biden's up 20 points. don't seek out political news, trump is up 15 points. i'll pulling those from memory. if you're getting information in a catch all way and you're a low trust individual, how do you reach those voters? >> i've heard that biden is advertising more on tiktok now, trying to get to voters where they are. so and you can go after the platforms where they're going to. you know, at the same time, it's a little bit tricky in terms of how as an incumbent you craft a message of change that's going to resonate with people. he's done this a little bit with populous rhetoric about junk fees. >> that is all in on this wednesday night. alex wagner starts right now. >> tiktok is going to decide the election, is that where we're at? >> i think it's totally possible. >> yeah. >> in a close enough election anything can plausibly be said to decide it.

>> sure, but really the slice of the electorate that biden needs to reach. >> i think that's totally plausible, yes. >> the difference maker, tiktok, that's where we are, 2024. thank you, my friend. today the jurors in donald trump's hush money case began deliberating, and while we have no idea what they will decide, trump himself and his conservative apologists are already setting their expectations. >> what did i say from the beginning of this trial? donald trump cannot get a fair trial in new york city regardless of the outcome. >> to me, should be an acquittal. but i'm not a new york liberal. >> i really hope donald trump gets acquitted. and if he does, it will be a miracle because of how loaded this judge has been from the start. >> mother teresa could not beat these charges. these charges are rigged. the whole thing is rigged. >> trump and his promoters are falsely claiming that the whole

trial was rigged. they are priming their audience for a guilty verdict. but again, nobody knows what this jury will decide. so what should we actually expect to happen here? well, it is common for juries to take days or even weeks to reach a verdict. in this case, trump has been charged with 34 felony counts, and the jurors' verdict on each count, guilty or not guilty, must be unanimous. so this may take a while, or maybe it won't, and trump himself has to stay in the courthouse for however long this thing takes. he won't have to be in the courtroom itself the whole time, but he will have to stay in the building. for most of the rest of this process, the judge, the jury, the prosecution, and donald trump will all be in different rooms. and almost everything the jury does from here on out until we get a verdict is behind closed doors. but there are some tea leaves we can read in the meantime. as the jury deliberates, the jurors may have questions or they may want to refresh their memories about certain pieces of

testimony. when that happen, the jury's foreperson can submit a note to the judge, judge juan merchan. a literal bell is then rung in the courtroom cueing everyone, the prosecutors, the judge, the press, and trump's team, to file back into court a lot like a fire drill. prosecution and defense then have a chance to debate whether they think the jury should be able to see everything the jury is asking for or not before the judge ultimately makes his decision. now, today we heard that bell ring twice. the first time was the jury asking if they could hear four specific moments in the trial transcript and get them read back to them. the jury does not have access to that transcript in their deliberation room, so which moments they asked to have read back throughout the course of the deliberations, those are sort of major clues as to what the jury is focussing on. today the jury asked to rehear three pieces of testimony from

former national inquirer ceo david pecker, and one piece of testimony from michael cohen. the requested cohen testimony overlaps with one of the requested pieces of pecker testimony. both are about the august 2015 trump tower meeting in which pecker told trump and cohen that pecker would use the national inquirer to run positive stories about trump and negative stories about trump's opponents. and pivotally in that meeting, pecker told trump and cohen he would be the eyes and ears for trump campaign when it came to finding and suppressing negative stories about donald trump. so this would appear to be a key meeting. during its closing argument, the prosecution said that the value of the corrupt bargain forged at that august 2015 trump tower meeting, the value cannot be overstated. the prosecution claimed the results of this meeting turned out to be one of the most valuable contributions ever made

to the trump campaign. so the jury wants to take another look at that meeting from the perspective of both david pecker and michael cohen. that feels important, and we are going to have some expert help unpacking what it could mean in just a moment. but the second time we heard that bell ring today, the second jury note was equally important. the jury doesn't have a trial transcript in the deliberation room, but it also doesn't have a copy of the jury instructions. i don't know why, we're going to find out about that too. and there are a lot of jury instructions. 55 pages worth. the jury's second note today was asking for those jury instructions to be repeated again. court wrapped for day today before we could learn whether the jury wants the whole 55 pages read back or just a section. but all 55 pages are pretty weedy. particularly the part that may ultimately matter the most, which is whether donald trump committed a felony. at the core of the 34 counts

against trump are 34 misdemeanor counts of altering business records. what makes those 34 misdemeanors become felonies is if they are committed in the service of breaking another law. and the prosecution says that other law that donald trump allegedly broke is new york election law section 17-152. commit that to memory. section 17-152 of new york election law provides that any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto shall be guilty of conspiracy to promote or prevent an election. the key phrase in there is unlawful means. that is the illegal way in which two or more people conspire to mess with an election. the jury instructions continue, although you must conclude unanimously that the defendant, donald trump, conspired to promote or prevent the election

of any person to a public office by unlawful means, you need not be unanimous as to what those unlawful means were. in other words, the way this goes from a series of misdemeanors to a bunch of felonies is if those misdemeanors were made in order to break new york election law. and breaking that new york election law requires another unlawful act, but the jury doesn't have to agree on which act was unlawful, they just have to agree that it occurred. and on that front, the unlawful acts, they got options. in the jury's instructions, the jury's options for that secondary unlawful act are laid out for them as, option one, violations of the federal election campaign act, option two, falsification of other business records, not the 34 misdemeanors, option three, a violation of tax laws. okay, i know, if your eyes are glazing over right now, i'm sorry, but imagine being a juror who has sat in that courtroom for more than five weeks now,

who sat three eight hours of closing arguments yesterday and had more than an hour of instructions read about -- aloud this morning but was not actually given a copy of those instructions. imagine sitting through all of that and then being asked to make sense of it all and decide the guilt or innocence of a former president of the united states. joining me now to decipher all of this are duncan eleven and msnbc legal correspondent lisa rubben. thank you for sitting here patiently as i read a very long script that went over everybody's head, including my own, other than yours. lisa, i have really tried to get to the essence of what the jury needs to focus on to get to the felony charges here. >> uh-huh. >> am i right in focussing on

this notion of the choose your own adventure of unlawful acts that they don't have to agree on but they have to agree happened in some way? >> yes and, right? >> okay. >> because that is necessary but not sufficient. and before they get to the choose your own adventure part, there are some other things that they have to decide where they do have to be unanimous and not just unanimous that it exists but unanimous as to, like, the what and why of it. first they have to find that donald trump caused business records to be falsified. then they have to find, as you found or you already discussed, that when he did that he had an intent to defraud that included an intent to commit or conceal another crime. >> yes. >> the district attorney's office has identified only one crime that that could be, that's new york election law 17-152. which is a conspiracy to promote or prevent somebody's election through unlawful means. and that's where you get to the sort of choose your own adventure part. i would say before you get to

choose your own adventure you have to go through a decision tree first on facts and elements before you get to decide, hey, i think the unlawful means is tax law and duncan thinks it's ami's contribution to donald trump's campaign. >> the reason i focussed on the choose your own adventure part, duncan, is the other one seemed like boxes that are checked or unchecked. like you all agree on, this then you go to step b, you all agree -- and then it's the last part where it's sort of the garden of forking paths. try different things that they could sort of ditz agree on but agree generally happened. i just wonder if this is -- is this a complicated case for a jury? >> no, it's actually a very simple concept that i think a lot of people are confused about because it's not really different than a lot of other cases. you could imagine a murder case, for example, where there are certain elements that have to be met to convict a defendant of murder. but the jurors could differ at the end of the day, was it a bat or a knife or a club, that is a

difference between element of the crime and the means of the crime. the elements have to be unanimous. and they have to be unanimous in this case like every other case. they really are two different parts of it. there's the part that mr. trump caused these false business records and that they have to unanimously agree that it was meant to conceal the commission of this new york state election law statute. that's it. whether it's the stormy daniels payment or the karen mcdougal payment or filing of false business records, the jurors could disagree about that, but that is not an element of the crime. and so it's actually a pretty simple legal concept that seems complicated because there's so many options. that is a gift to the prosecutors here. >> right. >> it is a gift that they don't need to be unanimous on that, but it does make it a little bit more free flowing for the jurors, because they get to pick whatever they want. >> well, i do wonder whether that -- well, will that create more debate in the deliberation

room, who can know? ultimately, you guys are saying as long as they agree on the big contours on the crimes -- >> well, i would say not necessarily, to answer your question. the reason why is there's no special verdict form here. there's not going to be a verdict form, at least as i understand it, that asks you alex and me lisa and you duncan to fill out what you think the unlawful mines are. as long as they all agree that there are unlawful means, nobody is going to poll them to ask which option they chose. they just have to agree there was one and literally check the box as to whether they find him guilty or not. >> they are asking for another read through of the jury instruction, though, duncan, does that signal anything to you, and why don't that it they're get a copy of the instructions? ikea desks come with instruction, why not the jury instructions? >> because why should we make it easy? the jurors only get evidence back there. there's no reason for it. maybe it's something that should be looked at by some legislative body at some point.

but they don't get it back there. and i don't know there's anything that can be read into about that other than the fact that they were really hard to follow. a lot of pages of dense material probably read to them after they're exhausted. they wanted to have them read again to understand what they are. >> i feel seen. yeah, who doesn't want them read again. i do want to talk about the request though, lisa. >> yeah. >> they're requesting the transcript of testimony from pecker and cohen. both of their accounts on this 2015 trump tower meeting. we're just reading the tea leaves here this. could amount to nothing or be significant, but what do you think that interest suggests? >> i think that's about part of the jury instructions. so there's an instruction about accomplice liability. in new york state if i'm an accomplice to a crime with you, you can't be convicted on my testimony alone because we did it together and i might have an interest in saddling you with responsibility. therefore the jury has to find corroborative evidence that

allows them to find that you committed the crime. so in asking for pecker and cohen's accounts, what are they doing, they are looking to corroborate it. similarly, when they're asking for testimony about the call that trump made to him, that's a call where they discussed karen mcdougal coming forward. that's where donald trump says to him, i'm going to think about this, but i'm going to have michael cohen call you. that's after david pecker tells him, i think you should pay this. they're going to want to hear that again, because david testimony is the most corroborating set of facts of any, like, body of evidence in this case. >> you mentioned three of the four they're asking for, duncan, they're also asking for a transcript of david testimony on april 25th. we don't know if this is the exact thing they're going read, but when he describes the moment he tells michael cohen he no longer wants to be reimbursed

for the karen mcdougal payment because his lawyers are like, that's a campaign finance violation. here's pecker, i called michael cohen and said to him that the agreement, the assignment deal is off. i'm not going forward. it's a bad idea, and i want you to rip up the agreement. cohen was very, very angry. very upset. screaming basically at me. michael cohen said the boss is going to be very angry at you. what do you see in there? >> what the d.a.'s office can be happy about is the fact that in their closing argument to the jury, they urged the jurors to go look at david testimony. they said the testimony is so crucially important. remember, he was the first witness that the jurors heard from weeks and weeks ago. go look at that. and there are two through lines to their questioning. one is this way in which michael cohen's testimony corroborates david and fits together like a jigsaw puzzle. the other thing they're asking for that's important is that david testimony puts donald trump right at the center of this conspiracy, both at this meeting -- there are two

principles sitting there. michael cohen's there, but this is a meeting where donald trump is asking, and the gist of what he's asking is what can you do to help my campaign. donald trump is there as a principle. he's there on his phone call to david pecker also. these are instances where donald trump is at the center of this conspiracy, and that's why the d.a.'s office is asking the jurors to focus on that. it corroborates what cohen's saying but also it puts trump at the center of things. they've got to be happy that at least the jurors are asking for this -- exactly what they said they should be focused on. it doesn't guarantee a guilty verdict, but it means the jurors are paying attention to what the d.a.'s office laid out. >> duncan, why don't they get a copy of the transcript? >> the transcript could have errors in it. it's not a final transcript until it's reviewed by the parties. and to the extent there are error, they will not allow it into the jury room because it's

not evidence. the only thing that's evidence is what the witnesses say. >> there's one other important reason. and that's because the transcript includes side bars. >> you could redact the side bars. >> you could, but we've got 4,000 plus pages now. >> microsoft word allows you to correct things and black them out -- i'm just, it's a hot tip for anybody -- i don't know, okay. this is what it is. we're learning as we go. thank you. >> you're a lawyer, you redact now. >> yeah right, tv law school. thank you for your time. coming up, justice samuel alito speaks out about his flag habit saying he will not recuse himself and anyone who suggests he should is motivated by politics. of course they are. but first, he only needed to get the jury reasonable doubt, so why did donald trump's lawyer insist on making extreme maximalist arguments about donald trump's innocence? we're going to discuss that coming up next. going to discuss tha coming up next

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todd blanche, donald trump's main defense lawyer, had one job to do during closing arguments, create reasonable doubt about the government's evidence against the former president. instead eblanche used a sizable chunk of his nearly three-hour closing argument to go well beyond that mandate.

he denied that trump ever had sex with stormy daniels. he insisted there was nothing criminal about catch and kill practices designed to benefit a campaign, arguing many politicians work with the media to try to promote their image and that it's done all the time. and blanche told the jury that his client is innocent, that donald trump did not commit any crimes. all of which were pretty remarkable statements from someone who didn't actually need to make them. back with me now, lisa rubin, i'm also joined by christy greenburg. thank you both for being here. christy, why -- i mean, i'm sure you have thoughts, but these grandiose statements about trump's innocence, the fact that access hollywood was no big deal, catch and kill was a common practice, you know, that trump didn't have sex with stormy daniels, he didn't actually need to do that far out on a limb. do you think it was a mistake? >> yes. i think that, again, you want to

preserve your credibility with the jury. and so you want to have a targeted approach. and the approach in this case is attack michael cohen's credibility. and make it clear that so much of this depends on michael cohen. go through, there should have been a slide in the powerpoint, here are the conversations and calls that happened with michael cohen and donald trump so. you have to rely on just michael cohen's word for all of these pieces of xefd focus the jury. instead, it was, you know, you're throwing spaghetti against the wall because there are bits and pieces of a lot of different testimony you should take. so you know, hope hicks, you can believe her on some things, but don't believe her when she says it was a crisis of the campaign for the access hollywood tape to have upset donald trump. like that was like why? don't do it, it doesn't get you anywhere. you know, even, you know, the stormy daniels, like all of a sudden we were hearing about a conspiracy with gina rodriguez and dylan howard, and people

that the jury has not -- >> is not familiar with. >> because they haven't testified. they're all of a sudden trying to extort donald trump, it's like we're going so far afield. not everybody is lying, focus on the one person you need to be lying to make your case. and it just, again, you just kind of lose -- i think you lose the story, any kind of a narrative, and the focus on reasonable doubt, because i think a lot of us think david pecker was pretty believe eable, hope hicks was pretty believable. when you start attacking everybody, it feels very unfocused. >> not only attacking everybody and a lot of things but not taking on the probably the most damning two pieces of evidence, exhibits 35 and 36, can we pull it up, the account statement from michael cohen's first republic bank account for essential consultants that he opens efectively to receive and pay out the stormy daniels money. literally with the notations on the margins from allen weisselberg talking about the sum of money grossed up for

taxes, cohen's handwriting plus $50,000. the math, the payments are all there. and they did not have any explanation for this, lisa. >> they didn't. and they have testimony from cohen, this is my handwriting. they had testimony from two employees at the trump organization saying that clearly is allen weisselberg's handwriting. and it's not just notes on a random piece of paper, that's the first republic bank statement that shows the wire transfer to stormy daniels of $130,000. now, the second piece of that smoking gun evidence is jeff mcconney's notes, allen weisselberg's direct report. >> the trump organization's stationary. >> again, on trump organization stationary, and very clear handwriting delineating what the repayment scheme was going to be. and they had not only no answer for it, they acted as if they didn't exist. >> yeah. >> the very documents that josh steinglass told the jury were the two smoking guns in the case, as todd blanche was concerned, they just never saw them. they didn't happen. it was like two different cases

you were watching unfold before your eyes. >> and you know, they went on and on, christy, about how michael cohen would -- these -- this retainer agreement was absolutely for legal services because would michael cohen have done anything for free at the same time that they were contending michael cohen paid stormy daniels out of his own sort of pocket because he just loved donald trump and wanted to stay in his good graces. >> right. it makes no sense whatsoever. and you know, i think way to deal with some of that would have been, like, you know, just to argue, yeah, donald trump didn't see it. because the only way those documents came before donald trump that was michael cohen's testimony that allen weisselberg and michael cohen showed those documents to donald trump. just say it didn't -- no, they didn't. >> right. >> and focus on that piece. and instead, but like you never got there. because again, it was so unfocused. >> well, they were always trying to go back to trump's overall innocence in this, right? so it's like litigating the notion of stormy daniels and

michael cohen. they never just sort of let the spleeping dogs lie to focus on trump's role in all of this. you mentioned dave pecker. you know, pecker -- the jury is asking for, you know, testimony from dave pecker, and i wonder what that signals to you. >> it's a good day for the prosecutors is what it signals to me. >> you think. >> so joshua steinglass in his closing said -- i just checked my notes -- like multiple times about each of these pieces of evidence, he said for the trump tower meeting, this is really the prism through which you should analyze the evidence in this case. >> mm-hmm. >> and they asked for testimony about it. with respect to the call that they asked about in june 2016 between pecker and trump, again, we're focussing on trump's role. with all the evidence of documents in this case, it's easy to lose sight of the significance of this phone call. >> yes. >> and he walks them through why it's so significant, right? because this is donald trump directly talking about paying

off, you know, karen mcdougal and deputizing michael cohen as the person that he should deal with after that. so -- >> it's the rosetta stone for the conspiracy. >> yes. and even the mcdougal life rights, in the closing steinglass says this payment to mcdealal from ami for $125,000, that is an illegal campaign contribution. full stop, period. and -- because a corporation cannot make a contribution to a candidate. and so you have your election fraud, you get there. you get not only the agreement to promote a candidate, you get the unlawful means with a federal -- illegal, federal campaign contribution so. whoever -- you don't know that all of the jurors are convinced, but somebody in that jury was paying attention and focused on the evidence that joshua steinglass told them to. >> someone was listening. okay, all right. we're not going to read too much into it, but we're going to read

a lot into it. lisa rubin and kristy greenberg, thanks for making the time today. i appreciate it. still ahead tonight, have you heard of a vixiliphile? it's someone who loves flag, someone who collects them and displays them and studies their meaning. that is pretty much how justice samuel alito described his wife today in letters to congress explaining why the insurrectionist flags flown at his house were no big deal and no do not warrant his recusal in any january 6th cases. that story is next. y january 6th cases. that story is next

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here's what judge samuel alito had to say during his 2006 supreme court confirmation hearings on the issue of judicial ethics. >> i not only complied with the ethical rules that are binding on federal judges, and they're very strict, but also that i did what i've tried to do throughout my career as a judge, and that is to go beyond the letter of the ethics rules and to avoid any situation where there might be an et ecal question raised. >> i don't just comply with ethics rules, i go above and beyond. if you look closely at that video, you can see the woman

sitting behind samuel alito in an aqua marine top with a ruffle. she's 18 years later at the center of justice alito's current ethics scandal. the "new york times" broke the story that the alitos had an upside down american flag a symbol of the january 6th insurrection, flying over their home in the days after january 6th. justice alito responded by pointing the finger at his wife, martha anne, saying she flew the flag as part of a dispute with neighbors. then "the new york times" found another flag flying at his vacation home. alito did not immediately offer an explanation. now today justice alito has broken his silence on that second flag once again pointing to his wife and declaring that he will not recuse himself from any january 6th-related cases. in two letters to democrats in congress, justice alito writes, my wife is fond of flying flags. i am not. a reasonable person who is not motivated by political or eid

logical considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of supreme court cases would conclude that this i event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal. it should be noted here that many reasonable people, including ethics experts and a sitting federal judge, have said that, indeed, it does meet the standard for recusal. but anyway, alito's defiance comes as we are learning new details about the first insurrectionist flag incident. the times reports that after january 6th a woman in her 30s who lived with her mother and boyfriend near alitos put up signs that read trump subpoena a fascist and you are complicit. not long after, the woman's mother took the signs down, fearing they would attract unwanted attention. then on the day president biden was inaugurated, the couple drove by the alitos home, where they say martha anne alito was standing outside. here's what "the new york times" says happened next. miss alito ran toward their car

and yelled something they did not understand. the couple continued driving, they said, and as they passed the alito home again to exit the cul-de-sac, miss alito appeared to spit toward their vehicle. the next month the conflict reignited. quoting from the times again, the woman and her boyfriend were pulling in trash bins when the alito, who seemed to be on a stroll, appeared. mrs. alito addressed the pair by name, used an expletive, and called them fascists, the couple told the times and said in texts at the time. justice alito remained silent, they added. the alitos began to walk away. that was when the woman snapped, she said. she does not remember her precise words but recalls something like how dare you behave this way, you've been harassing us over signs. you represent the highest court in the land, shame on you. the woman then called martha anne alito an expletive i cannot say on television, and the younger couple later reported

the incident to the police. so justice alito's wife standing alongside the justice was publicly berating neighbors over political disagreements over donald trump and january 6th. and then she flew insurrectionist flags over justice alito's house without his objection. and justice alee eto now says whatever, my wife loves flags, no need for me to recuse myself from the two major cases i'm hearing about january 6th and donald trump. today republicans celebrated justice alito's refusal to recuse in this case. donald trump congratulated him on social media for showing the intelligence, courage, and guts not to recuse himself. in just a second i'll talk to mark joseph stern about what all of this means for the future of the court. that's next. r the future o the court. that's next.

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earlier this month "the new york times" was the first to report that in january 2021 an inverted american flag was flown at justice am yule alito's home, but "the washington post" was the first to learn about the appearance of that stop the steal symbol back in 2021, three years prior to the times report. the post says it chose not to report on it because the flag raising appeared to be the work of martha anne alito rather than the justice. but the post also notes that in 2021 when their reporter visited the alitos to ask about the

flag, mrs. alito yelled, it's an international signal of distress. justice alito then intervened and directed his wife into a car parked in their driveway. the justice denied the flag was hung upside down as a political protest, saying it stemmed from a neighborhood dispute. martha-ann alito ethen got out of the car and shouted in an apparent reference to the neighbors, ask them what they did. after getting back in the car, she exited again and then brought out from their residence a novelty flag, the type that would typically decorate a garden. she hoisted it up the flagpole. there, is that better, she yelled. joining me now is mark joseph stern, slate magazine senior writer covering the courts and the law. mark, thank you for being here. what strikes me in all of these anecdote is the fact that justice alito is there as his wife is allegedly spitting at neighbors, running novelty flags up, saying specifically that it's a symbol of distress used by insurrectionists. i mean, he knew all of this was unfolding, and he seems acutely aware of the import that the

flag was flying over a house that he owns. he goes out of his way to say that the beach house was not actually owned by him but part of his wife's property. >> yes. and he bristles with hostility towards senate democrats for even asking questions about the insurrectionist flags that hung over his family's property. i think it's remarkable that justice alito has the discovered the one woman in america who deserves a right to privacy and that appears to be his wife. this letter today is an escalation of the conflict. i think justice alito is very much thumbing his nose at congress. he is essentially trolling congress, telling them that this business has really nothing to do with him or any matter of importance because it's just his wife and he has no control over his wife. of course, ignoring what you just noted which is that these are also his properties. now, he claims that he was unable to stop his wife from flying these flags. i think that's questionable.

he's not exactly a pushover. but either way, you know, this is clearly at this stage a matter of public concern and yet he, again, sounds aggrieved that the public cares. he seems to be saying in this letter the real offense here isn't the flags that flew over his house that signified the insurrection and support for january 6th but that anyone would dare to even look into this matter let alone ask for his recue sal because of it. that does not align with what he said during his confirmation hearings, as you showed in a clip. it's not how judges are supposed to comport themselves. >> that tape we played in the last segment introducing this one is so remarkable because not only does he say he respects and complies with ethics but that he goes above and beyond. i wonder if you could talk about the transformation of justice alito from 2006 to the present, in terms of his sense of grievance. >> yeah, so i think a part of it is when he joined the court, he and john roberts were very close. and when john roberts defected

in the first obamacare case, it seems like that broke something in alito, and alito started drifting right towards the clarence thomas wing of the court and started to view, i think, progressives and democrats really as an enemy of the people, you might say. started to vote party line and seeming to relish sort of owning the libs. that's come through more and more under trump. he is very much a maga justice. it might drive away the less extreme conservative, but i think it's a humiliation for the supreme court. i think there's a reason john roberts is staying silent despite senate democrats begging him to meet with them, because he's embarrassed as well. alito has become an international symbol of flagrant lawlessness. he's a judge and troll in robe, and he seems to relish every opportunity he can to stick it to democrats. again, not how you build confidence in a supreme court

that relies exclusively on support from the people and faith in its abilities to have any power, wield any authority at all. >> i mean, you -- okay, let's talk about roberts, speaking of humiliations, we haven't heard from him, as you note. will we? i mean, do you have any sense of the dynamics that are unfolding behind the scenes from the chief justice as it concerns other justices on his court? >> my sense is that john roberts has given up here. he's not in control. frankly, he hasn't been since justice ginsburg died. right, he doesn't even have a majority that he can sort of herd toward particular positions, and i think for the last year or so he's been missing in action on the institutional front too. he's no longer the john roberts who would sometimes kind of stand up for the supreme court as a neutral arbiter of balls and strikes, you might say. he's been voting and writing like a rather extreme partisan lately. it's almost as if he's gravitating back toward where alito has been for so many years now. it's really disturbing to witness, because john roberts is

really good at providing the sense that he's the adult in the room, right, even when the supreme court justices are mostly squabbling among each other and embarrassing themselves, john robert, during oral arguments even, is good at stepping in and saying, let's restore order here, act like adults. that guy seems to be gone. i'm not sure if it's because he wants to sort of circle the wagons around his colleagues because he feels they're unfairly targeted or he's too embarrassed for words to speak up in defense of them. but it does seem like he is completely missing in action. without him at the helm, it's hard to see how the court's not going to steer itself straight into a ship wreck in the final weeks of this term. >> that's where we're at, mark joseph stern, always great to hear from you, my friend. thanks for your time tonight. >> thanks so much, alex. we have one more story coming up, the 2024 democratic ticket made a show no, sir philadelphia today. president biden's outreach to the black voter who is could

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and i'll be if i'm going to let donald trump turn america into a place filled with anger and resentment and hate. folks, america's always been a place where we work toward more perfect union, where those who were excluded in the past are included in the promise of the country today. i still believe ethat. i'm still optimistic. but i need you. so my question to you is simple a simple one, are you with me? >> that was president joe biden earlier today at a campaign rally in philadelphia. it was a rare joint appearance by biden and vice president harris making their pitch to black voters in a must-win battleground state. in 2020, according to exit poll, biden won pennsylvania with 92% of the black vote. recent polling shows that support is now 69% among black pennsylvanians. joining me now is pennsylvania

state representative malcolm, a member of the biden/harris national advisory board and attended today's rally. malcolm, it's great to see you. >> always happy to see you. >> can you talk to me a little bit about this -- i know polls are but a snapshot, but it does seem like the president has lost support in the black community, and i'm wondering if you have any sort of intel on that. is it younger black voters? is it disengaged voters? i mean, where does he need to make up that support? >> listen, this president is doing something really profound. he's not saying to the campaign, let's talk to black voters in october, right, they're just turnout voters. he is doing what i and black leaders have been saying we want to see a president do for a long time is make the case. and the good thing for us is he has a case to make. the vice president talked about medical debt no longer counting toward people trying to get a credit card or purchase that first home or just to destroy their credit rating in the first

place. the president spoke about what he's doing to deal with the cost of student loans but also what he's doing to deal with costs across the board. how he's lowering costs for families, talking about the need to continue to do something about gun violence, and at the end of the day, i do think we're in that phase of the campaign where folks have to every single day be reminded of the stakes. and then you have to have somebody talk about what they've done and what their plans are for the future. and if these are the stakes, lowering costs, making families feel more safe and secure, does anybody in their right mind truly believe donald trump is the guy to do that for black americans. nobody believes that. >> so it seems like it's twofold, one is biden's record here, but it's also pointing to his opponent and he had some words about donald trump, specifically on the issue of race. i want to play a little bit of sound from the rally today. >> according to what happened it was black american who is

stormed the capitol. i don't think he was talking about pardons. this is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested george floyd's murder. >> so talked about trump's record with the central park five, now known as the exonerated five, his past history not wanting to rent his properties to black tenants. >> exactly. >> do you think that people need to be -- i mean, is it -- how critical is it that voters of color be reminded of donald trump's record on race? >> listen, the president in this campaign is going to do what he's always done, lay out the stakes, talk about his vision for the future. but let's not take each and every one of us out of it. this is a decision we have to make. >> yeah. >> and folks have to go home, look around their house and think about the people they love most in the world and ask if they truly believe in their heart that donald trump gives one solitary about anybody there. he doesn't. and so for me watching both of my parents die by the time i was 27 because they didn't have access to healthcare, watching

my mom ration her insulin, i can't imagine what that would have meant for her to be alive and it's 35 bucks or to have seniors have their prescription drugs capped at $2,000 a year. this is not a joke. this is not a game. this is not about who's the most entertaining, this is not about who can be the most absurd. if donald trump said, hey, i want to start a podcast, good on you. but donald trump is president again, hell no, and as the president said, we are not going to let it happen. so people can underestimate black voters, but ultimately, we're going to make a decision for who cares about us. it's why i'm running for auditor general statewide. it's why the president is in this fight, and i'm telling you, we're going to win up and down the ballot for democrats in pennsylvania. and i can't wait for the folks to run this tape and say malcolm, you were right. >>ly replay it for you. >> replay it, please. >> where is the story telling happening? can you talk a little bit about -- the president was, i believe, at girard college today, how does he tell these stories to an audience, in some cases,

disengaged from traditional news media, getting information from tiktok, how does it happen? >> i'm so happy to see the campaign engaging on all of these different, you know, platforms. if you are not following biden hq and the tweets and the clap backs and the receipts that are constantly coming out of that, you know, account, we have to talk to people wherever they are. i know folks were surprised to see philly elmo, but philly elmo is a philadelphia icon, okay, just like in the annals of gritty and all the rest. so for folk who is didn't get it, why is elmo there -- >> if you know, you know. >> if you know, you know, and vice president harris and president biden know. >> we'll play this tape for you and delight in that replay. pennsylvania state representative malcolm that. is our show for this evening. now it is time for the last word with my buddy katie phang in for lawrence. katie, i haven't seen you yesterday since we were sweating it out