that really what they thought was if we're worried about the charismatic person, we're going to bar insurrectionists electors and, therefore, that person is never going to rise. murmur this came up in the debates in congress over section 3 where johnson said why haven't you included president and vice president in the language? and senator moore responds "we have. look at the language any office under the united states." >> justice jackson: yes, doesn't that at least suggest ambiguity and this sort of ties into justice kavanaugh's point. in other words, we had a person right there at the time saying what i'm saying. the language here doesn't seem to include president. why is that? and so if there is an ambiguity, why would we construe it to, as justice kavanaugh pointed out, against democracy? murmur johnson came back and agreed with that reading. any office is clear the constitution says about 20

times. >> justice jackson: no. i'm not going to that. let me just say so your point is that there is no ambiguity with having a list and not having president in it with having a history that suggest that they were really focused on local concerns in the south with this conversation where the legislators actually discussed you are saying there is no they vote. >> justice jackson: i'm talking about the barred office part of this. >> jason murray: barred office is if you want to include everybody first presidential electors they are not offices so they wouldn't fall under any office. second of all senators and representatives don't hold office either. the tells us under the incompatibility clause refers to them as holding seats not offices. you want to make sure there is no doubt that senators and

representatives are covered given that the constitution suggests otherwise, you have to include them. the constitution says the presidency holds an office as do members of this court. and so other high offices, the president, vice president, members of this court. >> justice jackson: all right. let me ask you, i appreciate that argument. if we think that the states can't enforce this provision for whatever reason in this context, in the presidential context, what happens next in this case? is it done? >> if this court concludes that colorado did not have the authority to exclude president trump from the presidential ballot on procedural grounds, i think this case would be done. but it could come back with a vengeance ultimately members of congress may have to make the determination after a presidential election if president trump wins about whether or not he's disqualified from office and whether to count votes cast for him under the electoral count reform act. so, president trump himself

urges this court in the first few pages of his brief to resolve the issues on the merits and we think the court should do so as well. >> justice jackson: there is no federal litigation, you would say? >> jason murray: that's correct. because there is no federal procedure for deciding these issues short of criminal prosecution. >> justice jackson: thank you. >> chief justice roberts: thank you, counsel. ms. davidson -- ms. anderson no. , stevenson, i'm sorry. >> mr. chief justice and may it please the court. exercising power. colorado's legislator specifically directed colorado's courts to resolve any challenges to the listing of any candidate on the presidential primary ballot before coloradans cast their votes. despite this law, petitioner contends that colorado must put him on the ballot because of the possibility there would be a

super majority 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 an ineligible candidate was sworn into office. nothing in the constitution strips the states of their power to direct presidential elections in this way. this case was handled capably and efficiently by the colorado courts under a process that we have used to decide ballot challenges for more than a century. and, as everyone agrees, the court now has the record that it needs to resolve these important issues. i welcome your questions. >> is there expressed provision that what a qualified candidate is. >> no, your honor. there is not expressed provision when the colorado supreme court looked at this, they looked at need to be qualified plus the fact that the -- this part. >> what does it say then.

if it's not expressed how do we get to this issue of qualified candidate? >> what the colorado supreme court did and let me, if i could have a standing objection, i do want to make the argument that you shouldn't review the court's -- statutory representation. >> no. i'm just looking at the statute. >> what the court did was to say that we have three important provisions in this section that show that candidates have to be qualified. first it requires that under 12032 a that a political party that wants to participate has to have a qualified candidate. it also looked at the fact that comparable write-in candidates also had to be qualified. thomas thomas this isn't a write-in candidate, sure, i think the right the write in candidate had to be qualified and candidate also had to be qualified and it would be otherwise in congress to read those things differently. >> justice thomas: how is section 35 qualification? >> under the reasoning of the

colorado supreme court. >> justice thomas: no. just on its face? >> a candidate must have -- meet all the criteria for eligibility and i don't perceive any distinction between meeting the eligibility criteria and not being disqualified. i just don't see any meaningful difference between those two things. >> justice thomas: thank you. >> you represent the secretary of state, right? >> that's correct, your honor. >> if you are the secretary of state somewhere and someone comes in and says i think this candidate should be disqualified, what do you do next? >> administratively and what the deputy elections director testified to at the hearing is if they obtain objective knowable information, the secretary can act on that and inform -- >> the secretary at first decides whether that's objective, knowable information? >> in some instances. in this case the challenge was actually brought before the candidate's paperwork had each been submitted and because there had been a challenge submitted and put into the proper court procedure the secretary didn't even make that determination because she didn't have the

paperwork. >> in another case where that wasn't the procedure that was filed, somebody said maybe they have a stack of papers saying here's why i think this person is guilty of insurrection, it's not a big insurrection. something that, you know, happened down the street, but they say this is still an insurrection. i don't know what the standard is for when it arises to that. >> i think anything that even presented that level of controversy about one person having a set of facts proved this would send this case to the 113 procedure that we use to resolve ballot issues like that. and if another elector on or about the individual who brought the information didn't want to bring it, the secretary herself could bring that action. >> chief justice roberts: is there a provision for judicial review of secretary of state's action both in colorado and, perhaps, what you know about other states? >> well, certainly in colorado, if any action that the secretary takes that anyone wants to challenge, they can use the 113 process to do so. i think states have varying degrees of that. there are certainly other states that allow versions of that and

then i don't know whether there are others that don't. i certainly know there are some that do. >> i think we're told that there are states that do not provide for any judicial review of secretaries of states' determination. is that incorrect? >> no, no. i think that's right. i think there are some states that actually have no mechanism that come to i think justice kagan's point or there is some states that don't have any mechanism to exclude a disqualified candidate from the ballot at all. and i do want to speak to that for just a minute about the actual. >> justice alito: wouldn't that be constitutional? if the secretary of state's determination was final? >> i think so under our article 2, the elector's clause, your honor, that that would be constitutional. states give very broad authority to determine how to run their presidential elections. >> justice alito: could a state enacts a statute that provides

different rules of evidence and different rules of procedure and different standards of proof for this type of proceeding than for other civil proceedings? >> yes, your honor, i believe it could, under the same elector's clause power. >> justice sotomayor: that issue would be under different like the due process clause, correct? >> correct. bounds of the elector's clause other constitutional constraints which would include due process, equal protection. >> justice barrett: what's the due process right? does the candidate have a due process right? what's the liberty interest? >> i think it's not very precisely defined in the case law, but i think there is a recognition that there is a liberty interest of a candidate and there is some due process interest and being able to access the ballot. >> justice barrett: i thought that was for voters. you think for the candidate, too, that it would be taking something away from the candidate? >> certainly, yes. i think a lot of times you see that in the first amendment context where candidates can

have an issue about being on the ballot but it's a hybrid oftentimes first amendment, 14th amendment qualifications clause all discussed together. >> justice barrett: let me ask you a question follow up to justice alito. these decisions might be made in different ways different states. secretary of state makes in one state very little process or a process like colorado's could be followed by others. would our standard of review of the record vary depending on the procedure employed by the state? >> i think this court has tremendous discretion to decide its standard of review and it might be based on the process that was employed by an individual state. i think you could exercise the independent review of -- that mr. murray talked about or give deference where you have a full blown proceeding like the one here that had all the protections of rules of evidence and cross-examination and things like that. >> i'm sorry, you think we should give deference in reviewing the factual record, the legal conclusions?

in other words, we shouldn't undertake a de novo review whether a the court's position is on the factual record in this case. >> of course, if it were not a novo review, we could reach dispirit results even on the same record, right? >> i think that's possible. >> justice kagan: i take it your position this disqualification is the same as any other disqualification, age, or residence or what have you? >> that's correct. >> justice sotomayor: what if i were to push back on that and say this disqualification, number one, it's in the 1st amendment and the point of the 1st amendment was to take away certain powers from the states. number two, section 3 itself gives congress a very definite role, which mr. mitchell says is interfered with by the ability

of states to take somebody off the ballot? and maybe number 3, it's just more click complicated and contd and if you want more political. why don't all of those things make a difference about the thinking in this disqualification as opposed to any other. >> so, your honor, i think the trouble with categorizing the insurrection issue as necessarily more difficult is just an assumption that's coming up i think because of this case. and, again, back to the chief justice's point, we could have a very easy case under the 14th amendment with an avowed insurrectionist who came in and wrote on his paperwork i engaged in insurrection in violation of the 1st amendment. and -- 14th amendment, it woulde open and shut case whether that person would meet the quantifications to be on the k4r0e6r8d ballot. with respect to other questions about the 14th amendment. my positions are based on the assumption under the 1st amen114thamendment like they dor

will quawchingses i could defer to the elector's argument on those points. >> suppose a state that does recognize non-mutual makes a determination using whatever procedures it decides to adopt that a particular candidate is an insurrectionist. could that have a cascading effect so the decisions by a court in one state, the decision by a single judge whose factual finding given deference, maybe elected trial judge would have potentially an enormous effect on the candidates who run for president across the country? is that something we should be concerned about? >> i think you should be concerned about it, your honor. i think the concern is not as high as it's made out to be particularly some of the amicus briefs. under article 2 there is a huge amount of disparity and candidates end up on the ballot in different states in every election. just this election there is candidate who colorado excluded

from the primary ballot who is on the ballot in other states, even though he is not a natural born citizen. and that's just -- that's a feature of our process. it's not bug. and then with respect to the decision-making and, you know, we're here so this court can give us nationwide guidance on some of the legal principles that are involved. i think that reduces the potential amount of disparity that arise between the states. and then with respect to the factual record and how that gets issued and implemented, the states have processes for this. and i think we need to let that play out and accept that there may be some messiness of federalism here because that's what the electors clause assumes will happen. and if different states apply their principles of collateral estoppel and come to different results, that's okay. and congress can act at any time if it thinks it's truly federalism run amok. >> chief justice roberts: justin thomas anything further? justice alito?

>> justice alito: just one further question and along the same lines as a lot of the other questions. we have been told that if what colorado did here is sustained other states are going to retaliate and they are going to potentially exclude another candidate from the ballot. what about that situation? >> your honor, i think we have to have faith in our system that if people will follow their election processes appropriately that they will take realistic views of what insurrection is under the 14th amendment. courts will review those decisions. this court may review some of them. but i don't think that this court should take those threats too seriously in its resolution of this case. >> justice alito: you don't think that's a serious threat? >> i think we have. >> justice alito: we should proceed on the assumption it's not a serious threat. >> i think we have institutions in place to handle those types of allegations.

>> justice alito: what are those institutions? >> our states, own electoral rules. the administrators who enforce those rules, the courts that will review those decisions and up to this court to ultimately review that decision. >> chief justice roberts: justic e sotomayor? >> justice sotomayor: justice kagan? justice kavanaugh? justice jackson? anything further? thank you, counsel. >> thank you. >> chief justice roberts: rebutt al, mr. mitchell? >> poet rely on the elector's clause authority of each state to direct the manner of appointing presidential electors. that prerogative under article 2 must be exercised in a manner consistent with other constitutional provisions and restrictions. and justice kagan alluded to one of those restrictions that might be imposed by the first

amendment. but there are others. a state cannot use its power under article 2's elector's clause to instruct its presidential electors only to vote for white candidates that would violate the equal protection clause nor can it exercise in a manner that would violate the constitutional holding of u.s. term limits against authorton. and they cannot use the elector's clause as an excuse additional qualifications for the presidency to go beyond what the constitution enumerous rates in article 2 the colorado state court changed the criteria in section 3 by making it a requirement that must be met before the candidate holds offie moving forward in time the candidate has for obtaining a congressional waiver. there has still been no answer from the anderson litigants how to distinguish the residency cases. the courts of appeals in

applying this court's holding in u.s. term limits have unanimously disapproved state laws requiring congressional candidates to show that they inhabit the state from which they seek election prior to election day. and there still in our view no possible way to distinguish those from the situation below in the colorado supreme court. mr. murray also invoked the de facto officer doctrine as a possible way to mitigate the dramatic consequences that would follow from a decision of this court that rejects the rationale of griffin's case and also agrees with mr. murray's contentions that president trump is disqualified from holding office on account of the events of january 6th and that he is covered by section 3 as an officer of the united states. this court's recent decision in lewis i can't and ar arthrax hed officers appointed under article 2 and made decisions under the apa attacked as invalid those

decisions vacated and this court didn't use any variant of the de facto officer doctrine decisions made by unconstitutionally elected officers. there is no way to escape the conclusion that if this court rejects griffin's case and also agrees with mr. murray's construction of section 3, that every executive action taken by the trump administration during its last two weeks in office is vulnerable to attack under the apa and further that if president trump is reelected and sworn in as the next president that any executive action he takes could be attacked in federal court by anyone who continues to that president trump is barred from office under section 3. i'm happy to answer any other questions that the court may have. >> justice roberts: thank you, counsel. >> thank you. >> justice roberts: the case is submitted. [gavel] >> the honorable court is now adjourned until friday, the 16th of february at 10:00. >> harris: and we stayed with that all the way with this fox

news alert. donald trump is now at the center of a u.s. supreme court battle that began with a move to knock him off the presidential primary ballot. it is high stakes in the high court. nine justices will determine whether the state of colorado has the right to keep the former president's name off the ballot there. colorado state supreme court already removed his name last year and that decision cites section 3 of the 14th amendment. the so-called, as you have heard it, insurrectionist clause. well, it was originally used to keep former confederates from holding public office. colorado claims it applies to trump over his role in the january 6th 2021 capitol riot. in fact, maine has also removed donald trump's name off its primary ballot. the nation's highest court today began with looking, though, at just colorado. for nearly two and a half hours. there are 11 other states that would like to take former president trump's name off their ballots. if the supreme court rules before colorado's primary that

trump can be kept off the ballot, which is on super tuesday, that primary, colorado secretary of state has said any votes for trump would not count, making today a very big deal. this is outnumbered. i'm harris faulkner here with my co-host emily compagno and kayleigh mcenany. also joining us america reports co-anchor sandra smith and america's news room co-anchor bill hemmer. also here with us former assistant u.s. attorney and fox news contributor andy mccarthy. i'm going to see if i can make those boxes go in row here. law professor g.w. university and a fox news contributor jonathan turley, it's working. they are in the right order. fox news legal editor kerri kupec urbahn and fox news contributor and attorney leo terrell. first, let's bring in fox news justice department correspondent david spunt. live outside the u.s. supreme court. so you had some company out

there because there were quite a few people waiting to see how this was going to go. >> quite a few people. this went a lot longer than we thought this would go. the justices, even the liberal justices highly pointed questions to the attorney representing the colorado voters, questioning in many ways why donald trump should be taken off the ballot. we thought maybe the oral arguments would go 90 minutes. clearly they went longer than 90 minutes. the chief argument from the trump attorneys, harris and the crew that's on the couch is that taking donald trump off the ballot strips him of his rights as a presidential candidate, plain and simple. the 14th amendment, section 3 bars those from holding federal office in the future who engaged in insurrection while an officer of the united states. the question is whether it specifically applies to the president and his conduct in office. now, voters in colorado sued, aiming to remove him from the ballot over his alleged involvement in trying to

overturn the results of the 2020 election and the january 6th riots. trump's attorneys though say that he is not a, quote: officers officer of the united states. that issue is best left to voters. watch this exchange. >> are you arguing both that the office of the presidency should not be considered one of the barred offices and that the person -- a person who previously took the presidential oath is not subject to disqualification? >> we are arguing both, your honor. >> i don't see that in your brief. i see a lot of focus on the second but not on the first. >> there is definitely more focus on the second. we acknowledge we have a somewhat heavier lift on the first. >> david: the justices, harris, may seek a way to rule narrowly as to be not be seen highly partisan highly charged election dispute. we don't expect them to debate whether donald trump engaged in insurrection just specifically about his name on the ballot. justice kagan made an interesting point does colorado decide what happens in other cases keeping donald trump off the ballot?

but the bottom line here is that we expect this court to rule quickly because the colorado primary takes place in less than a month on super tuesday. this is not going to be the typical supreme court discussion and vote that lasts for several months. we expect something very quickly here from the court and it does not look good for the colorado voters. back to you. >> harris: david spunt, thank you very much. you heard david mention something and it's where i want to start with jonathan turley law professor at g.w. university and fox news contributor. this was elena kagan asking about who should decide this for the whole nation? can we watch that? >> justice kagan: why should a single state have the ability to make this determination not only for their own citizens but for the rest of the nation? >> because article 2 gives them the power to appoint their own electors as they see fit. but, if they are going to use a federal constitutional quantification as a ballot access determinant, then it's creating a federal constitutional question that

then this court decides and other courts -- other states -- if this court affirms the decision below, determining that president trump is ineligible to be president, other states would still have to determine what effect that would have on their own state's laws. >> harris: what's your read of the question and the answer? >> ha, well, i think that the advocates for disqualification probably expected a cold reception. but this was perfectly glacial. the problem for jason murray is that his toughest questions came from the left of the court. many people have been saying how the conservatives are going to sandbag this entire appeal and how they have to look deeply within themselves. many of the toughest questions were coming from justice jackson and justice kagan. and justice jackson notably kept on raising this first question, which is perhaps the presidency is just not covered by this

provision. and she has always taken a particular interest in the 14th amendment. and had said, you know, it's plausible that he was not. some of the other justices raised the fact that the 14th amendment was designed to take power away from the states. and, yet, as justice -- chief justice roberts said you are curiously finding that there is a provision here that radically expands that power. and that seems to go against the entire tenure and purpose of the 14th amendment. this was really a tough-going. jason murray did as good a job as he could do. but i imagine he wanted to do everything short of pulling the fire alarm at one point. because it was -- he was just getting hit from all sides in this argument. >> harris: at one point i was watching this and i said it felt more like a congressional hearing than a discussion at the u.s. supreme court. it was pretty interesting. and no politics involved, just lots of big personalities with big questions.

amy coney barrett then kind of supported, backed up with her own questioning that whole point about can one state really decide this issue for the whole nation? that seemed to be hinge point. >> it did. and they really did play out the implications of this. this is where i think murray had a very hard time. these were questions that were hitting him below the water line. and he didn't have a really good answer for it. every one of them, including some of the liberal justices kept on coming back and saying how are we going to hang this you can have different states applying different standards, a nurve the justices said what's even our review? do we have to accept what colorado did? even their own justices said that there was no due process here. some of them raised the fact that they relied on this professor who said that he could divine meaning in coded terms from trump's speech. and the justices -- couple of justices referenced then and said is this going to be the

record we deal with? what are we supposed to deal with? how are we supposed to review that going forward if we have a doden states doing this? >> kayleigh: professor turley kayleigh here, what was fascinating to me. >> harris: excuse me one second we were expecting the former president to speak is he doing that now. >> leading in every poll. leading -- i don't even know if we have anymore. i'm not sure if we have that republican candidate, somebody running but not making any impact. so as you know we won iowa, we won new hampshire in records. each one a record. we think we are going to do very well. i'm heading out right now to nevada for the caucus. the caucuses. and i think we are going to do very well there. all polls indicate we are in the 90's, maybe more than the 90's. we certainly did well in a primary that didn't matter. they voted very nicely and we have tremendous support from the people of our country. they hate what is happening at

the border. they hate what is happening just generally. we are not a respected country anymore. we are laughed at all over the world they are laughing at us. [plane] >> they love our country. they wanted to come back. they wanted to do that. if you think about it had the results of the election been different, it would be nice, you wouldn't have the ukrainian situation with russia. you wouldn't have had -- we would not have had an attack on israel, which was so horrible. you would not have had inflation. you wouldn't have china talking about taiwan. you punt have any of the problems that we have today. and you certainly had a broke iran and now you have a very rich iran. iran was broke when i left. they had no money to give to hamas. they had no money to give to hezbollah, and now they have 200 million plus, as you probably know, possibly don't like to complicit it, they certainly control iraq.

and iraq has another 300 billion. they have a very rich group of countries and, as you know, iraq should have never happened. that was a balance against iran. and we blew out the balance. and now iran has essentially iraq. and iraq doesn't like saying that but that's the way it is. and it's a shame. the world is in tremendous danger. we are in danger of possibly a world war iii. and we have a man who is absolutely the worst president in the history of our country. can't put two sentences together. he is not going to be able to negotiate with putin or xi or kim jong un, north korea. not going to be able to negotiate with anybody. only knows how to do is drop bombs all over the place. meaningless bombs except they kill a lot of people. cost a lot of money. every time you see a bomb, it's another million dollars. and it actually sets us back. we have peace through strength. this should not be happening. the middle east is blowing up. it's blowing up. a lot of people are being killed

and it's so unnecessary. so i just say that in watching the supreme court today, i thought it was very -- it's very beautiful process. i hope that democracy in this country will continue. because, right now, we have a very, very tough situation with all of the radical left ideas with the weaponization of politics, they weaponized it like it's never been weaponized before. [plane] >> totally illegal but they do it anyway and it has to stop. every one of the court cases that i'm involved. every single one, civil, whether it's the attorney generals or the district attorneys, you look at fan fani in georgia. they had many meetings at the white house and with the doj. they want their 8 hour meetings. that was all staged. that was a phony hoax. and now you look at it and it is a phony hoax. hopefully that case will be

dismissed in short order. it's a grace to this country. but they worked together with the justice department and the white house. and you are not supposed to do that every one of these cases you see comes out of the white house. it comes out of biden. it's election interference and it's really very sad. i thought the presentation today was a very good one. i think it was well received. i hope it was well received. you have millions of people that are out there wanting to vote, and they happen to want to vote for me or the republican party, whatever you want -- however you want to phrase it. but i'm the one running, and we are leading in every poll. we are leading in the local polls, in the state polls, and we are leading in the swing state polls and we are leading very big in the national polls. so, it's been a very great honor. we love the country. i think the reason we have such big leads, frankly, is that they loved four years of us compared to the three years-plus, the

three years that they have gone with biden where you have open borders, you have crime. nobody has ever seen crime like this, what's happened. and now the crime is being committed much of it by the migrants that have come in illegally to our country. i was wondering about that. i said, you know, a lot of these people come out of jails and mental institutions. they come out of places that you don't want to know about. we don't even know where they come from. we don't know who they are where they are. they are being dumped in from mental institutions, prisons and jails and many terrorists coming into our country. going to be paying a big price. they have to stop it. they have to close the border. by the way, the president can do it just by saying i want the border closed. i closed the border. we had the safest border in the history of our country. and now we have the most unsafe border in the history of our world. there has never been a country with a border like this not even a third world country. we are, again, we are going out to nevada right now. we will be out there, some of you will be out there with us. otherwise your colleagues will

be. and hopefully we are going to have a big night caucus tonight. we're going to have a very big night. we expect to have a very big night. the virgin islands, as you know, very much in play today. we will be hearing about them some time during the day or later on in the evening. and it's an honor to have you at mar-a-lago. i hope you like it. it's worth a little more than $18 million. that's another case. judge said it's worth $18 million. i said which cabin are we talking about? but that's the kind of justice we have when they say that to try build up a case. that was a shame. but they gave up so much when they said that that gave up so much that mar-a-lago is worth $18 million. they had it appraised for, as you know 50 to 100 times that amount. we have a judge that's what he said. is he supposed to be ruling on me? but who knows? maybe he will be fair. i doubt it but maybe he will be fair. so i want to thank everybody. and by the way we proved that case 100 percent, five times

over. that case is 100 percent proven five times over. we have never seen anything like it. he just wouldn't dismiss it, no matter what. it shouldn't have been there. it should have been in the commercial division. anyway, it's an honor to have you. i look forward to having you again. and i will probably see you out in nevada. thank you very much. [shouting questions] >> the u.s. supreme court is said to be broadly skeptic in the early reporting about the effort to try and kick you off the ballot. [inaudible] speak to the argument legal and otherwise that your detractors have made leading up to today and it's an argument that was given voice by mitch mcconnell, senate republican leader. >> all right. i got the gist. >> there is no. >> i got the question. >> president trump morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. >> he doesn't say that anymore. so let me just tell you that i heard and i watched. and the one thing i will say is they kept saying about what i said. [plane] >> right after.

i think it was an insurrection caused by nancy pelosi. this was an insurrection, if it was an insurrection, which there were no guns and no anything except for the fact that they shot ashley babbitt, somebody from police force shot ashley babbitt, so unnecessary, so sad, so horrible. but, there were no guns. there were no anything. if you take a look at my words, right after, you take a look at my speech from the rose garden, which was very shortly after, or you take a look at my -- i'm only on truth now but at that time we were tweeting. and i was on twitter. if you take a look at those five or six tweets, you will see very beautiful, very heart-warming statements go home. the police are doing their job, et cetera, et cetera. beautiful statements. if you seen my statement made in the rose garden i think you have to watch that today they said the words of trump. now, if you take a look of the words of democrats over the last period of time, look at

schumer's statement about the supreme court on the steps of the supreme court, he sounded like a mob boss. take a look at any of them. we put together a tape of vicious, violent statements made by democrats, nobody brings that up. take a look at maxine waters and the vicious statements that she made. i didn't do that. i said peacefully and patriotically. the speech was called peacefully and patriotically. it's peacefully and patriotically. he said i said a bad statement. it was the exact opposite. i think you should take a look at the statements that i made before and after and you will see a whole -- a whole different dialogue. [shouting questions] >> mr. president, you just mentioned chinese president xi. you said that you were going to 60% tariffs when you get back in office. can you explain your rationale. >> we want to bring business back to the u.s. they're stealing our business.

they are taking our business at levels that nobody has ever seen before. by doing that, we bring business back, manufacturing back to the united states, which i was doing. i took in hundreds of billions of dollars from china. no president had ever taken in 10 cents. not 10 cents. i took in hundreds of billions of dollars and jobs were coming back. i was saving steel companies. now they are blowing it. when i see u.s. steel being bought by japan, what a sad thing that is to me what a sad thing that is. so we want to bring jobs back. very simple. thank you. [shouting questions] >> mr. president, do you still have confidence in speaker johnson after the failed impeachment effort. >> i do have confidence in him, yeah. i very much do. i think he is a very good man and i have great confidence in him. [shouting questions] >> why is nikki haley still in the race when you are dominating in the polls? >> oh, i love that question. thank you very much. you just said it. i don't know why she continues,

but let her continue. we have a big one coming up as you know in south carolina. and the polls are indicating that we're through the roof on that one. we are leading by, i guess, 35%. 35 points. so i don't know. i think she hurts herself but i think she hurts the party and in a way hurts the country. but it seems to be dying. she did poorly in iowa. she did very poorly in iowa, actually. she came in third place. ron desantis beat her although you wouldn't know that if you listened to her speech. she did poorly in new hampshire, she did poorly no matter where she went. i don't know how the results aren't in yet from the virgin islands but i know she is playing it very hard. and in nevada she lost to no name. she had a no name and she lost by i guess 40 points. so, i don't know why she continues but she is a, you know, i don't really care if she continues. i think it's bad for the party.

i think it's actually bad for her, too. [shouting questions] >> mr. president, thank you for having us. >> thank you. >> given the battle [inaudible] [plane] >> well, i can say presidential immunity, which we will be talking about because that will be -- it's very, very important for a president to have. if a president doesn't have immunity, he really doesn't have a presidency. he can be told to do things that he would never do. he could do really bad things for our country. presidential immunity is imperative. it's going to be very, very important. i would rather talk about that next week but there is nothing more important to a presidency than immunity because they have to be free make decisions without saying oh, if i do this, or if i do that, as soon as i get out of office, we're going to be indicted. we're going to have trouble. and the other party will do that i think we have seen that there

are some very bad people and you have an opposition party and they will do things that are very bad. if you don't have immunity, you can be blackmailed. you can be -- as a president, they will say if you don't do this, this, and, this we're going to indict you as soon as you leave office. you cannot allow a president to be out there without immunity. they don't have immunity, you don't have a presidency. you lose all -- excuse me, you lose all -- you lose all form of free thought and good thought. and you probably weaken the presidency to a point that it was never supposed to be weakened. it would be a very bad thing for our country. we will be talking about immunity in the coming weeks. [shouting questions] >> how confident are you that treated today by the supreme court justices? how is the time frame to make a decision? >> i'm a believer in our country and i'm a believer in the supreme court. i listened today and i thought

our arguments were very, very strong. an argument that is very important is the fact that you are leading in every race. you are leading in every state. you are leading in the country against both republican and democrat and biden, you are leading in the country by a lot. and can you take the person that's leading everywhere and say, hey, we're not going to let you run? you know, i think that's pretty tough to do, but i'm leaving it up to the supreme court. thank you all very much. [shouting questions. >> enjoy. thank you. >> harris: all right. so, there had been some discussion about whether or not we would see him right after, but you know the president, he just told us, president donald trump that, of course, he was keeping up with the u.s. supreme court. your first thoughts? >> kayleigh: that was a brilliantly done press conference by president trump. look, he came out and he didn't start by talking about the supreme court case. he didn't talk about presidential immunity.

he didn't talk about even the election. he hit the border. he hit ukraine. he hit israel. he hit iran. he talked about u.s. steel jobs. he talked about crime. he talked about taiwan. he talked about the prospect of world war iii. and he had the nation's attention in doing so and drew all of those issues to the forefront. really well done. it wasn't until the q and a that he responded to the supreme court. that he responded to presidential immunity. absolutely excellent press conference. and if i could just say this quickly about the supreme court case, how fascinating it was to see obama nominated justice elena kagan asked the question of why a state should decide for the rest of the citizens of the country who they can vote for byoffing someone only to then be underscored by biden nominated justice ketanji brown jackson. brought up a fact pattern why should a court not in a state but a secretary of state in one state make a decision for the nation? and it immediately hearkened your mind to maine where an

unelected secretary of state, shenna bellows made a decision for the country president donald trump will not be on this ballot. >> harris: that's the other case side by side with colorado and maine. colorado went first and then you have 11 other states that hope to take the former president's name off the ballot. sandra smith, your take? >> first of all, thanks for having me here today. it's good to be on the couch. first of all, i think this is a fascinating moment for the country to be able to hear these oral arguments, to hear these justices one by one. their questioning to these lawyers. it was a little bit longer, i think, than initially anticipated. not sure what the take away is from that. but, to jonathan turley's point. just a moment ago before the president -- the former president was speaking, the toughest questions in the supreme court today came from those judges on the left, from those justices on the left. to quote donald trump a moment ago, i think my case was well-received. he can certainly make that case. justice kagan, i felt so compelled to write down at one

moment where it was really looking good for the former president in the supreme court and she sounded ready to keep trump on the ballot. she said kicking a federal candidate off the ballot state by state, quote: sounds awfully national. >> >> harris: yes. >> shannon: it seems quite extraordinary to let colorado's secretary of state decide whether someone can be president. you knew things were changing pretty quickly in the room when you heard that. i also wrote down this from justice jackson saying at best this is ambiguous. if there is ambiguity why would we construe it against democracy. these were key mommy's in the supreme court today. >> harris: key point, sandra. quickly followed up by did there is ambiguity, would we have to live with that? do we have to live with that discussion you? heard jonathan turley talk about that. i know you have got to scoot to america reports. and, before you go, let's just double down with one more question. you saw the former president there suddenly turn into a news

conference. when i said we weren't quite sure what was going to happen we really didn't know. we thought it was going to happen 11:30. all those questions went on longer. >> shannon: i'm sure kaley lee knows the best time to speak no better time to speak when you feel like you are winning. the assumption would be he would step up to that microphone informally at mar-a-lago. now he will travel to nevada. i pulled together my analysis iowa and new hampshire. you look at questions we put to voters on the ground there. do you think donald trump has done something illegal or unethical or not illegal or do you think he has done anything wrong when it come to his role at the u.s. capitol on january 6th. among those voters in iowa, nearly six in 10 say they believe he did nothing wrong when it came to that you saw that show up with the voter results. in those states. very similar outcome in new hampshire as well. so that's sort of, you know, gives us the temperature with

voters. >> harris: i love how you plugged that in fox news voter analysis if anyone who doesn't know what fnv is. that's all true. i thought we also saw a huge consistency that nikki haley said might not be there. i mean, the issue of illegal immigration also very important to new hampshire just like it was number one in iowa. >> shannon: this is all true. look, i think the lawyers set out for donald trump in that room set tout prove, you know, would you all have our bowls in front of us. the 14th amendment insurrection clause doesn't apply to the president. very effectively made that case. january 6th, wasn't an insurrection. even if it was the third item. trump did not engage in that insurrection. it was just remarkable. i believe that there is a large number -- a large population of this country that turned in to listen to that today. >> harris: no doubt. glad you are here. you have got to scoot. while you do that talk to shannon bream. you can go out on the side. >> sandra: thank you so much for having me. >> harris: bring in fox news anchor and chief legal

correspondent shannon bream now. i don't know if you were listening to all that sandra and kayleigh said about this. we are eager to hear your take on it. quite a few people still outside the court right now. >> shannon: they are. they are getting a little feisty from time to time. we will speak over them. people are very passionate about this case as you might imagine both inside and outside the courtroom today. a couple of things. i do think that president trump has a reason to feel good about these arguments today. there were folks inside the courtroom, a little flavor both for and against this president. think about congressman jamie raskin the democrat who led impeachment proceedings against the president. he was there today. senator make lee who is constitutional scholar. has been a supreme court clerk. a supporter of president trump. he was there, too. a lot of familiar faces from trump world packed into the courtroom here. even though the president himself wasn't here. certainly he can listen for himself and their reports back to him are going to be positive. as you guys have mentioned, all across the spectrum, no matter who appointed them, nearly every justice in there had really tough questions for colorado.

clarence thomas, justin thomas at one point asked the attorney for the colorado plaintiffs, he said, listen, if this is something that states should be able to do, go after kicking off federal candidates off of federal ballots, then why didn't we see examples of this back in 1870 when this was actually passed if it was supposed to apply to presidential candidates, why don't we have any examples? can you point to any in the attorney said i can't. he really didn't have any to point to. that takes us full circle to the end of the argument, which i know you have all talked about with justice ketanji brown jackson. all of these different people we consider officers of the court they named senators and representatives, they never list president or vice president. and she is saying i have a problem why the president isn't on that list. if you are saying this applies to president trump, it's not mentioned in that list. and gets to the point, sandra was making. if there is ambiguity about whether or not this should be done this way. why would we ever resolve that against democracy? so, listen, nearly every justice

on the bench, i wouldn't be surprised if it's 8-1, justice sotomayor seemed to have a lot of compassion and connection with the arguments that the colorado folks were making. but, listen, i know what the chief justice is try to do is do this narrow low and try to get to 9-0 to telegraph from the high court here it's not a political issue and they are not going to get involved in a partisan way or political way in presidential elections. >> harris: shannon bream, thank you so much. thanks for telling us what the color is like outside that courthouse. >> we know this is an important issue to people. and that crowd has done nothing but regather itself since the justices disbanded. any idea of timing on when we might hear from them just real quickly? >> shannon: this case is so expedited. normally have a private conference with the vote thursday or friday on this. but then from there the opinion would actually start getting written. >> harris: oh wow. >> shannon: days or weeks not months. not something you will wait until the end of the term in june. >> harris: thank you, shannon.

emily, i come to you. >> emily: i want to have viewers sort of focus on a couple of the practical implications about what could happen from this case. we talked a lot about the x's and o's. we talked about the officer of the united states, officer under the united states. we have talked about the insurrectionist clause. and at the end of the day, those original founders and the language of the insurrectionist clause there was original language taken out so all we have left is the language we are left with. and the argument here is being made as people say well, was it insurrection? he was never charged. this was an individual that was never actually formally charged with insurrection. and as multiple attorneys general argued to the supreme court in an am miss can you say curie brief they said look, the types of presidential action esf you allow this to take place. and then this goes into the secretary of state argument. now, as jason murray, he -- i thought he did a masterful job of doing the best with what he

had, but think about what the implication is in terms of who holds the power. so he goes before the supreme court and he says well, you guys, we know that the power is not in the states to change the qualifications for federal office, just the election process. he says that's where you guys come in, supreme court. but the relate is, the supreme court doesn't come in then. they have rules over and over again states can change, only the process, not the qualifications. and, if let's say, that colorado was allowed to keep trump off the ballot, then it would result in an electoral patchwork quilt. and what would happen then? this is the subdivision to the question how can one state effect the entire nation because the reality would be let's say a few states follow suit and then not everyone? how would that be democracy if a presidential candidate was allowed on some ballots. >> harris: that's a great question. >> not on all. underscore cec ketanji brown jan if there is any ambiguity at all

why would we e err on the side f democracy. >> harris: so key. every state is different you already. if you have a winner take all state, for instance, that's going against somebody who wiped away something that was proportional and took his name off the ballot, that's a different situation, too. i mean, none of it then is fair. all of it is ambiguous. >> i think y'all make very interesting points and thanks for having me on today. the last few moments we have here. we have heard the audio arguments for the supreme court only on a handful of occasions going back 24 years. and we have all been cautioned about don't read too much into the questions. but we sat here and listened to it. at 11:42 this morning, which is about 1 hour and 10 minutes ago. at the same time reuters and the associated press had the same line cross u.s. supreme court appears sympathetic colorado

ballot disqualification. what you are hearing and what shannon is hearing and turley and andy mccarthy. >> harris: david spunt. >> bill: everybody is hearing it the same way. it makes you wonder that if other cases that pertain wipe the table clean on all of them. i wrote down just a couple notes here. the alito comment goes to what you are suggesting, emily. if we have two different standards or multiple standards various states what would we do dovetailed kagan saying at the same time how does a single state have power over 49 others? relevant comments, i think. another one to your point, kayleigh, these judges in colorado, seven of them at the state supreme court are all appointed by a democratic governor. they ruled super narrow on this. they were at 4-3 decision on this. that's why this case finally made it to the u.s. supreme court. one thing that really surprised me today is that the word

insurrection, i don't believe it was mentioned until we were about an hour into this. which would surprise me and all the prep here andrew, had i gone to law school, would i be able to follow this because i thought jonathan mitchell came out firing. >> harris: do you know why? >> bill: really sharp attorney out of austin, texas, chicago law. would i be able to follow this? >> bill: he said no. so i would need additional legal training? he said no, you would need to be a supreme court dork, which we are not. but, nonetheless, i think it's a fascinating day today. not the most monumental we have seen. but to have the former president come out at the end i think really just takes us full circle for what we are about to deal with in this >> harris: so jonathan mitchell

haves argued before scotus five times. he does it. >> i think these attorneys, this is verbal warfare and those justices will try and knock you off your stride, and i just felt that he was well prepared for this and i was told he did a lot of mock training in order to get ready for it. >> harris: i want to quickly bring in fox news contributor and attorney leo terrell, just to get his thoughts on this, leo, i know that this won't be as expeditious as today, but your take on how this shakes out in terms of timing. super tuesday, march 5. >> leo: thank you for having me, harris. i think a ruling in two weeks or less. only outcome now whether or not 9-0 or 8-1. but let's not leave out sotomayor. she made twice comments about proposed language as to whether or not we'll adopt language stating a state cannot remove a

presidential candidate. she said that twice, and that was very, very encouraging because basically you have all the liberal justices supporting a reversal this decision. listen to sotomayor. said it not once, but twice, about proposed language in ruling against colorado. >> harris: quickly, the other states, other 11 that have not yet taken his name off the ballot, very different situation than colorado and maine where the votes would not count if this went against donald trump. what happens with those? do they now continue on and try to take his name off? >> leo: absolutely not. they are going to wait for this ruling harris, i can assure you, i think the supreme court anticipating the other 11 cases, i guarantee the language in this supreme court ruling will make it very clear that every other station should drop any notion of removing president trump off the ballot. >> harris: leo terrell,

appreciate your time today. you sat by for breaking news and always love to get your take on things. >> leo: i love "the falkner focus." >> harris: see you soon, emily. >> emily: i wanted to respond to what you said, it's so important, i think, for viewers to understand that the beauty of the supreme court in this once very rare chance of listening to them is that the questions are so much more beyond the texturalist, their minds are absolutely brilliant but also toward the practical implications and what i loved about all the questions, regardless of party or expectations that the conversation today, it was so much more than verbal warfare. it was an actual -- it was a very thoughtful discussion about what things mean and why based on intent and based on expectation and then the actual practical implications it would have for americans, for voters, and for democracy and that is the beauty of the supreme court.

>> kayleigh: harris, one interesting thing leo terrell said to you there, my thought exactly, is this going to be 9-0 or 8-1, and bill, you are right. very difficult to read the tea leaves at the supreme court. skeptical optional questions even if they end up agreeing with the party. but really, the only affirming line of questioning that came to murray, the counsel for colorado was from sotomayor. one moment he responded, yes, you are exactly right, like a moment of reprieve for him after hard line questioning from kagan. so, it's really going to be fascinating to see, is it 8-1, could it be 9-0, and your point what a moment, apolitical institution, recognizes basic fairness, recognizes historical interpretation and texturalist understanding, you cannot disqualify someone. >> harris: you felt that today after the criticism this is not going to be that because there are six conservative justices, couldn't be that in fact, seemed

to tilt it one way or the other just in that sort of mind to me. >> kayleigh: you heard the commentary from left wing outlets, conservative justices ruining, i would love to hear them. >> bill: precedent is on the line for u.s. president. and all of these cases, and i'll just repeat after listening to this together, what happens if other cases come before this same u.s. supreme court? >> harris: leo terrell said something might be in the ruling that would communicate that for that not to happen for the 11 or more states. sandra has made it to her studio. "america reports" now. >> question of whether a former president is disqualified for insurrection to be president again is just say it, it sounds awfully national to me.

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