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the d.c. circuit. but what the d.c. circuit panel today can do is say, you only have a certain amount of time to do that, or the way ty would phrase it is the mandate. this is going back to the district court in x days, like five days, if you do not seek further review. they can do things to shorten up the time frame that donald trump has. obviously, the other thing that can happen is donald trump can seek supreme court review. again, the d.c. circuit and the supreme court have the power to tighten up that time frame. that is why it was fascinating to me that at least two of the dges, possibly three, were very interested in whether this was even -- this appeal by donald trump was even properly taken. in other words, whether the court should have heard this. the normal rule, as joyce stated
joyce, my friend, it's good to see you. let's start with tuesday. tuesday is right around the corner. it is the oral arguments that are slated for january 9th. i want to ask you about the speed by which the d.c. court of appeals has moved, the fact the supreme court declined to take up the presidential immunity issue before the dc circuit court of appeals role. and how that works in terms of your case and msnbc.com. i agree, having cases like you, judges can control the speed by which this case is go to trial. why is it that we haven't seen more speed from the supreme court, yet we just did over the colorado supreme court decision to take trump off the ballot. >> so i think this is the key question because trump's overall strategy is one of delay, get everything passed the election, and hope that you when, and you can resolve everything from the oval office in your favor. i think it's been a little bit baffling to watch some of the judges like aileen cannon and
difficult. the supreme court may be happy to let a lower court take it while they chew on these very difficult pressing issues involving the 14th amendment, and whether trump can be on the ballot in the state of colorado, and perhaps elsewhere. >> joyce, i don't want to throw water on what you just said but i think about places like fulton county, where donald trump has raise presidential immunity as a defense. i think about other jurisdictions or presidential immunity, including mar-a-lago. this has been raised by donald trump. do you think the supreme court could, from a legal perspective, declined to take up the issue of presidential immunity like the d.c. circuit court decision stance, considering the fact that there are other jurisdictions across the united states that are grappling with this particular defense from him. >> you're right. i think the supreme court does that every day. they like the court of appeals to side critical issues. to your point, this one involves whether or not a former president can face
appalled by these comments as we are, and i'm hoping that he will take advantage of the opportunity to restate, with some fierceness, the fact that he is an independent judicial officer. the clarence thomas situation is entirely different. there is abundant reason for him to recuse himself from any sort of case involving the former presidents. but like all supreme court justices, he is not cabin by any sort of ethical rules in the same way that every other judge and a lower court in the country's. the decision about whether to recuse is up to clarence thomas. i think we'll see a watershed moment here where he participates in these cases despite reason to believe that that damages the credibility of the institution. >> joyce, quickly, before i have to let you go, i did this with george conway yesterday. >> your predictions and what the supreme court does with the section three 14th amendment colorado supreme court challenge that he is a great take up? >> right, i think this is a tough question.
misconduct and also defamation. you could go on and on and on. that is the real failure, isn't it? a failure of politics that now is being laid at the feet of this court. >> that is -- those examples you gave, joy, are certainly failures. i don't think that they're strictly relevant. i think joyce's point is, but the other examples aren't relevant to the question before the united states supreme court now which is whether insurrectionists are barred by the 14th amendment from holding the office of president. and i think to me, the most striking thing is trump's defense is really not, hey, i'm not an insurrectionist. it's all this technical stuff, like the 14th amendment is not self-executing. he's trying to look for loopholes here and there in the law instead of doing what if you or i were running for president and accused of being insurrectionists, found we were insurrectionists by a trial judge after a five-day hearing, we would be screaming from the rooftops saying we want to clear
our name. what is donald trump doing? in the very proceedings he has chances to clear his name in d.c. and georgia. what's he doing? trying to delay those proceedings to the point of trying to end them altogether. again, that's not the way an innocent person behaves. joyce may be right that there are a bunch of technical ways for the supreme court to resolve this in a way that keeps trump on the ballot. that's possible, but i do think the original intent of the 14th amendment, everything about it's spirit is about preventing someone like this from holding office. and i'm hopeful that the challengers from colorado will make that point based on the way our founders, the writers of the 14th amendment, understood that text. >> and joyce, there was a five-day trial in the state of colorado, and the judge found that donald trump did commit insurrection. how much weight do you think that finding, that he was an insurrectionist, they found on a technical matter, they couldn't
1860s, representative bingham and others put that in as an ironclad qualification. you can't give aid and comfort to insurrectionists, like you have to be 35 years old to be president or you have to be a natural born citizen, or you couldn't have been president for two terms. and so if colorado put barack obama on the ballot or put a 20-year-old on the ballot or put arnold schwarzenegger on the ballot, they would be removed because of the qualifications in the constitution. it should be zero difference here. and you know, i'm optimistic that the supreme court will see it that way, and today's decision, joy, to me is a huge deal to be sure, but it's not surprising. this is just the court agreeing to hear a case of critical importance, which both sides wanted the u.s. supreme court to resolve. it was absolutely appropriate and i'm glad to see them moving forward on a fast timeline. >> and you know, joyce, alina habba saying, you know, calling out brett kavanaugh and saying he owes donald trump, and you
take him off the ballot and the supreme court overturned that. does the fabt there was a trial and he was found to be an insurrectionists, how much does that end up mattering to the supreme court? >> yeah, this is such an important point, joy. the supreme court is not a trial court. they don't hear evidence. they take the record from the lower courts and that's the factual basis for their decision making. now, trial courts' decisions about the facts can be reversed on appeal, but that's only in a situation where they reached totally unreasonable conclusions. and it's not the usual course of business. so those factual findings in colorado should be fairly controlling here. >> we shall see. not a lot of confidence in the court out there, but we'll see. neal and joyce, thank you both very much. up next on "the reidout," president biden was pulling no punches today as he laid out what's at stake in the upcoming election and who he sees as the greatest threat to america's
they will, without passing on whether the colorado court's decision was correct or not, they may just take those facts for granted and say, assuming that this is correct, do these legal defenses mean that trump should still be on the ballot? of course, trump has argued that the colorado courts used the incorrect definition for insurrection. and that there a valuation was wrong. so, perhaps the court the supreme court could send it back to the trial court for reconsideration, using what they deem a correct standard. >> one of the former presidents attorneys, alina harbor, essentially went on television saying brett carbon owes the former president for appointing him to the supreme court. i want to play that for you, joyce. and then we'll talk. >> i think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court. i have faith in them. you know, people like kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through -- hell to get into place. he'll step. up >> joyce?
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