democrats say it's never time to be forgotten. >> that is "all in" on this thursday night. ali velshi in for alex. >> i have one question for you. >> why is it so cold in the

studio? >> i like it like this. >> is it you doing this? >> i don't even know. i'm a kind of go along to get along dude. >> i like being with you, so if that's the cost of sharing a studio. >> we can raise it up, whatever you want. >> just feet away from each other. i'll just wear a sweater. thank you. have a good evening, chris. thank you for joining us tonight. i'm ali velshi in for alex wagner. we're going to warm up in the next few minutes. president biden hasxt released s first campaign ad of 2024. and in that ad president biden makes clear what he believes will be the central issue of thisce election. >> i've made the preservation of american democracy the central issue of my presidency. i believe in free and fair elections and the right to vote fairly and have your vote counted. there's something dangerous happening in america. there's an extremist movement who does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy. all of us are being asked right now what will we do to maintain

our democracy? we are the united states of america. there is o nothing beyond our capacity when we act together. i'm joe biden and i approve this message. >> that's joe biden's campaign message this year, that donald trump and theis movement he has encouraged are a threat to democracy. tomorrow the president's going to continue t to push that messe in a speech at valley forge commemorating the three-year anniversary of the january 6th attack on the capitol. and the message that president biden willss deliver there whil important will not be new. donald trump's threats to democracy are well-known. americans saw it when trump spent his presidency cozying up to dictators and shunning american allies. they saw it when trump did everything in his power to try to overturn the results of a legitimate democratic election culminating in a violent siege on our seat of government. they can see it now when trump openly muses about the idea of being a i dictator on day one

should he be re-elected. but perhaps the biggest example of donald trump's threat to democracy is something that has essentially fallen off the radar, an active threat to democracy by trump and many of his republican allies that is so dire and so urgent that it could wipe a democratic nation off the face of the earth before we get to election day. it has been nearly two years since russian dictator vladimir putin invaded the democratic nation of ukraine. and in that time against all odds, the biden administration has managed to keep russia thought to have been one of the finest armies in the world, at bay. joe biden held together a fractured natold alliance, fracture in large part by donald trump himself. isolated russia on the world stage r and rallied military an financial support for the besieged nation of ukraine. it was by all appearances a victory for the concept and the

strength and durability of democracy, ofy democratic natis standing up to authoritarianism. and now that victory may be slipping away. over the last few weeks ukraine has faced some of the heaviest attacks from russia since the war began. russia is once again firing missiles atin ukraine's two largestra cities kyiv and khark. russia has taken roughly 20% of ukrainian territory while leaving entire towns destroyed in its wake. the fightingoy on the front lin of the war has become a bloody stalemate. ukrainian society has become war-weary. it's become harder to find ukrainian troops to fight through the harsh winter months. and during all of this, ukraine is literally begging for assistance from its western allies. but thanks to trump and republican leaders in congress, that assistance has almost stopped flowing. just before the new year the united states sent out what it could be its last package of

military aid to ukraine. the only way to get more aid to ukraine now is for congress to specifically authorize it, aes message that theif biden administration has been hammering foras weeks. here was national security council spokesman john kirby today. >> here's the bottom line. the most effective response to russia's horrific violence against's the ukrainian people s to continue to provide ukraine with vital air defense capabilities and other military equipment. ukrainians deserve to know that the d american people and this government will continue to stand with them. sost it's critical congress mee this moment and responds by providing ukraine with utwhat they need to defend themselves. time for congress to act is now. >> the time for congress to act is now. but as the white house continues to hammer that message, congressional republicans once staunchna allies of democracy a opponents of authoritarianism have remained defiant. yesterday house speaker mike

johnson held a press conference at the southernld border where said republicans will not pass any ukraine aid package unless president biden agrees to draconian new border restrictions. for weeks now the biden administration has signaled a willingness to compromise with republicans on border policies in order to get aid b for ukrai. so much so that some democrats have raised concerns about how much joe biden is willing to trade away. but republicans have rejected thosean compromises because for theme rejecting aid to ukraine while hammering biden on the border is itself a victory for their maga base. when asked about the prospects of aut deal, the republican congressman, troy nehls told cnn yesterday, quote, i'm not willing to do too damn much right now to help a democrat and help joe biden's approval rating. let's just understand that for a moment. republicans are willing to let

ukraine a democratic country and a u.s. ally fall in order to keep joe biden or a democrat from winning this next election, which is music to the dictators and authoritarians of the world. authoritarian leaders like vladimir putin do not have toth worry about re-election campaigns. putin is in one right now but hisn manu ponent is in jail. he'll i remain in power for as long as he wants. which means he and xi jinping can wait it until they're out of office or until the united states is once again led by a president whoon talks about leaving nato, who admires authoritarian leadersre are, wh does not care about protecting democracies like ukraine.ke a president who famously withheld military aid for ukraine until it agreed to dig up dirt on his domestic politicalis rival. a second trump presidency that would be amp threat to democrac

here at home but also around thd world. joining me now is the t retirede united states army lieutenant colonel and former director of european affairs at the national security council, alexander vindman. with us tonight ben rodes, deputy nationaln security advir under president obama and co-host of "pod save the world." thank you for being here tonight. colonel vindman, when you and i started talking about ukraine years ago after you so bravely reported on thatso phone call i which donald trump tried to shakedown the then new president of ukraine, it was about our allies. it was about european safety. it was about curtailing an expense and russia, but it wasn't then centrally about ll democracy, the state of democracy in the world. today it kind of is. we have learned that democracy around the world is fragile and ukraine to some degree is our front line for this. >> that's very true. first, let me start by saying happy new year, start on a positive note.

it'st amazing being on with yo because you get to the heart of the t matter. the other cable news network is running the audition for vice president for donald trump who' looking to destroy our democracy, and you're focused on the real threats to democracy and the fact that we have a election about democracy and freedoms. around the world we see a proliferation of threats not just from russiaof and ukraine t we started the conversation nearly two years ago, but these threats have abounded. we have instability in the middle east coordinated by an ally of russia, iran, that's running proxies that are attacking u.s.s interests and commercialat interests. we have threats in the pacific. we have the north koreans providing long-range missiles to russia. this is a much, much more complex year than we started two years ago, frankly, or the past year. andnkhe i fear that we might be alert to the dangers at home.

that seems to be the pattern in the election in 2020 and 2022 and likely to play it down in 2024. we're not focused on threats abroad. we're not specifically focused on the factif russia keeps marching forward. its relationships with other authoritarian regimes get tighter and we'reit in for a ve difficult year at home and abroad. >> ben, what colonel vindman just said i thinkol is interesting. the threats have proliferated. the world is just fundamentally a more dangerous place than it was four years ago and what happens orea what we do -- not just what happens in ukraine, what americapp does, how americ leads in ukraine is something that not just our allies are worrying about and paying attention to, but more importantly perhaps our bu adversaries. >> yeah, i think that, look, we're living through a phase of authoritarian renaissance of sorts, of the ethno nationalist

variety, ali, and it's been going on for several years. and one thing americans have to understand is it's not just a foreign n policy issue, it's th fact this trend is interconnected. you don't get this many nationalist authoritarian leadersna in this many places absent there being some connectivity. you've got vladimir putin in russia. you've got xi jinping in china. narendra modi in india, bolsanaro in brazil, duterte in the philippines. these are very different places, and i could list five or ten more countries at least. ukraine is the most acute manifestation of that. when you have the leader, the kind of vanguard of this autocratic trend in vladimir putin literally trying to extinguish a solveren democracy that is a part of europe, that is both about the expansionest agenda of russia that could threatenss nato countries in europe, but also about putin

wanting to send a a message abo which way the world is going. is the world going in the direction of people like vladimir putin, a world without law, a world without rules, a world in which might makes right alone? or is the world going to stand upto for some principle other tn might makes right? that's what ukraine is really about. and this is about our domestic politics as much as anything else. if we are one of the dominos that falls not only is ukraine finished kressentially, not onl is eastern europe going to be threatened by russian expansionism, but there are plenty of nationalists waiting in the wings in parts of europe who might be poised to seizing that momentum themselves. and we could be looking at a more dangerous world today. >> russia could take ukraine very quickly. they offered vindman to leave

the country and he declined. i'm sorry, vindman. volodymyr zuenlen skae. you're a pretty brave guy, too. hegu stayed in kyiv. he postedta videos every night,e gives a message every night. he motivates his people and tells them that they can win the war, and yet around the world the ukrainian people see this, he's got his officials, he's got himself going to america begging, saying we could lose this war if you don't continue to fund us. how dangerous is this? could ukraine lose this war? >> it's t unlikely ukraine coul lose in the next year or two. i think orabsent this funding, this supplemental funding for ukraine, things get considerably more complex. the u.s. can move in the direction of asset forfeiture and transfer, that's one of solutions.

it really does get complex because it looks like we're just notet serious. we're not serious about our security, our allies. and the fact is that invites attack. that invitesnv russia to conduc this war ines the first place i think on the heels of a january 6th insurrection on the heels of hyper-partisanship driven by n maga. it invites iranians to advance their interests in i the middle east including propelling their proxy networks to attack u.s. and world interests. we're talking about world commerce. it propels the chinese to recalculate the cost benefit analysis on conducting a war to seize taiwan and bring it back into the fold. the venezuelans in latin america with their aspirations to seize and oil and dprk and its agenda to extort resources and maintain

power. these are all opportunists that smell blood in the water and se an opportunity to really go after democracies that are waffling and seem disinterested in investing in their security. and this is the one area that, you know, it really does concern me. i think we may possibly have turned the corner. at least there's some indications that the population in the u.s. is voting on democracy. but we are not serious about our security. there are fundamental decisions that need to bee made about ukraine's supplemental aid, and the administration could take steps in its own right to really significantly improve the support to ukraine that's intelligence sharing, that's logistical support.th these are not expensive, big ticket items. these are small policy changes that the administration could take on its own and just have refused today do that. and i really urge the administration to seerg the dangers of ukraine maybe

flagging a losing territory and inspiring other authoritarian regimes to advance. >> thisme articulation that colonelar vindman had about it just looks like we're not serious. this is obviously whene you we at the national security council, this is very important issue. the idea is when donald trump weakened nato, it's gnat that he actually did anything. he sort of said we're not that serious about this, you guys need to do this. it's these implications we're not going to be solid partners to you. you and i have talked to world leaders who are very concerned about this. they do think if they have to th make a determination the united states is not serious, they start strategizing about their world view differently. >>rl yeah, that's right. and let me try to be very specific ability this, ali, because this began to get worse in the obama years where it used to be there were some baseline issues of national security,

where pick your political opponents like john mccain and barack obama who might even have disagreements about foreign policy, they might even agree on the building blocks, nato, the collective defense of nato, the need to stand up for certain values around the world, and that was a continuum since world war iice and through the cold w. youhe started to see a trend whe republicans would politicize every aspect of national security. if barack obama was for one thing one day, they'd be against it. if he switched his position it somehow, they may switch their position. and that's obviously gotten worse ever since. and donald trump's election when he came in and tore up a whole bunch of agreements obama me reached, he basically upended american policy at first hesitating to articulate the common defense of nato. the message that sent is america is not reliable. the dysfunction and toxicity in its democracy has rendered it

unreliable super power and ally. and the thing joe biden can't fix himself is that continues to this day. evenue allies who welcomed joe biden, welcomed leadership of the united states and rallied nato andit ukraine, they're sitting back and wondering is donald trump going to come back? vladimir putin is sitting there thinking i just have to wait this guy out, maybe i have to interfere in the 2024 election to try and get donald trump elected. my strategy is a g waiting game. i as a dictator have more staying power than an american democracy because they're swimming back and forth as a crazy pendulum and they're not reliable. if we cannot sustain a policy, can't sustain something like the basic support for dwru crane, a democratic country that is under assault, if we can't sustain that for more than a couple of years because congress can't gec its act together, how is any nation in the world going to trust our n word, how are allie goingw to trust our defense

agreements sphif they cannot do that, they're going to start to hedge, they're going to start bend from a pressure from a china or russia because the united states can no longer be relied on as l a cornerstone of their security. we're already dealing with that just because donald trump's previous administration. if he gets back into the white house, that's gone for a generation at least if it's something we can ever get back. that is how high the stakes are in thisgh election. >> it's important wehi realize that as we're struggling for democracy in our own country, that we haveur a massive role t play in the rest of the world. guys, thanks very much, we appreciate that. retired colonel alex vindman ann deputy national security advisor under president obama ben rodes we appreciate your time tonight lots more news to get to tonight including the ouster of former president claudine gay, also an assault in the faith of institutions. >> but first republican presidential candidates are making their final push on the iowa caucuses in the coming days. we'll looks at what's coming

through to voters and what's not. that's next. stay with us. d what's not. that's next. stay with us i'm jonathan lawson, here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's. what are the three p's? the three p's of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54. what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications.

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it's 11 days until the iowa caucuses, and here things currently stand in the republican primary race. recent polls in iowa show trump leading his closest competitor there by 34 points. and while trump is keeping his physical presence in iowa to a minimum and generally leaving it up to his surrogates to do the heavy lifting, his opponents are across the state engaging in the sort of retail politics you'd expect from a presidential candidate this close to a contest. ron desantis even completed his so-called full grassly, which is when a presidential candidate visits each of iowa's 99 counties. not to be outdone, rivek

ramaswamy recently completed a full grassly for the second time. how's this is all working for them? sarah longwell, publisher of the bulwark has been hosting regular focus groups with iowa republican voters. here she is describing how the latest reacted when she asked about nikki haley declining to say slavery was the cause of the civil war. >> so we asked about the -- nikki haley's slavery comments. only the nicky curious normy had even heard about it. when we asked her so can you explain to the group what it was, she was like, well, she said something but i can't remember what it was. it was like she had heard about it, so nobody else had even heard about it. >> joining me now sarah longwell, publisher of the bulwark. i think what you learned there is very telling to a lot ofulse who spend time worrying about these sorts of things and thinking, wow, this would be campaign ending to not say that

the civil war was about slavery. it's a different game out there. the republican contest in iowa and the republican contest in general is a different game with different rules. >> yeah, no doubt. and, look, the fact is, first of all, doing focus groups all the time, one of the main things that i've learned is that voters are not paying nearly as much attention as those of us who spend all of our time thinking and talking about politics, but what's interesting -- i just did a group of iowa voters this week, and for them it's over. donald trump is the person. they aren't that interested in anybody else. i asked one of the voters in that group what's one thing, what could move you off donald trump, and she said he would have to do something really extreme like die or murder somebody. and that was her line. and for everybody else in the group like i said in that clip there was really only one person who was even kind of curious

about an alternative. she was a little nikki curious, interested in learning more, going to watch the debate. for most of them they said trump is a known quantity, i want his economy back, i want his policies on immigration back, i want his positions on crime back, and they are just big fans of his. and that's why it seems like this weird theater we're going through where we really sort of talk about the race like there's an earth one race where donald trump is a million, you know, points up and there's an earth 2 race where we're talking about nikki haley and ron desantis. but i mean the voters they were brutal on desantis. he's been out there meeting with people, talking to people. and they were talking about him like one person said, he seems like he's given up, and another person said, yeah, well, you'd be depressed too if you were down by 50 points. i don't think there's a world in

which these voters going to sort of late in the game take another look at ron desantis or nikki haley in a big way. it's really a conversation about who comes in second in iowa. >> if you think about the last three or four republican primaries, there was a race. people were still moving close to the top or for a week somebody would lead. in this particular instance you had somebody in your focus group say donald trump would have to do something i think the word you used is extreme or something of that nature. that assumes that nobody in the focus groups believed that donald trump has done anything extreme notwithstanding the 91 indictments. >> yeah, well, when it comes to two-time trump voters and republican voters in general, i mean they think that donald trump is being indicted because the establishment is scared of him, because, you know, people are out to get him. they believe that he is the truth teller, he is the one there to shake-up the establishment, and the reason

that he gets attacked, the reason they try to take him off ballots or the reason that he is under indictment is about people being afraid that he is going to, yeah, disrupt the establishment applecart. and there's -- there really is a totally different reality that republican voters are living in. for example, we think it is extreme, obviously, that people attacked the capitol on january 6th because of a lie donald trump told about the election being stolen. but when you talk to republican voters as i do week in and week out, many of them take it as an article of faith the election was stolen, that democrats did cheat. and so if you live in that reality all the time, you don't think of trump as extreme, you think we're the ones who are wrong. >> obviously there's a challenge there for democrats in the election coming up, but for republican candidates running against trump is there any way to break through any of the stuff you're talking about?

the numbers indicate there isn't, but in the focus groups are you hearing any opportunity for anybody who's not donald trump to make in roads with these voters? >> right now the one thing i hear is there is some nikki curiosity, but the way people talk about her is more like several people have said the same frame, i don't hate her, so they're like i'm giving her a look but they also see her as an establishment candidate, as somebody they can't really trust because she's -- people say things like she'd be the mouthpiece of millionaires and billionaires. so they think of her as sort of a pre-trump candidate, and they don't actually want pre-trump candidates. one of the things they say very clearly is we're not going back, we don't want to go back to that world of sort of mitch mcconnell and mike pence and these other sort of pre-trump candidates. we want to live in the make

america great again, america first policies. that's the republican party people want, and so, look, i think that there can be a world in which nikki haley outperforms expectations in iowa, comes in second around desantis, more or less ending or at least putting a deep freeze his political career, coming into new hampshire with wind on her back, which a state taylor made to be a not terribly trumpy state. but i think she hits a wall in her own home state of south carolina where trump is favored by a lot. and you you look at the super tuesday states. the amount of narrative shifting that you would have to do, you would have to say that nikki haley, you know, she would have to beat trump in new hampshire outright to even start to shift that perception a little bit, and i view that as highly unlikely. the numbers are big here when you think of some of the come from behind victories in the past,ven singular races,

they've generally never been this kind of spread. >> still ahead tonight as trump tries to evade accountability for allegedly interfering in the 2020 election, his lawyers are the judge overseeing his d.c. case -- are asking the judge overseeing his d.c. case to hold the prosecutors accountable. but first while the right celebrates the removal of harvard's president, there are some on the left who argue claudine gay's ouster is just one part of the political war and there's someone on the right who agrees. we'll tell you who next. who agrees we'll tell you who next.

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i stand before you on this stage with the weight and the honor of being a first able to say i am claudine gay, the president of harvard university. >> on september 29th claudine gay addressed a crowd of students and colleagues at harvard university for the first time as president of that institution. that moment made history not only because she became the first black person to lead the university but because as she noted that day, arriving at that particular point in history was a journey. in a speech called "courage to be harvard," she reminded her audience, quote, not 400 yards from where i stand some four centuries ago four enslaved people lived and worked in

wadsworth house as the personal property of the president of harvard university. my story is not their story. i'm a daughter of haitian immigrants to this country, and the stories of the many trail blazers between us are linked by this institution's long history of exclusion, and the long journey of resistance and resilience to overcome it. and because of the collective courage of all those who walk that impossible distance across centuries and dared to create a different future, i stand before you, end quote. courage was her message that day, and it would take courage from harvard's community, their resolve against all odds as gay put it, to press on for change. that was three months ago. and in the months since the institution's courage was tested. the conservative activist chris rufo led a coalition of mostly right-wing opponents in a plan to remove gay as harvard's

president, using allegations of plagiarism and anti-semitism. since gay resigned earlier this week, the conservative coalition has been downright gleeful. chris rufo even tried to tweet he scalped harvard's president. of course he had to learn how to spell the word scalped first. here on this program let's have the courage to ask why. why was toppling claudine gay so important to rufo's project. claudine gay offered an answer. quote, this was merely a single skirmish in a broader war to unravel public faith in pillars of american society. campaigns of this kind often start with attacks on education and expertise because these are the tools that best equip communities to see through propaganda. but such campaigns don't end there. trusted institutions of all types from public health agencies to news organizations will continue to fall victim to

coordinated attempts to undermine their legitimacy and ruin their leader's credibility, end quote. and according to rufo, she's right. this campaign against claudine gay was about toppling institutions and reshaping them in a conservative mold. he said so himself in his own wall street journal op-ed this week titled "how we squeezed harvard to push claudine gay out." quote, if america is to reform its academic institutions, the symbolic fight over harvard's presidency must evolve into a deeper institutional fight, a grueling form of trench warfare in which each concept, structure, and institution must be challenged to change the culture. he continues, if there's any home of stopping america's cultural revolution, it must begin with a clear-eyed understanding of how to wield

power and reshape institutions in the real world, end quote. in an interview with politico he called it really a textbook example of successful conservative activism. conservative activism to topple the institutions responsible for maintaining our democracy and making it more inclusive. educational institutions that helm information and analysis, journalistic institutions that separate truth from misinformation, even public health institutions that help keep us alive. we've already begun to see what happens when conservative activism tarnishes the integrity of public health institutions in places like florida. i'll have more on that story next. have more on that story next

i'm jonathan lawson, here to tell you about life insurance through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85 and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three p's. what are the three p's? the three p's of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54. what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80. what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program. options start at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions.

your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate-lock, so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information, and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling, so call now for free information.

i'm the only one running for president that has beat these people time and time again in the state of florida. we bucked fauci. we beat fauci on covid. >> that was florida governor ron desantis literally running for president on the idea literally defying our nation's health experts is a good thing. as governor desantis did things like mocking students for wearing masks, banning local governments from implementing their own covid regulation, and desantis lobbied against vaccine mandates and eventually against the vaccine itself. researchers at yale looked at covid death rates in florida and ohio before and after the covid vaccine was made available. they found that while the death rates were pretty comparable

before a vaccine became available, after the vaccine became available, democrats stopped dying as much while republicans kept dying a lot. the excess death rate for republicans was 43% higher than that of democrats. and now as we're in yet another covid surge, still here's ron desantis hand picked surgeon joe latipo talking about vaccines yesterday. >> frankly, i think it does have some integration at some levels with the human genome because these vaccines honestly they're the anti-christ of all products. >> the anti-christ of all products. yesterday surgeon general ladapo called for the full halt of the use of all mrna covid vaccines. joining us to help us understand

why that doesn't make any sense at all is dr. peter hotez, professor of pediatrics in virology and microbiology, the author of the new book "the deadly rise of anti-science, a scientist's warning." this is a man i've talked to literally from before the days covid was spreading. peter, good to see you again. thank you for being with us. can you just help us understand what the florida surgeon general is warning about mrna vaccines and dna? >> yeah. and it's -- you know, the bottom line is it's misinformation. and as you rightly point out, it's the kind of misinformation that caused so many americans to refuse covid vaccines in our red states including my state of texas with as my book points out 200,000 needless deaths because they refused covid vaccines because of misinformation. many vaccines because their

biologics do have residual amounts of fragments of dna, not genes that cause cancer but fragments of genes of dna. for those of you who don't use the metric system a lot that's one trillionth of a gram and these are random fragments. getting that into actually cells and into the nucleus is a tough job. that's why we have no dna vaccines, ali, because dna fragments have to transverse two membranes, the outer membrane of the cell and the nuclear membrane. and that's we have these special devices to get a dna vaccine in. the amount of any pike rowgram is very, very tiny if at all. and then we have special immune system proteins that prevent it from integrating. even if that happens, 99% or more is not going to integrate

into the dna. the bottom line is this is just a scare tactic to scare people away from taking mrna vaccines. they're extremely safe. there's no evidence of dna integration. and it's important now more than ever just about to save your life. if you are to stay out of the hospital why because this new jn.1 variant rising across the nation you need this new annual iminization which is specifically tailored. and if you don't take it, now you're at risk of hospitalization again. why he would send out this message at all and why he'd send out this message at this time when we're desperate to convince americans -- only 19% of americans have even taken this new annual immunization makes no sense at all and certainly is not fitting with someone who's supposed to be a public health leader. >> well, at least we have folks

like you, peter, who for a long time have been giving us the science of not treating us like idiots. i'm hoping we'll research it and listen. so thank you for the work you continue to do my friend, appreciate it. peter hotez is a vaccine developer. he's been talking about this for a long time before any of us knew what covid-19 was. he's the author of the new book -- the deadly rise of anti-science, a scientist's warning." we're going to be right back. sc warning. we're going to be right back ane with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients. those with weakened immune systems may have a lower response to the vaccine. the most common side effects are injection site pain, fatigue, muscle pain, headache, and joint pain. i chose arexvy. rsv? make it arexvy.

today donald trump's lawyers asked the judge overseeing his federal trial over alleged 2020 election interference to hold special counsel jack smith accountable for violating her order to pause the case pending the appeal. the alleged offense in question is a pair of court filings from jack smith's team including one filed last week asking the judge to curb trump and his attorney's behavior once the case goes to trial. behavior like spreading, quote, irrelevant disinformation, which on its face seems like an

entirely reasonable request. however, it could potentially backfire on jack smith. trump's attorney today cast that motion in a sinister light calling it part of, quote, the prosecutor's desperate effort to harass president trump and prevent his likely victory in the 2024 presidential election, end quote. they're asking judge chutkan to order jack smith to explain why he should not be held in contempt of court as well as to withdraw all of their filings since the case was stayed and be forced to give trump money to pay for his legal bills. joining me now to understand this now is joyce vance. joyce, i want you to help me with this one. this one i'm troubled by it but i don't understand it. judge chutkan stayed the case because it had been appealed to higher courts, and i guess that's what she had to do. so now they're saying because it was stayed he's -- he's manipulating stuff, is that what's going on here?

>> right. so trump's team is saying that jack smith violated the rules that the game is supposed to be played by. this isn't a motion that will have any impact on trump's ultimate guilt or the failure to convict him. this isn't about that. this is about whether the court is divested of jurisdiction to do anything else while the immunity appeal is ongoing. and frankly, there's a good argument that the judge does lack that jurisdiction and that smith should not have filed these motions while that appeal was ongoing. >> okay, so what happens then? let's say the judge agrees with him. does he just sort of put it on hold and bring it up when the trial's back in motion? >> yeah, i think that's right. i don't think that this rises to the level of contempt. trump's lawyers have asked the judge to issue what's called a show cause notice, and it would ask smith to defend himself against the charges of contempt. here the judge might simply say,

look, these motions can sit on the record and the trump camp has no obligation to respond, or she might even ask the court to take these off-the-record and give smith leave to file when jurisdiction returns to her. smith, of course, is trying to keep trump from running the clock. i assume he's fairly frustrated with trump's delay game. doing everything he can to keep hold of his trial date. here he might have overstepped a little bit. >> tell me the consequence of that, about a prosecutor's overstepping. and i ask you this only in the context of such an important case because in all of the trump prosecutions the judges and the prosecutors are going to be under greater scrutiny than almost any other case we've ever covered. >> and prosecutors are always held to a higher standard than defense lawyers just in terms of their conduct. so, you know, maybe he should have held off on doing this, but i think the delay issue is a big one. look, there's greater sins and

lesser sins prosecutors can commit. and this if it's a sin at all would be on the very lesser end of the spectrum. i think we'll very likely see the judge say everything is frozen, maybe don't do anything else, or maybe she'll say, mr. smith, refile your motions later on. i think it's very unlikely she'll award trump any sort of monetary damages. >> i want to talk about the colorado case and donald trump being on the ballot. we may hear from the supreme court at any point now about whether they'll take on this case or what they'll do wasn't it. there are other states in which we are now -- obviously we've seen maine. there are 17 states involved but we've seen more action in massachusetts and illinois tonight. what do you make of where we stand on that particular issue, the 14th amendment and whether donald trump is qualified to run again and how the supreme court will evaluate this. >> it seems to me that the supreme court will have to hear this case. it's a little bit confusing because every state has different rules about how they

determine who gets to appear on their ballot and what the standards are. for instance, in which is in play tonight, the law in illinois actually requires the board that does this work to make a determination about a candidate's eligibility to hold office. and that's what the 14th amendment speaks to, trump's eligibility to hold office, not his qualification to appear on the ballot in any particular state. but, frankly, just to avoid confusion and all sorts of problems in the upcoming election makes sense for the court to go ahead and take this and hear it, but we have not seen them show a real inclination here to act quickly even with these pressing time deadlines that are emerging this week. >> we'll wait here every day so when they do it, we'll be ready for it. joyce vance. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. after a ful y