continued to tell the truth. i can prove everything that i've ever said. so i'm not concerned about those things he might say. >> yeah. >> i'm concerned of him saying something that will make his followers come after me more. >> has that changed over time, the character of the way people have come after you, the kind of language? how has it changed over time? >> the biggest thing is they're not hiding. they used to all be bots. they're using their real stuff. there's facebook threads from people in my own community planning to do things to my house and my family. >> you can catch the entire full interview tonight at 9 p.m. eastern right here on msnbc. that does it for me, though. "the reidout" with joy reid is up next. reid is up next. tonight on "the reidout" -- >> if someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful

person in the world, with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes, i'm trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the oval office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country. >> the people's justice. justice ketanji brown jackson was right. the six conservative justices have given donald trump carte blanche to unleash his worst instincts if he returns to the white house with no consequences whatsoever. in one of the most radical court rulings in our nation's history. plus the systematic dismantling of the 20th century by this court that does not believe that the constitution is a living document and is dead set on returning us to the 19th century, when they believe america was great.

also tonight, the threats ahead from republicans and the court as we mark exactly 60 years since president lyndon johnson signed the civil rights act of 1964. and we begin tonight with reality, which is sinking in in a really big way. in the past week since the debate we've been treated to a flood of newspaper op-eds led by the "new york times" of course telling joe biden what to do, pundits telling him what to do, democrats hand wringing behind the scenes and leaking the hand wringing to politico and the "times" so donors can tell joe biden what to do. and dr. jill biden and apparently even hunter telling him what to do. so let me tell you what this show is going to do. we are going to pay all of that the same amount of attention, the same amount of attention will go to that debate as republican lawmakers and conservative media paid to the insurrection and the 34-count

felony donald trump was convicted of and the $500 million penalty he owes the state of new york for bilking taxpayers and insurance companies and the jury finding that he sexually abused e. jean carroll in a bergdorf goodman's dressing room in the '90s and then defamed her. we will give it exactly that same energy. because while i will never gaslight you i'm not going to be out here saying you didn't see wlau saw last thursday on that debate stage. you saw it, i saw it everybody who frantically texted me saw it, and there are plenty of places you can go to to hear about whether and how the democratic candidate, not the criminal candidate, should step aside. y'all democrats handle that. figure it out and let me know. because what i know is that donald j. trump cannot be allowed back into the white house. full stop. period. because donald trump is a dangerous, felonious wannabe autocrat who is vowing to release hundreds of violent insurrectionists from prison by pardoning them, to open internment camps on u.s. soil and round up millions of undocumented migrants to put there.

and sic the justice department on his declared enemies. he has called for the execution of people he doesn't like including former joint chiefs chairman mark milley. he has admitted he wants to be a dictator like his favorite dictators vladimir putin, china's xi jinping and the dictator of north korea kim jong un, and please spare me the on day one bit. they all vow to be only a dictator on day one. second, project 2025 cannot be allowed to be implemented in the united states. it is straight up fascism, which would unleash the u.s. military on american citizens like an official death squad, turn the federal government into the equivalent of the chinese parliament or the russian duma where you have to take a personal oath to the official party and to the president to keep your job. it would unleash a national abortion ban, using federal agencies to end access to everything from contraceptives to ivf to books and more. it means turning this country literally into gilead from "a handmaid's tale," except with

tariff-induced 100% inflation. and if you are to combine a trump autocracy, a fully why christian nationalist republican party in control of both houses of congress, and the current supreme court majority, well, katie, bar the door and unleash the devil because we would be finished as a democracy. because on monday, days before this country celebrates its independence from the british king, the leonard leo six supreme court majority in a ruling written by chief justice john roberts ruled as follows. "under our constitutional structure of separated powers the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. there is no immunity for unofficial acts." in regular people terms the court has said that donald trump

is absolutely immune from prosecution from any act he took as president including ordering the justice department to draw up fake voter fraud allegations in order to help him steal the election that he lost. they ordered the lower courts to review whether trump sending a mob to intimidate mike pence into accepting fake electors instead of the real ones and trump pressuring states to send fake electors to get pence to go along with the scheme is part of a president's official acts, as if that is even possible. but the bottom line of their ruling is as bad or worse than the worst case scenario that anyone except those of us who have figured out this court's utter depravity anticipated when justice sotomayor asked trump's lawyer this question. >> if the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to

assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity? >> it would depend on the hypothetical. we can see that could well be an official act. >> according to roberts be, yeah, he could use seal team 6 to kill an opponent. as long as he did it officially. there were a number of tells in this ruling that should make you think a lot about project 2025. roberts called repeatedly in his ruling for a president to be free to take bold and unhesitating action without fear of prosecution even if said bold action includes brazenly breaking the law. when trump says he'd like to order the justice department to prosecute the biden family and anyone else for made-up crimes, john roberts offers this. on page 28. "the executive branch has exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide which crimes to investigate and to prosecute including with respect to allegations of election crime." and if that political prosecution is a sham? okay. let's go to page 29.

"the indictments, allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the president of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the justice department and its officials." want to implement the project 2025 plan to fire 50,000 federal employees who failed to take the loyalty oath? okay. let's go to page 28. the president's management of the executive branch requires him to have unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates such as the attorney general in their most important duties. i mean, you have to be bold and decisive to implement the right-wing agenda. am i right? unsurprisingly, the three liberal justices dissented with the principal dissent written by justice sonia sotomayor, who ripped the white sheet off the majority's argument writing, "the president of the united states is the most powerful person in the country and

possibly the world. when he uses his official power in any way, under the majority's reasoning he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. orders the navy seal team 6 to assassinate a political rival? immune. organizes a military coup to hold on to power? immune. takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? immune. immune, immune, immune." and she closes her scathing dissent this way. "never in the history of our republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. moving forward, however, all former presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. if the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide by will not provide a backstop. with fear for our democracy, i dissent." but it is the separate dissent

written by justice ketanji brown jackson that reveals the real scheme here. quoting from her dissent, "with the adoption of a paradigm that sometimes exempts the president from the dictates of the law when the court says so, this court has effectively snatched from the legislature the authority to bind the president or not to congress's mandates, and it has also thereby substantially augmented the power of both the office of the presidency and itself. who will be responsible for drawing the crucial line between the president's personal and official affairs? to ask the question is to know the answer. a majority of this court, applying an indeterminate test will pick and choose which laws apply to which presidents by labeling his various allegedly criminal acts as core, official, or man festally or palpably beyond the president's authority." in other words, to put it in "game of thrones" terms, america now has a king and six hands of

the king. happy f-ing independence day. joining me now is michael steele, former rnc chair and co-host of the msnbc -- of msnbc's "the weekend." melissa murray, nyu law professor and msnbc legal analyst. and dean obeidallah, msnbc columnist and host of the dean obeidallah show on xm. i know dean is a lawyer. people forget you're a comedian and a lawyer but i know you're a lawyer too. i'm going to go right down the middle to melissa get your raw unvarnished reaction to what the court has done. >> i thought justice jackson's dissent, joy, was spot on. this is a court that has air gated power to itself over and over and over again during this term. all you have to do is look to just the week before this immunity decision when the court overruled chevron on the view that allowing the executive to regulate through administrative agencies would essentially make the executive a king. but they don't seem to mind king-making when it comes in the posture of presidential authority to abuse the office.

and so we have these inconsistent rulings. you cannot regulate smog emissions but you cannot order seal team 6 to assassinate a political rival. and this defies the separation of powers by consolidating authority not just in the president but also in the court and taking it away from congress, the branch of government that is perhaps closest to the people themselves. >> you know, michael steele, you grew up in the republican party and there's been this originalist strain that has, you know, organized the party for a really long time. the idea that the constitution is not living, it is dead, and that you only essentially have the rights that you had when thomas jefferson was alive and nothing more. and that to go back to that is the only way to really appreciate the constitution. but now we have justices who have invented something new. something i don't think the framers intended. to say that the framers according to them intended for the president to have king-like powers, the powers of king

george, are now essentially in the hands of the american president. how ironic is that for originalists to be also monarchists? >> well, it's not ironic. it's bull. i mean, it's fundamentally incoherent and inconsistent with the founders. go back and look at the founding documents. look at the continental congress. look how they organized themselves. the principles that they laid down. look at just the debate in setting up the presidency. there were those colonists and those who argued for george washington to be a king, to be a prime minister. and george washington himself basically just to put it in street terms said hell, no, that's not what this is about, we just left that from over there. and the founders organized themselves around this idea of a government of, by, and for people in which we were the central players.

not the presidency. this was not a government organized for the presidency or by the presidency. and so what you have now is the supreme court completely distorting history to make a political point, to give political party to an abject failure of a politician. and so the reality for us now is what do we do here, joy? what do we as citizens do? this is our 1776 moment in ways that i don't think a lot of us realize. we have to reaffirm those principles that the founders left england over. that they felt were important enough to give up their families and their livelihoods to seek out a new land. and we cannot allow this imperialist court to decide that one person is above all the laws of this land, that all he has to do is sit anywhere -- anywhere in the world and say this is an

official act, i deem this as an official moment, and execute a policy or a whim that harms others, that impinges our freedoms, that takes away the privileges that we have under the constitution, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it? and it's going to go to that court who will then decide you know what, actually, he can and there's nothing you can do about it. really? so you put this in the context of the election that's in front of us. i don't give a damn how old joe biden is. what i give a damn about is the guy he's running against. because that's the threat. the age of the president is not the threat. the intent of the one who wants to be president is our problem. >> dean obeidallah, and you can feel free to throw your lawyer hat if you want to throw it on as well but i'm going to take advantage of the fact you that talk to folks all day on your show on sirius xm. so i am really curious to know

if the regular folks are getting it. if they're picking up on it. because the reality is john roberts and company did this knowing no democratic president would use these powers in the way donald trump will. you know, it's not joe biden who would set up shop on the white house lawn and start selling pardons for $400,000 a pop. trump would. and require alms to donald trump in order to get a pardon. he'd do all that stuff. and maybe use seal team 6 to go and pick up the biden family. biden's not going to use seal team 6 to go and assassinate joe biden even though apparently according to john roberts he could. what are folks saying on your show in response to this? >> well, it's a range of things, joy. drone strike is one thing that comes up a lot. i think that's in jest but people still say that the idea of using the unlimited powers. the other, i'll tell you this, i've never heard more anger or animation from my callers these two nights since the supreme court decision than before. people are angry. they're not despondent. they are angry about this.

and you've got the situation where you've got -- you made a great point. this is like project 2025. the prophecy come to life now, even before winning any kind of election here. and the thing i tell listeners, project 2025 is the gop's version of mein kampf. the difference is mein kampf is 700 pages. project 2025 is 900 pages. we live in the united states of a supreme court that is the greatest law firm for donald trump in the world. it's the law firm of roberts alito and thomas and associates. they delivered a win for him on the january 6th case, maybe even the new york case and the fulton county case at the same time. so my listeners, joy, they're worked up, they're animated they want to go out and scream. they don't want to hear about joe biden dropping out. they want to hear about defeating donald trump. that's all they want to hear. >> the issue right now is the democratic party has to figure out what they're going to do with their nominee but it doesn't matter which person they

pick. they could pick shapiro in pennsylvania, vice president harris. they could pick anybody they want. it doesn't matter. all of those people believe in the rule of law. all of those people believe in democracy. the problem is trump. it could be -- biden could be, you know, biden's brain in a jar. i think a lot of people are like i'll vote for that. because at least biden's brain in a jar still believes in the constitution and doesn't think that he's the king of the united states. donald trump does think he's king and would implement project 2025 and would use these powers to their maximum detriment to the rest of the american people. >> if trump wins we're doing this show in a camp somewhere. that's the reality of the world we live in right now. more you, joy, than me. i'm like on the second tier of people, maybe the third tier of people they're coming for. you're way up there. michael steele, you're gone. the reality is look -- i don't know what we're going to tell people. this election is not trump versus joe biden. it is trump versus democracy. it's trump versus freedom. it's trump versus

self-determination. it's trump versus abortion. it's trump versus women's health care. it's trump versus climate clay. it's trump versus gun violence and saving lives from that. it's trump versus us having a right to decide our future or donald trump and his minions in project 2025, they deciding it. that's the stakes. >> that's the stakes. don't go anywhere. michael, melissa and dean are sticking with me for much more on this staggering supreme court ruling and the impact we're going to have not just on our democracy but on the cases donald trump is facing. we're going to get into that on the other side of the break. we'll be right back. we'll be ri. sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold?

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back with me are michael steele, melissa murray and dean obeidallah. melissa, let's go to you. let's go to the trump legal calendar for just a moment. so the sentencing that was supposed to take place for the new york civil fraud case is now canceled. it was july 11th. the rnc convention begins july 15th. we go to another sentencing day which is now september 18th and then of course election day november 5th. how could this immunity decision

impact these cases? trump has now gone back, his lawyers have said that they want to dismiss the new york case based on it. i could see aileen cannon being like ooh, immunity, let's dismiss that one. what do you think is going to happen next? >> well, joy, you've already seen that this decision has had a real impact on these cases. one of the things the court did that was again truly extraordinary and sweeping, so much so that even amy coney barrett had to pull back from it, was the court said that for those activities or actions that were conclusively or preclusively constitutional within the president's exclusive powers those activities were immunized and they could not be used as evidence to establish actions that could be prosecuted. and so here in the alvin bragg manhattan d.a. trial one of the issues is that there are actions that were undertaken while trump was president, signing the checks in the oval office, for example, talking to individuals while he was president, that went to establish the payments of hush money. so the trump team is now arguing

that those actions, because they happened while he was president in the official confines of the oval office, they cannot be used, they are immunized, they cannot be used to establish the payments of the hush money, which is a prosecutable action. i don't know that this is going to work out. i don't think that it's going to be a winning argument. but it is a successful argument in that it is delaying the sentence. and so here you are. it's going to be a long time before we even get to the sentence. with regard to judge cannon, no one in the media was really talking about this yesterday. but justice clarence thomas filed his own separate concurrence indicating per usual that he would go further, which is to say that he agreed with the court's sweeping grant of presidential immunity, essentially making the president a king, but he would also go farther to find the appointment of a special counsel unconstitutional. that was the very same issue that judge cannon a few weeks ago in her fort pierce, florida courtroom was trying to litigate, having people discuss a kind of quasi-oral argument on this case. that is an issue that has been

asked and answered by the supreme court before in the united states versus nixon as well as in subsequent cases. so in addition to granting the president the powers of the king this court seems to have sub rosa implicitly overruled united states versus nixon as well. and so again, i cannot emphasize how sweeping this ruling is. by its delay this court immunized donald trump from liability for january 6th. but they have also through this decision laid the foundation for a future trump presidency that is nothing but nonstop criming. >> and of course michael steele republicans in congress who maybe didn't notice that their power was eviscerated by this court. they were made like the third wheel in our government because it's the king and his imperial supreme court. but they're all crowing. i could go through them. mike johnson, barrasso, of course lindsey graham sucking up, j.d. vance sucking up,

stephen miller freaking out and doing his creepy thing. they're all just crowing. a victory for democracy, the rule of law, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. what is it they think that they get out of donald trump becoming king? because they wouldn't be king. >> bad boy bad boy what you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come for you? because that's the reality for these republicans. they think they are high and mighty. step a half a centimeter to the left or the right or the wrong side of donald trump and see what the hell happens to you. see how quickly he forgets how hard you sucked on that butt cheek. because that's what it is. and it's amazingly offensive. it is a disregard for their constitutional role, their congressional role, their federal role, and they're just applauding it. so applaud away. i mean, what else can we say at this point? i mean, complicity is just -- it's like drinking water.

so okay. live with that. because it will come back to bite. and you're going to act as congress one day when you have a majority sometime in the fup, you're going to act as congress and you're going to declare something and want something and you've already laid the sea bed for the supreme court or a president like trump to tell you, no, you have no power here. you have no authority here. so it's frustrating, but at this point, joy, the only thing we can do is focus on our election. we cannot give -- we cannot get any place else but there. because that's the ultimate correction beginning of this, is the ballot box. before they take that away. >> and dean, that is the answer because it's about putting in people who actually will jealously guard their power the way congress is supposed to, who will rein in this supreme court, who will stack and pack this supreme court if they have to and do whatever it takes and not

let donald trump, a guy who says that palestinian is a slur, become the king. the guy who's told jewish americans that the only way they will survive in america is if they -- and in israel, so he puts them all together and says if they bow down to christian nationalism is their only hope. that guy would be the king. >> yep. and the guy who talked about black jobs and islamic jobs. that's the world we live in. here's the thing. to help win this election i really hope president biden leans into the supreme court. he can call it whatever he wants. it polls really well. over 70% of americans want reform. including term limits. you know, 60% want an even supreme court. a new a.p. poll. 60%. that can appeal to biden. you're not packing. you're balancing. that's what you're doing. that would appeal to fellow americans across the board. having an even supreme court, having a few seats and even one where republicans and democrats agree on it. bring ethics to the supreme court. but you know the thing you mentioned earlier about callers to my show, this is animating

them. you want to unite the democratic party behind president biden, you want to animate them, show you're a leader, lean into supreme court reform. you can define it any way you want but we know what it means. we've got to bring the court back from this partisan hackery that is masquerading as the supreme court. >> amen. and you can just do it, joe biden. you're the king. and we're about to supposedly celebrate independence from the king, but you're the king. very quickly, michael steele. >> joy, real quick, just i was talking to a maga head recently who was bragging about all the recent events since thursday and he made one important note that he thought i didn't catch. under this project 2025 and what's going forward look for the next trump administration to add four seats to the supreme court. >> they'll do it. oh, they'll do it. so biden, do it. you're the king. >> it will be a 10-3 court. >> there you go. and they will keep -- and it will be for the rest of our lives. and dean obeidallah, thank you, my friends, very much. up next how this leonard leo-appointed court has single-handedly dismantled

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july 1st, 2024 will be remembered as the day the six conservative supreme court justices pushed american democracy off a cliff. declaring that america does indeed have a king, the president, and fundamentally altering the trajectory of our

systems of justice and governance forever. it is exactly what the leonard leo six were put on the court to do. in roughly five years, a stunningly short span of time, the leo six have unraveled the social transformations brought about in the '50s and '60s by the court under chief justice earl warren and by extension the subsequent court under chief justice warren burger that gave us roe v. wade. nominated by president eisenhower, chief justice warren, the former governor of california, saw that america was changing and he recognized that the constitution, which he saw as a living document, could help bend the arc of the moral universe toward justice. warren's court unanimously found that segregation was unconstitutional. his court also pushed back on voter discrimination. in two key redistricting cases that expanded voters' rights the court ensured fair representation and restrained gerrymander gerrymandering. the warren court also expanded protections for defendants with an unjust criminal justice

system. equality was the centerpiece of the court, which transformed america in the 20th century, bringing us closer to that mythical perfect union. the legacy of the warren court is a gift to women and people of color. but it is an abomination to conservative jurists like clarence thomas, who in the height of self-loathing just last month essentially said the warren court made a mistake in ruling that segregation is unconstitutional. also to samuel alito, who once wrote that he particularly disliked warren court decisions in the areas of criminal procedure, the establishment clause, and reapportionment. the leonard leo six are the physical embodiment of what they call the originalist movement, which is an open assault on earl warren's idea of a living constitution. to the originalists the constitution is not living, it's dead, and americans have no rights that the founders themselves have not given them. this is the philosophy of the federalist society, which has been grooming these judges for

nearly 50 years, and their bet has finally paid off because what the leonard leo six and their wealthy benefactors have dreamed of doing is dragging us back to a time in america when blacks, asians, list panics, women, gays, lesbians, queer and transgender people were separate and unequal. women had no constitutional right to bodily autonomy. machine rights have more rights than the victims they kill. public funds can be used to pay for conservative christian education. the homeless can be arrested for sleeping outside. affirmative action is racist against white people. the federal government can't regulate plus, public health, workplace safety and consumer protections. public officials can accept bribes as long as they get the money afterwards. corporations are people who can sue the federal government whenever they feel too burdened by regulations. students can't have their loans forgiven but businesses can under ppp. and since racism no longer exists apparently we don't need the voting rights act. last but certainly not least, the president of the united states can use his powers as

commander in chief to have his political opponents killed. that was the final sledgehammer blow to the american democratic experiment. the constitution is dead. long live the constitution. god help us all. but for the leonard leo six i guess it's now god save the king. joining me now is nick ackerman, former watergate assistant special prosecutor and former assistant u.s. attorney for the southern district of new york. nick, my friend, i want to play for you a piece of video that will be familiar to you. this is richard nixon talking about what a president can do. >> so in a sense what you're saying is that there are certain situations where the president can decide that it's in the best interests of the nation or something and do something illegal? >> well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal. >> nick akerman, had he known, nick akerman, that he had absolute immunity from prosecution, do you think richard nixon would have ever accepted that pardon from gerald

ford? >> he wouldn't have had to have accepted the pardon because he would not have left office. keep in mind that what forced him to leave office was the smoking gun tape that came out at the end from the supreme court's order where richard nixon is overheard directing one of his aides to call the cia to get the fbi off the watergate investigation. well, that would be an official act under john roberts' opinion. that would not be prosecutable. in fact, if richard nixon knew about that, he didn't have to have his aide do it, he didn't have to set up a ruse to have the cia think that -- have the fbi think the cia was somehow involved in this whole thing. he could have just picked up the phone, called the fbi and said stop the investigation. and that would have been perfectly fine for john roberts.

and richard nixon would have just continued on and finished off his term. >> and more than that. he could have had the fbi arrest anyone in congress who wanted to impeach him or threatened to impeach him, declared them a national security threat and have the united states military assassinate them when they were on a foreign trip. i mean, what john roberts has essentially said is nixon was king and just didn't know it. >> well, he even went one step further. with daniel ellsberg, who was the person who released the pentagon papers, he had his plumbers break into his psychiatrist's office. and again, the defense was it was national security. which under john roberts' rules would mean there's nothing wrong with that. but the evidence showed and the motive showed, which we cannot get into under john roberts' rules, is that the whole purpose of that break-in was to paint

ellsberg black and to make him look really bad and destroy him in the public image. that was the purpose of it. the memos that we used to prove that case went to the motive, which cannot be done anymore. and if richard nixon came in and said oh, this was for national security, end of story, nobody's charged, nobody goes to prison. >> nixon admitted everything. in accepting the pardon he said i've been informed that president ford has granted me a full and absolute pardon for any charges that might be brought against me for actions taken during the time i was president of the united states. that is key. because he understood that he committed crimes while he was president. and then he said i know that many fair-minded people believe that my motivations and actions in the watergate affair like you said und jer john roberts you can't talk about motivation, were intentionally self-serving and illegal. i now understand my own mistakes and misjudgments have contributed to that belief and seem to support the burden is the heaviest one of all i have to bear. he understood what he did was illegal. he did it while he was

president. he was intentionally self-serving. and john roberts would have said all of that is off the table, nixon would have been cleared to remain in office. it's stunning. >> absolutely right. it's stunning. in fact, i mean, just to compare the supreme court back in 1974 when they ordered nixon to produce his tapes and the supreme court today, there is absolutely a completely different vibe. the vibe you got back in 1974 was that you had a supreme court, four members of which were appointed by richard nixon, and they told him he had to produce those tapes. now you've got a supreme court with three members that were nominated by donald trump and what have they done? they've basically covered for this guy. they dragged this out as long as they could. they refused the special counsel's request to take this up immediately back in december so this case could go to trial. they basically have contributed

to the delay here. and they have come up with this crazy opinion of which you've got two members of that court that should have been recused, one who was flying the flag approving of the january 6th insurrection and the other whose wife was involved in the january 6th insurrection. back then in that supreme court that whole issue about the tapes was decided in the course of seven months. it was expeditious. they avoided having to go to the d.c. circuit. and then on top of it none of the members of that court had their wives breaking into the watergate complex or any of them involved with the nixon white house. i mean, they -- >> it is stunning. >> totally aboveboard. totally. >> yeah. and what we have now is that the insurrectionists were not just the people breaking in and taking an s-h in the capital. it's also members of the united states supreme court. they're part of the

insurrection. the insurrection is ongoing. nick akerman, thank you very much. and happy independence day, those of you who care about us not having a king. we've got to find a new one apparently. thank you, nick. coming up it's been exactly 60 years since lbj signed the civil rights act, and the future of those rights is now in question. . oh, my leaffilter? i just scheduled an appointment online and the inspection was a breeze. they explained everything. leaffilter's technology protects your gutters for good! now my home is protected. call 833 leaffilter or visit leaffilter.com

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60 years ago today america took a step toward equality and justice. president lyndon johnson signed

the civil rights act of 1964, outlawing racial segregation and banning discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, gender or national origin. the law did what the supreme court couldn't ten years earlier, enforce its landmark 1954 brown v. board of education ruling. for a decade the south just ignored the ruling. it was only through the civil rights act that the federal government gained the power to do things like sue non-compliant states or withhold funding from schools refusing to integrate. it also paved the way for a law a year later that enforced the 15th amendment, 100 years after it was ratified. the voting rights act of 1965. since eviscerated by john roberts and the right-wing majority of the present-day supreme court. if donald trump is elected, expect the civilpresent days court. project 2025 has plans to shut down the u.s. department of education and, quote, safeguard civil rights by rejecting gender ideology and critical race theory.

joining me now is bishop william barber, director of the yale center for public theology and public policy. cochair of the poor people's campaign and author of white poverty, how exposing myths about race and class can deconstruct american democracy. good to see you. we are talking a lot about the supreme court today, but i wanted you to come on to reflect about the fact that it took congress to enforce the 15th amendment and the civil rights act, the brown v board decision with the civil rights act. >> it only happened 60 years ago and the question is, with the ruling yesterday by the supreme court, could the president ignore all of it? we talk about ignoring labor laws. we talk about ignoring laws that protect people based on sex and national origin and unequal application of voting requirements and segregation in schools and labor laws. originally they wanted the march on washington, which was

about this act, wanted living wages as part of it and housing discrimination. some of those things were added and we have the fair housing law, but could some of these things be undone? this is serious business and what people need to be thinking about. 60 years ago we are seeing a retraction and regression rather than progression. >> you did a march on washington over the weekend and one of the things you said that a lot of people are sharing on social media is you said i may not walk so good, but i know how to walk toward justice. and probably messing up your words, but people are focusing on a lot of things that are not relevant. we are at a moment where democracy could end and all of the progress in the great century, the 20th century, would be erased. >> all of it, progress for years. as you said it took 100 years for the 15th amendment. this court is worse than the court of the 1850s that

produced the dred scott decision. it is becoming worse than the 1896 court that said separate but equal was constitutional and remember it took a movement. it did not just happen, it took a movement. this is also the 60th anniversary of the freedom summer, so it took a movement and people better recognize this time it is not about the personality. it is not about the superficial things. if we dealt with superficial we would've never got franklin delano roosevelt or kennedy or abraham lincoln or many of the profits of the bible. what we need to focus on are the issues and we must mobilize this massive swing vote -- thousands of them came on saturday. a massive swing vote of 30 million infrequent voters who can, in fact, in battleground states, if just 10 or 15% of them would become who didn't come last time, they could determine it because remember trump got in office by 47,000 votes.

it was not a massive thing. we must understand on this day when remembering the civil rights act, we are watching the courts go backwards. >> how do we get them to vote? how do we get the people who do not participate to have opted out of the system, to get in and fight for their rights? >> i will tell you what happened on saturday. they were fired up because we did not talk about a candidate, we talked about issues. of candidates would talk about issues, if they would lift up the issues that relate to poor and low-wage people and say if you give me power we will turn back the supreme court, what they are doing. we will pass living wages. we will make sure, healthcare. people want to know, what is your vision of the future, not just what you've done in the past. that is what they are listening for. that is what has to motivate them. we are very plain about what is at stake and that is the only thing that will motivate people.

>> it is not sunday, but bishop william barber, you can get an amen. thank you so much for all that you do. i appreciate you. >> thank you. nk you.

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be sure to stay with msnbc tonight for a special two-hour edition of the rachel maddow show. rachel talks exclusively with stormy daniels and her first u.s. tv interview since

testifying against donald trump. >> when the gag order was in place, did you benefit from that at all? did you worry about it being lifted? >> no, i mean, he's going to say what he's going to say anyway. i'm not afraid about what he could say about me or what he could call me. i'm telling the truth. i'm the only one who has continued to tell the truth. i can prove everything i've ever said, so i'm not concerned about those things he might say. i'm concerned of him saying something that will make his followers come after me more. >> has that changed over time? the character of the way people of gone after you, the language? how has it changed over time? >> the big thing is they are not hiding. now they are using real stuff. there are facebook threads from people in my own community, planning to do things to my house and my family. >> that is tonight at 9:00 p.m.