supporting a war whose animating moral logic looks to most of the world and frankly to me to be that every single last person in gaza is guilty and deserves their lot. that is the moral logic of hamas. it is the moral logic that drove the atrocity of october 7th. and an atrocity like october 7th does not, cannot justify whatever comes after it whatever the response. there is no terrorist attack no matter how horrific and truly october 7th was horrific that can wash clean what we are seeing in gaza and what we as americans and our government are him betting. it must end. we must stop it. that is all in on this extremely, extremely busy and news packed tuesday night. now with the huge news from colorado we started the show with starts right now, good sto. that is "all in" on this extremely busy and news packed tuesday night. alex wagner tonight with the huge news from colorado we started the show with right now begins right now. >> indeed we have that news.

we start tonight with the news out of colorado. the state supreme court has ruled that former president donald trump should be removed from the 2024 republican primary ballot. since january 6th there has been plenty of discussion in legal circles and even some excitement about section 3 of the 14th amendment of the constitution which bans insurrectionists and people who have aided insurrectionists from holding office. and there has been a whole lot of interest in whether this section of the amendment might bar donald trump from running for office because of his role in the january 6th insurrection. now, the minnesota state supreme court dismissed the idea. over in michigan the judge ruled that trump could not be taken off that state's ballot. in total 14th amendment suits to disqualify trump have been dismissed in four states. they are pending appeal in two states, and they are pending being heard for the first time in 13 states.

and just until two hours ago, it looked like colorado would go in a similar direction to what we have seen in these other states so far. last month in colorado the issue got a week-long public hearing in district court. and you may not have been paying attention, but there were high profile witnesses like congressman ken buck and trump aide cash patel. and witnesses for the plaintiffs like daniel hodges who was crushed in a door frame by rioters on january 6th. and democratic congressman eric swalwell. ultimately the district court judge in colorado ruled trump had engaged in insurrection but that the 14th amendment's disqualification clause in section 3 did not apply. the president was not an officer of the united states as section 3 stipulates he or she must be.

and again until just two hours ago, that is where this case stood. but the judge's decision was appealed, and the colorado supreme court in a 4-3 decision did not agree with the lower court. this is what they said in their ruling tonight. section 3 encompasses the office of the presidency, and someone who has taken an oath as president. on this point the district court committed reversible error. the district court did not err in concluding that it constituted an insurrection. the district court did not err that president trump engaged in insurrection through his actions. it was not protected by the first amendment and they conclude president trump is therefore disqualified from holding the office of president under section 3 of the 14th

amendment. and because he is disqualified, it would be a wrongful act under the election code for the secretary of state to list trump as a candidate on the presidential primary ballot. we do not reach these conclusions lightly. the trump campaign immediately put out a statement in response. they called the decision completely flawed and said that they will swiftly file an appeal to the u.s. supreme court. which brings us to what happens now. the colorado state supreme court has ruled this evening that donald trump should be removed from the state's republican primary ballot, but the actual action of removing him from that ballot has been placed on hold until at least january 4th or until the u.s. supreme court rules assuming trump appeals to the justices before that date, january 4th. now, according to colorado's election law, the deadline to set the list of candidates for the republican primary is january 5th.

and colorado's primary itself is unsuper tuesday, march 5th, which is also amazingly not that far away anymore either. so the time frame here is very tight. does donald trump stay on the primary ballot while the supreme court decides on this? and which way does the supreme court ultimately rule? honestly we have no idea. we really don't know what happens except that we have never been here before. joining me now is the co-founder and executive director at protect democracy and also joining me is mary mccord, former acting attorney general for national security and current co-host of the essential prosecuting trump podcast. mary, i hope you're ready to fire up the microphone with andrew weissman given this very much breaking news in the sense that i think it caught all of us off-guard. what is your initial reaction to the state supreme court's decision here? >> well, i'm not hugely

surprised mostly because the lower court decision as you just indicated had really made every single finding up until the very end. i mean the lower court had found that mr. trump engaged in an insurrection, had found that she could make that ruling and that section 3 is something that, you know, she could make a decision about how it applied under colorado law, the election code there provides for bringing a cause of action by electors in the state of colorado to basically force the secretary of state off the ballot. she made all these decisions but at the very end said mr. trump you were not in office, that office of presidency is not an office and you were not an officer because of the office of the presidency is not an officer. which seemed like a pretty plain

ruling that went against text and history. it seemed her ruling was pretty well support asked the colorado supreme court if it found her legal conclusions were valid and her factual findings were not clear error were likely still to reverse her on that last legal conclusion about office or officer. all of that said, i think there are tough questions on both sides of this and this is something the supreme court does have to take up. i think our democracy sort of demands that an issue as essential as this, what name will be on ballot for president of the united states is something that should be decided by the supreme court of the united states. as you indicated in your opening, alex, there are many other cases pending in other states. some of them may have different state laws, and that was the basis for a ruling, for example, in minnesota, dismissing the case there. so in colorado the state law gives it a little bit -- puts it in a little bit of a different position than the united states.

but the constitutional issue should be decided by the supreme court and i think will be decided by the supreme court. >> and you have a kind of over-under about whether trump's name ultimately goes on the primary ballot and the real issue sort of being litigated here is whether if he is the nominee he goes on the general election ballot. january 5th is the deadline to effectively print the ballots in colorado. asking the court to rule before then seems -- asking the court to rule quite expeditious given all else that's on its plate. >> there is a provision the colorado supreme court issued today that says if it does resolve the issue by january 5th trump's name should stay on the primary ballot until it resolves the issue. so this will be up to the supreme court to resolve. and before we dive into how the supreme court will handle it because i agree with mary they will have to handle it, i had

another reaction to this when the decision came out tonight, which is that at a high level trump's m.o. has always been projection, to accuse others of the transgressions of which he himself is guilty largely to obfuscate his own guilt. and so it's kind of fitting that after rising to political power by falsely accusing barack obama of not being eligible to be president, it turns out that it's trump a court has now determined is not eligible anymore for the presidency. in the great drama of history, that twist is almost shakespearean in its perfection. >> that's such a great point, ian. the irony here is think. i take that and hold onto that comment as we move forward here, mary. but i do want to ask ahow you think the court is going to react here, mary, because they have a lot that has been thrown their way in the holiday season as trump's attorneys have been

loathe to point out. the ruling from the state supreme court i noticed this in kboembing through all 211 pages of it, they name check judge gorsuch i believe before he's before the supreme court in a ruling he made in a section about whether states actually have the right to bump candidates off the ballot. and when neil gorsuch, now supreme court justice was a colorado state supreme court judge, he held that the state of colorado was absolutely in the right in keeping someone off the ballot. it's a case called hassan vs. colorado. i will quote from the ruling tonight. several courts have expressly upheld states abilities. as then-judge gorsuch recognized in hassan, it's a state's legitimate interest in recognizing the integrity and political functions of the process that permits it to exclude from the ballot candidates who are

constitutionally permitted from assuming office. is that like a not so subtle message to one of the supreme court justices likely to take this up, mary. >> well, i think the colorado supreme court is pointing out now at least one person who's a supreme court justice now ruling on this has something that supports their ruling, that, yes, the state of colorado can keep someone off the ballot not constitutionally qualified. there is a big difference between objective qualifications like age and citizenship tln there are for things like, you know, whether someone has engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the constitution of the united states or given aid or comfort thereto. not that that's subjective in a sense but gives determination what does that mean? and of course both the lower court in colorado and the

colorado supreme court did address those very questions and determined that what mr. trump had done was, in fact, engaging in insurrection directly actually. squf also that any speech he made in the context of engaging in that insurrection was not protected by the first amendment. that among many other holding. so, yes, i think they were trying to able to flag for the public and supreme court that justice gorsuch has said things in the past that would support what they're doing. i don't think it will stop him from saying so or thinking so. >> although in the ruling they specifically say this is akin to aid or citizenship as a qualification whether or not you incited an insurrection.

ian, mary talks about the sort of notion about whether trump incited insurrection. and i was sort of struck by the language in this ruling, the degree to which they have found not nearly guilty of inciting an insurrection, but they accuse him of overt, voluntary, and direct participation in an insurrection. i'll read you the quote. president trump did not merely incite the nusurrection. he continued to support pby demanding vice president pence perform his constitutional duty and by calling senators to persuade to stop the counting of electoral votes. these actions constitute the overt, voluntary, and direct participation in the insurrection. in and separate apart from this particular 14th amendment question, how meaningful is it that judges across the country are saying that, yeah, donald trump participated and incited the insurrection?

>> well, it's very carefully written opinion, and it's a very compelling opinion. the section of the opinion you just read goes chapter and verse through not only what trump did and why it qualify said as insurrection but why it would have qualified under insurrection under theinatesing at the time the 14th amendment was enacted. it quotes newspapers at the time, dictionaries at the time, the attorney general's understanding at the time. and it does that because it understands the u.s. supreme court -- and this is the difficult position the u.s. supreme court is going to be in has portrayed itself as an originalist court that the words should be understood at the time they were during the enactment. if you apply the words as they were written under the time of enactment, i think this is a very compelling case donald trump engaged in the acts that would disqualify him from being

able to hold office under the terms of the constitution. so a straight reading of the law would require the state supreme court to uphold the decision. but obviously the supreme court doesn't exist in a vacuum. it exists in a political space as well. and donald trump understands that. and he's amassed significant political power which he's tried to use in the past to overwhelm the force of law in this country. right, he did that on january 6th. he's tried to steer his supporters to intimidate the judges and court personnel in new york and d.c. and these other cases. and undoubtedly he will unleash some of his die hard followers against the supreme court as a way of intimidating to reach the conclusion he wants to weigh and unleashed followers on january 6th. the real question for the supreme court as much as the interpretation as the 14th amendment is going to be whether

the rule of law perveil or whether the rule of the law perveils this country. >> well said. for anybody who hasn't read it, it is a very carefully written as you say, ian, document, but it is a very damning well as one. one for the history books. monumental evening we have here before us. thank you for your expertise in all this. i really appreciate it. we will have much more on tonight's breaking news including the political fallout over tonight's ruling. but first congressman jamie raskin, a member of the january 6th committee and constitutional scholar joins me to discuss what happens now. nstitutional scholar joins me to discuss what happens now. ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. i got this kitchenaid stand mixer for only $56. i got this bbq smoker for 26 bucks. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save.

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we are continuing to follow the breaking news tonight that donald trump has been disqualified from appearing on colorado's 2024 presidential ballot for his role in inciting an insurrection. since january 6th a lot of legal experts and politicians have dismissed the idea that the constitution's anti-insurrection provision could actually kick trump off the ballot. but there was one member of congress who did not, a member of congress who also happens to be a constitutional scholar. >> the constitution itself says in section 3 of the the 14th amendment that anyone who has sworn an oath to support the constitution and violates the oath by engaging in insurrection or rebellion shall never be allowed to hold federal or state office again and not just the president but members of congress and others who hold federal office and engage in insurrection or rebellion having sworn an oath to uphold the

constitution against enemies foreign and domestic can never serve again. donald trump is disqualified. >> he's also constitutionally disqualified from holding office having participated in insurrection. >> joining me now is maryland congressman and member of the january 6th committee jamie raskin. congressman raskin, does it feel like some skrergz of vindication here to see the colorado state supreme court rule this way? >> it's definitely encouraging to see the rule of law working. the colorado supreme court justices in the majority did a really sensational job of answering every legal question and reconstituting what happened on january 6th to explain why donald trump did engage in insurrection, which in the meaning of section 3 of the 14th amendment. but it was a very powerful and exhaustive opinion dealing with everything from is this really

just a political question up to congress to a question of whether the president is an officer under the section 3 of the 14th amendment to whether he'd, in fact, engaged in an insurrection and what an insurrection means. so i was very pleased that the rule of law was vindicated by the colorado supreme court in this way. and i would think that any u.s. supreme court justice who looks at this case through either the prism of textualism or the prison of originalism will find the colorado supreme court has been extremely faithful to the text of the u.s. constitution and also to the original meaning of the words that were put in by the framers of the 14th amendment. >> yeah, there's an extended section about what an officer meant to the framers. it is a very exosive opinion. it is one for the history books. do you think this breathes new life into the sort of i think hopes of those who did not like

what transpired on january 6th to disqualify trump using the 14th amendment? there are multiple efforts across the states at this hour to get trump off the ballot using the 14th amendment. does this give those efforts new life? >> well, ultimately this will go to the u.s. supreme court. that seems pretty inevitable to me. i think that it certainly gives a lot of impetus to the voters like the voters here in colorado to pursue this case. and i think you were citing that tenth circuit opinion that was also invoked by the colorado supreme court where judge gorsuch participated in an opinion and wrote an opinion saying that a -- a naturalized citizen could not be put on the ballot for president because the constitution says that you must be a born u.s. citizen in order to run for president.

so this is just a question of law. it's like if a 14-year-old tried to run for president, would that person be kept off of the ballot because the constitution says you have to be 35 years old to run for president. and this disqualification process you cannot be on the ballot for president or you cannot serve as president if you have participated in insurrection or rebellion against the united states. and so i would think that regardless of what you're politics are, what your party is, everybody should agree that this is a question of law that's got to be settled by the courts. >> i've got to note, though, you know, it's a 4-3 ruling for the colorado state supreme court. there are three judges who dissented. i believe all of them were appointed by democratic governors. does that suggest to you it isn't that cut and dry, that it isn't just a matter of seeing the law in strictly original context? >> well, you know, the judges disagree, of course, and there

are very few significant supreme court opinions where you don't have some dissenters in it. and it's true that there are a whole bunch of new legal issues. this is what we call the case of first impression because no president before has ever tried to overthrow his own government. and so it does raise a whole series of new interpretive challenges for the court. i was just impressed by the way this court got into them in such a deep way. for example, the question that the lower court got hung up on whether the president is an officer within the meaning of section 3 of the 14th amendment they found to be easy because they identified 25 different places in the constitution where the president or the presidency are considered to be officers or an office under the constitution. and of course it would be intrinsically illogical for the president to be the only person not covered by section 3 of the 14th amendment.

and they also do a very fine job of dealing with the argument that because the presidential oath slightly differs, that somehow distinguish him. when, in fact, in all of those cases everybody who's swear an oath to the constitution is swearing an oath to support it including the president. >> yeah, the tldr summary of that officer section is like are you kidding me, the president is clearly an officer. they write it seems most likely the presidency is not specifically included in section 3 because it is so evidently an office. as if to say, duh, he's an officer. i know you pointed out the provision doesn't just apply to presidents but also other elected officials. i wonder if you think there are members of congress for example down ballot whose names could be theoretically stripped as well if the supreme court upholds the state supreme court's ruling here. >> well, i don't know thor answer to that because i don't have all the specific facts in

those cases. what's amazing about this opinion is how meticulously the court reconstructs what the actions were not just in inciting the insurrection but egging it along and trying to get the vice president to step out of the picture and even calling u.s. senators to keep it going moch. >> yeah, it is a damning assessment of the president's role in the insurrection well beyond just inciting it. thank you for your time tonight. i appreciate it. >> you bet. coming up we'll be joined by the woman whose name appears as a defendant on tonight's big ruling. colorado secretary of state jenna griswold will weigh in on what she intends to do in the wake of tonight's decision. that is next. wake of tonight's decision that is next

we are following that breaking news out of colorado where the state supreme court has ruled that donald trump cannot appear on the state's primary ballot because of his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. that ruling reverses a lower court's order that concluded trump had engaged in insurrection but could not be disqualified from holding office. now, in response to that lower court ruling the former president and director of council at the naacp legal defense fund wrote this opinion piece for "the washington post." i rouse the word radical deliberately. the 14th amendment was conceived of and pushed by the radical republicans in congress after

the civil war. they were so named because of their commitment to eradicating slavery and its vestiges from american political life. it was of this understanding that section 3 was borne. most lawyers never learn about section 3 during law school or thereafter. the recent scholarly duals that have emerged over its meaning reflect a surprise skbrukz to many seasoned constitutional scholars, but there is little room for confusion in interpreting it. joining me now is the civil rights lawyer, founder of the 14th amendment center for howard university and former president and director of council for the naacp legal defense fund. thank you so much for being here. i mean, once you have the -- the 14th amendment centered in your title we know this is bigger than just this case quite obviously. and i very much want to talk about the racial underpinnings of this law and the way in which i think people have forgotten

january 6th was a concerted effort to disenfranchise the votes of a multiracial coalition of voters powered in large part by black votes. it's almost as if people have forgotten that history when they sort of question how and why whether the 14th amendment is applicable in this case. but it seems to me quite obvious there's a racial element here that echoes very directly back to the sort of intention when it was written. >> yes, had reconstruction, alex, understood that the spirit of insurrection in the south was very much obviously tied to the issue of slavery and to the question of black people and their citizenship. and likewise january 6th pulled those two threads, and trump pulled those threads by inciting on insurrection and by inciting an insurrection on the theory that he had been cheated by voters in atlanta and philadelphia and detroit and

milwaukee and by ruby freeman and shaye moss, who he called hustlers. the racial underpinnings of trump's theory were very much on display for anyone who wanted to see it. and i would say even, you know, in the final days of the civil war, it would have been shocking and appalling to see a confederate flag paraded through the united states congress as we saw on january 6th. so that reconstruction of congress was very serious, very clear. they had looked in the face of insurrection and had determined that we needed to protect the new democracy that these civil war amendments were designed to create. and so many of us learn about the 14th amendment. we know about equal protection and birthright citizenship and due process. but we don't learn about the sections of the 14th amendment that were created by those framers to allow us to have the tools we need to protect our democracy against precisely the

kind of action that donald trump engaged in. >> yeah, one would think in a way if it was obama who donald trump was trying to unseat rather than joe biden it would be more obvious for people i don't know sitting on the supreme court to understand the sort of direct racial element or racial -- pre post racial society goal which is to say racist goal that lied at the heart of the insurrection. given how the supreme court has treated the issue of race in the last year and saying we shouldn't take it into eekt in hiring decisions or college admissions, how optimistic are you they're going to understand this in this strictly constitutional way in which it was written? >> this, you know, i'm very gratified by the colorado supreme court's decision. it is as representative raskin was saying a very careful and meticulous decision. it is airtight. this is really a test for our supreme court and in years past the supreme court has recognized

the need of particular in cases involving the president in some instances to rise above the partisanship, but i want to be clear about two things, alex. this case is not about partisanship. these are the words of our constitution, that's number one. number two, this case does not require you to believe that trump is racist or ininsurrection is racist. that's not part of this case. participation in an insurrection makes you ineligible if you formally took an oath of office to return to office at either the federal or state level. that's what section 3 of the 14th amendment says. it is like having to be 35 to be president. if trump were 34 he could not be on the ballot. he participated in an insurrection, he cannot be on the ballot. and of course the irony is that it was trump who for many years falsely accused president obama of not being eligible to be president because he lacked as

mr. trump charged at that time birthright citizenship. so this is about eligibility, the qualifications to be president, to have been born in this country, to be 35 years old, and after the civil war those framards added another eligibility requirement which that you have to be loyal to the constitution of the united states. so this doesn't require the court to engage in any racial analysis. it requires them to uphold the words of the 14th amendment, and i want to really congratulate the lawyers at crew noah bookbinder and donald sherman for being courageous enough to pursue this case and for putting on such an airtight case before the court. this is a test of our united states supreme court not of donald trump at this point, not of the lawyers in the case, not of colorado. and we will have to see what happens. >> we sure will.

thank you so much for your time tonight. i appreciate it. >> thank you, alex. >> coming up next we'll be joined by one of the parties at the center of this ruling secretary of state griswold. don't go anywhere. g secretary of state griswold. don't go anywhere. sold for only 50 cents. this ipad pro sold for less than $34. and this nintendo switch, sold for less than $20. i got this kitchenaid stand mixer for only $56. i got this bbq smoker for 26 bucks. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save.

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absolutely nothing to say about the most consequential decision about the 2024 election to date, which was just handed down this evening by the colorado supreme court. that court ruled that trump is disqualified from serving as president and remove him from the state's 2024 primary ballot under a provision of the 14th amendment. and there are a lot of other 14th amendment challenges to trump's candidacy that are still pending. but this colorado ruling marks the first time that such a challenge has been successful. in response republicans tonight are rallying behind trump calling the decision un-american and a partisan attack. joining me now is claire mccaskill, former democratic senator from missouri. claire, thank you for making the time. first of all, what is your reaction to this ruling? and secondly, calling a state supreme decision a partisan attack, what do you make of that? >> well, first of all, it's not surprising that he's going to call this a partisan attack.

anything that happens to him is a partisan attack. he never does anything wrong. it's always people that are doing things wrong to him. he is the ultimate victim and tries to be a martyr always. but when i look at this decision, alex, i kind of have two hats. one hat is the lawyer who had to pass the bar exam and who has to hold my hand up and take an oath of constitution a number of times in my career. and the irony of this decision is it is so steeped in the very theories that this supreme court seems to hold closest to them. and that is originalism and textualism. and if you look, for example, at the gun case that clarence thomas wrote -- i think he wrote it -- where he said, you know, no gun laws can be passed that don't fit within the ideas of the original framers of the

constitution. they've gone to great lengths to say they're all about originalism and they're all about textualism but the plain words say what the framers intended. and this decision is a masterpiece in terms of playing those two cards on the table and explaining very clearly why. this is exactly what the framers had in mind. this is exactly what the 14th amendment was supposed to stop, someone who tried to overturn the government coming back and trying to take over the government again. so it will be very interesting to see how the supreme court handles. it is definitely a difficult one i think for them on that basis. then the other hat i have is the political hat. and this decision worries me on a political basis because human nature always wants what it can't have. and i'm worried that there will be too many people in this country that maybe will not take the time to really understand the scary contrast that donald

trump represents compared to joe biden and his competent and stable leadership, and that they will just see this as, oh, they're after him, oh, they're after him. and they'll go to great lengths to keep him from us. and maybe, yeah, i should vote for this guy just because they're work so hard to keep him off the ballot. i'm worried about the political reaction to this decision and how our country is going to handle that. >> you can be sure trump is going to further weaponize that initial sort of major political reaction because it serves his ends. rick scott saying tonight this is the math radical dems choose to weaponize the courts against conservatives. we are no better than the socialist regimes and they're not after me, they're after you, trump's just in the way. this combine would the criminal cases and the criminal trials you could imagine a maelstrom, a ready-made hurricane that trump will cite as evidence of just

how badly the democrats and the courts that they control wish to keep him away from the white house. >> yeah. and people need to realize this lawsuit was brought by republicans. i believe it was six republican voters and one independent voter. these were the democrats -- there were no democrats plaintiffs in this. this was republicans. so this really is about the law. and when you don't like the law, you say it's being used against you. when you respect the law, you realize this would happen to someone who did what donald trump did no matter what their party was. >> you know, it is worth noting for people who think this is democratic court conspiracy, the three judges dissenting on this opinion were all appointed by democratic governors of colorado. trending on partisan lines this is not. the great claire mccaskill, thank you for your time tonight, my friend. we'll be right back with

secretary of state jenna griswold. that's next. secretary of state jenna griswold that's next. teeth sensitivity is so common. it immediately feels like somebody's poking directly on the nerve. i recommend sensodyne. sensodyne toothpaste goes inside the tooth and calms the nerve down. and my patients say you know doc, it really works.

we are continuing to follow breaking news tonight in a historic decision the colorado supreme court has ruled that donald trump must be removed from the state's republican primary ballot under section 3 of the 14th amendment of the constitution. in a 4-3 decision the court said it would be a wrongful act to list trump as a candidate, effectively disqualifying him. almost conveniently trump announced he would appeal his decision to the supreme court. now a statutory deadline for submitting names to colorado's primary ballots is january 5th, so what does colorado's secretary of state jenna griswold, the person in charge of printing those ballots, what does she do now? let's ask her. joining me now is colorado secretary of state jenna griswold. madam secretary, thank you for joining me. what do you do now? >> well, as long as there is not another case, trump is disqualified from the ballot.

the colorado supreme court affirmed the district court's decision that he engaged in insurrection. the fact of the matter is he incited the insurrection to try to stop the peaceful transfer of the presidency. and in the colorado supreme court has decided thought those actions are disqualifying. again, as of now he's not a qualified candidate in the state of colorado. of course the u.s. supreme court may choose to review, and i will follow whatever court order or decision is in place by the time of certification. >> i mean your deadline of when you have to decide what names to put on the ballot is january 5th, right? there's a stay on this july january 4th. can you walk me through the scenarios here if the supreme court does not decide whether it's going to review this or not by january 5th -- or sorry, i should use the latter. if the supreme court does decide it's going to review it but does not issue a decision by january

5th. that means that trump's name goes on the primary ballot. is that correct? >> if the united states supreme court decides to take this case, i'm sure that they will consider that certification in the state of colorado is very quickly approaching and will issue an order or a decision quickly to make sure that we are in compliance with the law. if they take the case, we will make clear to the court that the deadlines and the time lines. you know, the bigger thing is if the court does not take the case, as of january 5th if the u.s. supreme court does not take the case or intervene and donald trump will not be on the presidential primary ballot. and frankly, this case is only here because trump's actions himself. he is the person who has led to this decision that he is disqualified because he tried to

steal the presidency from the american people. >> i do have to ask you given how open and shut proponents of the 14th amendment in this case are the dissent, for example, chief justice boatwright who i think authored the dissent he says he thinks the applicable florida election code was not active to decide whether a candidate engaged in insurrection. he does not agree with disqualification as a proper line of action. do you think there's any merit to it? does it give you any pause as secretary of state? >> as secretary of state i'll always follow the law and the united states constitution. and that includes following a majority decision in a case. under colorado law my office routinely checks if a candidate is looking to serve in. for example, if arnold

shwarzenegger wanted to be on the presidential ballot we would not allow him because under the united states constitution he is not a qualified candidate because he's not a natural born citizen. this is very similar situation. does the u.s. constitution qualify someone to serve in an office or disqualify them? the colorado supreme court has said section 3 of the 14th amendment disqualifies donald trump because he engaged in insurrection. so following that, i do believe that colorado law allows following the united states constitution when we're deciding our ballot content. >> right. given your feelings about sort of the merits of the state supreme court's ruling tonight, i wonder if you could comment on what you will do if the supreme court decides to overturn it. >> i agree the colorado supreme court's decision. i have said time and time again that i believe that donald trump

incited the insurrection. and also there shouldn't be some loophole in the u.s. constitution allowing the president but no one else to engage in insurrection and then serve in office again. but with that said, i will follow the law in the united states constitution because unlike donald trump i believe that's what elected officials should be doing. and if a court decides that he is on the ballot, i of course will follow that. i swore to uphold the constitution. that is exact lewhat i will do. and i think donald trump when he swore to uphold the constitution should ask himself whether he has been successful in his oath of office. >> and you sound optimistic that you're going to get a ruling on the supreme court on this before colorado actually has to decide whether trump's name is on the ballot, is that correct? >> i am optimistic we'll have great elections in colorado no matter what. we are considered the nation's

gold standard of elections for voter access and security. and courts tend to understand that there is a quickness in decision making that has to happen when it comes to elections. so whether or not the united states supreme court decides to review the case, whether or not they issue a decision by january 5th, if they do review the case, i believe that they will issue some type of order or be cognizant of the facts that we have an election that is quickly approaching where a super tuesday state with a january 5th deadline for ballot certification. >> well, we will be watching to see what happens. and that is an understatement. colorado secretary of state jena griswold, thank you again for your time. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. a surprise ruling from the