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tv   Velshi  MSNBC  December 31, 2023 8:00am-9:00am PST

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oh, you guys. i know you like wrestling, so we got you some vip tickets. you have made an impact. so have you. for you guys to be out here doing something like this, >> which had been really it restores a lot of faith in humanity.
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tested and polled, and it turned out that the voters were like, no thank you. so i would say that abortion is
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really a loser for republicans, and no longer how they dress it up, we are seeing this across the board. >> reporter: dean, my friend. i've got to ask you about the george santos era. and it has been such a crazy year that, if this were another time in history, we probably would be talking about it a little bit more now. but this has been so absurd and bizarre, it is almost fallen below the radar since he's left congress. he served for 11 months. now do you look at that and say, our democracy worked and got him out because he defraud the american people? or do you say, it took republicans 11 months to get their act together? >> first of all, charles, the thing about george santos, dean is the first self made up man. we've seen self made man, but he actually made himself up. and i think a lot has to do with no local media coverage, and no local journalism anymore out in long island in that district to uncover what he was
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about. i think the voters knew he's a serial liar, everything about his name, to his wealth, to the fact that he said his mom was killed in 9/11 and his mom was not killed in 9/11. if voters knew that, they would vote for. but local media coverage was not there. now they stepped up, now my friends in law school, -- tom he's a democratic nominee, i wish him the best. we've got to take that back. but look, the gop, they had no problems george santos when he was working for kevin mccarthy 15 times, and everything else. then he became a burden on republicans in long island, in the district that could swing. and had to go get rid of them. so republicans did not come to the right conclusions in the right reasons. they did it for pure political reasons they thought could help them, but they're going to lose to tom -- come this special election in february. >> reporter: molly, i always talk about, every time we have an opportunity to speak with you, how you are one of my favorite social media followers. and this week, when talking about nikki haley, you proved why. you talked about the fact that moral clarity, and the moral
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clarity that is necessary for a moment like this is a lost in euphemism. can you just elaborate on what you meant by that? and, as we look at 2024, and we are staring down the lens, the importance imperative that more clarity represents going into this very, very critical time for our democracy? >> yeah. it's such an interesting point, and thank you for saying that. i appreciate you a lot, and i'm a big fan as well of yours. i would say that it is a very interesting thing. because nikki haley was given this question, and it was the cause of the civil war. this is an easy question. just like, and it made me think about these college presidents. these three college presidents were given this easy question, is antisemitism bad? it's bad. you can say antisemitism is bad, and that is period, paragraph. just like the cause of the civil war was slavery. slavery is abhorrent and wrong, and the confederacy, they were
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the losers. and that is it. we have one reality. and we have spent such a long time calling trump supporters, calling trump, saying they will just go away if we ignore it. and the reality is, we are on earth one. and on earth, one antisemitism is bad, and so is slavery. and these are not controversial views. these are moral imperatives that we believe these. things we must all share the same moral universe. and i would say that it is really important when we talk about these kind of things. and one of the things why people are so angry about newspaper headlines is because they are used to using euphemisms to cover things in order to look on the emotional and to look like they are not being politically, you know, that they are being unbiased, and they are not having a political view on things when talking about that news. and, really euphemisms, when it comes to moral things like slavery and anti-muslim
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rhetoric, that kind of thing, where it needs to be just clear, you cannot use euphemisms. because they cloud the moral imperative. >> reporter: what we are talking about so central to messaging, and dean, i wanted to talk to you about messaging. it is really clear, when you look at the local scene and state elections as well, that democrats are having a message that is resonating. but nationally, somehow, it is getting lost. and you see that evidenced by poll numbers and approval numbers. where is the disconnect, where democrats seem to be getting it right at the state and local election in the ballot box, but nationally, that message is somehow not translating? >> here's a message, charles, can you say one nice thing about my social media, please? you love molly, but what about my social media? i'm needy. i want a little compliment. >> reporter: we are both looking for molly to make us famous on social media. that's really the gag here. >> in fact, this whole panels about sucking up to molly. that's what this is about.
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charles, i think you touch on a good thing. there is disconnect between issues that affect people personally. >> abortion is not a political issue. republicans don't get this. it is forced personal. you are telling a woman she is forced to carry a fetus, against her will, to term, because that is your religion that you turn into law. that is going to make people turn out. that is not political. same thing with issues like climate change, or democracy. these are real issues. the question for some is this binary choice, you might say, i like trump, or like biden, it is neck and neck. when you get to the real issues that are going to move people on election day, like self determination, as a woman. self-determination in terms of academic freedom, self determination cases of democracy, those are the winners. that's a biden runs on. that's why he defeated donald trump in 2024. i have zero doubt we are going to win, but it is going to be a lot of work, but we are going to win. >> reporter: dean obeidallah, have to listen to on sirius xm and follow on social media. and molly jiang fast, who just
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tweets a lot. thank you both. coming up, i'm july 1st, 2021, he was tapped by nancy pelosi to chair the house select committee, investigate the january 6th insurrection. on december 19th 2022, his committee refer donald trump to the justice department for prosecution. after the break, i will talk with congressman beatty thompson about what he thinks happened after that. a year in which donald trump was, in fact, charge 91 felonies across four separate criminal indictments. i'm charles coleman junior, sitting in for ali velshi, and we will be right back. we will be right back. and it's devastatingly scary. if you're donating to st. jude, you're supporting finding a cure, because the fight never stops. narrator: every gift counts, and whatever you can give will make a difference for children like gideon. make your donation today to help st. jude save lives.
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here's why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. >> reporter: welcome back to velshi on msnbc. i'm charles coleman junior, sitting in today for my friend and colleague, ali velshi. and i am super happy to welcome to the show congressman benny thompson of mississippi. representative thompson has
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been in congress for three decades. he is the ranking member of the homeland security committee, and he has served the chair to the committee -- select committee to select the january 6th attack on the capitol. in his leadership, the january six committee conducted more than 1000 interviews, examined hundreds of thousands of records, and presented a clear and damning case to the american public for the events leading up to the insurrection. congressman, happy new year. let me start off by wishing you that. and i really appreciate you being here. because the january six committee and its work was such a huge part of 2023, it was an incredible amount of work that you did. i wanted to get your thoughts. given where we started, and all of the work that the committee has done, how does it feel? what are your thoughts, seen donald trump indicted, and facing 91 different felony counts? >> well, first of, all thank
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you for having me, charles. let me just be very clear. speaker pelosi had no choice other than to establish this select committee. we first tried to do a committee after the 9/11 commission that would not have members of congress on it, or anything the republican leadership in the senate, didn't go with it, speaker pelosi came with it, put together resolution for the select committee. and would make it bipartisan. well, obviously, you cannot put the likes of banks, and jordan, and other people on that committee, and expected to do any work. speaker pelosi said, no, we are just trying to make sure this never happens again. but leader mccarthy, speaker mccarthy, that man,, took his republicans off the committee. so, ultimately, liz cheney, and
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adam kinzinger set on the committee as republicans. we worked 18 months, you lay the predicate in terms of how many people we interviewed. but more importantly, we were looking at the facts and circumstances that brought about january 6th. unfortunately, some of those facts lead us to believe that crimes were committed. and so, we were not a criminal body, so we referred it, at the end of our report, to the special counsel, and department of justice, and what you see playing out now is pride and parcel, a lot of the work that the select committee did. >> reporter: we ain't going to say crimes were committed, you're gonna see mistakes were made. you all were very clear, not only the believe the crimes were committed, but, who in fact, committed the crimes. of one of the things, congressman, that i thought was brilliant in your approach was
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pushing to have these hearings aired on prime time, in front of the country, so that they could have a sense of transparency about what was going on. do you feel like that, ultimately, got to the american public, and move the needle, and that they understood the gravity of the moment in which we are in? >> no question about it. we made a decision early on to tell our story before the american people. if we had done the traditional hearings, it would not have gotten the impact that we received. our witnesses were stellar witnesses, the majority of those witnesses were republicans. they were secretaries of state. they were basically card carrying republicans, but they were patriots. and they did not want donald trump and his gang to do to this country what they had seen
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with their own eyes. so, clearly, we saw it. the american public saw it. and that's why the numbers at each hearing kept going up, and up, and was playing out in georgia, what is playing out in the district of columbia, was playing out in florida. all of that information, a good bunch of it, charles, we picked up in the course of our interview. so we were not, as you say, in a basket it body with that kind of power. but i think, as a committee, we had a duty to refer anything that we saw that was illegal to the proper authorities. and that is what we did. >> reporter: congressman, one thing that people may not always consider, is in the minds of a segment of america,
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but not enough americans. donald trump occupies a really specific and potent place in the very fragile conversation about race in america. and if you look at the key figures who are working to hold donald trump accountable, and to protect american democracy, many of those people are people of color. many of them are black folks. we can start with the first person to actually criminally indict donald trump, alvin bragg. these oftentimes overlooked. we have a new kidney general fulton county general, fani luis. we have the federal judge, tanya chutkan in the january 6th case. and you yourself, congressman chutkan. but i think it is important to highlight that given the fact that black people have not always been well served by american democracy, how many of them, how many of us, are continuing to put their lives and safety, literally on the line to do the legwork necessary to protect it? can you comment on that?
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but >> there's no question about it, charles. black people buy in large believe in democracy. they believe in the rule of law. and what they want to do is for the government to work for everyone, especially black people. because, for the majority of us, that is our only real hope. the only reason i am in congress today is because of the voting rights act. that was legislation passed in congress, giving people of color in certain parts of the country and equal opportunity to vote. and so it is those things, but many of our children attend colleges and universities because of this government. so, for black people in this country, who are very patriotic, many of them, as you know, went to war, and came back, were treated a second-class citizens. but they went to war.
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so black people, by end large, believe in the rule of law. so what they saw, and a lot of us, myself included, was a president of the united states stoking the flames of insurrection, on january 6th. he encouraged people to come to the capital, put members of congress, staff, law enforcement, persons, lives at risk. we are a better country than that. and i think black people understand that. they see the path that is being painted by donald trump and his alkylates. but believe me. i heard you talk to my colleague, jim clyburn. sure, the polls are where they are right now. but i am convinced, with the proper message, and the proper messages,, we will be victorious next election.
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we have work to do. but you know, there is no choice in my mind, between donald trump and joe biden. as an african american, i believe in this country. i don't believe in dictatorships. i don't believe in anything other than the rule of law. what we discovered on the work of our committee? we had somebody in the white house who did everything he could to circumvent the rule of law. that is not who we are. our oath of office tells us we have to make sure that people prevail, and in an instance where it does not, we have to stop it. so i stand on the work of our committee. we celebrate three years of work. and about in five days, six days. so we are here. we stand on that report that we issue, and every indictment that has come about came about
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because of the work of our community. >> reporter: congressman benny thompson, you are all right with me. happy new year, and thank you for joining me. coming up, i will talk to democratic congresswoman jasmine crockett straight out of texas about her first year in congress. plus, you don't have to be a genius to guess why the current supreme court is so unpopular with the american people, but i've got to legal geniuses anyway. and that conversation is ahead. i am charles coleman junior, and you're watching velshi, on msnbc. we will be right back. tim and none of the stuff you don't. our sulfate-free collections smell incredible... ♪ and leave your hair touchably soft and smooth. ♪ herbal essences there is a lot of information out there.
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hamas is a terrorist group oppressing the palestinian people. hamas refused a continued ceasefire, a continued pause in fighting and more aid from israelis in exchange for just freeing more hostages. instead, hamas resumed attacks. not to protect the palestinian people or obtain peace, only to destroy israel. we must stand against hamas and stand with palestinians and israelis for basic human rights. right now get a free footlong at subway. like the new deli heroes. buy one footlong in the app, get one free. it's a pretty big deal. kinda like me. order in the subway app today. this isn't quite a tumultuous
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year forwe saw the ousted former public speaker, kevin mccarthy, potential financial calamity twice, multiple indictments, censures, and your
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fistfight, a beetlejuice scandal, the george santos era, and a ten month hold on military nominations and promotions. and that is just to name a few. so it should come as no surprise that while lawmakers are active that very impressive list of chaos, they came up short in the actual law making department. and that is their actual job. 2023 was the least productive congress in decades, only 20 bills were actually signed into law with another four pass by both chambers and awaiting president biden's signatures. this year's congress even comes up short when compared to other notoriously unproductive congresses. when republicans control one or both chambers of congress with democrats, bill clinton and barack obama in the white house, congress is actually famous furlough achievement. and even they managed to pass between 70 and 73 laws, which is more than three times as
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many as this year's crew. and even if you were to try and look at the 24 law as it did pass in a positive light, according to axios, it actually getsmore bleak. the vast majoritywere on cororsial bills that either passed by unanimous consent or with minimal opposition, including multiple measures to rename's veterans affairs clinics in another to make a coin commemorating the 20 50th anniversary of the marine corps. so what are the chances that 2024 is actually going to be better? we have the same congress in place, another government shutdown looming, and monumentally important presidential election that is coming up on the horizon. so it is going to be a tall order. up next, i'm gonna talk to someone whose job is at least to try. congresswoman jasmine crockett out of texas is on deck, so don't go anywhere. we will be right back with more on velshi. mor on velshi. on velshi. but i want to stay in my home, where my family visits often and where my memories are.
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i can do it with help from a prep cook, wardrobe assistant and stylist, someone to help me live right at home. life's good. when you have a plan. ♪ ♪ it ain't my dad's razor, dad. ay watch it! it's from gillettelabs. this green bar releases trapped hairs from my face... gamechanga! ...while the flexdisc contours to it. so the five blades can get virtually every hair in one stroke. for the ultimate gillette shaving experience. the best a man can get is gillettelabs. >> reporter: welcome back to
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the ocean msnbc. i'm charles coleman junior, in raleigh today. and i am thrilled to now be joined by democratic congresswoman jasmine crockett from texas. councilman crockett, always good to see you, and to have you on again. this was a year of firsts for so many things. it was the first time we saw a former president in indicted, and it was your force here in congress as a freshman. just before we even get started, talk to me about everything that you have seen, and what are your impressions now as a freshman member having completed your first year? >> first of all, happy new year to everyone and i can't imagine a better place to be on the last day of this year than on msnbc. but let me tell you, what i have seen is stuff that is scary to me. and going into 2024, i want everyone to be very serious about who is that we sent to
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congress and who it is that is currently sitting in congress. it has been scary whether or not we are talking about the fraud known as george santos, or whether we are talking about the insurrectionist gang, which, as far as i'm concerned, speaker maga mike is a part of, or whether we are just talking about the far-right rhetoric that we are getting out of them in the policies that they are attempting to push. or if we just talk about the dysfunction and the clown show that they are in general that has held this country hostage a number of times, whether was a debt ceiling fight, or whether we are dealing with a budget. a budget in which we now are about to hit the crisis mode again on, as soon as we get back, because we have to illuminate deadlines. one of them being right there, in january. >> reporter: congresswoman, there is always a lot of talk about the republican party, and a lot of talk about donald trump. but americans want to know, what is the plan that democrats have to move things forward?
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let's take donald trump off the table. let's put republicans to the side. what is the plan that democrats have to actually get things done in 2024? >> yeah, listen. we know that the republicans themselves just can't do anything without us. anything that has passed is only passed because most likely, the democrats have been the one to really carry the water. it is an election year. and i think that is going to help us be a little bit more productive, i don't know that we will be a lot more productive. but they know that they've got to go home. and we heard it best from chip roy. when chip roy says that they have nothing to run on. they have not done anything. so even if we disagree on what the policy outcomes, specifically are, i think that it is better to at least go home and say that least you have accomplished something. and so i think they will feel that pressure, especially those sitting in biden's district. they will put pressure on their conference to say, hey. if you want us to come back, if you want a chance of holding
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this majority, then we are going to start to get down to work and get down to business. -- get over the marjorie taylor greene,'s and the gosar, and do something productive. >> reporter: one of your viral moments this year came from the house impeachment inquiry committee, and that subcommittee and its hearing, were you then brought up the notion of hard evidence, and where that hard evidence was being stored at mar-a-lago. what is next for that committee, and what to the american people have to look forward to, or what has to happen in order to stop this charade of an inquiry against president biden? >> i think we are going to focus on re-direct the attention of the american people. you know, there are those that don't understand that what you are supposed to use in impeachment or an impeachment inquiry, so it is important that we are good messengers. and we make sure that people better understand that this is not what we are supposed to be
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doing in this committee, and if we were going to go after something, then there are things that we can go after. they just don't happen to involve the current president, but a lot of things involving the previous president, and i know that some believe it just because he went through two impeachments that everything came out. let me tell you, there is still so much more that can come out, and is coming out. so i think that we are going to try to juxtapose the difference between a trump and a biden, one right now, we know that the republicans want to make it seem as if it is more of the same. and it is not. the two presidents have nothing in common except for the fact that they were both sworn in as presidents of this united states. >> reporter: we've had a lot of the nine top today, and there is nothing better than when a -- gets to talk to a delta. congresswoman jasmine crockett, thank you so much for joining me this morning. happy new year. >> happy new year. >> reporter: after the break. the john roberts led supreme
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court is historically unpopular. i've got a few guesses as to why. but i'm going to discuss them all next with two of the smartest legal scholars i know. i'm charles coleman junior, in for ali velshi today, and we will be right back. thank q and stay tuned. thank q and stay tuned. lawmakers are trying to shut down planned parenthood. the health care of more than 2 million people is at stake. when your health care is limited, so is your future. your family's future.
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. it.
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? how >> they approve of the court's handling of legal matters. while a whopping 50% do not. now that's just one point away from the court's lowest approval rating of 40% back in 2021, which was actually the lowest ever recorded by gallup since it began tracking the issue in 1972. meanwhile, won the issue of public trust, less than half of those surveyed, 49% say they have confidence in the judicial branch, which of course is headed by the supreme court. that is also close to the all-time low of 47% reported last year. now prior to 2022, trust in the judicial branch hovered around 68%. that's not good. even among republicans, favorable views of the courts have continued to decline, going down from 67% in 2022 to
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56% today. the conservative high courts unpopularity follows a number of controversial rulings, including overturning roe v. wade, expanding gun owners rights, allowing businesses to turn away gay customers, halting joe biden's student loan forgiveness plan, that was a big, one and limiting the presents authority to address climate change. ethical scandals have also plagued the court, as revelations emerge that some of the justices, namely clarence thomas and samuel alito, have accepted and not reported lavish gifts. all of this has raised questions about their impartiality. and both of justices, just to be clear, have denied that they've done anything wrong. after a quick break, we are going to dive right into this topic with two people who follow the supreme court as closely as anyone else. he a mitchell are, from fox, and the senior editor at slate. that is coming up right after the break, on velshi. so stay tuned.
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msnbc. i'm charles coleman junior in for ali today. back with me is in mel heizer, who's a senior correspondent at vox and author of the agenda, how republican supreme court is reshaping america and julie lithwick, senior editor at sleet and author of lady
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justice, women, the battle, to save america. you, and i'm gonna start with you. there's been a lot of controversial cases that have come into the supreme court, but we're seeing an immersion torrent of even more controversial cases that are getting before the high court. what does that tell you and should that be a concern, especially given that you can't just go directly to the store, it has to go sway up? >> so, we have six justice republican super majority on the supreme courts. the first time in a long time we've had this pardon of a court. and they came in with an agenda. they have treated their time with their supermajority as if they've had a checklist. they said will overrule roe v. wade, check. expand the second amendment, check. get rid of affirmative action, check. and so on and so forth. some of the things they've done a more technical, but they have been really huge, taking a bunch of power that was given to the executive branch and transferring it to themselves in the judiciary. that's what the student loans
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case was all about. so this is a court that's had a big checklist, and they keep checking off boxes. the question i'm wondering, though, and i've seen some signs this term that maybe they run out of items on their list. because this term, they haven't been quite as aggressive as they were the previous two terms. but that's because they moved so quickly. that i almost got whiplash, following how fast they were moving through their agenda items. >> julia, one of the things that has come up has been the notion of legitimacy, because as we've heard more and more about these ethical questions, there have been increasing concerns from the public about impartiality with respect to the justices. can you talk a little bit about the legitimacy of the supreme court, at least from a perception standpoint? >> i mean, i'm sorry. good morning charles, good morning ian, and i have a wicked cold. happy new year. i think that the answer to that
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question is in some sense the answer that connects the two issues you started with, charles. which is there are the cases on the docket, and there are the ethics scandals. those are the same story. sometimes we cover them as though there are different stories, but one of the things that we are starting to see is that the same wealthy billionaires who are trying to pull apart the regulatory state, do away with the administrative state, there are three cases on the docket this term, each of which would hobble the ability of regulatory agencies to do their jobs. and we've seen that happen, by the way, in the last two terms with an epa case, a clean air act case, a clean water case. so this is the same multi billionaire donors who fly certain justices to conferences around the country and the justices than rule on these
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cases, and none of this, as you said at the top, is disclosed. none of this is public. and so i think that there is a sense that the court is bought and sold, and the checklist that ian just described. whether it's doing away with abortion, doing away with affirmative action and higher education, whether it's expanding gun rights, or as i said, doing away with environmental laws, or making it harder and harder to vote. all of that is part of an agenda that is bought and paid for by donors at secret conferences that none of us knew about, until the press started to report it. and so i think the answer to your question is two things happened. one, the checklist. whiplash speed. to, the fact that the interests of being served over and over again are the interests of a tiny minority of millionaires and billionaires that can't win at the polls, so they're trying to win by buying the court. >> picking up exactly where
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delia just left off, what do you make of the fact that it seems like the supreme court almost is just playing a level of contempt for the public opinion around many important issues, particularly women's reproductive rights, for example, as we look at a post-dobbs world. what do you make of that? because it does seem like none of these decisions are popular irrespective of political affiliation. >> so one of the biggest things that's changed in the last 20 or 30 years in the supreme court, there used to be liberal republicans. john paul stevens was a liberal republican. david souter was at least a moderately liberal republican. it used to be that you couldn't predict how a justice would vote based on the party of the president who appointed them. that's no longer true. a big part of that is the federalist society, basically what happened is that all of the conservative lawyers got organized, they speak to themselves only about what they want the law to be, and when republican presidents get the
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chance to appoint a justice, they pick from this club of lawyers who only speak to each other and not either to the broader public or the broader legal community about what they think the constitution and the rest of the law should say. so you have this incredibly insular group that these justices have been drawn upon, have been drawn from. it's an insular group whose purpose is to make sure that there are no surprises. there aren't going to be any more liberal republicans, and democrats have their own checks to make sure there's no conservative democrats anymore. and that's just toxic. the whole point of the judiciary is that you're supposed to have judges who decide cases based on somewhat objective principles, if they can't figure out what the objective principles are they're supposed to use good judgment that is not partisan judgment. but now for the first time really in american history, we know what a democratic judge is going to do, we know what a republican judge is going to do,
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there are institutions in place to make sure that no one strays too far from their party line, and that is not what you want in a judiciary. >> julia, we've been talking about legitimacy and transparency with respect to the court for a long time, and this year, a lot of conversations centered around the ethical considerations with respect to what those justices are held to. what has to happen, and what should happen, and what do you think is going to happen about the supreme court having some sense of checks in terms of its ethics on itself and the justice system? >> i mean, i'm sorry to say charles, i think the courts made it pretty plain. what's going to happen, which is that they were going to do with the bare minimum to assuage the public while at the same time blaming the public, right? there was an ethics -- i suppose an ethics code that the court was a very clear that they released this fall, and they said this is the public's fault. we've always abided by this. the fact is, you didn't
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understand it. so we are going to say it again. but the problems with the code are myriad, up to and including its unenforceable, and the justices will decide for themselves when they violate it. there is no transparency, as you said. there's no check. and in the process of having this national conversation about what feels like an ex drum, legitimacy crisis, the court at every turn has insulted the public. so whether it's john roberts, the chief justice, refusing to show up for a senate judiciary committee hearing last spring to discuss this, whether it's samuel alito, pending an interview in the wall street journal last spring in which he essentially says congress has no authority over us. we do ate want. this portrait that the court has offered us, which is a, we are uncheck-able, because we are monarchical. we are perfect, and nobody can touch us. and also, in the face of almost weekly revelations, a really
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shocking misconduct, including how the dobbs decision came down, a brilliantly reported piece in the new york times. the answer consistently is, not that we're going to fix ourselves, but that we are unfixable. and so it's very hard to see how this turns out well, particularly in a year where it's increasingly clear this court needs public legitimacy, because they may decide the presidential election. >> he, i've got one last question for you. there's going to be about 30 seconds. there has been a call for clarence -- thomas to recuse himself regarding the upcoming cases that are likely going to be before the case, and ginni thomas's connection to january 6th. is there any chance that that's going to happen, and should it? >> i am more likely to grow a set of bat wings and fly around my condo that i am for clarence thomas to recuse from any case, because of concerns about him being politically or corrupt in
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any way. he should resign, you don't get to take the kind of money that he's taken in staying in government office. but there's no enforcement mechanism, so nothing is going to happen to him. >> dewitt lake, lithwick, and ian mill highs are, the batman, thank you to you both. happy new year. that's going to do it for me, it is truly been a pleasure. thank you to ali velshi for allowing me to sit in his seat, as well as well she's amazing team. though she will be back next week, and you can watch him here on saturday and sunday morning from 10 am to noon eastern. but you don't need to wait that long, you can actually catch him tonight at five pm eastern on msnbc's politicsnation for the 13th annual review awards. and a quick and important programming note. a new morning show is coming to msnbc weekends. symone sanders-townsend, michael steele, and alicia menendez, those three, they're teaming up for a brand-new political morning show.

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