but punch bowl's jake sherman, if this was haley in the lead, desantis in the lead, president biden would not have a chance to make a speech like this. what would he be talking a snkt. >> presumably the economy, which ripped today with another great jobs report and some of the accomplishments he's had in the last four years, which democrats consistently say why aren't we selling these accomplishments more, talking about what has been a pretty successful four years in their estimation. i think he'd be talking about that, and i think some people would wonder why he didn't talk about that because democrats feel as though they've put together a pretty good resume over the last 3 1/2 years of the biden administration. >> jobs report is out today, exceeded expectations. jake sherman, thank you very much. that is going to do it for me. "deadline: white house" starts right now. hi, everyone. it is 4:00 here in new york.

i'm alycia menendez in for nicolle wallace. from the president, a reminder of the stakes in the next election and an existential question, the president asking all americans, who are we? cited valley forge and on the each of the third anniversary of the january 6th attack, the president describing democracy as a sacred cause and the central issue of the 2024 election. >> this is not rhetorical, ak dem academic, or hypothetical, but the democracy's question is the most urgent question of our time. the choice is clear. donald trump's campaign is about him, not america, not you. donald trump's campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. he's willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power. our campaign is different.

for me and kamala, our campaign is about america. it's about you. it's about every age and background that occupy this country. >> the speech today another episode in what has become one of the biggest themes in the biden presidency. president biden has used speeches like this to underscore the need to safeguard democracy against donald trump and his allies. for more than three years after the 2020 election, they're still peddling alternate reality to voters, continuing to insist that the results were marred by fraud. and january 6th, not an attack on democracy but a conspiracy concocted by the federal government. here's what president biden had to say about that. >> at the time, the republican members of congress and fox news commentators publicly and privately condemned the attack. as one republican senator said, trump's behavior was embarrassing and humiliating for the country.

his time has gone on. politics, fear, money, all have intervened. but now these maga voices will know the truth about trump and have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy. they made their choice. now the rest of us, democrats, independents, mainstream republicans, need to make our choice. >> that is where we start today with co-founder and executive director at protect democracy, ian bassett, and with me at the table for the hour, president of the national action network and host of "politics nation" here on msnbc, reverend al sharpton. we'll be joined by others in just a few minutes. ian, your reaction from what we heard from president biden. >> i have high standards when it comes to people talking about democracy, and i thought the president was absolutely outstanding today. i think he did four things incredibly effectively that were important. number one, he made clear

unquestionably this election is about preserving democracy in the united states, and he said again that is the central issue at stake in 2024. second, he just repeated trump's own words. he didn't even necessarily need to make an argument so much as repeat what trump has said, that he would be a dictator on day one, that he would terminate parts of the constitution, that his opponents are vermin, and importantly pointed out that trump's implication of the phrase "poisoning our country" with reference to immigrants harkens back to language you heard in nazi germany. third, i thought the president did a good job of telling people why democracy matters. it's about freedom and who we are, that we are decent to one another, how it matters in our daily lives. finally, the president was alive, passionate, articulate, everything that the character trump tries to paint of him is not. he is disproving that character. i thought it was a terrific

speech and one that was incredibly important. >> rev, i want europe reaction to the speech generally, but also this part about the president talking about the former president's disrespect for the military. take a listen. >> he's threatened the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff with a death penalty, said he should be put to death because the chairman put his oath to the constitution ahead of his personal loyalty to trump. this coming from a president who called, when he visited a cemetery, called dead soldiers suckers and losers. remember that? sometimes i'm really happy

the -- can't be seen. it was right around the time i was at beau's grave. how dare he? who in god's name does he think he is? >> rev, how dare he? >> i mean, you saw some real emotion there. >> mm-hmm. >> i think it was one of better speeches if not the top two or three speeches he's ever given in his career, because he put himself into it. and i think the part you just played, that was for those of us that have ever been around him, that was real joe biden. that was -- you know, he's not the kind of performer, the politician that would just make something up. he really feels that way. and i think that is good for americans to see that. i remember in january of 2020, he came as the former vice president and spoke for martin luther king's breakfast the

national action network has in washington. he pulled martin luther king iii and said did you see this in charlottesville with this guy? i'm thinking about running. i think he decided to run because at that point the race was already gone. he ran because he was outraged because of thins, and he's running again and brought it to the public in that speech today because of what he believes is under attack. and if he runs like that, i think it will be a race that donald trump can't outrun him, even if he is the nominee and these court cases can't stop him. there's a difference between somebody running for their career or running for their self-aggrandizement or running for a higher purpose. i think what he did in this speech today is frame what he's doing in terms of a re-election bid in a broader context. when you do that, when you're running for something and standing for something, your age is just a number.

>> you know, i want to tease out something you raised, which is the idea that the president of the united states had to walk step by step through what the ex-president did, he needed to talk about the lawsuits he lost, that he needed to talk about what happened on january 6th. he had to make the case in order to confront the reality that there is a large number of americans who continue to believe donald trump's lies and continue to believe the conspiracies that have swirled around what happened both during the election and on january 6th. >> well, i think what the president understood he needed to do today, and that i think he did, is bring us all back to the unity we felt as a country and the horror wefltd we felt as a country on january 6th, 2021, when we turned on our televisions to see images of a mob breaking the windows of our capitol building, barreling over police officers and barricades,

storming the building, ready to kill people that they might find. and if you can bring yourself back, as you've watching this right now, to how you felt at that moment, whether you were a democrat, whether you were a republican, whether you were a progressive, a moderate, or conservative, we were all horrified. in the days after that, there was broad unanimity that donald trump had crossed a line and could not be allowed to even remain in the presidency, potentially through the end of his term on january 20th. and the only reason we as a nation don't feel that sense of unity today is because donald trump and his followers have launched a three-year propaganda effort to dissuade us from remembering the truth. and the president brought us back to the truth today and reminded us of that unity that we need to put back together in 2024 to preserve democracy. >> one of the other things the president did, ian, was put this in a global context. he try v tied what's happening

here at home with the rise of terrorism abroad. i know you have been observing this trend, you follow this trend. does rallying people around the cause of democracy work when it comes to fending off authoritarian candidates? >> well, one of the other things that the president said today was he alluded to the idea that we might be in some ways victims of our own success, that because we have been on a path of improving, never perfect, but always in the direction of making a more perfect democracy, and because we are a country that has largely been towards more security, towards more prosperity, we may have taken for granted -- certainly not all americans but many americans may have taken for granted the security of our democracy. so, when the president's making the case that it might be in danger, that's something that's hard for some americans to actually really accept. and by explaining that we're living in a global moment in which countries that have been democratic have lost their

democracies, and pointing to places like hungary or poland or turkey or venezuela, it helps people see that we're not living in a moment where it's oh, the red, the blue, the both sides fighting with each other, that this is actually a different kind of moment where something existential is at stake, our very freedom is at stake. he reminds us of that by pointing to countries where those democracies in recent years have been lost, and it could happen here. >> part of that threat is the threat to institutions. merrick garland today speaking about january 6th. here's a bit of what he said. >> as i said before, the justice department will hold all january 6th perpetrators at any level accountable under the law, whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy. in the ongoing january 6th investigations and prosecutions led by u.s. attorney for the district of columbia matt graves

and special counsel jack smith, the justice department is abiding by the long-standing norms that ensure our independence and the integrity of our investigations. we are following the facts and the law wherever they lead. we are forcing the law without fear or favor. we are honoring our obligation to protect the civil rights and civil liberties of everyone in our country. we were upholding the rule of law, and we are protecting the american people. >> simply remarkable the amount of the work of the doj, the amount of garland's work that is defined by trying to contain trump and trumpism. >> absolutely. i mean, it's unprecedented. you could not think of an organized crime group that had as many people with as many criminal charges around one act that you could think of or that you have even -- you could

research. i think what the attorney general was saying today was reassuring the american public that this is based on the law. these people broke the law. i think the president put it at another level saying the same way people around the world woke up and the whole world had changed on them, well, that can happen here. we're watching what's happening abroad. it can happen right here. and if you bring both of the messages, the president and attorney general garland's together, he's saying no, garland is saying no, this is not political. this is criminal. this is what they did. we'll walk them down one by one. the president said if they will do that, they can overthrow a democracy here. this is not something on netflix. this is real. and we need to stop it. >> it is, indeed, very real. i want to bring in democratic congressman jamie raskin of maryland, ranking member of the house oversight committee and former member of the january 6th select committee. thank you for being with us. your thoughts top president's

speech. >> well, it was a remarkable speech which spoke directly to the moment and was delivered with amazing passion and conviction and integrity. and it was the kind of speech i think that will galvanize and mobilize millions and millions of people across the country to get in this fight. this is not an election where people can sit on the sofa and look back and watch the polls. this is an election where people need to be involved in the process. so, you know, don't be in the prognostication business. be in the mobilization business. that's what joe biden was saying. you know, everything is on the line right here, and the question is what kind of century is this going to be for america and for the rest of the world? and are we going to be in the forefront of defending democracy and human rights and freedom around the world, or are we somehow going to get into the quicksand of autocracy and dictatorship with vladimir putin

and donald trump and viktor orban and the other dictators in the world. >> we heard the president cast abortion rights as a democracy issue today. talk to us about how theseish shufs fold into the broader idea of defending american democracy. >> well, you know, lincoln described constitutional democracy as the beautiful silver platter upon which rests the golden apple of freedom, which means that we need democracy to support freedom. it's not a guarantee. it's necessary. it's not sufficient. but we know that the autocrats in moscow and the kleptocrats in mar-a-lago and the theocrats of maga and the house of representatives are not going to defend women's freedom in america. it's only the democrats that are going to do that. so, we need democracy for freedom to have the chance to flourish and survive in the country. and both our democracy and freedom are under attack at the same time. it's exactly the same struggle

that we're waging. >> congressman, you said today you've seen the polling showing that a large chunk of republican voters think that 1/6 was an inside job. how do you break the fever of disinformation that seems to have taken hold of those on the right? >> january 6th was an inside job by donald trump and his followers and steve bannon and the members of congress on their side of the aisle who cooperated in it. but it certainly was not an inside job by fbi agents or antifa. they go around blaming it on antifa and fbi agents, and the rest of the time they're down at d.c. jail protesting for their release. why are they protesting for the release of antifa fighters? so, look, joe biden was very clear about this. we have to uphold the actual historical record of what happened. there are more than 700 criminal convictions of right-wing maga followers for assaulting our

federal officers, for seditious conspiracy, conspireing to overthrow the government, for destruction of federal property. that's the reality of what happened in january of 2021. >> congressman, news today that capitol police officer harry dunn is running for congress in your home state. your reaction. >> well, harry dunn distinguished himself with a lot of valor and a lot of courage on january 6th, and even afterwards, in standing up for the truth against the propaganda and disinformation that the maga right unleashed against the police officers and against the democracy. so, good for him that he's getting engaged in that way. i personally am not making endorsements in any of the congressional primaries in our state, but i wish him and automatic of the candidates in the third district and the sixth district and everywhere else well. >> congressman, in the context of this speech about democracy,

the stakes of this election, i have to ask you about the 14th amendment cases across the country. even now we are waiting, we could hear from the supreme court on if they'll pick up the challenge in colorado. you have made the argument this is actually very democratic, this question of eligibility, that this is actually the one eligibility requirement where there is some agency on the part of the individual. what is it you are watching for from the supreme court? >> well, it's precisely that -- will the supreme court justices actually follow the literal text of the constitution? will they be textualists? will they be originalists? the whole purpose of section 3 of the 14th amendment was to say that the very worst offenders in the confederacy, the people who were trying to keep the slave aristocracy going, of the masters, those people, if they were in federal government before and swore an oath to hold

and defend the constitution and violated that oath by engaging in insurrection and rebellion, should never be allowed to hold office again. and so, i'm looking to see whether or not they're going to stand by that very simple proposition. there are more than 100 million people disqualified from being president, most for age. they're under 35. i think that's 75 million people. something like 25 million can't run for president because they were born abroad like around schwarzenegger and jennifer granholm. some people can't run for president because they've already served two terms, like barack obama. so there's lot of people disqualified. but you were right, there's only one form of disqualification that people choose themselves through a malevolent act against the union, and that is people who try to engage in an insurrection or rebellion. donald trump is in a tiny group of probably fewer than a dozen people who disqualified themselves by attempting to

overthrow the constitutional order. it wasn't just on january 6th, by the way. it was in all of the weeks leading up to it in which he tried to overthrow the election which he had lost by more than 7 million votes, 306 to 232 in the electoral college. >> congressman jamie raskin, thanks for being with us as we unpack this historic speech from president biden. when we come back, we're waiting on what could be a huge ruling out of the supreme court. plus, new york attorney general letitia james saying her case should be worth a lot more money and he should be banned from the real estate business. and later, we'll talk about the state of politics and democracy in this country three years since the capitol insurrection as we press on with the next presidential election. n i oversee approximately 20 people

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an enormously consequential decision from the 2024 election by the supreme court could come as soon as da the justices expected to decide on the future of donald trump's candidacy for president. trump on wednesday appealed the decision from colorado's supreme court to take his name off the republican primary ballot there. the nation's highest court has never before issued a ruling on section 3 of the 14th amendment. whatever the justices decide to apply to colorado will apply to all other states. that includes maine, where hiss

maim name has also been barred from the ballot. that decision also remains on pause pending a decision on former president trump's appeal there. yesterday, petitions were filed in massachusetts and illinois to take trump's name off the ballot there. the list of states could continue to grow until the supreme court weighs in. while those close to the president say he is concerned the supreme court might rule against him, his attorney says he has nothing to worry about. here she is on fox news. >> i think it should be a slam dunk in the supreme court. i have faith in them. you know, people like kavanaugh, who the president fought for, who the president went through hell to get into place, he'll step up. >> joining our conversation, former top official at the department of justice, andrew weissmann, ian and the rev back with us as well. andrew, what do you expect to happen here? >> i can tell you two things i'm going to be looking for. i think the most important thing is obviously, you know, whether

they take the case or not, but i think, you know, everyone thinks they will take the case. i think they pretty much have to even if i think they probably wish this wasn't landing on their plate. i think the main issue they'll be thinking about is what do they set at the schedule, how fast are they going to require a briefing, when will they hear this. as you noted, there is a stay in the colorado case. there are ballots that need to go out in colorado and obviously many other states. so i'm going to look for how quickly are they going to decide this. the second thing is, are they going to give any hint in granting search, in other words, accepting the case. they often say these are the issues presented or are they going to give a general grant that says we'll review the legality of the colorado supreme court's decision.

that's not typical. it could happen here, but they may get some clues as to what they're focusing on by how they grant in this case. >> ian, talk about donald trump and his team. we often talk about the ways in which he operates, like a mob boss, the way he sends messages, perhaps not directly but through surrogates. the fact that you have alina hava showing up on fox one day saying he's worried the court won't rule in his favor and then another day saying they expect justices like justice kavanagh to, quote, step up. i mean, the subtext seems pretty clear. >> well, it's remarkably poor strategy. they're used to bullying elected officials who need to run for office in republican primaries who depend on trump's blessing. but of course the justices of the supreme court have life tenure, and they want to establish they're independent. i think that strategy of trying to pressure, bully, or intimidate justice kavanagh is

likely to backfire. i want to endorse all of the always wise things that andrew said, but i want to make sure we don't lose the forest for the trees here, which is that whatever the court does in the details or on the merits, take stock of the fact we are having a national debate of whether one of the likely nominees for a major party for the president engaged in insurrection against the united states. regardless of the law, shouldn't that be just politically disqualifying for either party? don't both parties want someone without a question as to whether or not they engaged in insurrection? >> a rhetorical question we could spend 15 minutes answin to the point of not losing the akes or the context, i want to read you something from "the new york times." "what unites trump with the former secessionists under the disqualification clause is, like

them, he refused to listen to the voice of the voting public. he rejected the bedrock principle of democratic life, the peaceful transfer of power, the unspoken assumption behind the idea that trump should be allowed on the ballot, and that the public should have the chance to choose for or dweps him again, is that he will electorate. voice of the but we know this isn't true. if it wasn't true after the 2016 presidential election, when, after winning the electoral college, he sought to delegitimize the popular victory of his opponent as fraud." there is an irony here. he is saying the democratic thing to do is to allow me to be on the ballot in the name of democracy, this coming from a person who tried to overturn a fair and free election. >> and i think that is the point. i think that is what needs to be recognized here. that is that if we give

legitimacy of someone wanting to overthrow the process that we're playing into then't co-wags of this kind of chicanery. like you had in the last part, when you have a lawyer, i mean, i don't know where you get a lawyer that sits there and says he fought for you, therefore you ought to do him a favor, not that the law should give him something, but it's -- it's like gangsters. you remember me, joey, from the neighborhood. i mean, what are we talking about if we are going to allow this kind of behavior to become normalized in the body politic? i think that's what they're saying is we can't normalize this, even though some people feel it's only going to galvanize trump's base. but what about theegd for law and constitution in this country? >> let's talk about law and constitution and norms, andrew weissmann. yesterday a group of house

democrats called on clarence thomas to be recused from this case, writing, "this time we must urge you to recuse yourself from any involvement in the case of anderson v. griswold because your impartiality is reasonably questioned by substantial members of fair-minded members of the public who believe your wife, virginia, had substantial involvement in the events leading up to the january 6th insurrection and the financial insensitive it presents for your household if president trump is re-elected are disqualifying." any chance he recuses? >> none in a word. i think that what we're unfortunately seeing in the supreme court justices is an example of might makes right, to the point truly shocking because it's coming from members of the highest court of the land, meaning, you know what, i'm going to thumb my nose at sort of norms and rules that every

other member of the article 3 judiciary follows. and i would note that the thing that i find most troubling is that we still, to this day, have such a real lack of information. for instance, there has been discussion about whether justice thomas has appropriately reported to the irs all of the gifts and the income or whether he faces liability for that -- civil or even criminal. i'm not saying he does, but there is just a complete lack of information. that would obviously be something that would be important in viewing, you know, his incentives in terms of whether he wants to see this administration, a different administration, or whether he

wants to see president trump reinstalled as the president. there's just a real lack of information from the supreme court on all of these issues that should be transparent in a democracy. but, again, there is just no sort of accountability, and i feel like this is sort of a moment in our times where you don't have that from former president trump, you don't have it from the people in the supreme court, you don't have it from republicans who -- or certain republicans in congress, and no sense from the electorate that this is something that is completely intolerable to have in a democracy where these people are public officials who work for us, not the other way around. >> all eyes on the supreme court. ian, thanks for spending time with us.

andrew and reverend sharpton are sticking around. coming up, new york attorney general tisch james smells blood in the case she's brought against the trump organization. n ned's plaque psoriasis. [camera shutter sfx] he thinks his flaky, red patches are all people see. otezla is the #1 prescribed pill to treat plaque psoriasis. [ned?] it can help you get clearer skin and reduce itching and flaking. with no routine blood tests required. doctors have been prescribing it for nearly a decade. otezla is also approved to treat psoriatic arthritis. don't use otezla if you're allergic to it. serious allergic reactions can happen. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. some people taking otezla had depression, suicidal thoughts, or weight loss. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. [crowd gasp] ♪♪ with clearer skin, movie night is a groovy night. [ting] ♪♪

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today, the next phase in the ex-president's civil fraud trial, perhaps his most deeply personal one, brings us telling closing arguments from each

side. new york attorney general letitia james asking the judge to force donald trump and his company to pay $370 million up from her previous estimation of $250 million citing, quote, hundreds of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains the defendants reaped through their unlawful conduct. oral arguments on thursday in front of the judge who already found trump and his company liable for inflating property values and deceiving bank, then ruling to bring down the entire trump organization. in her filing today, james demands significant consequences on top of the money, asking the judge extend the ongoing independent monitoring of the company for at least the next five years, as well as personal innocently banning donald trump from doing real estate business in new york state. joining us, pulitzer prize-winning columnist russ bucher. walk us back from the findings and the reasoning.

>> the attorney general's office had always said their original number, $250 million, was an estimate. now they've gotten through all the in evidence the case, they've laid out the building blocks why that number should be $370 million now. the big chunks of that are $168 million in lower interest rates that the trumps received as a result of what the a.g. says are untruths and these statements of financial condition because they said they were worth $2.5 billion and had $50 million in cash on hand. they got very beneficial interest rates. the attorney general's office has laid out evidence that shows they weren't entitled to that. every year as donald trump's financial position worsened in the course of the last decade, they found ways to bolster those numbers artificially. the other big pot of that is about $180 million from the sale

of leased -- the old post office hotel in washington, d.c., and the ferry point golf course in the bronx. the attorney general's office argues that he would not have been able to obtain or finance those projects if he had not been untruthful with the banks to get loans to do those. and the trumpings, for their part, argue the same thing they've argued all along here, one, there is no -- in this because they didn't default on any loans, ignoring that money in beneficial interest they got, and also that system of this was time marred because the transactions in question were all finalized before 2014. the judge has heard those arguments before, already addressed them. the last part of this is that the attorney general lays out sort of the remaining charge in this, why it's material and why it meets the criteria for

falsification of business records and a few other elements that go to the inherit fraud of the whole thing. >> andrew, trump says they're arguing financial consequences aren't permitted by new york law. europe reaction to these filings as roadmaps for cases they'll make before the judge next week. and the a.g. clearly not backing down, instead, in fact, asking for more. >> well, to just get you even more into the weeds, the reason this is somewhat -- it reminds me of what's about to happen in the e. jean carroll case and we saw in the giuliani case, liability with respect to the first cause of action has already been found, so the reason i analogize to the other two civil cases, is in the rudy giuliani case in washington, d.c., where he was a defendant, liability was found by the court for damages. in the second e. jean carroll case coming up, light has been found by the court, so we're

going to talk about damages. here there are seven causes of action. but the first cause of action has already -- liability has already been found by the court. so what russ has said is totally right, which is that it's really going to be a focus on that first cause of action. now, yes, there may be icing on the cake for the new york attorney general. they may win on causes two, three, four, five, six, and seven, but they don't need to because the first cause of action has been found in their favor and we have ear just talking about what are the consequences of that, what of the amount of money, and also i think quite notably is will donald trump and the other defendants, remember he's not the only one, be barred from doing business in new york, because that is something which letitia james is very concerned about, is sort of recidivism problem of donald trump and his family doing business here and continuing to, in her view,

defraud new yorkers. >> rech, when you think about the totality of these cases, we often put up that graphic showing the calendar that donald trump faces, one he seems to be most focused on, hundreds of millions of dollars, and talking about a lifetime ban on doing a business he feels he has built his personal brand on. >> this goes to the core of who he is. people can do this or that in business, but when your brand is and your self-image is that i am a successful, savvy business person, and this becomes destroyed in this trial, nothing cuts more to the core of who he is. it's who his father told him he wasn't going to be. from all reports we got, his father down on him, and he was proving himself, my name is all over 5th avenue, the westside

highway. all of that is gone. and god forbid he gets a second term, where is he going to be after the second term? he has no business empire left. so, this is the most important personal thing to him, because it's one thing to say you're not president, another thing to say that the image you built of donald trump is a facade. donald trump was a failure. he built everything by playing games with assets that weren't there. you were never that savvy or that smart. your father was right. but he told you just didn't have it. >>. russ, how does this play out? how likely is it that trump, his family could have to pay that full $370 million? >> i don't know how to game out, like, what the judge is going to do and them how it's going to play out in appellate courts in the next few years. literally, the judge says he'll come to a decision sometime in

february. then there will be an appeal, and that will lock this thing up for some period of time. i think the big question is, if there is a large number and it withstands appeal, the information that we had from our examination of 20 years of his tax returns and the information the attorney general's office pulled together in the course of their investigation shows he doesn't have that kind of cash sitting around. he's had to sort of fib to his banks about having access to $50 million for the last, like, eight or nine years. so, the person who's overseeing this all now on behalf of the court would i think have to come to a determination about what should be sold off in order to generate the cash for sufficient penalty and generate it after probably a substantial tax hit on the sale. so, i think that's down the road kind of the big moving parts of this. >> russ, andrew thanks for joining us. if you want more legal headlines and analysis, sign up for the

"deadline" legal newsletter delivered to your inbox every day. scan the qr code to subscribe. after the break, from party outsider to party pariah, to today, new reporting on how donald trump is stockpiling republican endorsements and what he is doing to those who do not fall in line.

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some republicans were ready to move on. none of them showed up to joint force st. arews when he was enroute to mar-a-lago. now, new reporting from "the times" ill straightses now v how far back the pendulum has swung, the way donald trump has gobbled up endorsements and how he works them with fear and favor, cajoling politicians by phone and filing social media posts about those who don't fall his line. the bulwark and msnbc political analyst tim miller. the rev is also back. tim, "the times" cite mrs. than half a dozen trump advisers, people in regular contact with them. ir reporting, how trump has obsessed over quote, scorecard of endorments. "he sees gng endorsements as a triumphant return and

calling himself a victor. when lawmakers say they support him, he considers it insufficient and calls that the s-word. in recent weeks, his allies have told lawmakers that mr. trump will be closely watching who has and hasn't endorsed him before the iowa caucuses on january 15th." the code words say it all. >> they do. we know donald trump is obsessed with status and demonstrating dominance, so this element of the story i don't think is that surprising. to me, the more noteworthy element of the story is just the extent to which these republicans on capitol hill are going along with it. we keep being told that there are pockets of normal republicans still in this congress who are ready to move on. some of them told us that themselves after january 6th. none of them are putting their names on the line. and if you look at that scorecard that donald trump is

obsessing over, there's good reason. nikki haley has a single member of congress having endorsed her, her home state colleague, ralph norman. one governor, chris sununu. trump is well over 100. this party is with him to a degree that it's never been before. that was unimaginable in 2021, a party more loyal to him now than they were on january 5th. on comparison to show how stark this is, i wrote a politico article to confirm this, in february of 2016 before trump won the primary, zero congressional endorsements, zero governors. only one was willing to put their name with him. now he's winning in almost a unanimous landslide. i think that tells you everything you need to know about the trajectory of this party. >> let's just play it out. even if trump loses later this year, it's unlikely he just goes away, right?

so, then you have -- feel free to disagree -- if that is the case, though, then you have a republican party that has a presidential candidate that has lost twice who still is attempting to lead the party. is that the point at which republicans grow a backbone? >> it's hard to see that, isn't it? like you said, one thing we know for sure, donald trump is not going to retire to texas to become a painter, you know? the george bush future is not in the cards, okay? so as long as donald trump is with us, he's going to be sending out bleeps and strong-arming people, might go back to calling into the talk shows. who know what is he'll do. but he'll want to have power and continue to demonstrate power. sure, will some of them start to show a backbone then? i guess. you would have thought after 2020, after january 6th, after the disastrous midterms. the reality is at a base level from the bottom up, the party

likes trump. and until that changes, you know, these guys who want political powers in the republican party are going to keep folding to him. and, you know, they're folding to him now at an astonishing level after everything we've seen, like why change that? what is the reason they would change then if they haven't changed by now? >> especially, rev, when you work on the field component. this idea he's both -- it is normal if you are running for president to seek endorsements for members of your party, normal to work the phones. you would call that good candidate behavior. what is not normal is to jump on your knock twitter and spouting hate messages on people. you can't allow it to become the norm. >> that goes back to what we were talking about with the a.g. case. he needs the validation. this is not politics to him. >> it's about ego. >> this is legitimacy to him. i told you, heb used to always

talk about i'm an outsider like you, reverend al. they don't like me, the park avenue crowd. i'm an out-of-borough guy from queens. he sits back and says all these senators, its makes him feel valid. you're dealing with a man with deep insecurities. he needs this, which is why he also torch v tortures the people that support him because he's need that he needs them to validate him. somebody ought to do a psychoanalysis of him if there's a psychiatrist that could understand narcissism that deeply. >> i want to go back to your piece in the bulwark, if we can pull it up and look anumbers. >> it is interesting given that trump wants to paint himself as an outsider, right? that it actually still matters to him, tim, to have all of these endorsements from insiders.

>> yeah. i think that rev's psychoanalysis is pretty good. i don't need to get into that. he nailed that one. the other element is this idea of control, right. it's he wants to paint himself as an outsider, you know, because he's been a typical politician. he doesn't come from this world. but he wants the people in that world to bow down to him, right. so what has been created now is something i've read about, what i call a new maga establishment. it's a bunch of people that still want to hold the establishment levers of power but they realize to do that in the republican party, you have to go along with this maga populist nonsense and conspiracies. it's this blending of the old establishment types who aren't willing to do that. they're out. they're paul ryan. they're moaning and groaning on podcasts. the ones that have had to stick, they've blended into this gross

maga establishment figure that i think is kind of where the republican party is going regardless of what happens this year. >> tim, rev, thanks for spechbding time with us. when we come back, more news to come. how the country is moving forward in the tleef years since the capitol insurrection. deed y. indeed instant match instantly delivers quality candidates matching your job description. visit indeed.com/hire

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you have failed. to those who engaged in the

desecration of this, our temple of democracy, american democracy, justice will be done. we know that we would be affect history in a positive way today. despite the shameful actions of today, we still will do so. we will be part of a history that shows the world what america is made of. >> it is 5:00 in new york. i'm in for nicolle wallace. the images that first come to mind talking about january 6th are of violence, struggle, lie, and division. it was also a symbol of strength and resilience, because in the wake of all that horror, congress resumed its duty to count the electoral votes and mike pence did not bend. a bedrock of american government, the peaceful transfer of power, have been

upheld. those words spoken by then speaker nancy pelosi three years ago taking on more significance as she now sounds the alarm. the same democracy that held despite the ex-president's attacks and the angry mob are still in peril, possibly more so. she recounted the harrowing days they experienced on the 6th, concluding with "the threat to our democracys real, present, andurgent. our precious democratic institutions are only as strong as the courage and commitment of those entrust trusted with their care. we all share responsibility to preserve american democracy, which lincoln called the last of birth." it's a process that needs to be actively carried out and one that needs protecting as threats of authoritarian in america have intensified. the former president and likely 2024 gop nominee has made no no

secret of his anti-democratic plan should he win back the white house. his ally have abandoned truth in the name of partisanship. and questions remain as to our government can withstand that type of leadership. president trump reiterated that today. >> we all know who donald trump is. the question we have to answer is, who are we? that's what's at stake. who are we? the year ahead, as you talk to your family and friends, cast your ballots, the power is in your hands. after all we've been through in our history, from independence to civil war to two world wars to a pandemic to insurrection, i refuse to believe that in 2024 we americans will choose to walk away from what's made us the greatest nation in the history

of the world. freedom, liberty, democracy is a sacred cause, and there's no country in the world better position told lead the world than america. >> that is where we start this hour with congressman madeleine dean of pennsylvania at the site of president biden's speech today. representative dean talked about the president's message, how it was received in that room. >> very good to be with you. i'm honored the president chose for his new campaign to launch in this new year my region. i represent the two counties here, montgomery and burks, and it was just an honor to have the president here. you know that he visited valley forge before he came for this speech. his speech was masterful, well received in this room, but it was really meant to radiate out, and i want will radiate out i think over these next many months about what is at stake.

our democracy is at stake. i've been reflecting these past few days on january 6th, three years tomorrow, as you know, i was there in the capitol as we received those strange calls, sit down, prepare to lie down, get your gas mask out, and then put your gas mask on and go out. as we didn't know what was going on. i really believed then, once we saw the truth of what happened, and i was asked to become an impeachment manager where we showed america the truth of what happened because of donald trump, because of a sitting president, i never thought we would three years later still be trying to get that truth out. but the president masterfully did it, wove it into history with george washington and those courageous folks who fought for us and for our freedom and liberty and justice for all. the president did a masterful job. we must repeat it over and over. >> i'm struck by something that speaker pelosi wrote in her

piece in "the atlantic," democracy is not something that happens, it is something we have to actively participate in and make it our will. i think we understand the voters' role in 2024. what is it that can be done right now in this moment in advance of the election to make sure that the guard rails are there to preserve and protect this democracy? >> to your point and to what the speaker emeritus said, it is on all of us, not just elected officials, on every single citizen to recognize the fragile state of our democracy. nichs congress a couple years and had no idea that our democracy could be that fragile. but we must tend to it, as barack obama has said. and so, it is on every single citizen. what we have to do is make sure that we have civics, that people understand how our government works, what the responsibilities are of those who hold power,

that they not abuse that power in the sake of their own fortune or power. so, we have to do everything to empower every single citizen, arm them with the truth, work with compassion for those who don't necessarily see it our way, but can convince them that if we don't get democracy right, if we lose our democracy, none of the otherish shufs we fight about and fight for are even possible. >> representative dean, i have some breaking news that i want to bring to you. the supreme court has agreed to take up donald trump's appeal of a colorado supreme court decision barring him from the primary ballot. oral arguments are scheduled for february 8th. many expected the justices to take up the case. pressure had been building on the court in the last couple days with a slew of other states dealing with 14th amendment challenges as well. former acting u.s. solicitor general joins us. your reaction.

>> this is expected. we talked about this earlier in the week, we expected the supreme court today, this friday afternoon, to what's called grant certiorari, to hear the case. they've sit it for february 8th, a fast schedule by supreme court standards but by no means an unreasonable schedule given the gravity of the issues here. remember that the colorado supreme court removed trump from the ballot saying he was an insurrectionist, and that followed a five-day hearing in a trial court in colorado where evidence was presented and the judge in that case concluded that he was -- trump was, in fact, an insurrectionist. this is a major step. it is something the united states supreme court has never truly grappled with in the 14th amendment section 3, because we've never had a situation where an insurrectionist is running to be president of the united states. >> representative dean, it strikes me that that news broke as i was asking you what can be done in the run-up to the 2024

election to make sure that there are guardrails on our democracy. your response to this news from the supreme court. >> it's always good to be with neil. i had the chance to work with him on the judiciary committee as he counseled and educated us. we have to do more of that. we have to have him and other scholars on the constitution and the law tell the truth. tell the american people the truth. i find baffling the defense that the donald trump team makes, which has never before has anyone said he would be disqualified under article 14, section 3. that's never happened to a president before. but guess what? we never had an insurrectionist president before seeking re-election. i'm glad the supreme court will take it up. i hope they will honor the spirit of that amendment and why it was passed in our country at a time of civil war and terrible division. we must never have an

insurrectionist rule again. >> i want so make sure we emphasize this. we were talking with andrew weissmann on what he would be working for with the supreme court. we talked about this time line. walk us through what we can expect in the next few week ps. >> yeah. so, the court has set briefing schedules, so donald trump's brief will be due on january 18th. the response will be due january 31st. trump will have a chance to respond by february 5th, and oral argument three days later on february 8th. the justices will hear oral argument. i expect it to take a couple hours. they'll then go back to their private conference room. only the nine of them will be there. they'll begin by what they always do, shake everyone's hands, and go in the order of seniority and discuss the case.

they don't ever reveal those deliberations until the opinion can come out, and that can be anywhere from a few days to a few months later. i suspect, given the accelerated time line of them hearing this case, the gravity, the need for clarity across the country, all these different states, i expect the supreme court to issue an opinion soon after february 5th. i think by the end of the month would be absolutely reasonable even if there were what are called dissenting opinions, justices who disagree with the majority of the court. >> representative madeleine dean, thanks for joining us on this historic day from your district, where the president delivered that speech. i want to bring in former top official at the department of justice, andrew weissmann. i think the ballots begin to be printed in colorado today. this is bigger than colorado,

but talk me through what it means for colorado and for other states where there's already pending lawsuits. >> well, obviously, it will depend on what the supreme court rules. i mean, there is a way it rules that says he is on the ballot, period, the end. for instance, they could say that there needs to be congressional enabling legislation in order for this constitutional provision to be enforced or that this constitutional provision doesn't apply to the president or former president of the united states. i'm not endorsing either. every secretary of state, every state would have to put on the ballot anyone who qualifies under their particular requirements. but, a thing i find quite interesting here is that the time line is very truncated, as

it should be, and oral argument is going to occur basically one month from today. so that is quite fast. i think oral argument is on february 8th. and i agree with neil that you should expect a decision quite soon thereafter because if they were to conclude that this is going to affect the ballot in colorado and thus obviously could affect it in other states where there is pending litigation, that is something that they have allowed that time frame to work because they're hearing it so quickly. they'll have oral argument, and both sides could affect what the justices are thinking, there's no question that the law clerks and justices are busy researching and thinking about this right now and then are going to listen to oral argument to see if it changes their views one way or the other.

that is a standard process. there's nothing wrong with that. so, i think we should expect a decision really quickly after this oral argument. they have clearly, by setting the schedule, understand the scope of this, the magnitude, not just for colorado but for all of the other states that have this pending litigation. >> neil, talk us through what andrew just laid out, the fact you'll have clerks and justices already beginning their own research, already preparing to hear these oral arguments. what is it, then, that both parties are trying to accomplish in those oral arguments to begin changing, potentially changing the minds of these justices? >> i'm certainly one who believes that briefing and oral argument matters, maybe because my entire life is devoted to that. i don't think the law clerks are justices on their own just do what they want.

i think they really do take the cues from the parties. to put it concretely here, the challengers to trump have the ability to pitch their case using conservative methodology or use liberal methmethodology. i very much think the way to win this case, and i think it is winnable given donald trump's actions and what the colorado trial judge found in finding him to be an insurrectionist, i think it's absolutely defensible what the colorado supreme court did. but it's defensible predominantly on conservative principle, and in particular the idea of the original intent of the 14th amendment. typically, that's the conservative way of thinking about the constitution. we're bound by what the founders, the framers thought. and the left, the political left has generally understood the constitution to be about something that's more living, updated, and the like. trump's arguments in his brief

are all addressed to liberal methodology. they're not based on the text and strict construction of the founders' intent. they're policy arguments like it would be terrible for the court and the nation to have someone removed from the ballot and things like that. i really do see this very powerful path laid out by these two conservative scholars, william baud and michael stokes paulson in the university of pennsylvania law review, that basically says, look, this is what the framers of the 14th wanted in the 1860s. the last thing they wanted an insurrectionist. trump is saying the president is somehow exempt from the 14th amendment, the technical term for that is poppycock, wrong every day of the week from what the framers understood at the time of the amendment. >> let's bring in msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin. talk about the questions that the justices will be reviewing.

>> what's interesting is i think people were hoping this would shed light on that. when the colorado plaintiffs submitted their own response to trump's cert position, they said trump put before the court a single question that should break up into multiple distinct legal and factual questions. instead, what the court did here was simply grant cert on that one question -- did the colorado supreme court err in ordering president trump exclupded from the 2024 presidential primary ballot? in reaching that decision, the colorado supreme court, as neil particularly knows well, reached a number of conclusions not just about what president trump did leading up to and on january 6th, but also questions about colorado's own law and what duties, for example, the secretary of state had and whether she could be sued by the people who filed this suit. a number of those questions were

ones that the plaintiffs were hoping would be resolved individually. instead, the justices are just going to hear this appeal the way president trump presented it to them. >> help us what that understands substantively, andrew weissmann. >> one thing i was looking for was whether there were distinct questions that lisa noted. very often, that is what the supreme court does, is it gives the exact issues that they're focused on. i think probably because the truncated time line here, they went with this sort of broad-based, you know, you can raise any issues at all that go to this general question of did the colorado supreme court err in its ruling. that is not the typical way of doing it, but i do think it probably is the wiser course, given how fast they had to decide the cert petition and allows both sides then to bring

up any and all arguments that were raised below. you know, you can expect sort of the same kind of briefing that we saw in the colorado supreme court. i think you're going to see -- also, a shout-out to neil, which is i think that is completely the right strategy to call out the conservative justices here and to say that you have to be true to your legal principles here regardless of your political leanings one way or the other that you have endorsed in a certain way of examining these cases. and you should be faithful to that, because that conclusion here, it definitely sides much more with the people who want to say that colorado's supreme court decision was correct. >> calling out those

conservative justices, making a substantive argument, trump's attorney saying she believes justices like kavanagh appointed by former president trump should, quote, do the right thing. that is not how this all works, neil. >> no, it's not. look, i think some people automatically assume that, because this case surrounds a political matter, the elections process, that the court is going to decide it along partisan lines. i really caution people against making that assumption. this issue at its core is about a question of constitutional law. this supreme court has repeatedly rejected donald trump's claims before. remember, trump tried to is many times in the 2020 election to try and get the election overturned. the supreme court had none of that. remember that donald trump tried to invoke executive privilege against the january 6th committee and lost at the supreme court 8-1. he lost the case i just argued at the supreme court, another

case with significant election consequences, at the supreme court, 6-3. so, these are not -- i really caution into saying they're going to definitely rule one way or the other because of politics. that's just not how the court operates. i'd say one other thing about what lisa and andrew were saying a moment ago about the question presented at the court. i guess i disagree a little with my colleagues. it's very rare for the supreme court to rewrite the questions that the petitioner, that is the person asking the supreme court to hear the case, rare that the court will actually do that. in my hundreds of cases at the court, it's only happened a few times. it's not surprising to me the court heard what it generally does, taking the question as the way the petitioner here, donald trump, framed it out to be. i don't think that tells us very much about all the questions that the court has really focused on. i think they're just at this point focused on all of the above, on everything, and they didn't want to do anything

further and take something off the table from their consideration. >> lisa, up a question for andrew and neal. >> i have a question, indeed, for neal. one that i've been wanting to ask him for several days now, which is, neal, my understanding of this case is that if the supreme court were to uphold colorado's supreme court's decision, their endorsement or rather their saying that the colorado supreme court did not err in its factual findings, would not necessitate every other state in the country yet to have a primary making that same decision. rather, it would just be a conclusion that based on the facts adduced in evidence at the trial in the lower court in colorado, that was a decision that the colorado supreme court could make, not one that it had to make or that any other state would have to make. can you play out for us what the consequences of the supreme court upholding colorado here would be for other states in the

country? >> yeah. i think -- again, it's going to become very technical, so this is an off-the-cuff reaction because there's this whole gestapo which i don't want to bore our viewers with too much, but basically, i think the supreme court is expected to just decide the colorado case based on the colorado trial and the trial judge's finding in colorado that donald trump was an insurrectionist, that he'd given aid and comfort to the insurrectionists on january 6th, putting him squarely within the 14th amendment's terms. i think you're right, lisa, to say the court would probably add some language, if they were to affirm the colorado supreme court, the u.s. supreme court would say, look, you know, we're basing it on the way this case, as it comes to the court with the facts as adjudicated by the trial judge. i think then it would be open to donald trump in other states to try and say he's not an insurrectionist. you know, tough argument, but he

can try and make that argument. the challengers might say this collateral estoppel, you've litigated this in one court, you don't get another bite at the apple. it will get pretty technical and probably too hard to resolve on this video discussion right now. >> it strikes me that we have this breaking news about the supreme court choosing to hear president trump's 14th amendment appeal as you have president biden making one of the most important speeches of his political career, talking about the stakes of this election and defining those stakes as democracy itself. connect those dots for us between what we heard today from president biden and the decision we got today from the supreme court. i think the way to connect that is the way that ian did earlier in your show, which is, regardless of what the supreme court does, obviously this is a

huge and important legal issue, but regardless of what they do, i think the connection is that the reason this is coming up is because the colorado supreme court, like the maine secretary of state, like the january 6th committee, and in multiple, hundreds of cases in d.c., are dealing with the fact that we had an insurrection. and court after court has found that in connection with various individuals up to and including the former president of the united states. as ian said, just to steal from him, that is a remarkable fact that we are at this point where somebody could even be considered to be a leading candidate of any party in

america. but that is -- it's really a testament to where we are as a country that we have this new and novel issue that is something that factually is really shocking that we are in this position, that people are embracing the idea of the insurrection, that you have. a former president actually saying that these are heroes who are were trying to commit not just a criminal act but one of the most serious felonies you can think of, which was, you know, overturning our democracy, and that is the reason we are in this position and this issue is before the supreme court, is that is how far we've come in terms of the electorate losing its way. >> lisa, the date set for oral

arguments, february 8th. how does that line up with the political calendar? >> certainly it comes after both the iowa caucuses and new hampshire. the other thing that strikes me, though, about that date, is how it interacts with some of the legal proceedings former president trump will face prior to that february 8th day. in particular, we have a january 9th oral argument date, tuesday of next week, in the federal election interference case, a three-judge panel hearing trump's argument that he should be immune from prosecution. that's an argument that he lost in the district court. jack smith tried to escalate that to the supreme court immediately, thereby leap-frogging that appeals court, and the supreme court said no. to the extent there were any justices who dissented from the denial of jack smith's effort to go straight to the court, we don't know there were any nor who they were.

but by february 8th, we could have a decision in that case from the d.c. circuit and the supreme court could also have told us by then what they intend to do on the immunity argument. we could be substantially more advanced in terms of whether or not former president trump will face trial and on what time frame with respect to the case before judge tanya chutkan. >> your friend neal called this winnable. >> i never disagree with him, especially when it comes to the supreme court. so, he has pulled many, many rabbits out of the hat. i think that it is definitely winnable. i do think that everyone should be cautioned that, in order to win this case, that people who are defending the colorado supreme court decision have to

win on a whole range of issues. there are many off-ramps for the supreme court if they are trying to duck this issue to send it back and say in various ways that the colorado supreme court got it wrong. so, there is i think a tough row to hoe in terms of this case. but by contrast to the case that lisa is talking about, for some good news, i think the issue of sort of being immune from criminal prosecution, that's one where i would say there is no way in god's green earth that the d.c. circuit court -- and if the supreme court weighs in on it -- that donald trump will prevail in that case. >> andrew weissmann, thank you so much for coming back on this breaking news. neal and lisa, you are staying with us. when we return, we'll stay on this breaking story, the supreme court agreeing to hear

donald trump's appeal to the 14th case that could leave him off the ballot. our political panel joins us after a quick break. and on "the beat" at the top of the hour, colorado secretary of state jena griswold will be our guest. wold will be our guest. jordan's sore nose let out a fiery sneeze, so dad grabbed puffs plus lotion to soothe her with ease. puffs plus lotion is gentle on sensitive skin and locks in moisture to provide soothing relief. a nose in need deserves puffs indeed. america's #1 lotion tissue.

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by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. we continue to track the breaking news out of the u.s. supreme court that they will take up donald trump's appeal to the 14th amendment case that could lead him off the ballot in colorado. nbc news justice reporter, author, ryan riley, editor at large for the bull mark, charlie spikes, and msnbc political

analyst purnell belcher. neal, if you are on donald trump's team, what is your best argument and what do you make of that argument? >>ee. look, i think andrew is right to say that arguments for this 14th amendment challenge that trump has are stronger than his arguments that he's making in the court of appeals for absolute immunity as a president from the criminal laws. but that's because the arguments for absolute immunity of a president are insane and inane, and will not get a majority of the supreme court any day of the week for under any circumstance. that is the law of, like, putin's russia, not the american constitution. when it comes to this case about the 14th amendment, i think trump's best argument is this idea that the president is not bound by the 14th amendment, and what trump is basically saying is the text of the 14th amendment talks about a

different kind of oath swearing, so basically the 14th amendment says no person shall hold any office, civil or military, or as an officer of the united states to have previously taken an oath as a member of the office of the united states to support the constitution of the united states. you have to support it then violate it. trump's argument is the oath i took in the constitution is different. it's not that different. it's i solemnly swear to the best of my ability to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution of the united states. i'm sorry, but that shoot-around to me like an oath to support the constitution of the united states. i don't think it's a great argument, but it's the one that trump -- the one argument he has devoted to i think addressing the majority of justices on the

supreme court who care about the text and the original understanding of the document. rl unfortunately for trump, i think those cut so much the other way that i think if the case is presented properly, it will be very hard for the supreme court to turn its back on what the colorado supreme court did. >> neal katyal, thanks for your time, expertise, for staying longer than we originally asked you to stay given the breaking news. we are so grateful for you. i'm going to the let you pick up where neal left off, this idea of donald trump's strongest possible legal argument. >> first of all, what andrew did right before the break, which is pity the person who disagrees with neal katyal on the constitution or the supreme court, as a person who sees this in more pragmatic senses, the argument that donald trump is making that i find the most appealing and certainly not necessarily the most constitutional defensible, but

it's the one that says that the 14th amendment is not self-executing, because the disqualification in section 3 of the 14th amendment is not as black and white as other qualifications for the presidency in other places of the constitution. it's not like being 35 years of age or being a natural-born citizen. it involves some judgment and certainly evaluation of factual circumstances. in that way, the very fact, if the 14th amendment were self-executing in the way that the colorado plaintiffs argue that it is, you can see how from that you could have a patchwork of different results all across our 50 states. one could argue i think fairly persuasively that that would be a logistical and electricity ral and political mess that the framers never intended. they must have intended that congress would have had to enact something or, for example, someone would have had to be

impeached or convicted in a court for the 14th amendment to apply to disqualify someone from running for the presidency. that to me has some intuitive appeal even if textually there's nothing to suggest directly that congress must do that. >> cornell belcher, we talked a lot about what this news means legally. let's talk about what it means politically and what ways it changes the contours of this presidential race. >> first, thanks for asking me what it means politically because i'd be completely lost. politically, i'm not sure. we are in uncharted waters. i usually try to look back at history and historical data to give answers for what's happening or what's going to happen. we are in uncharted waters here. i don't know what the political consequences are. there is some data that subjects if donald trump is, in fact,

indicted, you know, less moderate voters will be inclined to vote for him. but you still have, regardless of the indictments, regardless of the legal cases, you still have a core of the republican party who's going to stick with him. he said it himself. i could shoot someone and not lose any support. in all the polling data, it seems that seems to be true. the question is does this make him stronger in the republican primaries than before, and does it make it even harder fer his republican primary opponents to hit him and easier for the republican base to rally around him. i'm afraid it may, in fact, help the republican base rally around him and it's harder for the other republicans to break through in the primary. >> charlie, i trust guests more when they say i'm not sure, i don't know, uncharted territory. that is the true because we don't have much to compare it

to. what does this mean for republican voters? >> for voters as whole, it's cheer the republican base has ral iied around trump. that's not brooufz. but this issue will dominate the entire year of 2024. we're on the third anniversary of the attack on the capitol. the historical revisionism, the success donald trump has in convincing republicans it did not matter, that it wasn't that bad, that perhaps it was even patriotic. but the flipside of that is that this -- the question of january 6th is going to be central to this presidential campaign. it's not going away. president biden made that absolutely clear. we have all of these trials, all of these legal issues that are going to remind people that donald trump not only inkripted the attack on the capitol but, you know, over a period of

months, in a concerted way, tried to overturn a fair and free election. january 6th was just one day in part of the conspiracy to overturn this election. he tried to get legislatures to throw out tens of millions of votes. he tried to get fake electors to fraudulently erase the actual winner of the election. and then when that failed, he turned to violence. and in the three years since, he has been, you know, turning his own political party into an instrument of the big lie. so, this is going to be a central issue that all voters will have to deal with. yes, republican-bafsed voters are going to rally around donald trump. keep in mind, they are a minority of the voters in this country. it's hard for me to imagine how a debate centered on this one president who tried to overturn the election and may be a convicted felon, how that will convince a single swing voter to say i'm going to vote for him

this time. i cannot see how that's positive. >> what does this mean when we talk about accountability? are we closer to accountability today than yesterday? how do you see this in the context of the january 6th investigation? >> i think there's a difference between -- it's amazing for me to look at how donald trump has been making these arguments when you look at the question of presidential immunity and some of his filings in that case versus how the january 6th defendants themselves are sort of speaking about themselves, right. so, in the case with other january 6th defendants, you often have them go before judges often after the point they've been convicted and say, listen, i am a naive idiot. literally, they will say i am naive. i fell for this garbage online and here's why i did what i did. on the other hand, donald trump's lawyers have to pretend there's a respectable argument and gave spit shine to these

arguments about happened in 2020. there's a massive gap looking at what the january 6th defendants are saying in court and how donald trump is arguing this. but they both fell for these election lies. jack smith's entire case is basically the idea that donald trump knew these were lies and he was informed over and over again they were lies. but you don't see trump's lawyers making the arguments other january 6th defendants have made. they're trying to pretend as though there was a legitimacy here. the meshing of the political arguments with the legal arguments here is astonishing when you look at some of these filings. obviously, the supreme court is going to be handling a lot of these issues going into 2024. we'll be covering a lot of scotus cases going forward. you might as well put campaign recorders outside the supreme court at this point. >> lisa, as always, thanks for jumping in the chair during breaking news. ryan, cornell, charlie, you're staying with us.

when we return, how president biden is using the central issue of saving democracy the focus of his re-election campaign.

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back to the conversation we started before the breaking news out of the u.s. supreme court, today, president biden in an historic speech drawing a stark contrast between himself and the man who will likely be the gop's nominee saying donald trump is

danger to american democracy and the choice before this country in november is whether or not we want to save it. >> the choice and contest between those forces, those competing forces, between solidarity and division, is perennial, but this time it's so different. you can't have a contest, you can't have a contest if you see politics as an all-out war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences. all-out war is what trump wants. that's why he doesn't understand the most fultz truth about this country. unlike other nations on earth, america is not built on ethnicity, religion, geography. we are the only nation in the history of the world built on an idea, not hyperbole, built on an idea -- we hold these truths to

be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal. it's an idea declared in the declaration, created in the way that everybody is equal and should be treated equal throughout their lives. we've never fully lived up to that. we have a long way to go. but we've never walked away from the idea. we've never walked away from it before. and i promise you, i will not let donald trump and the maga republicans force us to walk away now. >> i don't want to be glib, but if we were writers on as preteenl drama show and we wrote an episode where you had the sitting president of the united states go out in the wake of a consequential election, lay out the stakes for the election as the soul of the nation itself, as the fight for democracy, then a few minutes later you had the supreme court announce that it was going to take up the case deciding whether or not a former

president was eligible to be on ballots for the next election because he was accused of being an insurrectionist, and it all happened hours before the third anniversary of an insurrection, i mean, people would tell us we were overwriting. they would tell us it was unbelievable. yet, that is the moment we find ourselves in, charlie. you have the president laying out the stakes of this election before he even has a gop opponent. >> the show runners are doing a hell of a job. it is dramatic. we don't know how the script ends, and there's not necessarily a happy ending. it was a powerful, necessary peach, but not sufficient. i think if i advice, it would bu need to give that speech again and again and again. and that other people need to do it. it can't just come from joe biden. it's got to come from democrats, republicans who are not going along with donald trump, it has to come from legal scholars. it's got to come from people who

actually understand the stakes. i thought one of the sthing things that struck me were that speech was his willingness to become very granular. not just talking the abstract terms of democracy but to remind people what was donald trump said. use his own words. donald trump is telling us what he's going to do. let's talk about when donald trump said that soldiers who gave their life for the country are suckers. let's talk about donald trump saying that he would be a dictator. that he is pledging retribution. i think a lot of things we have talked about on shows like this or written about are familiar to us. but there are millions of people who have not yet tuned in to this particular reality show. and may not know all of this. so the repetition is incredibly important. and if there's anything -- if a critique of this is that sometimes it feels like joe biden gives one speech and he thinks, i've said it, i've done it. that's not the case. this has to be pounded again and

again and again, because this will be the central drama for the next 11 months. >> cornell, here's the thing. there is the core issue of democracy itself. there's also the joe biden we saw delivering that speech. impassioned. focused. personally hurt by the slights to the u.s. military, given his own connections to the u.s. military, the fact that he references being with foe as those comments were delivered. inasmuch as it is to some voters an introduction of the stakes of this election, it is also a reintroduction of the candidate himself. >> well, look. this is what campaigns are about. and look, no candidate starts off a year out from an election where they want to be and need to be. i worked on -- for obama in 2012. i tell you in 2011, he was not where he needed to be. so you build a campaign to solve for those problems. i think what you saw in president biden today is a candidate who's focused and he's

ready and he understands the battles ahead of him. and to charlie's point, i think you will see this echoed over and over again, not only from the president, but you'll see it in ads, you'll see it hopefully in surrogates, hear it from the vice president. i think you will see them burning in this overarching message about saving democracy. some of us have been on this show a lot over the last year, talking about how we hope that democracy becomes a central argument, central message frame, for biden going into this next election. and it looks like he is, in fact, making it a central message frame going into this election. it's got to be about bigger things, raising the stakes. you hear talk about low enthusiasm, especially among younger voters. he's got to make this about something bigger than just, quite frankly -- i know gas prices are always a top polling issue, but it's got to be bigger than gas prices.

i think he's framing this conversation to be about things that are much bigger than pocketbook transactions. >> it was interesting that you had him talking about abortion rights, using it as a basket. there's the fact that republicans enable trump. a new report put out by the congressional integrity project, it looked at republicans, found that the key players of the efforts to overturn the election are the same ones now leading the baseless impeachment inquiry into president biden. mike johnson and judiciary chair jim jordan led the bogus legal effort to overturn the 202 election and encourage trump supporters to fight on the morning of january 6th. oversite chair james comer perpetuated trump's conspiracy theories about the election, blocked investigations into the violence at the capil. top committee members like marjorie taylor greene, who was a key figure working in congress to overturn the results in trump's favor, are election deniers and insurrection

apologists. the entire house gop leadership have fully endorsed trump's leadership bid." there's a lot of overlap there. >> there is, and this is one of the most extraordinary things we have seen is the complete transformation of the republican party, not only into a trumpist party but a party that believes the worst elements of trumpism, including the big lie. they're all-in. the reality is in 2024, the congress will be on the ballot as well. and they have made -- it's not ambiguous at all what they believe, what they have done. but it also should underline the increased danger. many ways, donald trump poses a greater danger to the constitutional order, to the liberal constitutional norms, democracy, that we have in this country today than he did on january 6th. because now he has an entire political party that, for the moment, controls one house of the congress of the united states that is willing to do his bidding, that is willing to believe his big lie, and is

capable of trying to disrupt a second presidential lake. election. we shouldn't be naive about that. >> ryan, final word? >> yeah, i mean, watching these cases come in, over the past three years now, january 6th cases, we've had a lot of successes from prosecutors in this past year. but the stakes are really high. so we saw the conspiracy convictions against the proud boys and oath keepers. we have a sentence of up to 22 years. but there's still so many of these cases left to go. it really just is a really important story fare our democracy. and it's something that i think it's really important for reporters to stay on. it's something i'm really glad when there are a lot of doubters, and i think middle of 2021, thinking the january 6th story wasn't necessarily going to have legs on it. when donald trump was sort of out of the pocket there, wasn't as prominent as he is now. lo and behold, it's really at the center of everything right now. >> ryan reilly, charlie sykes,

cornell belcher, thank you. for rolling with us, spending this time. we'll be right back. and ensure complete with 30 grams of protein. (♪♪) dry skin is sensitive skin, too. and it's natural. treat it that way. aveeno® daily moisture with prebiotic oat is proven to moisturize dry skin all day. you'll love our formula for face, too. aveeno® ♪ i wanna hold you forever ♪

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thank you for letting us into your homes on this historic day. we are as always, so grateful. "the beat with ari melber" and a very big guest starts right now. >> thank you, alisa. welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber. we begin with the breaking news. we have the breaking news, the big news for the night, the week, and maybe the year 2024. we just got this. the supreme court now, and i'm holding in my hand whatt