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woman: two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" n jones. n you are marching "the context" on bbc news. >> donald trump gets immunity for the ax he carried out as officeholder but there are those acts under office secret that he does not get immunity. >> this is an awful decision. we have six republican

appointees on the court that claim to be originalists. this has nothing to do with originalism or textualism. >> this is the first time we have had on the books firm supreme court precedent establishing any sort of criminal immunity for a president for an official act. >> immunity for donald trump, kind of. the supreme court has ruled the former president all other u.s. presidents have immunity from prosecution on official acts but not from any unofficial acts. what will that mean for lower courts considering charges against him over january 6? we will hear from a panel of legal analysts. it is election week in france. the far right national rally made big gains in the first round of parliamentary elections, winning a third of the vote. president macron's central alliance dropped to third place. hurricane beryl's buffering

parts of the caribbean, the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in june. there are worried that the damage will be catastrophic. welcome to the program. we start in the u.s.. the supreme court has ruled donald trump's partially immune from prosecution for actions taken while in the white house. the justices said the president enjoy absolute immunity for official acts taken as president but not for unofficial acts. trump had argued that charges he faced for allegedly trying to subvert the 2020 election result were without merit. courts will now need to distinguish what were official and unofficial actions. that will be delayed will be on november's election. trump has posted the message on truth social, big win for our constitution a democracy. proud to be an american. our correspondent is outside the supreme court.

just talk us through this decision. >> it is an historic decision, very consequenal one. there were lots of questions as to why the supreme court even took it on in the first place because when donald trump appealed, saying that he should get absolute immunity because trying to question the election results was when he was doing in his capacity as president, a lower court unanimously disagreed with him, saying he doesn't get absolute immunity. he appealed to the supreme court. they saved in this opinion for last, and it is a blockbuster one. as you said, this is a ruling that effectively decides that there was something that donald trump did in his official capacity, official acts where he is immune, but there are those that he did as a private candidate which are not immune. the question is which bit falls where, what part of the

indictment can go forward, which ones cannot? to give you an example, lewis, the supreme court said donald trump's conversation with dan vice president mike pence who he was pressuring to overturn the election results, is covered by immunity, as well as with the justice department, because he was talking in his capacity as the president. the other part that is consequential, the justices said the president has immunity with respect to his official acts but also evidence related to those official acts cannot be brought to trial. that is a really difficult position for the special counsel jack smith. effectively renders parts of the indictment irrelevant because you need to show the official act to prove intention for what donald trump is alleged to have done. basically it is back to the drawing board in some ways for the judge in the trial. but the thing is donald trump can appeal again, and it could end up at the supreme court

again. lewis: give us a sense of their reaction to this decision. >> for donald trump, as you read, it's a victory. this is what he wanted. he wanted absolute immunity. i don't think that was ever on the cards. the supreme court indicated in april that that was not going to happen. but it is a victory in the sense that it looks like it is going to be quite tricky for this indictment to go forward. that doesn't mean it won't. the justices didn't say the case shouldn't go forward, but it does delay, and that is his big strategy. embracing these delays, legal proceedings, putting it through the court to delay. president biden's campaign team has reacted by saying this doesn't take away what happened on january 6, those events that led up to the riots we saw. our team was on a call early with president biden's team to

get a reaction and many of them were saying this proves what president biden has been saying all along. they want to distract from president biden's problem currently. they were saying the message they are giving to the electorate, democracy is at stake. this proves that in some respects. what they say the justices have done today is effectively decide that the president is king. crucially, bear in mind, if donald trump wins back the white house, he will appoint a justice department that will kill this case. lewis: thank you so much for that, giving us an idea of the significance, as well as some of the reaction. let's get into some of the legal details. joining me is a prosecutor from the southern district of new york, as well as a corporate attorney. thank you both for coming onto the program. we will get into the dail.

first of all, quickly, from both of you, your headline retion, top takeaway? sarah, let us start with you. >> this decision really reflects what happens in oral argument. i don't think it was a huge surprise based on what we heard from the justices in oral argument. trump's team was arguing for this very broad immunity. prosecutor's team had a very different take on it, said that all presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution. the court ended up somewhere in the middle. they have carved a path in the middle, saying there are certain acts that are core official acts for which the president would have absolute immunity. other acts on the age of official acts for which a presidt has a presumption of immunity. then there are these unofficial acts which a president does not have immunity.

i think this was all foreshadowed at the oral argument. not a surprise, but a big win to the trump campaign here. lewis: juno, ge us your headline thoughts. >> i agree with sarah. not a big surprise, consistent with how courts have treated civil cases since the 1980's. i think this was the middle ground that many of us expected. i will share one thought. the fact is, this is somewhat a fair and commonsense sense outcome, however, i will agree comments earlier in the hour that said this is not really an originalist decision. this is a court that prides itself on looking at the plain text of laws, in this case, the constitution. the constitution to speak to immunity for president. yes, they applied some separation of powers concept, built on the earlier case for civil trials in the nixon v fitzgerald case, but i get the

criticism. they kind of took this out of thin air. i understand why the court will not come under even more criticism than it has in recent months. lewis: interesting. let's look at this issue of official, unofficial, the third area that you talked about. what are some challenges that you come up against trying to make these distinctions, definitions? >> it is very muddy, there is no question. there are certain acts the court said in its decision are unquestionably official acts. there is an absolute immunity. they cannot be put in this case. but there is a huge swath of other activitthat the court really punted on, as they usually do. that is really not their purview to do, to get into that type of information. they will send it back to the lower court.

the lower court will have to parse through all of these allegations in the indictment, all of the acts, figure out whether they can be the basis of a criminal prosecution here. there is a lot of work to come in the case to see what can go forward and what cannot go forward. lewis: juno, i want to put some of the dissenting voices here, sonia sotomayor. the president is now a king above the law. what do you make of that? >> it is hyperbolic. i get it is frustrating, and i ard some of the speculations that now the president could have people assassinated, misuse the military. i guess that would involve many other actors going along with that lawlessness. but i get the frustration. these are conservatives in the majority that say they look to the plain language of the constitution, and there is nothg in the constitution that talks about this. typically in these cases, you

would expect these justices to say we are not here to make things up. we look at the plain language. if you want to change it, we are not to want to change it. goes back to the people to do that. the fact that they built on the earlier case from the 1980's and said we are going to go with this, i understand the dissenter's aggravation here because this is exactly opposite of what this court trees itself as being in the majority. lewis: sarah, your thoughts on it, the president is not a king above the law? >> what these various decisions showed here is that, the real dissent among the justices here, with the concurring opinions, dissenting opinions, we see the very sharp lines that are drawn between the justices, their opinions, how the court should operate. really the political lines drawn between the justices here.

it is significant for that reason as well. lewis: what can we draw from that, joe, longer-term? people have expressed their concern again that this political split. that in some way damages the credibility of the institution of the supreme court. >> it is unfortunate. people should note that more than two thirds of cases decided this term were unanimous. those are opted not the headline grabbers, though. people will see the justices in many of these cases deciding not on the merits of these cases are on their legal philosophies, but on who it benefits. i hope that is not the case. i think that is a perception that has been growing. i think i'm political leaders in washington, members of the judiciary need to work extra hard that they are not here to pick winners and losers, they are here to call balls and

strikes based on the laws, not their personal preferences. lewis: sarah, what happens next effectively as a result of this rule? >> the case has to go back down to the lower court. they have to sort through all of these allegations and the indictment, at the evidence looks like, in terms of trying to parse out what were official acts, unofficial acts, what falls in that middle category of official acts on the outer edge. the court gave some guidance to the lower court as to how to get through this but there really is a lot of work to be done. the other significant thing that came out of this ruling is the court also said that some of these activities that are official acts and cannot be viewed, for which the president has absolute immunity, cannot be a part of this trial at all. that information cannot be ud in evidence at this trial.

lewis: great to get your analysis both. thank you very much for coming on the program. around the world and across the u.k., you are watching bbc news.

lewis: this is bbc news. let's turn now to an election happening this week, the first round of france's parliamentary elections have seen the far right make an historic gain. marine le pen's far right national rally came out with more than a third of the vote followed by the left-wing coalition. the party of the curnt president and third -- in third. andrew harding has the latest. >> paris, the day after, and for many a profound sense of shock. it is like having a hangover, a

legal assistant of yesterday's election results. >> people are fed up with politics. so they are turning to the extremes. it is like the plague. >> when the far right comes to power, it holds onto power, warns veronique. they are all talking about this woman, marine le pen, whose party, national rally, took the lead in sunday's boat. her father was a notorious far right politician, a racist and anti-semite. but his daughter has softened the national rally's image and platform and last night won big across the nation. her parties populist anti-immigrant euro skeptic message and its 28-year-old candidate for the prime minister's job finding broad appeal. >> formerly, it was more people who were workers in complicated

economic situation now you have also other is voting for national rally, women voting for national rally, young people. >> meanwhile, france's president is in trouble. no wonder it looked like he was trying to hide yesterday. his election gamble has backfired. his centrist party on track to lose heavily. so what are plans to block the far right from sweeping to victory? this afternoon, different parties began arriving at parliament, aiming to form a united front against the national rally but the divisions are all too evident. the leader of the green party here brought to tears of frustration during this debate. france is still digesting the shock of yesterday's election results. love it or loathe it, the national rally is now at the heart of france's political mainstream. more than that, it is the most

powerful party across the country. >> but can you translate that to enough seats in parliament to win outright? if it can, france will be changed utterly. lewis: so what does that mean for the second round of voting on sunday and france's role in europe? >> and their runoff elections this sunday, there will be a very tight contest now in many of france's constituencies between the far right in many of them and they coalition candidate. there is horsetrading going on, frantic talks and all those different constituencies or candidates who drop out, potentially unite around one single candidate to block the far right from power. is that possible? we are talking about the center and they left that is very disunited, very split. we will have to see if they can unite behind one single candidate. the far right is a course of the

heir to the national front. no longer called that, but the leader once called the nazi concentration camps as a lesson of history. now capitalizing on this desire for law and order, hard line on immigration, they are potentially standing on the brink of power that has huge implications not only here in france but this country's position on the world stage. what would be france's position on supporting ukraine after the invasion from russia? the national party in the past has been supportive of moscow. there are questions over that. france's relationship with europe and much more. president macron called the selection, wanting clarity, but he has achieved quite the opposite. lewis: let's speak now to a researcher on right-wing politics. thank you for coming on the program. >> thank you for having me. lewis: we will get into the

details and the implications in a second. big picture, how significant a moment is this in the history of france? >> it came as a shock but not a surprise. we have seen for years the rise of the far right movement, far right parties. the national rally, other candidacies in the presidential election. this has been a decade of work going on. today, we just witnessed 10.6 one million voters, which is less than what was expected. but it cannot be undervalued. what is happening today is historical. next week, there could be a farming government in france, something that has never happened since 1940. lewis: let's take a look at the chances of that and what happens now with the second round of voting.

big decisions for most other parties now about whether they drop out to make it less likely therefore for the far right to come into power. what is your sense about what parties will do? >> there is this strategy of doing a rublican front, which means that candidates will drop out to fight against the national rally. the question is who? we heard the former prime minister who said that he would fight both extremes. president macron this and we need to fight at any cost. what we observe is locally, some candidates from the presidential party refused to drop out, and that could lead to a full control of the national rally in less than a week. lewis: interesting.

what is your sense of what will actually happen? >> i don't want to place a bet on this but there is actually a strong chance there is a full majority of national rally next week. different republicans who dealt with them. that would be to draw a parallel with the american situation, the same situation with the republican party, where you have both moderates and trump supporters in the same party, voting on the same laws. lewis: interesting. lots of people still asking the question about why exactly emmanuel macron called the selection. why did he? >> because of timing. he placed a very dangerous bet, betted that in three weeks though that wouldn't have time to organize themselves, that he would have time to expose the platform of the national rally,

and then to appear as the savior of france, to be in the full majority. but he failed. yesterday, a close advisor to the president actually called him nero, watching rome burn. he paved the way to a far right government next week. lewis: we have talked about the far right coming first in the first round, macron's alliance in third. we have t spoken much about second-place, the surgeon support for this left-wing coalition. what is your assessment of that? >> this is the end of a cycle in french politics, a cycle that began in 2017. we had three blocks of a system since 2017, where you had left-wing parties, centrist

liberal party with macron, and then the right wing, the big tent. now we are switching back to two party, right wing, left wing. even in building dynamics, we are returning to the old dynamics of east-west, rural-urban differences. that is but we are observing now with yesterday's vote. lewis: we will have full coverage of the second round of voting this weekend. thank you very much for coming on the program. next, israel's prime minister benjamin netanyahu says that israel is almost finished eliminating hamas' military capabilities in the gaza strip. the statement comes nine months after the october 7 hamas attack on israel. netanyahu vowed to crush and destroy hamas, and in the months

since, more than 35,000 people, many women and children, hav been killed in gaza. >> i returned yesterday from a i saw great achievements of fighting being carried out in rafah. we are nearing the end of the elimination phase of hamas' terrorist army. i was also very impressed with the achievements aboveground, underground by the fighting spirit of the commanders. with this spirit, we will achieve all of our goals. lewis: the israeli army on monday issued a new evacuation order for parts of khan younis and rafah in southern gaza. hundreds of thousands had already left rafah ahead of a ground invasion launched by israeli troops on the southernmost city since early may. the statement came hours after

israel said 20 projectiles were fired into israel into khan you nis. the idef said it was the largest attack in months. stay with us. plenty more to come. back with headlines and then we will have althe days sports. wimbledon tennis and tour de france, and of course, reaction to that england game. i am lewis vaughan jones. announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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