immediately. yet republicans beyond him are saying, no, we don't like this bill, and at the same time they want to impeach the dhs secretary for not doing enough at the border. how do those two things exist at the same time? >> reporter: it is a little baffling, to be honest with you, katy. republicans are all over the map when it comes to their approach to the border. they've been screaming since they took the majority that something needed to be done legislatively to solve the crisis at the border. now they've been presented with a legislative package. it's certainly not everything they've been looking for. it's a bipartisan package, the only way things can get passed in congress right now because there's divided government. they're saying not only would it not do enough, that it would hurt the situation and president biden can fix it on his own. there's been a lot of back and forth. not all of it is consistent. >> the bill is arguably a lot more conservative than moderate than even liberal. ryan nobles, thank you.

that's going to do it for me today. "deadline: white house" starts now. hi everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. i'm ali velshi in for nicolle wallace. an incredibly important question looming over democracy, can presidents be held accountable for crimes committed in office. a unanimous ruling by the d.c. court of appeals rejected donald trump's claims of immunitity in the federal election case. the decision by the judges is a stinging rebuke of the ex-president in what has become a months' long push to get the charges against him dismissed. in their ruling, the judges make the point that while donald trump is a former president of the united states, he is in the eyes of the law, just another criminal defendant. for the purposes of this criminal case, frp has become citizen trump with all the --

any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him in this prosecution. prosecuting presidents for things they did in office would have a chilling effect, finding, in fact, the possibility of legal legal accountability would, in fact, be a boost to the rule of law. quote, the risk of criminal liability chilling presidential action appears to be low. instead of inhibiting the president's lawful discretionary action, the prospect of federal criminal liability might serve as a structural benefit to deter possible abuses of power and criminal behavior. the court also makes it clear that the basic principles of our government are at stake and granting trump immunity would be a cross-the-rubicon moment for our democracy. quote, former president trump's

efforts to remain in power despite losing the 2020 election were, in proven, an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government. he allegedly injected himself into a process in which the president has no role, the counting and certifying of the college electoral votes, thereby undermining constitutionally established procedures and the will of the congress. we cannot accept former president trump's claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundment check on executive power, the recognition and implementation of election results, nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and to have their votes count. donald trump now has six days until next monday to ask the supreme court to stop the clock on the federal election case pending an appeal, and that is where we start this hour with the former top official at the

department of justice and msnbc legal analyst andrew weissmann, plus the former lead investigator for the january 6th select committee tim heaphy and co-host of msnbc's how to win 2024 podcast, claire mccaskill. welcome to all three of you. andrew, you and i were together when we heard donald trump's team's argument. you had some version of "this is novel." the court seems to have agreed with you. >> yes. d.c. circuit, but yes, absolutely. >> yes. >> i'm going to borrow a page from my colleague, former senator claire mccaskill because i think we all understood that this decision was going to come out this way that they, as you

said, ali, that we knew this would be a decision against donald trump. but i do think this is a place where the legal ruling is so sweeping and so resounding and unanimous and clear in its upholding what it means to be a country governed by the rule of law, that there really i think is an important political aspect to how this should be used because you have somebody who is running for the presidency as to whom a unanimous court of judges made up of people appointed by both republicans and democrats where the court said the following, at bottom, former president trump's stance would collapse our system of separated powers of placing the powers beyond the reach of all three

branches. he would be beyond the reach of congress. he would be beyond the reach of the executive branch and the judiciary. so i think the message to the american public is, yes, he is not immune from criminal prosecution, but are you really going to say that this is somebody who you want to see in the white house again who is taking this position where the judiciary has made it absolutely clear that his position has no place in our constitutional democracy, no place at all. this is really a resounding victory, not just for the prosecution team, not just for judge chutkan, the trial judge, but i think for all americans of whatever political persuasions in terms of what it means to be a citizen in this country. >> claire, i want to remind everybody about that day.

i think a lot of americans ended up listening to the oral arguments. you couldn't see them, but could hear the recordings. the remarkable questions that the judges were asking donald trump's lead attorney there who was a fairly learned fellow and i think he was being put in a position where he had to make political arguments in a court of law, when the judge said could s.e.a.l. team six -- if you're ordered to kill the president's opponents, would he be immune, and trump's lawyer seemed to think so. the judges said not only would trump's teams be wrong, but, in fact, this would be a positive incentive, if they thought they could be prosecuted for crimes, then perhaps they wouldn't commit crimes while in office. >> yeah. the snarky part of me wants to make a flippant comment by, like, trump, so much winning.

this is a guy who i don't think has won a lawsuit yet on anything that matters. but the other part of me, and andrew kind of referenced this. this really should be a day that we should celebrate our constitution and the rule of law that is held fast in this country since its founding. the idea that there are checks and balances in our system. the idea that courts will make a decision based on the facts and the law and not who you are. they will not be intimidated like the speaker of the house has been intimidated. they will not be intimidated like many republican members of congress have been intimidated by the bully at mar-a-lago. they are going to stand up and read the law and apply the law to the facts and make a decision. this is really a happy day for america. i don't know what's going to happen in the colorado case. i don't know if the supreme

court will take this case. i kind of doubt they will. today is a day that we should take a moment, take a deep breath and go, you know what? so far, so good. it's working the way it's supposed to work in our country. >> tim, this isn't a trial. this was just a determination of whether the president -- the former president is immune from prosecution. there's still a trial to be had, although watching donald trump's social media posts this afternoon, you'd think this was done. you were the lead investigator on the january 6th committee. whether it's the committee or the various trials that have taken place for those involved in january 6th, there is a concern that accountability has not yet been had at the highest levels. as claire said, we're a step closer to real accountability for what happened on january 6th. >> ali, exactly. let's go back. after january 6th occurred there was a process put in place by

congress, the victim of that awful attack, to gather facts. the select committee talked to a lot of people, gathered facts and found evidence of the potential violations of federal criminal law. congress can't do anything with that. that's an executive function. there was a referral made to the department of justice and a disclosure of all of that evidence, all the documents and all the images and all the interviews. the executive went further then, developed those facts further and brought forth a criminal indictment. that is now landing in the third and final branch of government, appropriately, as claire said. that's the way the system is supposed to work, the judiciary. where those facts would be adjudicated, where a jury of 12 people, citizens of the district of columbia, will listen to the evidence as instructed by a federal judge and decide if those facts give rise to the charges that are alleged. that is the way our system

works. at every stage of the process that branch has done its constitutional duty by bringing forth facts, evaluating thing. the greatest thing about democracy, it goes to regular people. nobody else can make the ultimate decision other than real lar citizens of the united states sitting in the jury box. your questions about accountability, we're closer to that day when regular people will make a decision. yet another hurdle before we can get to that adjudication which has now been appropriately cleared. >> andrew, let's talk about what comes between today and what tim is discussing, the idea that a jury of his peers will evaluate donald trump's cull ability in this case. what can happen now and what's your sense about what's likely to happen? >> sure. the thing i was keeping my eye out for was not so much the substance of the ruling because, again, there was no way that

donald trump was going to prevail. i'm not sure i anticipated that he was going to lose quite so badly. what i was keeping my eye on is what the court said about the mandate. the mandate is essentially who's got the ball. what judge chutkan is waiting for is the mandate to go back to her which allows her to go forward and to set the new trial date. and the court did something smart, which it said, essentially, your only hope, donald trump, is to go to the supreme court. if they are willing to take the case, then they can decide whether this gets stayed any longer. you have until one week to do that, to say that you're going to file for a stay in the supreme court. so our eyes should really be there. one thing that's tlerg is the court said, if you want to come back to the d.c. circuit, because sometimes what a person can do, they have 45 days to ask the same court to rehear the case or have all the judges

rehear it. basically the decision says no, that's not going to happen. we are not issuing a stay at the d.c. circuit level, and they have technical language on that. i also think that's a clue as to why this may have taken a little bit longer than we all anticipated. it seems pretty clear behind the scenes that there was discussions amongst all the judges about the stay issue, whether the d.c. circuit would be willing to enter a stay if donald trump came back to them and not the supreme court, and basically that got shut down. he has one avenue which is to go to the supreme court. if the supreme court says no, we are not hearing this case, then we could be at trial by the end of may, beginning of june. judge chutkan seems very clear that she wants to hold this case. she already had set march 4th as the trial date.

not for lack of trying, she had to wait because of this appeal. it seems pretty clear that the supreme court, if they do not take this case, there will be a trial certainly by the beginning of june i would think. that means the american public one way or the other, whether it's conviction or acquittal, will have the advantage of seeing all the facts and having the jury verdict in making their assessment about who should be in the white house. >> claire, i don't make it a habit to look at donald trump's social media, but i had a quick look at something. his line that he ended a very long post on is something along the lines of save immunity, or bring immunity back again, something of that nature. it's always interesting because donald trump tries these things out. he floats these things. i was joking with somebody that i wonder whether we'll have t-shirts with people saying bring america back again. he's politicized it as he's

politicized everything. what's your concern about how these decisions -- people just don't accept -- because they have broken their faith in the rule of law, they don't accept these decisions are decisions. there are going to be a whole bunch of donald trump believers who think this is politicized by joe biden, as he keeps mentioning and not actually a ruling by learned judges. >> this is a guy who has decided, his playbook is to tell -- this is the worst loser on the face of the planet. america has never seen a loser like this guy. a bad loser is someone who can't lose gracefully. he can't lose anything. so what does he do? he lies. now we've got a long list of things that are rigged. he just spouts this stuff endlessly. he believes that repetition matters. frankly, it shows it may matter. the majority of his diehard followers believe all these

disparate election officials were rigged, even though republicans won in the same districts, even though court after court termed him down in terms of any evidence of fraud. now he's going to say the courts are rigged, the fbi is rigged. he says the judges are rigged, the prosecutors are rigged. everybody is rigged. e. jean carroll, that case was rigged. it is just fascinating to me that people are not waking up and realizing that every time this guy loses, he lies and feeds them a bill of goods that things are rigged. it is depressing. it is sad. frankly, i hope america wakes up because this is a bad dream in many ways. it's a nightmare. >> i don't know they will, but tim, between the information you all gathered on the january 6th committee and the information that is in the indictment which isn't the half of what jack smith has to take to trial, do

you have some sense, in the same way the january 6th hearings, which they said people wouldn't watch -- lots of people watch. do you have some sense that between the information you already knew, the information that's in the indictment and the information that jack smith brings to the jury and the public, that people will register the fact that crimes were committed? >> i think the messenger really matters. the context really matters, ali. a lot of people didn't trust our process because it was congress, and people don't have a lot of faith in the efficacy of congress. a lot of people don't trust you or the people that work for this network because mainstream media, they allege, is somehow biased. i do think the courts are different. i do think even -- when you live in an age with a lot of cynicism about government, that the courts do maintain some measure of respectability or credibility. these very same facts, we're not going to really hear much new in

a potential criminal trial whenever this case is tied that people haven't already known about, but the fact it takes place in a courtroom, subject to cross-examination and regular people make a decision as to the import of those facts, i think that has the potential to move the needle of public opinion, to convince people that were sceptical of those other messenger. i hope so. maybe that's naive. a certain segment of the american public is never going to believe these facts. but in a closely divided electorate, it doesn't take much to make a material difference. that may happen in a criminal trial. >> thank you, my friend. tim, good to see you. thank you for spending time with us. andrew and claire, i'm going to ask you two to stick around a little bit. when we come back, much more about donald trump's sweeping claims of presidential immunity. the ball could move to the supreme court. we're looking at the options facing the court and the other decision in front of them, whether trump's name should be

on ballots. news today in another big case we're watching, trump's multimillion dollar fraud case in new york. a judge there wants to know whether a key witness lied during the trial. in the next hour, there will be a full hours vote on impeachment of homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas, another low point for republicans playing politics with real issues on the table. those stories and more when "deadline: white house" continues after this. "deadline: white house" continues after this ( bell ringing) customize and save with libberty bibberty. liberty bushumal. libtreally blubatoo. mark that one. that was nice! i think you're supposed to stand over there. oh am i? thank you. so, a couple more? we'll just...we'll rip. we'll go quick. libu smeebo. libu bribu. limu bibu...and me. doug: he's an emu! only pay for what you need. jingle: ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ i brought in ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein! those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks.

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be an appeal in front of the supreme court to keep his federal election interference trial on hold. the nation's highest court could face not one but two cases involving whether an ex-president can be held accountable in court or via the ballot for actions he took while in office. just one of these cases would be defining for any supreme court, but the stakes of getting this right are even higher for the roberts court, which is facing a crisis over its very legitimacy after accusations of being ethically compromised over the conservative justices' ties to right wing donors and activists who supported the bid to overturn the election, including ginni thomas, wife of clarence thomas. just 4 of 9 justices must vote to hear the case. joining us now, msnbc analyst, dolly lith quick and host of amicus broadcast. andrew is back with us as well. thank you for being here.

dolly, i want to read from what you wrote in slate about this. you said the we is not about whether a majority will ultimately agree with trump, it won't. but whether a majority will avet his efforts to run out the clock. it might. the bench slap he received makes it harder to pull off with a straight face. it's a foot race between the law and the clock. while the former stands squarely against the former president, running out the clock isn't just his only play, it's pretty much been his superpower. the nine justices are aware of this, just as they're aware that deciding the outcome of the 2024 election in advance of the nominees being named was not what most of them hoped to do with their judicial careers. you put it well. how does that translate into what you think could happen on the supreme court? >> i think, ali, it's that. there are two different issues

here. there are legal merits. i don't think this is a close call. the reason the d.c. circuit held on to this opinion for months is because they got it just right and they were meticulous and careful. i think there's this doomsday plot ticking down and we've seen time and time and time again that donald trump's efforts to run out that clock to get himself in a position where he wins the election and rewires the entire justice department and fires jack smith and seeks new judges and gets rid of career employees. we know what the plan is if he can run out the clock. now the question is the supreme court justices who are squarely in the middle of this conflict are going to have to figure out not just the merits, i don't think this is a hard case, but how much of their time and energy they want to spend on watching that clock. >> andrew when the supreme court, if the supreme court decides to consider taking this case or hearing this case, what are the things that they're

going to depend on? to dahlia's point, they can't decide this on a whim. they know a closer microscope has not been on them, at least since the election of 2000. what will they be considering? what are the things they'll have to think about to either make a decision on this or avoid making a decision on this? >> well, one of the things you might be thinking is, look, this has never been decided by the supreme court. one, because we've never had a former president who has been indicted for all series of serious crimes, here focusing on the january 6th case. so you haven't been in this situation because you haven't had somebody who has done something like this. on the one hand, you can have the supreme court thinking we should make it absolutely clear based on supreme court law, not just one circuit court, that this cannot be done, that this is not the law. i completely agree with dahlia that the substance of this is absolutely clear.

there will be at least five justices who agree with this, if not many more. so on the one hand, they might be thinking we should really weigh in to make it clear this can't be done. on the other hand, as dahlia said, there is the concern that, if we do that, we are sort of de facto giving donald trump a win. in other words, we might be saying, you know what? no president is above the law, but in the course of saying that we actually are de facto saying he is above the law because we're going to prevent a trial from actually happening before the election. if it turns out he wins, the case is over, because he'll just tell his department of justice to end it. there's this irony that, if they wanted to say it, this is the perfect storm of the wrong case in which to say it. i think that all else being equal, i think the d.c. decision is so strong, is unanimous, and i think there are signs that the other judges on the d.c. circuit

were certainly aware of and did not disagree with this decision because of the statement that even if donald trump seeks to have a rehearing by the d.c. circuit, that that does not stay, the issuance of the mandate to judge chutkan. there's a real sense of resounding decision by the three judges, if not the whole court, that that sends enough of a clear signal to any future president that this is the law. so my money would be on them not taking cert because of the clock timing issue that dahlia laid out so well. >> dahlia, there is this other matter, and that is the 14th amendment. it's not a penalty, just a disqualification, whether or not donald trump meets the qualifications under the 14th

amendment, section 3, to be the president. of course, the court can work its way around that, too, even a literal reading of the 14th amendment doesn't talk about running for office. it talks about holding office. let's talk about that. donald trump has, through his surrogates and his lawyers and in their tv appearances suggested that this court better do the right thing on that one. the implication is i've got some people i put on this court and hopefully they're loyal. >> i mean, this case is going to be heard on thursday. the supreme court, by the way to andrew's point, hustled this case along. they had expedited briefing. they plunked it into the argument calendar. the court knows how to work fast. it worked fast on this colorado case. you're quite right. we're all going to sort of watch and wait to see the fate of whether donald trump can be removed by the colorado supreme court from the colorado ballot, and maine is waiting to do the same thing. there's a sense in which it's

tempting to say the court can give trump a win in one case and a loss in the other and look as if it's being solemnonic. i think the real nut of the problem is that 14th amendment section 3 case there isn't a ton of doctrine. this has not been an area of the law that's been deeply litigated over years. there's a real sense in as tight and coherent as the d.c. circuit opinion is, the colorado supreme court opinion is much more subject to questioning, not just on the legal merits which are tougher, but on whether this is the right vehicle to remove trump from the ballot. that's why you see a lot of privileges and moderates saying don't do it this way, do not take him off the ballot. it disenfranchises voters. while there's no real interplay between the two cases, nothing that happens in the d.c. circuit case will affect that colorado case being heard on thursday.

i think it gives us a sense that the court has already got two thermonuclear cases teed up and possibly more coming. this is going to be a very, very busy season for a court that i don't know it wanted to decide the 2024 election. >> i think under normal circumstances it's a cool job being a supreme court justice. right now it's probably, i wonder if i should have been a bus driver as well. dahlia lithwick and andrew weissmann, appreciate you joining us. live as usual on earth two. the trump campaign lining its pockets off another loss in court while conservative media pointedly whistles with its hands in his pockets eager to talk about anything but today's ruling. we'll tell you about that display coming up. l tell you ab display coming up. ♪♪

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the sheer impact of the decisions like the one made today by the d.c. circuit sets the agenda on the hill, on the trail and in the email boxes of donald trump supporters the world over. it's unfortunate but a reality nonetheless that for a disdrased ex-president with a cataloged pension for breaking the law, self-inflicted legal entanglement s are a jet fuel for the fund-raising apparatus. today after the d.c. circuit decision told his supporters how all of this is proof that president biden has weaponized the justice department. joining our conversation now is nbc news correspondent vaughn hillyard in las vegas following

the trump campaign. here at the table, democratic strategist and director of the public policy program at hunter college, basil smikle. claire is also back with us. thank you all for being with us. vaughn, let me start with you. donald trump fundraises off of everything. it's kind of remarkable. the hauls that he gets seem to be diminishing, or is that not a correct way to look at it? >> reporter: i mean, they were able to pass over $50 million in money that could have been spent on political purposes in order to cover legal costs for him over the course of the last year, ali. i think your question is a very fair one that we'll be looking at in these last weeks as soon as we get even more ftc reports. they over the last year have been repeatedly asking folks for donations to help cover legal costs. if anybody comes from any family, you kind of get used to questions about money, and how

far is one willing to open up their pursestrings is a question that donald trump is going to have to be continuing the ask himself. through four criminal indictments, civil trials and multiple rulings, the latest this morning from the appeals court, donald trump is -- there's a lot on the line. there's a fund-raising text that came out earlier this afternoon in which he tells his supporters, quote, federal judges just ruled against me. i have no presidential immunity. they won't stop until the maga movement is erased. donald trump is running as much of a legal fund for himself as a political campaign fund. >> i was talking to claire about that earlier. in his post -- basil, save presidential immunity. we joke about it. these things sometimes work. it may work for democrats to start to focus on those people who are moderates and maybe some conservatives about what this guy really is. we've got reporting at nbc news that a super pac backing joe

biden plans to spend upward of $40 million in late spring focusing on donald trump's mounting legal issues and his threat to democracy, an issue that biden's campaign has so far avoided. swing state voters who are moderate and conservative leaning and either anti-trump or on the fence about the former president because of his four indictments, including two related to allegations of overturning the 2020 election. joe biden leans into the democracy question a lot. he stayed away from the legal question a lot. >> i think it's absolutely appropriate for him to lean into the legal questions, especially considering the decision today. if i could find a way to extricate the voter from all the other things i am in my life, i imagine there will be some voters, perhaps more independents than people who are definitely republican and democrat that are going to get tired of a lot of legal wang,

tired of trying to pay attention to the court cases. what joe biden is saying pay attention, wake up. he's shaking the american public into making sure they understand the weight of everything that's happening right now. as you talk about the donations, why it's so interesting and important for joe biden to do this. what donald trump is doing is funding a political ministry. he's getting people to say, in this sort of old school telethon, how much have we raised to day. here are court cases that didn't go my way, how much can we raise today? that political ministry for his supporters has to pay off in miracles at some point and it's not. >> it's paying off in paying donald trump's legal fees. i'm not quite sure what the return is. claire, chris christie gave his first interview to nbc after dropping out of the presidential race in which he articulated what he thought a second donald trump term would look like. let's listen to what he said. >> mayhem.

absolute mayhem. in '16 he was scared. he didn't expect to win, and he was intimidated by the presidency when he first got there. he will not be this time. i think we have to take him at his word. this is going to be the vendetta presidency. this is going to be, i am your retribution, and i think he will use the levers of government to punish the people who he believes have been disloyal to him or to his approach. >> chris christie puts it well, using donald trump's own language. donald trump has said i am your retribution. cash patel has said we're going to go after journalists, critics, civilly and criminally. this is the point that folks need to understand. this is not going to be a normal presidency, even if your taxes will be lower and your regulations will be cut down. we are handing over our democracy to a guy like donald trump who has told us exactly what he will do to your

democracy. >> yeah. i think there's way too many republican leaders who say, well, donald trump just uses hyperbole. he was pretty bad the first time around. that's when he had people like secretaries of state, bill barr -- bill barr finally threw up his hands and walked away and now he speaks the truth about how bad trump was about trying to hold on to power when the voters turned him out. you look at the cabinet members, most of them have turned against him. there were guardrails. he's going to make sure there are no guardrails this time. it's fries ening. this is man who actually said, actually said, i'm going to terminate the constitution. can you imagine in america we think it's okay to put a guy in the oval office who says i think the constitution should be terminated. i think chris christie is right.

people need to be very worried. i'm very worried because he's used both his criminal indictments to increase his poll numbers and his fund-raising. that's not a good sign. >> let's talk about the fund-raising part a second, vaughn. a trump truth social post where he says a president of the united states must have full immunity in order to function and do what has to be done for the good of our country. a nation destroying ruling like this cannot be allowed to stand. if not overturned, as it should be, this decision would terribly injure not only the presidency but the life, breadth and success of our country. a president will be afraid to act for fear of the opposite party's vicious retribution after leaving office. i know from personal experience because i'm going through it right now. i will become a political weapon used for election interference. even our elections will be corrupted and under siege.

so bad and so dangerous for our nation. save presidential immunity. this is his new spin. how is it playing? >> reporter: look, when we're talking about donald trump, he so often undercuts his own arguments. i can tell you how many rallies over the last months i've been to in which donald trump stood on the campaign page who said he's going to appoint a special prosecutor upon taking the white house to do what? to investigate and charge joe biden, who would then be the former president of the united states. donald trump uses the argument that works to his own benefit any given day. when we're talking about presidential immunity, donald trump intends to be the president again. he's talked about being a dictator for a day. i was at a rally two weeks ago in which he talked about the fact that strong men are good for their country. oftentimes i think when we talk about information and we talk

about young people and we tell them so often that information is power. for donald trump and his allies, they have realized usually the lack of information for so many of the individuals in the american electorate can be used for their advantage. for the 57-pages in the three-judge panel, for so many others including the followers of him on his truth social account, they're not going to get that nuanced understanding of what the federal judges here today rule on. >> vaughn, thank you for your great reporting. vaughn and claire, thank you both. basil is going to stick around a little while. claire's podcast, how to win 2024 is out. take those camera phones out and scan this qr code. claire and her co-host jennifer palmieri will have all the big headlines from the campaign trail. up next for us, did the longtime cfo of the trump organization,

this man, allan weisul berg lie on the stand during the civil fraud trial? the judge wants to know that ahead of the decision in the case expected any day now. we've got that story just ahead. we've got that story just ahead. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ moving forward with node- positive breast cancer is overwhelming. but i never just found my way; i made it. and did all i could to prevent recurrence.

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a potentially very telling development today in the still outstanding civil fraud case for the ex-president. we're still waiting for a decision on this. it could be very damaging to donald trump's defense and the future of the trump organization

as judge arthur engoron works on the decision after the 11-week long trial and the skr for a $370 million penalty. engoran is demanding to know by tomorrow at 5:00 p.m. if and what former trump ceo allen weisselberg may have lied about on the stand. he cites recent reporting in "the new york times" that suggests weisselberg is negotiating a deal with manhattan prosecutors that would require him to plead guilty to perjury. engoron writes this. i, of course, want to know whether mr. weisselberg is changing his tune and is admitting he lied under oath in my courtroom at this trial. i do not want to ignore anything in a case of this magnitude, end quote. let's bring in msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin. basil remains with us. lisa, what's this story about? >> this story is about two different cases or one investigation and one case.

ali, as you know, i said in that courtroom for many weeks while the attorney general tried a civil fraud case against donald trump, allen weisselberg, jeff mcconney, and donald trump's two grown sons, don jr. and eric as well as two business entities. the trump organization aided by those five people perpetrated a fraud. on who? on financial institutions, potential lenders as well as existing lenders, insurance companies, but basically was fo. now "the new york times" comes forward and says when allen weisselberg took the stand in that case where he was not only a witness but a defendant, he may have lied and is negotiating a plea agreement with the manhattan district attorney's office, which is not a party to that ongoing case. judge engoron sees this new story, doesn't seem to have known anything about it before. so let me just pause and say,

for everybody who thinks this is why judge engoron has been taking his time in rendering a ruling, it seems like that is not the case based on his letter today but he's asking the attorney general's office as well as the trump lawyers within the confines of your ethical obligations as lawyers and to your clients, you tell me what you know about this because if this guy, who, again, a witness and a defendant perjured himself in my courtroom, that is rem relevant to me in determining the issues before me, which include how credible is this witness. >> got it. so he wants to know what weisselberg may or may not have done, how it would affect the information and the testimony that was before him in this case. >> yes, and i want to add one more thing. in the letter that he sent to the parties today, he makes a reference to a legal doctrine, fall is a sanu know, if he committed perjury, even as to one fact or one aspect of his testimony, i have the right as the judge to say, false as to

one thing, false as to everything and discredit all of his testimony. that's relevant because there are two people here who were asked about interactions they had with donald trump about cooking the books, one is michael cohen, one is allen weisselberg, and they gave very different accounts of what those interactions were like. michael cohen says he was in the room with trump and weisselberg when trump essentially ordered them not directly, but in his own mob boss like way to reverse engineer his financial statements based on an aspiration for his net worth in any given year. weisselberg denied that that happened. if weisselberg's testimony is wiped clean, guess whose testimony stands as the unrebutted truth, ironically, michael cohen's. >> somebody call michael cohen, see if he's available for tomorrow. >> thank you for that remarkable explanation, i always understand it after lisa tells me about it.

it takes a lot to get me smarter but thank you for that. don't go anywhere, quick break for us. up next, a conviction today for a mass shooting that tested the limits of parental responsibility. tested the limits of parental responsibility millions of children are fighting to survive due to inequality, conflict, poverty and the climate crisis. save the children® is working alongside communities to provide a better life for children. and there's a way you can help.

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i'm so pleased i gave golo a shot. don't wait, go to golo.com. ♪♪ whoo! ♪♪ light work! ♪♪ next victims. ♪♪ you ready for this? ♪pump up the jam pump it up♪ a conviction today for the mother of a michigan teenager who killed four classmates and wounded seven others in 2021. jennifer crumbley was charged with involuntary manslaughter, and she was found guilty this afternoon on all four charges, one for each of the victims in

the attack at oxford high school. the case was the first in this country to hold the parent of a child who commits a mass shooting criminally responsible. her husband james is expected to stand trial next month on the same charges. their son, ethan, pleaded guilty as an adult to murder, terrorism, and other crimes and was sentenced in december to life in prison without parole. jennifer crumbley now faces up to 15 years in prison for each count. up next, much more on today's blockbuster ruling, our friend ari melber joins us in studio. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts right after a quick break. te house" starts right after a quick break.

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i'm katie porter and i approve this message. i think it's paradoxical to say that his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed allows him to violate criminal laws.

>> hi again, everyone. i'm ali velshi in for nicolle wallace. you heard the utter disbelief at donald trump's presidential immunity argument when trump's lawyers made their case last month to the federal appeals court. that was from the lone republican-nominated judge on the three-judge panel, judge karen henderson. today henderson's line was featured almost word for word in the filing issued by that panel, which delivered a massive blow to the with twice impeached four-times indicted former president. the judges found that trump is not immune from prosecution for acts committed while in office, a defense he has used or he's attempted to use to dismiss the federal election interference case against him brought by the special counsel, jack smith. the appeals court judges argue that trump, like every other american is bound by the law. to say that trump or any president is above the law strikes at the heart of the american experiment, they say. they write, quote, at bottom former president trump's stance

would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the president beyond the reach of all three branches. presidential immunity against federal indictment would mean that as to the president, the congress could not legislate, the executive could not prosecute and the judiciary could not review. we cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter. so now begins a race against the clock. the former president has already indicated that he will appeal this decision, which he has until next monday to do. the appeal will go to the united states supreme court making this yet another issue of trump's candidacy that the high court will have to consider. two days from now arguments will begin over whether the former president violated the constitution with his behavior around january the 6th. a case we will discuss just a little later this hour with judge michael luttig, but what the supreme court decides with today's ruling on impunity will have huge implications for

accountability. if the high court acts quickly, there is a chance smith's election interference case can go to trial before the presidential election in november, and that's where we start this hour with the congresswoman, madeleine dean of pennsylvania, and with me at the table is msnbc legal analyst, he lisa rubin and chief legal correspondent and host of the beat ari melber, a rare occasion to have -- to be in the same place with you, ari. >> very happy to be with everyone. >> nice to see you. and congresswoman dean, when i am in pennsylvania, she is my member of congress, so it's good to see you again, congresswoman. let me start with you. let's start with the big picture first, as opposed to the legal picture. the big picture here is that the legal argument most experts i'm sure, ari, will back this up was always a little bit weak to start with. it was a political argument. donald trump felt that he should somehow frame within a legal context the idea that he doesn't want to be prosecuted for things

he did as president. this now moves it into realm of accountability. there's no trial yet, but donald trump can now be tried for things he is accused of doing. >> well, it's good to be with all of you, and i'm honored to be your member of congress. i have to tell you that remember where this case began, it began august of last year where the federal grand jury charged donald trump in connection with his actions, criminal conspiracies to stay in office, whether it was to try to rid millions of people of their vote, whether it was to obstruct the official proceeding here, as you know, on january 6th the counting of the electors and certification of that, and so what this court did and i think with great clarity you pointed out some of it is to say, no, you are not entitled to some sort of special presidential immunity from crimes you commit while you are in office. it would turn our system upside down or as you say, collapse it.

one of the best lines i saw as i skimmed the 57 page opinion, the three-judge panel said today we affirm the denial, the lower court's denial of the grant of immunity for the purpose of this criminal case, former president trump has become citizen trump with all the defenses of any other criminal defendant, he is neither above the law, nor is he beneath the law. he stands as citizen trump. >> i agree with you, that stood out to me. and of course you mentioned the decision, which you brought with you as a printout. what stands out to you in there? >> this decision, which is historic. it is now a precedent. it could be, as you and others have pointed out, reviewed by the supreme court, or they might just let it stand, and it says for the first time ever at an appeals court level that a former president cannot only be put on trial, which i think most lawyers knew. that's why nixon took the pardon, but can even be put on trial for alleged conduct or

activities in office that may have so thoroughly and clearly crossed the line that they are criminal in nature and not part of being president. that's a big deal, and so i think what jumps out to me is this was written in a way to stand, it is very detailed, it has long sections of jurisdiction, other issues. it is trying to say in a way to the supreme court, we got this, obviously sooner or later you might review this if there was a conviction, a post-conviction review would be standard, politicians who have been spared that process, and this defendant like any has been afforded that. they seem to be saying let jack smith try this case. it's written in a very thorough, clear, and fair way. >> is it your sense, lisa, that there are various options as to where this could go next. this doesn't just immediately move to trial, although tanya chutkan is now thinking about when that trial could be. what are the possibilities for what happens immediately now? >> it could be anything, ali, from a very swift denial of even supreme court review by that

court to the court holding onto briefing on whether to grant review for several months, and that's what i call the gerstein option who warned last week that the longer it took the d.c. circuit to render this opinion, it may be that they were giving the supreme court an excuse to hold this case over until the next term of the court, as ari well knows, the terms of the supreme court run roughly from october, the first monday in october to the very end of june. and of course they do some work during the summer months, but if they were to hold it over until the next term, that would effectively mean no oral argument until next october. that makes the possibility of a trial prior to an election an absolute nullity. >> congresswoman, one of the things that the trump legal team argued before the court was that if you do this, if you do not allow the president to have this immunity, presidents are just going to like -- it's going to grind to a halt, everything the presidents to.

they're going to constantly be worried if they lose the next election, the new president will prosecute them. in it there were two flaws. one is the idea that this is a prosecution by a new administration against a former administration, but more importantly, this court deemed in its decision that, in fact, being able to hold a president liable for crimes committed that are not part of the execution of his duties would be a positive incentive that would actually -- people should -- presidents should look over their shoulders if they're going to commit a crime in office. >> well, think about it. we've run this country for almost 250 years. have you ever heard a candidate for president or a sitting president or a former president say, yes, i want to run on the basis that i'll be immune from any crimes that i commit should you elect me. it's an absurdity on its face. of course we have not ground to halt, former presidential work has not ground to halt because you're actually held to account.

you're held to the law. that is exactly what should happen. we had a president resign because he was unable to uphold the law. so i find it just an absurdity, and that's what i'd like citizens to know. beyond all the legalisms around this, this is literally a candidate for president who was trying to run for president by saying when i'm president again, i'm going to be -- i want to be and believe i should be immune from any criminal prosecution. we're right back to i could shoot somebody on 5th avenue. >> yes. in the case of this particular trial, ari, navy s.e.a.l. team 6 could be sent to murder someone, donald trump put out a post today on truth social. it's long and involved and has capitalizations where there shouldn't be any, but the last three words are all caps, save presidential immunity. like that's become the thing. it's not just whether i'm on trial or not, but now presidential immunity is a thing that requires being saved

because the biden administration and this corrupt court decided that he's not immune from this. >> yeah, i think it's hard to take that seriously. as a criminal defendant, he's afforded many rights and those include being legally presumed innocent. it's a very long road and high bar, but no, you don't really want to have immunity for someone with those level of powers even after they leave office. and to remind everyone, no one is saying here, for example, that a sitting president who orders a military operation that goes wrong is going to be tried the next day for murder. we're nowhere near that, it's not that movie. it's the situation that nixon was in, when you abuse your power not on behalf of a good faith but mistaken act for the country say national security in war or the border, but rather on your own political benefit because you are trying to distort or end democracy. i mean, remember the things that give people the most trouble, nixon and trump, are at least the credible evidence, accusation of abusing power to

stay in power, and in many parts of the world, that works. that is effective. it didn't work for nixon, and as we all remember with much heartache and some loss of life, it didn't work for trump in 2021. but that's what this is about, and so i think that the ruling reminds you how weak those arguments are of total, endless, absolute immunity. nixon didn't think he had it, which is why he took the pardon, and trump's lawyers said he didn't have it when they were defending the case. and that was cited in this ruling. >> you made that point a couple of times about nixon. if there was a certainty of presidential immunity for the things you described, why would nixon need a pardon? >> absolutely. there is an international court at the hague. they have tried people in absence ya, et cetera. most american figures and others, generals, don't take the position they need a pardon from the hague, they take the position you're not answering to the hague. the doj under both parties has

held that you're not answerable to a foreign court. here is the opposite. nixon took the pardon, others have negotiated. this is all pretty standard, and i think the supreme court question, which again we're in the news so we jump ahead, when this news broke i posted in addition to turning on msnbc and people immediately said what is scotus going to do. the short answer is we don't know. the lens for that is it only takes four votes to hear this thing is and slow it down. the question is are there four people on the supreme court who think the best thing to do with this clear resolution now offered is to walk it back and slow it down before there's even a trial. >> that's exactly right, and that's the issue because there probably isn't a majority on the supreme court who will support donald trump's contentions, but you could get four people who can say we can slow walk this, this isn't just trump's best game. it's his super power. >> i want to go back to what ari was saying about the message about save presidential immunity and how nonsensical it is, it's

not just nonsensical. it'shypocritical. in trump versus vance, donald trump was litigating whether he was amenable to a subpoena from the manhattan d.a.'s office which was investigating financial and tax impropieties, you've seen this movie, right, in that case he said as a p sitting president i shouldn't have to answer to a criminal subpoena from a state law enforcement, but he conceded and i'm going to read to you from the majority opinion in that case, signed on to by seven justices in 2020, he concedes consistent with his department of justice that state grand juries are free to investigate a sitting president with an eye toward charging him after the completion of his term. granted, the facts in that case had to do with things that happened before he was president, granted it also had to do with a state investigation, not a federal one, but the general principle conceding that he wouldn't be immune after he left office was something that 2020 donald trump was happy to concede in the

supreme court, and yet today he issues this truth social post in all caps, save presidential immunity. where was that donald trump in 2020? >> right. congresswoman, you were involved in one of the impeachments of the former president. i'm very curious about your republican colleagues at this point and whether they are going to -- where they're going to stand on this whole idea because there was an argument after donald trump's second impeachment that, hey, look, this isn't the venue for this. mitch mcconnell said it very clearly, the courts are the venue for this investigation a into donald trump. so are the courts the venue or are they not according to your colleagues? >> well, he will see they'll speak out of both sides of their mouth, some people in this building especially. something i wanted to say about this decision which is such a wise decision. i encourage people to read it. it isn't that dense. it is very readable. is that people in this very capital on the other side of the aisle have done everything in their power along side the

former president to tear down our trust in institutions, to tear down our trust in the rule of law. take a look at this opinion. it restores our trust in the rule of law that justice will be done, slowly, slowly, slowly, but mr. trump has become citizen trump. no man is above the law. >> you were hiding the fact that you're holding the opinion in your hand. i'm the only person in this conversation who doesn't have my own personal copy of this opinion. ari, are there -- are there legal, novel legal issues in here? when the case was heard before the court, the d.c. court, there were some novel issues. donald trump's lead attorney was taking issues that were fundamentally political. he's a smart guy, a rhodes scholar, i think he knew well the arguments he was making didn't hold a lot of water but he presented them well. is there anything novel in here, or is this fairly standard based on your reading of what you expected to happen?

>> it's a great question. i'd answer it two ways. the precedent and framework that people who serve in government are constrained by the law rather than above it is well-established. judges have great powers. they can oversee the taking of a human life under the rules. they have great powers in their courtroom, but a judge who is found to have committed bribery, say federal judge can be impeached, kicked out of office and prosecuted for it. that makes sense. we've seen governors go to jail. that whole idea that there's no monopoly, get out of jail free card, i think that's precedent. is there something novel here? yes, the time line is kwae. if you imagine a different scenario, there's overwhelming evidence that donald trump summoned the people on january 6th and tried to steal the election. whether that rises to a criminal level needs to be adjudicated, but this is not made up. but you could imagine if you want for a thought experiment a prosecution against a politician that has less evidence that also comes in before the election, and the novel question is what

is the right time to deal with this? what if there were concerns about it going to the election or there were concerns about what's called selective prosecution, targeting him for that reason, which hasn't found evidence. the novel question for the supreme court if they staten island -- decide to take this or not. if they take it, one of those novel questions is when is the right time to deal with this? you can put that through a partisan filter. you can put it through a non-partisan filter, which is what about the next case, and is this too rushed or too fast or too unfair in that way? i'm not going to be vague here, ali. i don't think there's a lot of evidence that this is unfair or rushed. i think there's more evidence this is taking a long time. having said, that those are the novel questions that the court says should we deal with this before the trial, right? that's the special type of appeal we're in. or let it go, see what happens and if he's convicted, then he

still gets his right to appeal. that's novel. >> congresswoman, one of the things that came up in the oral arguments, again, from the trump team is that january of the year of an election in which the defendant is the leading contender for the nomination makes it seem like it's political motivation, and of course the judges didn't feel like that was -- there's any exception. to ari's point on timing, the supreme court is going to have to think about this and not since 2000, i think, has the supreme court had this direct a relationship to the outcome of an election. what's your sense of how the supreme court, this particular supreme court that is under remarkable scrutiny should and will act? i can't predict how the supreme court will act, but i hope they will act according to the law, whether it's about this case or many other cases that will bubble up to them. but the fact that somebody would argue that, oh, they shouldn't take this up. it's january of the election year, we know here in america

the election cycles are very, very long, but what isn't long is the right for people to get justice. we need justice for what happened on january the 6th. as you said, i was an impeachment manager. we put our case forward around the constitutional crimes committed. i believe we proved that case, but this is about statutory crimes, conspiracies to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracies to take away your vote, voters, millions of your votes, so the season is always right to do what is right around the performance of the law. >> we'll end on that note, thank you. congresswoman madeleine dean, lisa rubin, thanks to you as well, and ari nice to see you in real life. >> great to see you. >> we're going to see you at the top of the hour, today's loss is a huge one for donald trump. thursday could be the start of an even bigger one. that's when the united states supreme court hears arguments about whether trump can stay on the ballot, or whether he's

ineligible for fomenting an insurrection. a stunt of abuse of congressional oversight, and it's not going anywhere in the senate. that's not stopping house republicans from moving forward with a vote to impeach the secretary of homeland security without any evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors and no guarantee that they actually have the votes to get it passed. we'll have the latest from capitol hill. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. n't go anywhe. ? -yeah. no. there's my little marzipan! [ laughs ] oh, my daughter gives the best hugs! we're just passing through on our way to the jazz jamboree. [ imitates trumpet playing ] and we wanted to thank america's number-one motorcycle insurer -for saving us money. -thank you. [ laughs ] mara, your parents are -- exactly like me? i know, right? well, cherish your friends and loved ones. let's roll, daddio! let's boogie-woogie!

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it's only tuesday so that means trump's legal woes this week are only beginning as he sits with his latest major loss today, a rejection of his claims of absolute immunity for things

he did while he was president. thursday could be the start of the next one when the supreme court hears oral arguments whether donald trump disqualified himself from the ballot in colorado under the 14th amendment by engaging in insurrection. while it's really hard to picture these justices keeping trump off the ballot a ruling that could have an impact on trump's eligibility in all 50 states, trump's team appears ready to give them nothing to avoid doing so. in their final brief yesterday, if that's anything of a window into their plan to present an argument, it defies logic. it argues that no court, not even the supreme court of the united states has the ability to decide that he is ineligible and one that judge michael luttig calls an 11th hour hail mary that he considers tantamount that by the acknowledgment that they believe the supreme court is likely to hold the former

president is disqualified under the 14th amendment. joining us now is that former federal luttig. good to see you again. i think you were being clear with the fact that you thought that was a ridiculous argument. this is not for the supreme court to adjudicate. >> thank you very much for having me with you this evening, ali. let me begin this discussion by reference to today's decision. today's decision from the united states court of appeals for the district of columbia circuit was historic. it's a landmark decision holding that a former president is never immune from federal prosecution for offenses committed against the united states when he or she was president of the united states.

i do not expect the supreme court to review that decision by the d.c. circuit. in the d.c. circuit case, a number of my friends and former colleagues in six republican administrations prior to the trump administration filed an amicus brief with the d.c. circuit court of appeals in which we argued that a president is never immune from federal prosecution for offenses committed while he was president, but if there's one single instance in which he or she is not immune, it is where as here with the former president, he or she attempted to remain in power in violation of the executive vesting clause

of the constitution preventing the peaceful transfer of power and denying his successor in this instance president joe biden the powers of the presidency to which he had rightfully become entitled. in today's opinion, the supreme court of appeals actually said that a president would not be immune from prosecution for that criminal offense. now, that's where thursday's argument in the supreme court comes in. my colleagues and i made the same argument our point that the former president

engaged in an insurrection or rebellion against the constitution of the united states when he attempted to remain in power beyond his four-year term depriving his successor of the rightful powers of the presidency. so today's decision by the d.c. circuit did not hold that the president is arguably disqualified under the 14th amendment from the presidency, but it did speak very pointedly to the argument that he might be disqualified under the 14th amendment. >> how do you parse the distinction between today's decision, which implies that a president in this particular instance is not immune from prosecution, doesn't mean he's guilty of anything. just means as they call him citizen trump, he's subject to the same prosecutions, the same

terms and limits that the rest of us are, and your point. section 3 of the 14th amendment discusses qualification for the presidency. it's got nothing to do with crimes committed or, you know, it's not a penalty, as you have pointed out to me, it's a qualification. he just doesn't meet the requirements to be the president of the united states. tell me how as judge you parse the distinction between those two, or is it meaningful? >> well, it's certainly meaningful. there is no necessary legal connection between what the d.c. circuit said today and what the supreme court must decide beginning on thursday. but it is of supreme importance that the d.c. circuit today spoke to exactly what the former

president is alleged to have done and said in the context of its opinion that no president would ever be immune from prosecution for that. now it's up for the -- to the supreme court to decide whether the former president's insurrection or rebellion against the constitution of the united states when he attempted to remain in power beyond his four-year term and deprive his successor joe biden of the powers of the presidency or attempted to, whether that is an insurrection or rebellion against the constitution of the united states within the meaning of section 3 of the 14th amendment. now, as i said, my colleagues and i have filed a brief in the supreme court on that very question, and we have argued to the supreme court that that is the quintessential insurrection

or rebellion against the constitution of the united states, and of course we believe that that on its face disqualifies him, the former president from the presidency in 2024, provided the supreme court concludes that section 3 actually extends to the president of the united states of america, which we are confident also that the court will do. >> judge, i want to ask you about one thing that the court said today, a discussion you and i have had in the past about donald trump being an officer of the united states. they wrote, it would be a striking paradox if the president who alone is vested with the constitutional duty to, quote, take care that the laws be faithfully executed, end quote, were the sole officer capable of defying those laws with immunity. so they believe he is an

officer, they've said so, and they believe that that gives him his role as president and the slightly different oath he takes than other officers to the constitution does not confer any immunity upon him. >> well, that's exactly what the court of appeals said today. now, it was not construing the phrase officer of the united states in section 3 of the 14th amendment. but many people, including my colleagues and i have argued to the supreme court that it's unquestionable that the president of the united states not only holds an office under the united states but he or she is also an officer of the united states within section 3 of the 14th amendment.

that too think of a threshold question to the application of section 3 to the former president that the supreme court of the united states must now decide. >> judge, you bring such remarkable precision to the discussion, which is a real benefit to ourselves and our audience. thank you very much for that. it's a good week for me because when this all comes down to the supreme court, or at least when they hear this, you and i will be in the same place having these discussions in person. i look forward to seeing you later this week, j. michael luttig, we appreciate your time. we will go live to capitol hill where a debate is underway to impeach alejandro mayor ka. it's all about politics and a difference of opinion on polgs for a party, which is refusing to take real action on immigration reform and a strict border bill their senate colleagues helped negotiate. that's next. e. that's next. they replaced the glass and recalibrated my safety system.

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first, as mayor and then in the legislature. i enshrined abortion rights in our california constitution. in the face of trump, i strengthened hate crime laws and lowered the costs for the middle class. now i'm running to bring the fight to congress. you were always stubborn. and on that note, i'm evan low, and i approve this message. the house is expected to vote in the next hour on impeaching the homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas. it accuses him of willfully refusing to -- border laws and breaching the public trust. if republicans succeed, mayorkas would be the only sitting cabinet member to be impeached in u.s. history. but it's probably not going to happen because it appears that speaker johnson's partisan effort is on life support with two of his gop colleagues already stating they will not

vote to impeach, and a few possible republican absences expected. gop congressman tom mcclintock of california slammed the effort writing, quote, it is delusional to believe the senate will vote to remove mayorkas on the ground laid out. at best it will be a party line vote. more likely it will be a bipartisan repudiation of a misuse of power. the deadly serious crisis on our border will have been trivialized into a partisan caricature end quote. proving him right, the fact that republicans today appear poised to tank a deal on the border negotiated by their senate colleagues. joining our conversation nbc news capitol hill correspondent ryan nobles at the capitol for us. also joining us former congressman from florida, msnbc political analyst, david jolly, writer and editor for protect democracy, amanda carpenter, plus democratic strategist basil smikle is back. ryan, what's going on on capitol hill. >> reporter: there are actually a couple of developments to share with you, ali. first being that these votes

were scheduled to take place here in the next three minutes or so. there isn't a ton of movement happening right now on the floor that would indicate they're going to start that process right at 5:40. the other perhaps revealing aspect about the schedule we're keeping a close eye on and haven't been given a lot of clear guidance, is that initially these impeachment articles were set to be voted on first and then the stand-alone israel package scheduled to be voted on second. now israel is going first. the impeachment articles going second. now, you can deduce by your own deduction skills what that could possibly mean, but as you rightly pointed out in your introduction to me, they have been working to get the necessary votes in order to get this impeachment over the finish line, if they need more time that could be an indication that they are in search of votes to make this happen. keep in mind, the margins between republicans and democrats in the house of representatives is extraordinarily small. you are right, it does depend on

how many members actually show up, both republican and democrat, but it's our expectation that there are two republicans who have already said they are no votes, that they cannot lose even one more and then still have these articles of impeachment go through. now, stranger things have happened in this congress, particularly this particular congress, but i'd be very surprised that if they don't have the votes if they actually move forward with the impeachment vote tonight. it's much more likely that they pull the vote, delay it and do it at another time. that all being said, ali, we're trying to figure out exactly when this vote will happen. and the other interesting wrinkle i think is worth pointing out is that the house speaker was seen leaving the building a few minutes ago. that could be a million other things, i don't want to speculate, we don't know why, but it adds to the intrigue as we await this vote to take place here today. >> could be a million other things, but it could for the moment be housed in the bucket called weird. ryan, thank you for your great reporting. ryan nobles at capitol hill. david jolly, i have a lot to say

about this, but i don't even know what question to ask you because i don't know where to start. this is on one hand, it's a big deal. so you would think they would have whipped this and gotten this really organized and not put it to a floor vote if there's a potential for it losing. on the other hand, it's not a big deal because it's so tremendously nonsensical. i think if i stopped ten people on the street and say why do you think alejandro mayorkas is being impeached, 12 of them wouldn't know out of just ten. i don't know -- answer whatever question you wish to answer because that will help me with the rest of this interview. >> it's actually right where i was going, ali. i think that's a great point. but let me start where ryan left off. having been a house member who was often voting against my own caucus, i would say the fact that they flipped this vote means as nancy pelosi reminds everyone, you don't call for the vote if you don't have the votes. if you are a house republican right now on the fence, watch your back, protect your arms, your legs, your kneecaps because they're about to get broken in the next couple of hours before

this impeachment vote. it does come down to a numbers game. there is no reason to call for the vote on impeachment if republicans don't have the votes. there's already been -- this has already been a humiliaing week on them, they can't lose this vote. but i would say, ali, your point about does it even matter is really a big question. i don't think it matters. it doesn't matter really to anyone unless democrats want it to matter. and this is where the world's kind of upside down. republicans look foolish in this moment. democrats might just want the issue to go away, right? cabinet secretary potentially impeached. however, just as joe biden played rope a dope with rick scott on social security, he's got republicans on the ropes right now on immigration, he may want this to go forward and keep the platform out there of how poorly republicans are doing on this issue. >> amanda, impeachment is a really important thing actually, the fact that we've had a few of them with the last president,

you know, does make one thing it's a common occurrence, but it's not, and it is not a replacement for a policy disagreement, right? their beef with mayorkas has been right from the beginning, literally since day one. they do not agree with the policies that he is enforcing. they think he should agree with their policies and that's a policy agreement and that's what elections are for. if you don't like what people do, you throw the bums out. this is not what impeachment was built for? >> right. i think it would be accurate to say that this impeachment vote has already failed given the fact that republicans have campaigned on impeaching mayorkas since they retook the house. they've had a considerable amount of time to build this case and the fact that they've called the vote, still don't have it, and that's not even to mention there's not republican support for this in the senate either, and so the point that i -- you know, that is part of the show in congress right now, but i think moving the ball forward when it comes to the politics and the policy in 2024,

what they're really setting up here is scene for donald trump to take over. because you have to ask yourself why would they sink a border deal that would actually give mayorkas the tools, bind his hands to do the things they want. i predict because they've all been forecasting when this goes down, they'll say we don't need a border deal because president biden should be taking executive action. that's actually what they want president trump to do if he's elected and takes power in 2025. if you look at the things that president trump and the people sinking the border deal are actually planning to do, i mean, i think we should talk about what that looks like, expanding powers at the department of homeland security in ways that have robust interior enforcement to detain and deport people without due process rules that they are afforded right now, i mean, these are people that look at operation wet back not as a stain of american history, but a model for going forward. they're talking about declaring

an invasion at the border, you hear that word all time, make it clear i do not agree with this argument, that using the word invasion unlocks constitutional tools that are not available to them under federal enforcement matters. rather give them war like measures to use against people at the border. we can talk about the shenanigans and the circus and how stupid they look, but i actually think they're laying the groundwork to do something, you know, very extreme in 2025, and that's what they're banking on j you bring up a good argument, basil, i've always said that it's kind of weird that the department of homeland security which was created after 9/11 to deal with national security issues has become our department of immigration. jackie alma knee wrote this, janet napolitano, and jeh johnson who served under barack obama wrote that despite their political differences they collectively agree that policy differences are not permissible

impeachable offenses. to instead allow impeachments of cabinet officials over political disagreements would jeopardize our national security, make cabinet-level positions more difficult to fill under future administrations and undermine the ability of future officials to fulfill their vital missions. they wrote in a letter obtained by "the washington post." the department of homeland security secretary is responsible for much more than managing our immigration system they argued. immigration was supposed to be a smart part of dhs. one can see logically why they might have included that. where i come from in canada they're not, immigration is immigration. if you think you're going to get impeached -- >> why would you take -- >> right. for policy reasons, if you're stealing stuff, you should get impeached. but he's just doing what government policy says he should do. >> that's why this is so farcical because they're tanking a bill that can circumscribe all of his behavior. >> yes, yes. >> and make this a moot point,

which is amanda's point. and i want to layer something on top of what amanda said because it's so important to me. we cannot lose sight of the fact that this is part of a larger strategy. take the tom swasey new york 3 race, the special election for the santos seat. they are -- republicans are bombarding him with ads talking about how he left the border open, these anti-immigration ads. so this is part of a larger strategy to do in 2024 with respect to immigration what they did in 2022 to governor hochul when she was running on crime. they're racializing and urbanizing an issue bringing it to the suburbs where it was not previously there in a means to stoke fear. so that's part of the strategy that i think and i hope that democrats can, a, see through, but also hit back harder on. there's no reason that the party should not hit back harder on this and don't see this conversation and this policy, which is i guess to david's point as well, don't see this

conversation to the republicans because what they're doing is using a policy issue that they couldn't -- because they couldn't use reproductive rights. >> you can't be bragging about that. >> can't take that victory lap. so this is their new strategy, and we've got to hit back. >> it's weird not taking a victory lap because you could actually get the bill you wanted. you avoid the bill and take some kind of weird victory lap. there's a lot more here, so i need you all three to please just stick around because we've got to pay the bills. we're going to fit in a quick break. we'll be right back. n a quick break. we'll be right back.

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. we've got breaking news on federal investigation that has in recent months been flying under the radar. a senior law enforcement official tells innocence news that the special counsel robert hur who was investigating how president biden handled classified documents is expected to release a report detailing his findings in the coming days and no criminal charges will be filed against president biden. joining us is justice reporter ryan reilly. what have you got? >> this report has been expected for a while. it's something they've been working on in the background. obviously, the entering thing here is that it's going to be tougher for republicans to sort of weaponize without instantly taking on charges of hypocrisy. they're going to have to say that even though -- we should specify, first of all, these are worlds apart, what biden is

alleged to have done and the case that donald trump did in the mar-a-lago case where he's given opportunity after opportunity to turn this information back over to the government and did not do so and is alleged to have hid this. there's a massive coverup scheme in the mar-a-lago case. but what we're expecting is a pretty critical report of how joe biden handled these documents afterwards or how the joe biden team, i suppose, handled these documents. this has been an ongoing issue for a number of former executive officials including former vice president mike pence who had his own sort of incident involving these classified materials. so this is something that we can expect probably any day now and will be this political hot potato but always important to make sure they're not making two unequal things equal at the end of this and making sure to stick

with the facts. >> ryan reilly joining us on that breaking news. i'm back with ryan nobles, basil smikle and amanda carpenter. the last point ryan made was crucial. someone, probably donald trump, probably right now on his social media site is saying, see, everybody did it, why did they charge me for this stuff? everybody is mucking around with documents. different story. but donald trump will try to confuse the issue on this. >> trump and republicans will launch their apparatus immediately on this. this feeds into their narrative, two different systems of justice. however, the baseline legally, the legal distinction is so critical because donald trump's case is unique compared to joe biden's and vice president mike pence. with donald trump there was clear accusations of behavior and instruction, which leads to

intent, intent to hide the documents and perhaps misuse them. none of those accusations existed with president biden or vice president pence. facts don't matter to donald trump and republicans, and they will scream from the mountaintop that there are two systems of justice. there will be conspiracy theories about china, hunter biden, joe biden. who is listening? probably the people already with trump tonight. >> that's exactly the point. one thing -- amanda carpenter, one of the things that david and i talked about one time before was back in 2019, mike johnson, the current speaker of the house was actually asked about the concept of impeachment. here is what he said. i'm sorry. we don't have it. he said you have to think about this a few years down the road. what happens, jim, when there's a democrat in the oval office and a republican majority in the house? the republican base around the country will begin to demand impeachment as soon as that

president makes a decision or policy position or a statement they don't like because the bar has now been set so low. they've cheapened impeachment, as the president said, that's a great concern for the republic and should not be lost in all these discussions today. his argument was don't impeach donald trump. now they're talking about impeaching alejandro mayorkas. i want to underscore for the audience, tweet me or send me an email if you can articulate how alejandro mayorkas is being impeached. >> i can't articulate that for them. this is part of the maga mythology. while donald trump was impeached. instead of saying this is bad and we shouldn't do it, making a principled argument, somehow that becomes a license for them to do the same. in an exponentially worse magnitude against their own enemy. this is the new way of doing things. this is trump's agenda, you do wrong to me, i do wrong to you

twice as hard. i think a lot of his supporters celebrate that. that's essentially what he's campaigning on in 2025. elect me and i will direct investigation against the enemies, investigate in regulatory retaliation against businesses i don't like. this is the whole shebang. this is why speaker mike johnson is there right now. it's kind of a stunning reversal, but this is the mindset. >> this is some weird stuff. david jolly, amanda carpenter and basil smikle, thank you for being with us this afternoon. a quick break and we'll be right back. fternoon a quick break and we'll be right back eryone together. no one wants to be known for cancer, but a treatment can be. keytruda is known to treat cancer. fda-approved for 16 types of cancer, including certain early-stage cancers. one of those cancers is triple-negative breast cancer. keytruda may be used with chemotherapy medicines as treatment before surgery and then continued alone after surgery

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thank you for spending this very busy tuesday with us. "the beat with ari melber" who i think has probably read through the entire 57-page decision -- i think 57 payables. i saw you working through it. >> 57 pages. we've gone through it. we appreciate your coverage. we're making sense of it. good to see you a couple times today. welcome to "the beat."