constitution on insurrectionists Holding Office, but you cannot enforce it by preventing ineligible candidates from running for office, how exactly does that ban get in forest . Our, eu were in the room when it happened, you are there for the arguments, first of all, let me ask you, do you think it is fair to pull out those points at some of the pillars on which this argument was held on . I think it is fair, it is the first time that weve seen the insurrection discussed by the Supreme Court. In terms of the argument about, well, on the point of insurrection, i felt like i was going to hear a lot today about what counts as an insurrection. That starts from justice jackson, it is priceless. We didnt hear about what it takes to call something an insurrection. Does that talk about where the justices see the edge of their Job Description here in terms of what they ought to be considering . It tells us a lot, it also speaks to how bipartisan this was, if you go by the different justices appointed by different parties, based on the questioning, which is all we have to go on, i would give you eight or nine votes likely against the colorado, trump ballot ban. That is not because all eight or nine of those people are soft on insurrection. It is because of the things that you raise, and we heard some of the questioning about it. I will give you a detailed legal answer about that if you. One but i will give you something very simple which is that it was cleared by the end of the argument that most of these people just did not want to go near ballot bands. The reasoning came second. It was almost more honest than usual how much everyone was like, we dont want to do this, we are not going to cosign, this then lets finally get out, how do we get out . If anyone has ever had a Destination Wedding invite that you are not excited about, these people that she used to know better, for a while back, and it is in antarctica, and you are first like, let me tell you straightup, that is far away. I heard it is cold weather, also i think it is really expensive, take, its your brainstorming why you cant go how close are we, any of those things might also be true. So someone then might come to you and say theres a super sale, because not a lot of people want to go to antarctica. Super cheap tickets. And youre like, it wasnt just the tickets, there are other reasons. That is what it felt like to me. If you are looking for this to be the case that stops trump i will tell you that maybe the bad, news if you are a viewer, anyone thinking as a citizen, if youre thinking does the courts to work on a nonpartisan basis . In some ways we saw them answered with how much it was like that. To then jump into your legal question, the big thing was, even if it is an insurrection, or even if this is something that you should be kicked off of the ballot, for who decides that . Its just a random Secretary Of State in one state . And we have a lot of different types of ways that we pick secretaries of state and ate partisanship. Is it judges in the state . As chief roberts put. It at one point, it is kind of being as blunt as he could, he wasnt talking law, he just said if we did allow, this than other states would punch back. If we gave them the power instead any state could do this, then they are all going to be knocking each other off of the ballot. Let me tell you, rachel, Justice Roberts raised the issue. Good answers to that issue from the lawyers who are representing colorado congress. I think they had an answer which is there was an insurrection that was televised and theres only one person killed those people to town. And the insurrectionist popping up everywhere are not factually true. And the course concern about that which i think includes democratic i think that justice was a Biden Appointee who is well versed on President Biden coming to office. I dont think that hes minimizing the insurrection. I think that her point is that we are still going to run into results that. You could be factually right and still have an arms race across the state, that is a concern for the court. This became, if it was the bottom line, this became much more of a debate about the remedy. It should be dealt with in some other part of government than the problem. The problem is huge. Let me stick with you want not for a second, because we are going to talk in more detail about the parade of horrors. What if a state can