minute left. i wanted to quickly ask you, your clients never thought that they would have to take on the mantle of being able to fight for people like them, just regular citizens, to be able to work as election workers or live their lives without interference. i want to emphasize something and have you just kind of address it. it's not just rudy giuliani. i want people to understand it's not just him saying these things. it's other people and they're threatening them and saying horrible things ability them. >> yeah. that's right. mr. giuliani is saying these things. a website. lots of people are saying these things because they believe people like mr. giuliani and ruby and shaye are true heros and have done this not just for themselves, but specifically for all the civil servants and election workers throughout and we should be thankful to them for their courage and bravery. >> thank you for your patience. i appreciate you.

and "the reidout" with joy reid is up next. good evening everyone. welcome to "the reidout." we begin tonight with major breaking news. a bombshell ruling from the colorado supreme court in just the last hour, states that donald trump is disqualified from holding the office of president. and from appearing on the republican primary ballot in that state. in a more than 200 page ruling the court found that trump is ineligible for the white house under section 3 of the 14th amendment to the u.s. constitution. the court found that district court was correct in its early ruling calling the january 6th attack on the capitol an insurrection and that trump, quote, engaged in that insurrection through his personal actions. the court noted we do not reach these conclusions lightly. we are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions now before us. we are likewise mindful of our solemn duty to apply the law

without fear or favor. and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates we reach. this, frankly, stunning and unprecedented decision could have major implications in the 2024 race in which trump is currently the republican frontrunner. the decision will likely be appealed to the u.s. supreme court which could decide the matter on a national level. and when a big news item like this drops, we -- there's one person we want to talk to more than anybody else. rachel maddow joins me on the phone. we had a whole show planned, my friend. and that is completely upended. this is what we're talking about now. i am in front of papers in front of me, but i want to listen to you react to what colorado supreme court has done. >> joy, first of all, thank you for having me on. it's short notice and we're all trying to absorb this. i mean, listen, i think in the broad strokes in terms of our

democracy, there are very few magic wands. there are very few sort of, you know, magic spells that you cast that make a complex and difficult problem go away. it just doesn't happen very often in our political system. and i think that we shouldn't be under any illusions about the character and the partisan inclinations, among other things, of this current supreme court as it is constituted. that said. >> yeah. >> it is not -- this is not a crazy thing for a democracy to do. this is -- this is something that was a hallmark of postwar germany after world war ii, this is something that happened to boll sa nar ro in brazil and our own congress did in 1868 after our civil war specifically to preclude anybody from holding office in this country who engaged in insurrection against this country. so it's not unheard of, but it's d it would be an incredible wild

card. >> it would indeed, and to your very point, you know, there are 14 members who were expelled during the civil war for supporting the confederacy. the 14th amendment amendment section 3 written for the confederacy, because of that insurrection, and i think what was the most stunning to me, rachel, i haven't gone through this thick ruling, big stack of paper, but the part i've gotten through what i found the most stunning is that what this court has said, is that the -- the previous court, lower court, was not wrong in saying that donald trump engaged in insurrection. their only error was saying that section 3 of the 14th amendment, which again was to prevent insurrectionist from serving didn't apply to presidents. oh, no we agree with the lower court, he did engage in insurrection, but section 3 does, in fact, apply to presidents. i guess it was surprising that lower court said it didn't. >> yeah. it's interesting after that district court ruling, the trump

side appealed part of it and the plaintiffs appealed the other part of it, and so it was, you know, a real question as to what the colorado supreme court was going to do here. but i mean, let's keep in mind the scale of this. this is about colorado only. it will -- you said it will likely be appealed to the supreme court. it will certainly be appealed to the united states supreme court. their ruling, i mean depending on what they rule, they could just swat this down and make this go away, but if they engage with it in a more nuanced way or agree with the findings of the colorado supreme court, this will be something that has national implications. p this will apply in many states. so listen, i don't think this is the way that donald trump's political career ends ultimately, because of what we know about this iteration of the united states supreme court. the factual findings about him

engaged in insurrection for section 3 of the 14th amendment which said insurrectionists cannot hold office, it's not that you can't run, you can't hold notifies this case because you have broken your oath that is -- it's not a flippant decision. they did fact finding to arrive at that, and it's going to -- it's going to matter some way. i don't believe it will be a magic wand that ends his political career, but this is a substantive finding and real surprise from the colorado supreme court. >> absolutely. well let's break that down into two pieces and talk about how much it could expand and metastasize for donald trump, the worries over colorado. this is not a swing state he would likely win anyway, whatever, but there are other state courts that have rejected similar lawsuits attempting to keep him off the ballot. i will name them. arizona, michigan, minnesota. the plaintiffs challenging trump's eligibility in michigan filed an appeal to that stats

supreme court just on monday. so there is a potential ripple effect here, and, you know, i wonder what you think about that and also what you think about it being this court? this court that doesn't seem to have much respect for precedent, but calls it will originalist, its majority does, and a court that has a member whose wife is -- whose wife materially participated in the insurrection and who probably won't recuse himself. clarence thomas's wife i mean. >> yeah. i mean, if the supreme court were to affirm this ruling, he could be disqualified not just in colorado but multiple states. like the stakes couldn't be higher. as you say they define themselves as originalists, what is originalism mean, it means, in my layman's take on it, it's a fairytale, but if you listen to the way that they talk about it, it's that there's no

interpretation essentially that all they're doing is applying the language of the constitution as the people who wrote that language intended it in their own time. again, i think it is kind of a fairytale but that's the way they talk about it themselves. in the case of the 14th amendment this was written in 1868 specifically to preclude people from holding office in the united states if they were -- if they had engaged in trying to overthrow the government of the united states or if they had previously been office holders who violated that oath. and so it's -- i mean, i look at that as a person who doesn't agree with this originalism fantasy legal philosophy and say well, seems pretty clear to me, but you and i know and every, you know, every realistic observer of the supreme court knows, that they're not -- they're not given to grand gestures in any direction other than a right wing direction. they are willing to do even very

radical things. they're willing to take up cases where the fact -- the purported facts of the case aren't real. they're willing to take up cases where they're supposedly governed by precedent and decide precedent doesn't apply in this case because they have a new feeling. they're willing to do radical things in the service of conservative policy aims, and i think it could be argued partisan aims of the republican party. they have not been willing to do anything brave in any decision other than -- in any direction other than that. so will the united states supreme court say, this is what the -- this is what the authors of the 14th amendment were talking about in 1868 when they put section 3 in there? i cannot imagine it, but, you know -- at this point stranger things have happened, joy. you know, we've lived through a lot you and i. stranger things have happened since like yesterday. like everything strange every day. i wanted to hinge on one more things and don't want to make it

a hostage situation but love talking to you. the part about them being republicans, because one of -- to me kind of the things that you can sort of predict about this supreme court, is that they -- that the supreme court majority, conservative majority, they will hue to outcomes that political -- that republican political party would prefer. >> yes. >> i think you and i both know from, you know, whatever they say publicly, one of the outcomes that republican party would prefer is no more trump. is to rid themselves of this man. because he has taken control of the party. he has taken control of their base, and he has taken control of their minds. they're not allowed to use them anymore unless they use them for whatever that makes him feel good that day. in a sense the supreme court republican majority, if we want to call them that, have an opportunity to rid their preferred party of this person based on the thing that everyone understand was a threat to our democracy and the peaceful transfer of power. can you foresee john roberts,

for instance, taking up that opportunity? i probably couldn't foresee clarence thomas doing it. are there five that might? >> i honestly don't know. and this is actually one of those moments in journalism where, you know, there's a lot of criticism and a lot of it deserved for what we call access journalism, for people who really know their subjects or for people who are -- i think there's a lot of criticism less warranted for journalists who are really, really like deep earthworms in one particular beat, but this is one of those moments when people who really know the supreme court, not just as lawyers or ex-lawyers, but people who know these justices and the way these justices interact and in terms of the way they think about politics and their legacy and ethics and all those things, journalism about the court and this court and about these justices is about to get very, very hot and very important. those are going to be -- those people's phones are burning up right now. i think that dynamic that you

raised is a real one, joy, and i do think the justices want just not to think of them as political actors, but i think we understand that they are and they have politics that are in some ways quite discernible for some of them and the others it's a little critic. how do they feel about donald trump as the head of the republican party becomes a very hot question right now. i mean, i will just raise one other issue, i mentioned this before, but the idea of a healthy democracy nevertheless, having some sort of disqualifying process, an adjust cated process by which some people and some parties even are prohibited from participating in democratic competition because their point, because what they've shown, their track record or platform is anti-democratic in nature is a thing. that happens all over the world. it happens in our own history, section 3 of the 14th amendment, as i said it happened in postwar

germany. one of the things i've been researching is that these -- there were, you know, postwar german political parties that wanted to bring naziism or a version of that back, and the germans set up a system that assessed whether or not they were anti-democratic parties an if they were, they were disqualified. it happened over and over again. it happened very recently in brazil in terms of disqualifying jair bolsonaro from running over a period of time. this is a thing that happens in healthy democracies and isn't just that you're disqualified because somebody doesn't like you and your political opponent says so, it is an adjudicated, fair process that is transparent and that can disqualify people or parties on the basis of real factual bases. it feels foreign to us, but it's not foreign to democracy and it's the reason the 14th amendment has section 3. >> yeah. well not too long ago a coup

felt foreign to us and look where we are now. if one were to put together a fantasy team of who you would want to talk to on a night like this, the first person on the list would always be rachel maddow. thank you, my friend, for taking the time. much appreciated. >> thanks, joy. thanks. >> thank you. joining me now another member of that fantasy team, andrew weissmann, former fbi general counsel and we'll keep building the team, melissa murray, professor of law who joins me on the phone, wonderful to have you both, very good luck for me. but i want to read to you, andrew, start with you and read to you section 3 of the 14th amendment. it says the following, no person shall hold any off civil or military, under the united states, who having previously taken an oath as an officer of the unit stes to support the constitution of the united states, shae engaged in insurrecti rebellion against the same, or given aid and comfort to the enemies thereof. is it as stunning to you as it is to me, this supreme court in

colorado, has found that that isn't even a question, that donald trump did violate the words that i just read to you in the constitution, and that only error in the district court was that they said it couldn't apply to him because he was president? >> let me add to that, joy, because as you had noted, this is a decision that is 4-3, so it's a close decision, but when you look at what the three justices in the dissent were complaining about, they do not in any way challenge the findings that donald trump engaged in insurrection and, as the majority said, engaged with the specific intent to engage in imminent, unlawful action, the specific intent to engage in imminent, unlawful action about the former president of the united states. there is no challenge by any of

the seven justices to the facts, and, so i think it's very useful to focus on the three in dissent and why they're dissenting because i think it goes to your conversation with rachel about what we might see in the supreme court. the reason you have three people in dissent is because of procedural issues involving was there enough discovery? was there enough process being given to donald trump to be able to challenge those findings? was it clear what the standard of proof should be? the whole series of things that the courts look at in terms of deciding due process of law. that may very well be the battle grown in the supreme court, not whether donald trump did this or not because there is a factual finding and a hearing, but rather this procedural argument and that's where you see the colorado justices having split.

i do think that is where we're going to see the battle in the supreme court he focused on that particular difference between the four majority and the three in dissent. >> that's a really interesting point because, right, it was always a little bit odd to me that so many people were charged under the insurrection act but trump was not. that jack smith didn't go there and that -- but it seems those substantive questions seemed to be closed and i wonder, at what -- sort of what would be the things that anyone who wanted to overturn this ruling in the supreme court would have? i'll let you start andrew, and then we'll go to melissa. i'm trying to foresee what a counter argument would be, if it seems both of the courts who have ruled on this case in colorado, including the colorado supreme court, agree the question of whether donald trump participated in and committed insurrection, that that's a closed question?

>> well, there's going to be nobody better than my colleague at nyu on constitutional issues. she's precisely who rachel is talking about, about somebody who really knows the supreme court and can give you that analysis. i think what we're going to see from donald trump surprisingly is a kitchen sink. he had the kitchen sink approach in the colorado supreme court. he raised every single argument, whether something that was serious or whether it was frivolous and there was a huge litany of arguments, all of which were swatted away by the majority. what you said, a very lengthy, serious decision that we're still all going through. and i suspect that again will be the approach. there are, as i mentioned, there are serious issues to raise on appeal. one is this due process issue. that gives the supreme court sort of a procedural mechanism

to essentially not -- sort of split the baby. he can be on the ticket but not because he isn't engage in insurrection. other issues involve whether he's considered an officer for this provision. as you noted that's an area where the district court ruled in favor of donald trump. i was not surprised to see the supreme court in colorado overruling that. i think they have the better of that argument, but i think we're seeing that revisited. i think we're going to see the issue of whether it's self-executing, which is a form of the sort of procedural argument and what do i mean by self-executing? there can be language in the constitution, but you need congress or a state legislature to provide a lot of gran flu lar detail about who is going to make the decision, what's the standard of proof, what kind of discovery, what kind of hearing is held.

there are all sorts of processes that are left very much unanswered. and so you could imagine that being another battleground in the supreme court and the one thing we know, joy, while we're sitting here, this will be decided by the supreme court. there's a stay in effect right now, but we've heard from the trump team that they rightly will seek review, so the supreme court is now going to have two incredibly important donald trump decisions in front of it, the presidential immunity decision they're waiting to get his papers tomorrow, and decide whether they're going to accept that appeal, and then they will be getting papers with respect to the appeal of the colorado decision where, of course, as you mentioned, enormous ramifications for other states that may be doing the same thing. >> indeed. let's go to melissa murray, former clerk to justice sonia sotomayor. let's go through this. because the -- this is what the ruling states. it says that elk tors an donald

trump sought the court's review of various rulings by the district court and affirmed some and reversed some. a couple that stood out, section 3 encompasses the office of the presidency and someone who has taken an oath as president, on that point, the colorado supreme court says the district court committed reversible error. the district court did not error in concluding that events constituted an insurrection. the district court did not error in that president trump engaged in that insurrection through his personal actions. president trump's speech inciting the crowd that breached the u.s. capitol on january 6th, 2021, was not protected by the first amendment. those seem to be ripe issues for the supreme court to litigate. how do you perceive this going, given the fact that these folks, the majority claim to be originalists, and the section 3 was written specifically originally to stop insurrection and trump apparently did so?

>> well, first of all thanks so much for having me tonight on the phone, joy, and it's great to be here with andrew. this is perhaps the most fun faculty meeting in a while, and this is a great night for constitutional law professor salivating thinking about this. the colorado supreme court wrote a meticulous opinion over 200 pages. they went through every argument in incredible detail, explaining themselves with really remarkable clarity, and i think they did that knowing that this is going to bullet train to the supreme court. as you say, they agreed with many of the district court's findings below, particularly insofar as donald trump engaged in insurrection, he recruited and incited these followers to go to the capitol to engage in an act of insurrection, and his speech was not protected under the first amendment. those are incredibly important findings. where they differ from the district court is in the question about the substantive

meeting of section 3 of the 14th amendment. again section 3 does not specifically mention that the president is one of the federal officers to whom it applies, but as you say, this was an amendment ratified in the wake of an american civil war that was understood as an insurrection against the union, and that any federal officer who had pledged to uphold the constitution and then had joined the confederacy was engaged in an act of insurrection and that included everyone from the top of the ticket to the rank and file below. and so they came to the conclusion that the history, the text, all supports the view that this applies to the president of the united states, even if the president of the united states is not specifically enumerated as a federal officer here. so this is going to the supreme court, as andrew said. there are a number of jurisdictional avenues the court can take to get out of this about deciding the substan tifk meaning of section 3 of the 14th amendment. i think one question here is

whether or not the colorado state court had jurisdiction to take this up. that will be something the court will attend to. the question of whether section 3 of the 14th amendment is self-executing or whether it requires some kind of congressional action like a statute providing a cause of action is also another issue that the court could decide this on. the due process issue which andrew talked about. there are a number of off ramps here. if the supreme court takes up the substantive question and determines that the text of section 3 makes clear it applies to donald trump and donald trump was engaged in an insurrection on january 6th, this is going to set off a domino effect that literally will go throughout the country as more and more states line up to decide whether or not they will disqualify. election law is a creature of state law. the states get to decide the procedures and the mechanisms for their own election, even federal election, and so each state can come to its own conclusion. if the court decides this in a

way that goes against donald trump, we may find ourselves with a patchwork of ballots on election night in november of 2024. >> i will remind our viewers that the other states in which this has been litigated, normally in donald trump's favor up to now, are swing states, arizona, michigan, minnesota, the plaintiffs challenging trump's eligibility in michigan, ha aeady filed an appeal to that ats supreme court on monday. just for those of us who are not lawyers, lucky enough to be in the faculty meetings, do the state supreme courts influence each other? will this be influential potentially among the members of the michigan supreme court? i would assume yes? >> well, they're certainly looking at each other. whether or not michigan's law is the same as what we've seen in colorado, is a completely different question, but the fact that one court has taken the

step, i think, is extremely important. i think one of the reasons why the district court below here pulled back a little and said, you know, there's nothing explicit in the text of the constitution that applies this particular criticism to the president was because it was a matter of first impression and a trial court judge in colorado did not want to be the one to pull that lever. now the state supreme court has. other state supreme courts may decide and i will note that in both minnesota and michigan the decision not to disqualify donald trump is done on jurisdictional grounds not on the merits of whether he violated section 3 of the 14th amendment or whether section 3 of the 14th amendment applies, but there's a lot of room here and i think that's one of the things the court is going to be thinking about. we've seen in other elections, bush v. gore cls comes to mind they can be swayed not necessarily by constitutional texts but the pragmatic demands

of the moment. the need for finality in that case. it may be in this case that idea of a patchwork quilt of different ballots all across the united states on election night is something the u.s. supreme court -- i think there will be a lot of different issues. >> before i go back to andrew, can you foresee any -- i cannot imagine clarence thomas being able to hear this case, to be honest with you -- >> you said -- it's going to happen. he's not going to recuse himself in this case. >> unbelievable. >> he's not going to recuse himself in this case. >> unbelievable. >> it is unbelievable and i understand exactly why there's clear evidence that mrs. thomas exchanged text messages with mark meadows during the course of this episode at the capitol but clarence thomas is not bound by any laws to recuse himself by any rules the supreme court's,

quote, unquote, ethics code is a paper tiger. this is where nine is going to be need. >> recusal will be difficult here. >> let me come back to you, andrew. i want to show video for those, just to keep it out of the memory hole, video from the day of the january 6th insurrection, these are some of the people who were charged under the insurrection act enrique tarrio is one of them, elmer stewart rhodes is another, they met together, here they are in a garage plotting the insurrection. enrique tarrio wasn't in d.c. and got convicted under the insurrection act. donald trump was not so charged. do you think that if you're jack smith right now, former prosecutor andrew weissmann, are you rethinking whether or not, now that trump has been adjudicated to participated in insurrection by two colorado courts due rethink whether he should face charge under the insurrection act after this?

>> i don't think we're going to see that for a couple reasons, regardless of whether you think he should have been charged with this initially at this point to add that charge will just delay the case, so i don't see that. but also, i think will fuel the -- the attacks on jack smith and the biden administration of being political because they will say you did this solely so that he could not run, as opposed to for criminal purposes. in other words you're tying it directly to the election, which isn't the reason for the case. it was, you know, i think jack is looking at this very much like a criminal prosecutor. and i think that was part of the initial reason also as to why it was charged the way it did. it avoided raising this incitement brandenberg issue

about what language is enough to be incitement and avoided that issue by not charging that particular incident as inciting the insurrection. remember, he would have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, not by a preponderance, but by the criminal standard. he sort of very smartly charged around a lot of legal issues to streamline the case and bring it to trial. and it is important to note at least so far none of the decisions that we've been talking about in colorado, the district court or now the supreme court in colorado, are saying that there's a flaw because this would have -- the only way this would have worked is if donald trump had been charged criminally with insurrection. so that -- in other words, it's not the lack of a criminal prosecution that's leading the courts to say no, this isn't sufficient, and so i think for all those reasons, i don't think

that we're going to see a superseding charge by jack smith on this count and i think strategically, that is the right move. >> and this concludes the faculty meeting at the nyu law school meeting. andrew weissmann and melissa murray, you are free to go about the rest of your evening. thank you both very, very much. we've got much more on tonight tonight's bombshell breaking news out of the state of colorado where trump is now, as of tonight, disqualified from the ballot. more when "the reidout" continues.

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for more on the stunning breaking news tonight that colorado supreme court has disqualified donald trump from the ballot based on his participation in insurrection, let's bring in msnbc correspondent von hillyard. give us a background on how all of this came down and on any reaction i'm assuming has infuriated the former president. >> just as we were waiting to come back to air i was listening, donald trump is speaking took the stage about ten minutes ago in waterloo, iowa. january 15th the iowa caucus day. you cannot separate this from the political here. because of the timeline that the u.s. supreme court now that the trump team has made clear they're going to appeal this decision, the supreme court is going to have to work on an expedited timeline. expedited timeline

march 5th is the day colorado is holding its primary. march 5th is super tuesday. when looking at how the delegates will break down here, it is important to determine if the supreme court were to rule against the former president in this appeal, that there is the reality these other republican candidates are very closely going to be weighing whether to get out of this race or not. march 5th in colorado, they are a mail-only voting state, so therefore, 20 days before the election, that would be on february 14th, that is when colorado will -- the secretary of state will be mailing out the ballots. january 5th on paper is the deadline for the secretary of state to send the ballots to be printed. that is where the -- in the decision the stay has been granted to the trump team through january 4th. right now his name will appear on the ballot unless the supreme court rules otherwise, but we are looking at a very truncated time for the supreme court to

rule because when you're looking at this republican primary, i was just down in west palm beach yesterday with some of trump's top advisors, they are seeing march 19th the day they believe they will hit the delegate count to wrap up the nomination. by march 5th you're looking at one third of the delegates having been designated on that day alone, so the reality here is that february 14th, that's the day that those ballots will be mailed out, that's just about ten days before the south carolina primary. there's a lot of layers and the political ramifications are tricky here, but, joy, this is a lot at stake here if the supreme court were, in fact, to rule against the former president. >> it is stunning indeed. von hillyard thank you very much. all the dates i have written them down an keep them in mind. joining me is nbc news presidential historian michael beschloss. we pulled the dream team to talk about this tonight i'm going to let you talk your reaction to

the stunning development in american history? >> well, the constitution and our democracy has been called the most brilliant system devised for self-government in the history of the world, and, you know, maybe that does not turn out to be so wrong in the end. you know, democracy does heal itself. let's go back into the history machine. von and you and melissa have been talking and the others have been, andrew as well, about the fact that certainly the united states supreme court will consider this decision by colorado to throw trump off the presidential ballot. i would like to suggest two moments in history that should shed some light on that. 2000, you know, today just this morning, with the memorial service for sandra day o'connor, who serve on the court in december 2000, when it considered the deadlock in florida over bush v. gore and whether a recount should go ahead that would possibly allow

al gore or george w. bush to be elected president of the united states. a famous decision, sandra o'connor was in the majority, 5-4, said that recount should be stopped and the result was that george w. bush was installed as president of the united states on the idea that he had won by -- slightly over 500 votes in the state of florida. since that time, many people have said that was a partisan vote. many people think that that showed the supreme court at its partisan worst. go back earlier in history to 1974. another case in which just like 2000, the supreme court, as it should right now, said this is a matter that is so pressing, we're going to consider it almost immediately and give you a quick reading, so they did that december 2000, a month after the 2000 election. 1974, the case of nixon versus the united states, the question

was, should president nixon, then in office, be required to give up his secret tapes? well nixon was in california and then later in d.c., he said to his aides, we now know, good chance i'm going to win this one because nine justices on the supreme court, guess who appointed four of them. blackman, powell, burger and rehnquist. those were all nixon justices, almost half the supreme court, was a nixon supreme court. nixon thought he had a pretty good chance because he said i appointed those people and they should be loyal. what happened? the ruling came down late summer of 1974 and it was 8-0 unanimously, three nixon justices and the rest of them all voted that nixon should have to give up his tapes, which, of course, led to his resignation. one other thing from history, there was one recusal, william rehnquist, who was a justice at the time, said i shouldn't vote

because i have a connection to this case and my connection is that i was appointed to this court by richard nixon after serving in his justice department. you see where i'm going. >> yes, i do. >> here we are 2023. is this going to be a partisan vote or are they going to interpret the 14th amendment exactly and also, will someone like clarence thomas, whose wife looks as if she was quite involved in the insurrection of 2021, will he recuse? >> what a time to be alive. this is why you need to have a historian friend or two, because it's always helpful to have somebody who can lay it out with such great clarity and brilliance. michael beschloss, thank you so much. >> what a night. >> indeed. >> it's still what a night. it's going to keep going. so much more to talk about on this breaking news from colorado. donald trump disqualified from the ballot. what will the supreme court do?

what will clarence thomas do? what could be the political fallout and the fallout among the maga faithful? much more when we come right back.

all right. for more on this breaking news colorado throwing donald trump off the ballot saying he's disqualified for having participated in insurrection, let's bring in former rnc chair, michael steele. democratic strategist and msnbc contributor fernand amandi.

thank you for being here. i'm going to go to you first, michael steele, because we were talking about it in the break and bring our off of the break conversation online, the sixth court conservatives on the supreme court in many ways are republicans openly. they go for republican outcomes. how likely is it that they pull off the perfect crime? republicans in the house, republicans in the senate, republicans in the state are too afraid to rid themselves of donald trump. they couldn't do it on impeachment. they were too scared to impeach him. two shots, they couldn't do it. this would be the perfect crime for john roberts to do the work that mitch mcconnell is too afraid to do. will they do it? >> yeah. i hear what you're saying. i just don't think there's that level of calculation in this. i think justice roberts, more than anything else, would very much try to temper that approach to this case when it gets to the court in the next week or so.

it's just a matter of understanding the politics as something that he's tried very hard to keep outside the door. he's not been happy to the extent that alito and others, thomas included, have kind of brought that into the court. so i think what will be -- what i'm looking at is going to be how the strict constructionist, you touched on this in the earlier segments, how they actually apply strict constructionism to the 14th amendment. we all know why it was put in place and we know who it applies to. it's not some nebulous thing. it was to cover those who tried to overthrow the government through war at that time, insurrection, in civil war, that seems pretty much kind of the playbook here, right. overturning an election result, preventing the free exercise of

that vote by the citizens, and getting the congress, putting the congress in a perilous position. so that's what i'm going to watch for and it will be interesting to see what kind of knots that clarence thomas of the world tie themselves into to get donald trump off of the hook that two courts have now placed the supreme court and particularly donald trump. >> yeah. for sure. fernand, how does this then impact the thinking of democrats? because joe biden's hold on the nomination and people disinterest in primarying him, jumping into the race, is based on donald trump and this confidence that it is really based on donald trump. it's the confidence of the democrats have that joe biden can beat donald trump because of donald trump. what happens if donald trump can't get on the ban ballot on

more than one swing state? >> if that happens i think it does open up questions on both sides. frankly both for the press democrats or republicans. you might even see some folks trying to get back in this race. tim scott, who suspended his campaign might say i'll give it a second look. someone like ted cruz trying to launch a last-minute gallops through the nomination as it opens up all sorts of speculation. let me put it in the context i see happening. i know we're in the holiday season and i hate to be a christmas grinch four days away, but spoiler alert, the supreme court is not going to invalidate trump for being on the ballot. this is going to be the nominee for the republican party. and what i do think this decision does serve for the country, first, it's kind of an appeal from the gaslighting. all of us saw formaro and eyes what happened in the run up to january 6th and on january six in the aftermath. donald trump led an insurrection. a court now, without fear or

favor, has made that declaration clear. the good news about that, is what i think it does for 2024. in full relief and in full stark terms, it makes this election about what it needs to be and should be and must be. this election is not about the economy. it's not about immigration. it's not about reproductive rights, or ukraine, or israel. this election is about whether or not the american express spearmint in representative democracy and our public continues or it ends and is turned into a authoritative fascist movement led by donald trump who has said not once but twice that on day one he intends to be a dictator. that is a framing that i don't believe donald trump and the republican party can win. if it stays on those terms, if this colorado supreme court decision does nothing else in history but make the demarcation point for the election in 2024 to be defined between choice between

democracy and dictatorship then it will have done the service to the country and it was have served as a guard rail to protect democracy. >> any of the plaintiffs, any of the named plaintiffs, or republicans, one who work for the former governor. and a very clear point, the question on the ballot is, can a twice educated insurrectionist become the president of united states? pretty clear question. michael steele, fernand amandi, thank you very much. stay right there, because we have more tonight on this breaking news from colorado, when the reidout returns. returns

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and stand with palestinians and israelis for basic human rights. focus on the truth. >> turning me now is the former

assistant director for counter intelligence at the fbi and an msnbc national security analyst. frank, i asked for you specifically because a decision like this is both an interesting legal and constitutional question and one will go before the supreme court. but it's also a national security question. we know what maga is capable of, we know what its supporters are

capable of. where should we be thinking about in terms of the national security impact? >> there's no question, i'm glad you thought about this through the lens of national security because that's how i'm viewing it as well. we are already at a great high risk level in this country largely because of hamas and israel. we saw numerous bulletins for the whole winter season regarding large public gatherings and what is that about? let's look at that. there's an analogy. here it's about the fear that some lone actor or actress will be inspired by hamas, al-qaeda, or i.s.i.s., regarding what's going on in the middle east. similarly, as you said, we have a proven track record with donald trump and his rhetoric inspiring violence even fatal violence, even fatal to those who are executing the violence themselves, willing to die for trump. so the first thing that i think

we're gonna see happen is, fbi and dhs is gonna come alongside colorado law enforcement. they know what they're doing. but they're gonna need help with intelligence here and so we're talking about the easy part of this which would be to secure and raise security for the six petitioners in this case. as you said, some republicans, some unaffiliated. they need to be secured, as does the supreme court of colorado, more than ever before. probably more than i have ever seen before at that state level. then, the intelligent challenge begins. as we see trump inevitably ranting and raving for the next few weeks about this decision. the challenge for federal law enforcement is going to be to monitor, legally, where they can, social media and interactions and chat rooms with known extremist groups, to

see who might be that lone actor or two or three. very challenging, because the group themselves i've been decimated by the january 6th prosecutions, oath keepers, proud boys, three percenters. it's the lone actor that you've got to get out in front of and that's the hardest thing to do. >> indeed. i will note that the plaintiffs are names. their names are public. i don't want to read them. we don't want to put them in further danger. but donald trump has a history of attacking judges, prosecutors, anyone he feels aggrieved by. their names are out. obviously the judges, it was a 4 to 3 decision, justices of the supreme court. so this means they're all going to need more security. >> indeed. and we don't have a gag order in this case. i think it's unlikely we will see one, because this is going straight to the supreme court, is my impression. and they are unlikely to gag candidate for president. >> frank figliuzzi thank you very much. on short