camaraderie between suni lee and jordan chiles, because she beat her by just a hair. yet tlar so supportive of each other. >> it is great to be in that team and tough to be in the team at the same time. >> that is a very good point. you made another one mr. olympics. thanks, keir. and that is it for me, everyone. "deadline: white house" starts right now. ♪♪ aloha and namaste. it is health care in new york, i'm john heilemann in for nicolle wallace. we have a lot, i'm talking about a lot of news to cover today. out on the campaign trail, two rising democratic stars, josh shapiro and gretchen whitmer holding a rally for vice president kamala harris. we begin today with president joe biden and the united states

supreme court. expecting sometime during our show, the president will unveil a series of proposed reforms to the highest court in the land. in a speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of the civil rights act, at the linden baines johnson library in texas. and he expected to propose term limits, for the justices and a constitutional amendment to curb presidential immunity. it is the backing of vice president harris. who said in a statement, quote, these popular reforms will help to restore confidence in the court, strengthen our democracy and ensure no one is above the law. in short, it is meant to be a prescription for what ailed the united states supreme court which has had one justice, a wife who is actively involved in trying to over turn the 2020 election. another justice whose home flew

a flag that was also flown by members of the mob that stormed the capitol on january 6, 2021, and an endless parade of controversy surrounding gifts such as private jet travel and luxury fishing trips bestowed on the justices by right-wing billionaires. and in a series of decisions, as a result, maybe, over turning decades of legal precedent. of course most consequential roe v. wade. in an op-ed in "the washington post," biden writes, i served as a u.s. senator for 36 years including as chairman and ranking committee member of the judiciary committee and i've over seen more supreme court nominees as vice president and president than anyone living today. i have a greet respect for our institutions and separation of powers. what is happening now is not normal and it undermines the public's confidence in the

court's decisions including personal freedoms. we now stand in the breach. that is why in the threat to democratic institutions, i'm calling there are three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy. while the legislation sadly stands virtually no chance of passing in republican-controlled congress, and it would need 60 votes to overcome the filibuster in the senate, the presidential immunity would have to pass in 38 states, it is not ideal to one on. it is the end result of years and years and years of pent up frustration from democrats about the supreme court, and it marks a profound evolution in the party stance and the president's. washington post reports during the 2020 presidential race biden rebuffed calls from liberals who advocated for expanding the court but promised to create a commission to study the changes and he followed through an the commission issued a 294-page report to the president.

before monday, biden had not acted on the commission's report since it was approved in december of 2021. that is where we start with the executive director of fix the court gabe roth, and former senator of how to win 2024 podcast claire mccaskill, and with me here at this table, political scholar and professor at princeton university eddie glaude. claire, would you like to start with you. you've seen as everyone else, i was just talking about the evolution that has gone in terms of how the country thinks about the court and today at least how president biden thinks about the court. tell me from a 30,000 foot level of someone who once served in the upper chamber, what do you think the consequences of this will be mostly political rather than substantive. but what did it mean the party and the president moved this way. >> well, i think it is really important that the president put this marker down.

yes, you're right, the chances of this becoming enshrined in our constitution any time soon are not great. but, it is the right thing to do. and there is no question that the court is in a crisis that people do not trust them, the ethical lapses have been huge, and notable and most americans realize it is not right that these guys could take all of this free stuff where everybody else in government has to be very transparent and can't do those kind of things. i think term limits have always been popular with most voters, no matter who they are for. so i think this will be popular. i think it is a good thing for the democrats to run on and especially the issue of whether or not a president can do anything they want and they cannot be held accountable under the law. i mean committing crimes as president and getting a free pass get out of jail card is not exceptable to most americans.

>> gabe, i want to talk about what if-s in the proposed reforms and likely of them passing any time soon, there is a history, the court has not always been fixed or the number of justices now, there have been ruled that have been changed but it is been a long time since we've seen a significant structural reform to the court. so walk through the three reforms that the president is putting forward here and tell us about how they would work and give us a little sense of what you -- kind of order ranking basis, which you could think is the most -- are the most to least in terms of popularity and in terms of a potential impact if they were adopted. >> in terms of popularity, i haven't seen a ton of polling, but i do know that term limits and ethics reforms are very popular and this is the case for years. before i even started the court, i did some polls on this and

term limits had a approval and now there is 78% according to the new poll and in the 70%, 80% range. in terms of how it would happen, this would be a biennial appointment. and if you look at the historical tenure of supreme court justices from our founding up until about 1970, that is about what supreme court justices served on average, closer to maybe 16 or 17 years. but now since 1970, justices are serving closer to 28 years on average. and given the amount of power that they've arrow gated to themselves, that is far, far too long and not in line with any modern democracy. all of the democracies younger than us, all of them, have a mandatory retirement age for their top judges. ethics reform is something simple and something akin to

what justicin kagen said, there is an inbox and a complaint process whereby any american could file a complaint against a lower court judge and a committee of the judges' peers will see if the claim has merit and if it does, there will certain disciplinary steps pushed forward such as recommendation for recusal or ethics or returning of a gift. that already exists for country's 2300 lower federal court judges, why it doesn't exist for the nine supreme court judges, i could give you a reason for that but we don't have time. but joe biden is saying that they have a complaints framework and the supreme court should have one as well. >> i guess, i want to put up a -- let's look at this polling here about where the court stands and in people's reckoning right now. this is a july nbc news poll of the view of the supreme court. somewhat or very positive. that is at 33%. somewhat or very negative at

45%. there is another full screen. let's look at this politico poll, from the trump conviction. this is from june. the least trusted group of actors is not the usual suspects when they ask people about their trust levels and different parts of the justices and prosecutors, the defense attorneys, no, the supreme court justices were least trufed group. just 39% felt they have a great amount of favor in the supreme court justices under the conservative supermajority. prosecutors, and defense attorneys, these people are often not super popular for various reasons. now we have the highest court in the land which is turned into the lower court in the land in terms of the tanding with the public. talk about whether you think, i'm interested in which of these reforms is the one that would be some combination of most plausible, and also most impactful in the sense that it

would tart to rebuild the trust in the court. >> well term limits stand out immediately. because you'll have this constant rotation and you wouldn't have the capture of the court as it were. but if we pull back just for a second, john, that data shows us there is a crisis of legitimacy. not only with the court. but when we think about the crisis around the house of congress, the popularity or the lack of popularity of the house of the representatives or the imperial presidency. so each branch of government has its troubles and here you have an effort to respond to the view of the court as in some ways out of step as not really acting on behalf of the country. and the irony, of course, is that the idea behind giving them life term appointments, is that the justices would not be subject to political passion. that they would be above politics. but instead they've been captured by it. so i think the term limits would stand out immediately in terms

of the question that you asked. >> claire, i want to ask you about the code of ethics. i think one of the things that has eroded trust in the court is the revelation over the past x number of years, people are stunned when they learn there is not a code of conduct that the highest level of the judiciary branch is self-policing and now we see the impact of that has been. tell me what you think, term limits are hard to pass and a constitutional amendment hard to get enacted but a code of ethics might more easily be passed and gradually build trust with the court. >> i think it would help. here is the thing. this court has shown extreme arrogance. when all of this came out about hundreds of thousands of dollars of luxury trips and college tuition, and rvs, and fishing

trips, when all of this came out, that would have been a moment the supreme court would have done a gut check and said, yeah, we need to do this. and even elena kagen said they need an ethics code that is enforceable. but instead, they go, no, you can't touch us. it is just arrogance. you can't touch us. we're above all of that. we police ourselves and we all know we're ethical. so go away and leave us alone. that is infuriating to people. everyone in government has ethics rules. it is part of our democracy. it has been for a long time. since many scandals occurred in the early years of this democracy. this scandals brought ethics reform. and it is pretty tough, the ethics rule, for judges that aren't supreme court judges. it is really tough for members of congress. you can't even go out to dinner with someone and take dinner from someone. i mean, you have to go to a party where you have to stand up and only have hors d'ouvres to

qualify to-f you're a member of congress. so the idea that they're resisting this is a really big problem for the supreme court. and i do think this is one thing that makes it very difficult for the republicans to say oh, we don't want to do anything to the supreme court because they're our team now. >> claire, you know what i say about a party that only you could stand and eat hors d'ouvres, this is not really a party in my view. i want to go back to the ethics reforms. here is what the basic deal with the code of conduct that joe biden is going to put forward today. it will require the justices to disclose gifts and refrain from public political activity and recuse from cases in which they or their spouses have conflicts of interests. you're in the middle of this fight. so imagine that this legislation goes up to capitol hill. what are the arguments that those -- of anyone who would oppose such a thing, what are the arguments they would make?

>> well i think those arguments would be made firstly by the justices and the judicial conference which the policy making part of the judiciary because they're so reluctant to support changes. the basic lobbyists is from inside of the supreme court and the marshall building which is why the judicial conference is based. they are reticent to think changes. even when a report came out showing that lower court judges had participated in cases in which they have a financial interest, the justices didn't want to be part of this new rubric, where you have to the financial disclosures and stock sales online. they resisted that and now the justices have to put their financial disclosures online. but they are very resit ant to any sort of statutory changes and they always cry separation

of powers. separation of powers is a think, but it is not the thing. if congress could set the justices' budget and set their docket, which is discretionary and set the recusal rules codified in 1948 and said justices shall recuse, if they could do all of these things, when the court could say when it sits, then congress can pass laws requiring them to follow basic ethics rules. so my concern is not for republicans in congress right now, which it is there for sure, but my concern is the justices to senator mccaskill's point, you know, that they're arrogance is going to inform them and prevent them from -- from going along with these common sense reform. >> right. and gabe, just -- the justices and the judicial conference have these opinions and they don't have a vote in congress, an actual vote.

>> right. >> if you had a floor debate over this and you were someone that wanted to vote against it, you would get up and say what? just separation of powers? . is that what your argument would be. >> the justices have been liberal or center left for years which is not true but that is probably what they would say. for the last 55 years they would say oberg afell and the obama cases and now that is it is a supermajority, now it is sour grapes. people have been trying to pass enforceable ethics rules for the supreme court since 1974, around the time watergate happens. people have been trying to end life tenure of the supreme court since the constitution was written, the anti-federalists and every generation, there have been a bill or a constitutional

amendment posed that shows in every generation, republican or democrat have tried to end life tenure. kennedy and johnson voted on a bill in 1954 that would have capped judicial tenure after the 75th birthday of the a judge and brown v. board came out that week and then people forgot. so this is a life tenure and this is the next step. i don't see it as out of step, i see it as the next step. >> eddie, we could play, we don't have time, but i would play it otherwise. it was on point sound, you had joe biden when he ran for president in 2020. the question of adding justices to the court was many on the left wanted, court packing or whatever you want to call it and he said no. it was always about he's an institutionalist and he tinkers with things. and didn't like to tinker with sacred american institutions except a little bit on the

margins and want to do these big things. here he is now having made this historic decision to step away from the democratic ticket, from the position as the nominee, and now he's down at the lbj library making a big statement, it is mostly a political statement. talk about what you think that represents, what does that evolution represent? is that a thing that -- what does that speak to about biden about what he's seen and how bad it is gotten up there and about his desire to help vice president harris now that she's the nominee. >> well this is not normal. i mean the court, what the court has done, for him, over there they threw stare decisis is. isn't it supposed to be above all of this. and so i think politically the democrats are now seeing the courts as important political

sight. usually, we're not talking about who is going to be the next supreme court justice. not in the same way that the republicans. not gaming it in the wam say. and here we see the consequences of that failure. a., we see the importance of the democracy, and b., to the important of the courts more specifically. >> no one is going anywhere. we're going to keep our eyes on austin, on the lbj library. we're going to watch the library real closely because president biden is going make his first major public speech since announcing his decision to bow out of the presidential race. long time biden watcher and reporter extraordinary assets to this fuse organization, mike memoli is going to join us and still to come, with the harris honeymoon behind us, we look to the next stage of the love affair between the vice president and the democratic party. can team k keep up the momentum.

plus if we've learned anything, the democratic bench is deep. two of the super stand outs and now josh shapiro and gretchen whitmer will rally together this hour to support her campaign and speak out against the republican candidates' project 2025 agenda, meaning donald trump. and later on, we're learning more and more about the cam illian, and how j.d. vance sold his soul to align with the right. and more when we come right back. back ♪ trains that sense what isn't on the schedule. ♪ trains that use the power of dell ai and intel. ♪ to see hundreds of miles of tracks. ♪ [vroom] [train horn] [buzz]

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we had three justices, next time around we lose control, they had three justices. we began to lose any credibility the court has at all. i want to point out that justices i've supported, when i defor theed robert bork, and i say when i defeated robert bork, we guaranteed a woman's right to choose for a greater part of a generation. we move and insist and pass and codify roe v. wade so i would not pack the court, what i would do is make sure that the people that i recommended for the court from ruth bader ginsburg, to elena kagen, that they support the right of privacy on which a woman's right to choose is based and that is what i would do. no one would get on the court. >> that was joe biden, the sound that i talked about wanting to

play earlier with eddie back in 2019, the first or second democratic primary debate. joining our conversation, a man who was certainly there because he is always there, wherever joe biden has been for the last 30 or 40 years. mike memoli, white house correspondent. and claire is back too. he's not talking about packing the court. he played that sound because it gives you a sense of where biden was as an institutionalist. he was very reluctant, even though the democratic party wanted to expand the court and biden resisted, much to his benefit political, to get drawn into the progressive quagmire in a lot of issues and that is how he ended up winning. you have watched him carefully as president how he is reacted to each of the new degradation

by the court by the super majority and tell us about what led us to that today. >> you talk to when he defeated robert bork. that is what the supreme court is and what needs to be. he feels like he deserves credit for creating this right to privacy, and something that kennedy, who was confirmed, saw through. and then in 2016 when joe biden was thinking of running for president, what happened the following year. merrick garland was nominee ated and that was taken away. he argued what they called the biden rule, mitch mcconnell at the time and they denied president obama a rightly nominated supreme court justice and then we lot ruth bader ginsburg. and so he has seen the way republicans have politicized supreme court nominees and the combination of what the justices were confirmed by what donald

trump did and what he has seen in terms of the public opinion. this was something that he was planning to run on. this is something that -- an idea he wanted to put before the american people because he had come a long way himself and he felt like it was a winning issue for democrats. he didn't go through with the court packing and constitutionally that is the most sound way to go about court reform. but smsing this that he thinks that could activate democrats to vote and something that he thinks is right for country at this point. >> we started hearing about this in that period, the month after the debate when he was scrambling to save his -- his candidacy. you said he was going to run on this. has this been in the pipeline for a long time and even though we got highlighted in that period, this is something that he was going to do one way or another. >> i think the immunity decision when they saw that coming was the last straw. he thought this was above the

pail. and biden is old school. you talk to people like ted kaufman, people around this president for a long time, he does believe that you have to put ideas before the american people and run on them in order to implement them. so in the darkest moments of build back better when he was arguing the first couple of years in office, one of the things that he would say to the democrats that were resistant to go all the way in terms of the policies, was i ran on this and i promised the american people i was going to see this and awe have to see it through. and white house is saying he's not done yet. there are other things he wanted to put before the american people and he was already running ong things like tax reform and campaign finance reform and that is an area in the close weeks of his time of office. he wants these to be part of the public debate so they could be implemented. >> claire, this is a thing where, as we said before, just being candid with everybody here, this is a political,

putting down a marker, a statement of principle and also a set of proposals designed to activate democratic voters and maybe some swing voters but this is a political document here. and i guess i wonder whether it is -- it is also a way to kind of formalize a set -- lay out a set of proposals that opens the door to a broader conversation about the ways in which the maga movement personified by trump but the take over of the party has corrupted what was once one of the most esteemed and trusted institutions in america and that will open up some broader sets arguments that vice president harris could use on the campaign trail this fall. >> every good policy started out as a political proposal. that is what differentiates between law and politics, and

politics is your proposing things. and you know, he's celebrating the 60th anniversary of the civil rights law. i bet you when the principles that were put into law that their celebrating today, i bet they were talked about years before they finally passed. and there was great resistance to many parts of that important law that is being heralded today in austin, texas. i think the beginning of a real ethic movement was the closing months of joe biden's presidency and it will add to what i think will be a legendary legacy in not just what he's accomplished, but how he's handled the last month. and listen, i don't think that people expected the members of the supreme court to be okay with -- i don't care if alito's flight flew a flag without his

permission, she flew the flag. i don't care the fact that ginny thomas is her own person, he knew when she was doing all that, that she would be seen as the spouse of the supreme court justice. and the supreme court that most americans see would be justices that would say to their spouse, you can't do that. you can't do that because of my job. that happens all of the time when people are in public life. there are parameters put on spouses because of they're jobs. and one of them is the appearance of impropriety. of political activity. and ginny thomas is trying to get fake electors to overturn a free and fair election and nothing happens. of course, the american people are going well this stinks to high heaven, because it does. it stinks to high heaven. >> claire, i just want to be clear, when i say something is political, not it is a bad thing, i think political things

are really important. not a dirty word. >> no. not a dirdy word at all. >> i want to play one last piece of sound, this ketanji brown jackson talking about immunity. do we have time for that? we do. let's play justice brown jackson. >> i guess i'm more worried about, you seem to be worried about the president being chilled. i think we would have a really significant opposite problem if the president wasn't chilled. 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. >> gabe, i want to quickly get you on this. it is the -- of these reforms,

and i say this not to be pessimistic, but it is the least likely to happen because it is the hardest to do. defending the constitution is very difficult and it is been done and we could tell you how many times over the course of the life of the document but it is not easy. in the absence of a constitutional amendment, that would bring -- curbing the presidential immunity element here, what else could be done to get at this. because as mike just said a second ago. it is one of the last straws for joe biden and i think for a lot of americans it was maybe not last straw, but some of them the camel's backs had been broken, but it is a pretty big deal and if the constitutional limit is off the table, what other options are there? >> well, first of all, speaking about the constitutional amendment, i think it is interesting to see to what extent state legislatures will look at this proposal and try to act on. you need 32 states so this is an issue that could be a wedge issue in some state where's it

is a close legislature, maybe 51-49, and b versus r and it could be put to the floor and have members vote on this proposal that joe biden is putting forward. that is interesting to see. beyond that, i mean, gosh, the thing that i'm looking at right now is what is going on in florida. and you have aileen cannon throwing out the trump document case. so right now that is what the court of appeals, the 11th circuit court of appeals. we might need congressional approval for sort of re -- passing new laws that tell us what a presidential document is. what a confidential document is and a special counsel or independent counsel, we might have to start at square one so the justice department has the tools at its disposal so it can potentially investigate trump, either on what he's done previously or what he frankly might do in the next four to

eight years. >> gabe, i don't know where you are. it looks nice and you should get a lemonade. >> i'm on it, as soon as joe biden is done talking. >> thank you for your service today and starting us off. everyone else is sticking around. up next, the real question here is can energy and enthusiasm and the dollars, lots of dollars that poured into vice president harris's wildly successful first week as the defact or rock star, democratic nominee continue, we'll talk about that and head over to the all important keystone state where governor josh shapiro and gretchen whitmer will rally for the vice president in just a few minutes. don't go anywhere. we'll be back with this incredible panel. s incredible panel

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we're watching now, any moment, to hear from pennsylvania governor josh shapiro and big grech, gretchen whiter, two of the parties strongest rising performers and one of them at least is on anybody's short list as a potential vice president, kamala harris, they are there to support kamala harris outside of philadelphia. she, the vice president, has had the full, not just the full but the enthusiastic, and delirious and delighted and unified coherent and cohesive support of her party over the past week, something people weren't sure was going to happen. the party lined up behind her in

a whose who of upcoming leaders including andy bashear and tim wales. and she has in this past week kicked her campaign into high gear in a short amount of time. according to the came, they have recruited 170,000 new volunteers since last sunday. and held 2300 events to mobilize grassroots supporters. this past weekend, they've raised, wait for it, $200 million in seven days. with two-thirds of the money coming from first-time donors. on the the large dollar side i think they have $150 million. the money is coming in hand over fist. vice president harris has embraced then enthusiasm and love the fact that the base has rallied to her and the institutional party has but she's cautioning this came is

far from over and far from won. a long way from that. she tells supporters, this weekend, she said we are the underdogs in this race, but this is a people-powered campaign and we have momentum. and if you look at the polling, that is certainly true. claire and eddie and mike, you're all back. and, mike, i want to ask you that question, because we're talking about the politics right now, because the fact that -- when people talk about the pros and cons of the different way this is could have gone once president biden had decided to step aside, the facts that any -- whatever the pros -- the reason why you would want to have an open competitive contest as some people wanted with a many primary, with town hall meetings or debates or whatever, the biggest downside is that trying to start a presidential campaign at this late date, from a standing start, building an operation, a digital team, a field team, a fundraising team,

and i would say it is impossible. impossible. she is inheriting a team that is already out there and really savvy digital operation and a bunch of people who do rapid response and people who are raising money. but there are still a lot to do, real fast. and the integration of her existing team, the existing biden forces and potentially bringing in some people from the outside who have -- who have the esteem and reference of the party, talk about where the bootstrapping and the inheriting of an existing operation, the melding of that as we sit here today. >> operationally, this campaign was ready to go. they have a strong foundation to build on and the team that was helping build that is still there very much overseeing it. i think the big question is what is the harris message, right. she's enjoying this honeymoon period. she's able to ride on that enthusiasm and that excitement, but there is going to be a point

where the whoeters want to know what would you do differently than president biden and what is your vision for country. and there is a good debate to be held whether she does need to develop her own political identity. because one of the failings that people are close to president biden felt about his debate performance, all he needs was to do a noun and a verb and democracy and felon and that would have been enough for voters to get you through to november. she has an even shorter time line and that is all she needs to do on the stump with her running mate at this point. the focus more than anything is now back on donald trump from the view of so many democrats and the former president trump is going to have to be out on the campaign trail this fall and the more then could run on enthusiasm and future, that might be enough to get them through november. >> eddie, 99 days to november 5th. 20 days until the democratic

convention starts. you are suddenly, unexpectedly the nominee of your party. you have to pick a vice president, you have to figure out what -- make new ads that will be on the air in face of negative ads coming in from the other side and you have to figure out how to integrate the teams and figure out -- and do a whole bunch of research on yourself, not in the way that the presidential campaign that has been ramping up for a year ago and a half would have got done, what would they need to get done between now and focus on the convention, what is the high order? what is are you focused on? what is the big thing that you got to get right or it could really cripple your campaign for what happens after the convention. >> i don't want to presume i'm a political operative. >> but you're a voter. >> and i think the two things that has to happen, and must happen, is that she has to introduce herself to country, this is who i am. these are my animating values

and qualities and she has to be clear about her message and i think we have the beginnings of that. we're not going back. to what this guy is trying to do and the old category, the old divisions between left and right and the old divisions between liberal and conservative. we're going to try to govern for every day folks and addition the conditions for workers and those who noses are barely above water and deal with the kitchen table issues without the baggage of ore previous politics and i think if she's moved into that, we're not going back and begin to give voice to what a substantive notion of the public good is, right, john, i think a substantive notion of what the -- by way of policy, now we're opening up the door to a different kind of conversation. but maybe i'm sounding like an academic egghead in this moment. but i do think what does it mean to give content to the idea that we're not going back. other than just simply that guy

is the past. >> you sound like an egghead, but we love eggheads. eggheads are us. i want to put up a full screen of new york magazine cover. let's put that up. there it is. welcome to kamalot. she's brat, and you're brat too. people have made this comparison in the last week, that we haven't seen anything like this since obama. she's out there in social media and all over tiktok. there is some buzz around her that said you can't buy it. you can't learn it. you can't -- you catch it. it is organic, right. when you see all of this, as you sit out there in missouri, do you have any worries about the way that hollywood and the

glamour and the glitz that is going to attach to her, that is super important for party and but that in the battle ground states among 6% or 7% of people who haven't decided and will decide the election, that some of those things might not wear well over next 100 days even if they're absolutely incredibly exciting and positive for her in this moment. >> yeah, i'm not so worried about that. you know, a sprint really is to her benefit. we're the only country that puts people through the minefield, painful, we're going to get the bark off your tree with attacks for months and months on end. this requires simplicity and that is your her best friend and i would push back on the honeymoon notion. yes, there was this incredible release of pressure due to the painful mess our party was in

with the president that we all loved and respected and a reality that became clear at the debate and the sense of urgency about beating trump. all of that, yes, the pressure was release and certainty has arrived and everyone is excited about that. but she's also done a really good job. i think people have underestimated kamala harris. i think because of her presidential campaign, there was this notion that somehow she was not up to this job. she's up to it. she knows what she's doing. and i think she's going to pick a vice president that grounds this ticket in a way that takes some of that hollywood glitz off of her candidacy and speak in very plain terms which is really important. about freedom and about the future, and about joy and laughter and lightness and aspiration and opportunity. the kind of things that this

country is craving right now because of all of the dackness that donald trump has brought on to the political scene. and by the way, they're going to come after her, john. with all of these negative ads which are so yesterday. and does anybody think that the swing voters are really going to be persuaded by ads coming from a guy they know can't take a breath without lying. i just don't think a barrage of really horton type swift boat-esque bold you know what is going to really slow her down as long as she does what eddie said. she has to get her bio out there and over come the odds and done well in america because of the values that we all care about. she's in a really good place. would you much rather be on they are side of the equation than donald trump. >> i think bull pucky, i think that is the phrase you were looking for. >> bull pucky. >> that is how they use that

phrase in the show-me state. to be clear. the degree of difficulty that she and her team face given how she ended up at the defact or nominee, if the first week, off the charts. off the charts hard to pull that off. they did not put a foot wrong. they were flawless last week and i think everyone if they didn't understand that she was ready for the big leagues. they do now. and no one is it going anywhere. we're going to keep our eyes on pennsylvania and austin, texas, in both places. we could do both at same time. and we're going to wait for one. we have the president is going to come out and the governor is going to come out. we're going to sneak in a quick break. but we'll keepure eyes on them while we're away. don't go anywhere. e away don't go anywhere. i hear that. this bad boy can fix anything. yep, tough day at work, nice cruise will sort you right out. when i'm riding, i'm not even thinking about my painful cavity. well, you shouldn't ignore that. and every time i get stressed about having to pay my bills,

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claire mccaskill, eddie glaude and mike memoli, you're all here. everyone's back. we're all hanging out. but they told me i only have time for one question. i've got to ask memoli because memoli's right here. tell me about the -- not -- i'm never asking anybody for predictions but we are about to look at these two governors in pennsylvania. one of them was on our television, our show here on "morning joe." gretchen whitmer who said i'm not in this vice presidential thing, i'm out. i pledged to my state i'm going to stay in office, serve out my term. the other is very much in it, josh shapiro very much on the front line of that. what do you think -- tell me about what you see -- one of the

many things we do in a hurry, a process that would normally take a couple months, we're trying to do in a couple weeks. and eric holder's running the betting process. talk about just how the focus on that and how quickly they have to do it really in the course of this next week and what that's doing to the race to become her running mate. >> eric holder really does have the most important job right now because if there is anything to be unearthed that will be unearthed over the course of the final 99 days of this campaign he needs to find it right now. but if you look at sort of what we think is the finalists of the veepstakes right now you have josh shapiro in sort of the double down category. young, you know, fellow prosecutor just like vice president harris. he could win you the most important state in the electoral map right now. and then you have tim walz who's really i think having his moment right now in terms of i think the chattering class. he's been on tv relentlessly. the messaging has been great. >> the author of the weird label. >> the weird label is all him. he was the first with that. and he also has maybe the best

resume of the group. he's served in congress, he's been an accomplished governor now in his second term. and he feels bideny. for those who felt -- and are still upset the president was pushed out of this race, he very much speaks to that kind of -- he's more of a balance pick whereas josh shapiro is a double down pick. and i think this might come down to what it often does, which is a relationship. and i don't know what the vice president in terms of her relationship, is she going to have time this week, her campaign schedule's a little lighter this week-s she going to find the time to sneak some of these guys into washington or find them on the road? i learned that she has known shapiro for two decades, for instance. she knows walz from his time in congress when she was a senator as well. so that might be the x factor as it was for president biden. remember, whitmer was the only one who got an in-person interview four years ago with the president. i think that was probably his favorite but he ended up choosing vice president harris. >> tim walz has really been crushing it on tv and it shows you how much a couple really killer media appearances can do for your stock. he is 60 years old.

she is 59 years old. a lot of people like oh, he would be the gray hair -- they're the same age, guys. >> and mark kelly is actually a month or two older than walz. >> tim walz, man, he's a spunky grandpa. i'm like he's 60, what are you talking about? that's neither a pro or con comment, just a matter of fact. claire, eddie, mike, thank you all for spending this hour with us. a lot more news to come. we're still waiting for biden. we're still waiting for the governors. you know, we've got another hour here but come on, let's go, guys. that harris rally outside philly with the two governors and down in austin, texas president biden calling for supreme court reform. we're hopefully going to get to taste a little bit of both of those things in the next hour. and we're also going to do a little bit of a deep dive into the very, very weird, i mean weird -- boy, is he weird. gop vice presidential nominee. man, j.d. vance just keeps getting weirder. a quick break, and we'll be right back. nd a we'll be right back [car door shuts] [paparazzi cameras]

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j.d. vance wiped away all references to abortion on his website because his positions are so extreme. he's a fraud, right? he's been avoiding answering questions around that. donald trump is of course a 34-time convicted fraudster. and so they belong together, j.d. vance being donald trump's mini me. hey again, everybody. it's 5:00 here in gotham city. i'm john heilemann. i'm in for nicolle wallace, who's off. j.d. vance, he may be trump's new mini me, but he sure wasn't

just a few years ago. past comments by trump's vice presidential running mate are now documented. he called trump america's hitler unfit for office, cultural heroin when the former president was first running for office. but vance has changed his tune. he's gone all in on the ex-president. i mean all in. new reporting in the "new york times" explores yet another reversal from j.d. vance, "times" detailsing a decadelong friendship he had with a transgender classic from law school. the "times" looked at a series of e-mails between the two writing they reflect a young man quite different from the hard right culture warrior. and back then brought homemade baked goods to his friend after nelson underwent transitional surgery. nelson and mr. vance had a falling out in 2021 when mr. vance said publicly he supported an arkansas ban on gender affirming care for minors leading to a bitter exchange that deeply hurt nelson. quote, he achieved great success and became very rich by being a never trumper who explained the white working class to the

liberal elite, nelson said, referring to mr. vance's successful 2016 book "hillbilly elegy." now he's amassing even more power by expressing the exact opposite. but there are some in the gop who doubt vance's extremism was the right pick by donald trump for this and many reasons. the "washington post" reports, "some republican strategists said they fear vance could hurt the ticket with suburban women, a group where trump saw significant erosion in his 2020 loss after his 2016 win." among trump allies there has brngs quote, constant discussion over whether the president made a bad choice according to one long-time adviser. text message chains have blown up with his, quote, awkward public appearances, the person said. a description that fits the democrats' latest characterization of the gop ticket. before i play think want to say out of the mainstream, that's one argument. ideological extremist that's another argument. this, though, cuts a lot closer to the core of the real problem with j.d. take a listen.

>> you know there's something wrong with people when they talk about freedom, freedom to be in your bedroom, freedom to be in your exam room, freedom to tell your kids what they can read. that stuff is weird. they come across weird. they seem obsessed with this. >> we're using this fake living room to talk to you about a super weird idea from j.d. vance. >> yeah, it's quite weird. >> what was weird was him joking about racism today and then talking about diet mountain dew. who drinks diet mountain dew? >> on the other side they're just weird. i mean, they really are. >> some of what he and his running mate are saying, it's just plain weird. [ laughter ] >> that's speaking the language of the american people right there. we continue to watch for president biden to start his speech at the lbj library in austin, texas on supreme court reform. governors josh shapiro and gretchen whitmer are now on stage at that big event for vice president harris in pennsylvania. there's gretchen whitmer speaking. josh shapiro waiting.

to be introduced by her i guess as guest in the state he's going first. josh shapiro whose state is going to be the headliner there. that's mark updegrove from the lbj library, the guy who understand are the lbj library. one of the great presidential libraries in america, by the way, if you get a chance to visit it when you go to austin you will be richly rewarded. but we begin this hour with the stuff we were talking about before, how j.d. vance, weirdo, just keeps getting weirder. we'll talk about this. mike, who knows a few things about weirdness. that's mike murphy out there, who's the man from -- once upon a time the republican party. i see my friend maya wiley over there who is a civil rights leader par excellence and also former mayoral candidate in the city of new york. and here at the table democratic strategist and professor at columbia university, msnbc political analyst basil smikle who's got a basil-colored tie on

today. he's wearing a tie that kind of is -- that is the embodiment of his name. and as long as we're here i'll start with you, basil. one of the things that people in politics do often is they get in the weeds, they get complicated, they make all these complicated arguments and sometimes they're smart arguments but they're like normal people are like, eh? calling someone a weirdo when it is resonant, when you hear the laughter when vice president harris said it's just weird, you heard the response to that in the room, which was visceral. man, when you get a line like that, tim walz was the first one, governor of minnesota, used it. the democratic party's latched on to it. and i think you have this real gift when you can find a piece of language that everyone understands and when they hear it they go, yeah. that guy is weird. >> absolutely right. we've often talked about threats to democracy on this show and throughout multiple cycles now. and while many of us may

understand that it does take some explaining. weirdness you feel in your gut. weirdness as the politico article talked about today, it's something that -- a word that you use in common language with friends and family members. so the ability to sort of feel that immediately, to have an emotional response to it is incredibly, incredibly important. something we do in politics, right? is find a way to turn intention into behavior. how do i get you to think a certain way and feel a certain way and then go ahead and act on it? in this case by a vote or by going out and raising money. and oftentimes that difference is the emotional content, is that visceral feeling. so that's what that term weirdness hits on. but it also is a catchphrase for so many other things that both donald trump and j.d. vance continue to funnel into by the kinds of statements that they make. >> mike murphy, a man who for a period of time when he was -- he may still, used to have a personalized license plate that said go neg on it.

if i remember correctly. a man who knows his way around attacks that work and don't work. talk about the effectiveness of a plainspoken attack like calling j.d. vance weird but also tell me whether you've ever seen a vice presidential rollout or launch worse than this one. >> no, it's a complete train wreck. i think the key to the weird thing is it's normal language, not politician language. we've kind of ruined political english because there's no art to it anymore. instead it's all sly and tricky. we're not going to spend, we're going to invest. you know, haircuts are follicle reform. weird is just plain regular people get it language. and in this case it fits. i mean, i'm fond of all the w insults. mccain used to refer to him as wacko birds. i like that one. but weird is perfect vernacular. and there is something weird about these guys. trump's hair is weird. most things about trump are weird. so i think governor walz gets

credit for opening the w offensive here. now they're all saying it. and it fits. and when it fits it becomes self-amplifying. the rest of j.d. vance's vice presidential campaign will be him saying i'm not weird. not easy to do. >> yeah, it's like when did you stop beating your wife? here is -- i didn't mean that about j.d. vance, by the way. i just said that's the thing where you're trying to defend yourself against accusations. it never works to be saying i'm not a wife beater. here is gretchen whitmer. she's talking about j.d. vance. let's take a listen to it. >> -- always said i needed to find at least one good thing about every person. so i'll give j.d. this. he is efficient. in one sentence he insulted women, black people, and jewish people. [ applause ] that's efficient. and that's all i got. trump and vance want to take us

backwards, but we're not going back. our response to them is simple. hell, no. are we going back to less freedom? [ "hell, no" ] are we going back to cronies and crooks who help themselves at our expense? [ audience responds ] are we going back to dangerous extremists? [ audience responds ] oh, you're so good at this. thank you. >> my friends, the choice is clear. we are moving forward. we're going to build a brighter future and new chapter for america with kamala harris. can you say hell, yeah? [ audience responds ] kamala harris, the prosecutor who keeps community safe. [ audience responds ] kamala harris, the senator who knows how to deliver results. [ audience responds ] kamala harris, the vice president who puts america back on track. [ audience responds ] michiganders and pennsylvanians have a big job over the next 99 days. we are on the front lines. we all remember 2016, where

trump won our states by less than 55,000 votes. that's just 366 votes a county. now, you tell me. can you make 366 calls? [ applause ] come on. "hell, yeah." [ audience responds ] can you knock on 366 doors? [ audience responds ] can you donate $36.60? [ audience responds ] when we do the work, we win. we sealed the deal for joe biden. let's seal the deal for our next president, kamala harris. yes. [ cheers and applause ] >> we'll step away from that here and come back to the panel. maya, i rattled off some numbers in the first hour of the show about what this last week has meant for the harris campaign, the extraordinary outpouring of door knockers, volunteers, the money that's rolled in,

grassroots. $200 million. 66% of it from first-time donors. you hear it a little bit there, even with the vice president nowhere in the vicinity, you hear the enthusiasm. you hear the energy. talk about what you think it will require for vice president harris to keep this going. i mean, can you keep a honeymoon going for 99 more days? >> you sure can as long as you're still the person that you were dating before the honeymoon. i mean, i think this goes back to the point of authenticity. of people feeling who you are when you're running for office. that is such a central point of why kamala harris has been a powerful candidate already. in addition to a historic candidate, she is someone who has really just shown joy. she's someone who's been much more able to communicate who she is rather than be painted as a

caricature, whether it's in the media or by opposition, and now she's just unleashed. and i think that's exactly why there's so much energy. but i think it's also what you just saw from governor gretchen whitmer. it is that same kind of showing up and reminding people what it takes. because you can be enthusiastic but what gets it done is that real people are going out and talking to their neighbors, that real people are showing up and saying i'm with her. you should join her. and that actually goes back to your previous point about weirdness, right? it's like who can you relate to? who do you understand? who do you feel gets what your experiences are? that's part of the appeal of why kamala harris has really broken out already. >> we had a relatively rich, robust and i was hoping humorous segment that we were going to

build here around j.d. vance and his attack on the childless cat ladies, as he put it. but we now have president biden who's speaking down in austin, it ex-text. let's listen to him talk about supreme court reform. >> i was on the steps of one of the halls, one of the university halls called hollywood hall at the university listening on a transistor radio with three other people. it seemed unbelievable. and then later watching president johnson help the nation find a way forward. in his first address after the tragedy president johnson said, and i quote, "nothing could more eloquently honor president kennedy's memory than the earliest passage of the civil rights bill." that's what he said. [ applause ] this will keep coming up. i always admired president johnson for his public service,

whether it was a school teacher in southern texas, south texas, master of the united states senate, historic vice president and president. his philosophy was simple. in a great society, in a great society no one should be left behind. [ applause ] he'd say it's time for us to come to see that every american gets a decent break and a fair chance to make good. and as andy young said president johnson met repeatedly with civil rights leaders and built a coalition to bring that vision to life. he did. he brought it to life. over 50 years the lbj foundation has convened this symposium to reflect one of the crowning achievements, the civil rights act of 1964. a defining moment that has since

opened doors of opportunity for all americans, regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religion, national origin. together the voting rights act and the fair housing act, these three landmark laws he signed are remarkable in their scale and their scope. taken together, these three acts have made this nation fundamentally more fair, fundamentally more just, and most importantly fundamentally more consistent with our founding principles. for real. [ applause ] and we're a better nation because of them. we must be clear. their work, our work is not done. it's not done. we do not celebrate these laws as part of our past but as critical components of our future. president johnson understood what president lincoln understood in his own time, that

the courts will determine the scale and scope, the scale and scope of our laws. over 100 years after the emancipation proclamation, president johnson vowed in his words to do this job that lincoln started, to do this job that lincoln started by challenging the court to live up to its constitutional responsibility. he did that by nominating thurgood marshall as the first black justice of the supreme court. [ applause ] and by aggressively defending civil rights throughout the courts. but now we live in a different era. in recent years extreme opinions that the supreme court has handed down have undermined long-established civil rights principles and protections. in 2013 the supreme court shelby county case gutted the voting

rights act, opening the floodgates to a wave of restrictive vogt laws that have seen states across the country pass. in 2022 the court overruled roe v. wade and the right to choose that had been the law of the land for 50 years. 50 years. the following year the same court eviscerated affirmative action, which had been upheld and reaffirmed for nearly 50 years as well. and now there's an family movement and agenda called project 2025. by the way, they're serious, man. they're planning another onslaught attacking civil rights in america. for example, project 2025 calls aggressively attacking diversity, equity and inclusion across all aspects of american life. this extreme maga movement even proposes to end birthright

citizenship. that's how far they've come. end birthright citizenship, which if you're born in america you're an american citizen. that's how extreme these guys are. this issue and so many other civil rights that americans take for granted are likely to come before the court in the years to come. and most recently and most shockingly the supreme court established in trump vs. the united states a dangerous precedent. they ruled, as you know, that the president of the united states has immunity for potential crimes he may have committed while in office. immunity. this nation was founded on the principle there are no kings in america. [ applause ] each of us is equal before the law. no one is above the law. and for all practical purposes the court's decision almost certainly means that a president can violate their oath, flout

our laws, and face no consequences. here's what justice sotomayor, supreme court justice, wrote in her dissent. i quote. "under the majority's reasoning, the president 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. in every use of official power the president is now a king, above the law. that's what justice sotomayor wrote in her dissent. folks, just imagine what a president could do trampling civil rights and liberties given such immunity. the court's being used to weaponize an extreme and unchecked agenda. this decision is a total affront to the basic expectations we have for those who wield the

power in this nation, that they are expected to be wholly accountable under the law. the president is no longer constrained by the law and only limits on abuse of power will be self-imposed by the president alone. that's a fundamentally flawed view and a fundamentally flawed principle. a dangerous principle. on top of its extreme decisions, the court is mired in a crisis of ethics. these scandals involving the justices have caused public opinion to question the court's fairness and independence that are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law. for example, there are documented reports of a decades-long effort to reshape the judiciary including the supreme court backed by shadow special interests that also support project 2025. undisclosed gifts to justices worth hundreds of thousands of

dollars from wealthy benefactors who have interests before the very court they're contributing to. conflicts of interest from those connected to january 6th insurrectionists. and a blatant attack on nominating confirming justices of the court itself. you'll all remember when justice scalia died in february of 2016 and the republicans blocked our -- the president's nomination, president obama's nomination to fill that vacancy for nearly a year. by making up an entirely new standard that there be no confirmations to the court during an election year. but then when justice ginsburg died in 2020, republicans rushed through the president trump's nominee at the very same time votes were being cast in an election that trump would lose. it's outrageous. [ applause ]

i know i don't look it, but i served in the senate for 36 years. including as chairman and ranking member of the judiciary committee. i've been told that i've overseen more supreme court nominations as senator, vice president and president than anyone in history, anyone alive today i should say. [ applause ] i have great respect for our institutions. and the separation of powers laid out in our constitution. but what's happening now is not consistent with that doctrine of separation of powers. extremism is undermining the public confidence in the court's decisions. as soon as i came to office i convened a bipartisan presidential commission on the supreme court of the united states comprised of leading constitutional scholars both liberal and conservative to provide recommendations on potential reforms to the court.

i've been careful in these deliberations because these are serious, serious decisions. in the face of increasing threats to american democratic institutions i used the commission's analysis and today i'm calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy. as the press shouts at me as i got air force one, republican speaker of the house said whatever he proposes is dead on arrival. first i'm calling for a constitutional amendment called no one is above the law amendment. [ applause ] it holds -- and i mean this sincerely. it holds there is no immunity for crimes a former president committed while in office.

[ applause ] i share our founders' belief a president must answer to the law. the president is accountable in the exercise of the great power of the presidency. we're a nation of laws, not kings and dictators. [ applause ] the decision can be boiled down to the title of one case. trump vs. the united states. the court asserted it was making a ruling for the ajds. that isn't true. the court made a ruling for one. a former president. no other president in our history has asked for this kind of immunity for criminal actions. and no president, no former president, not me, not one, not one should have been given an exception to this with such immunity. the second thing i'm asking for,

we've had term limits for presidents of the united states for nearly 75 years, after the truman administration. and i believe we should have term limits for supreme court justices of the united states as well. [ cheers and applause ] in fact, the united states is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to their high court. term limits would help ensure the court membership changes with some regularity. that would be -- make timing for the court's nomination more predictable and less arbitrary. reduce the chance that any single presidency imposes undue influence on generations to come. the bipartisan commission i convened analyzed various term limit structures. based on their report, i believe

the best structure is the 18-year term limit. that would help ensure the country would not have what it has now, an extreme court that's part of an attack on the confirmation process that's weaponized by those seeking to carry out an extreme agenda for decades to come. by the way, these guys mean it. these guys mean it. project 2025 is real. they mean it. third, i'm calling for binding code of conduct for the supreme court. [ cheers and applause ] the supreme court's current ethics code is weak and even more frightening, voluntary. voluntary. any code of conduct must be enforceable.

in the reform i propose justices would be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, recuse themselves from cases where they or their spouses have a financial interest. most people don't realize that congress passed a law decades ago that says all federal judges including supreme court justices have to recuse themselves in such cases. but the current justices insist on enforcing that requirement themselves without any public oversight or compulsion. see, that's their decision. they don't have to tell us how they made it. that might work if the court was actually enforcing those requirements. but they are not. the court is not self-policing. the court is not dealing with the obvious conflicts of interest. we need a mandatory code of ethics for the supreme court, and we need it now. [ cheers and applause ]

my fellow americans, based on all my experience, i'm certain we need these reforms. we need these reforms to restore trust in the courts, preserve the system of checks and balances that are vital to our democracy. they're also common sense reforms that the vast majority of the american people support as well as leading constitutional law scholars, progressive and conservatives. i look forward to working with the congress to implement these necessary reforms. a number of members of congress are here today. let me close with this. president johnson signed the civil rights act of 1964 just two days before the 4th of july. he said in that bill signing, and i quote, "this is a proud triumph. those who founded our country

knew the freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning." end of quote. that's what i've tried to do throughout my career, inspired by the cause of civil rights. [ applause ] that's what got me involved initially. my state was a state that was segregated by law. we were one who -- fight in the south we couldn't get there. i'm serious. what motivated me to be a public defender, a county councilman, i'll never forget, i had a good job with a big trial firm. and in delaware you have to study for the bar for six months before you're allowed to take it. and while i was studying for the

bar, that's when dr. king was assassinated. we were the only state in the nation, city in the nation that had the military stationed on every corner and drawn bayonets for ten months. for ten months. assisting because we had a very conservative democratic governor. in those days when the democrats won they could choose to be part of the southern governors or northeast governors conference. they chose the southern governors conference lots of times. but guess what. it got me engaged. i love reading these biographies of me that say i knew i was going to run for president. [ laughter ] i remember walking in to the public defender's office, which was part-time at the time, and asking for an application because i wanted to join the public defender's office.

heing looked at me, frannie kearns. he said don't you work for ward burton sanders? i said yeah. he said why the hell would you want to do this? not a joke. but i said let me do it. i became a public defender. folks, here's the deal. because i got engaged like a lot of you do, whether you run for office or not. you get engaged and you want to change things. so i got engaged in the democratic party which was very conservative. a lot of people came to me and said we want you to run for state senate. i said i can't. i can't go to dover all the time. i'm just starting a law firm and a part-time public defender. then they came back to me and said why don't you run for the county council? i said i can't. they said you stupid s.o.b. it's right across the street.

[ laughter ] i'm serious. it meets only twice a week. [ laughter ] so my sister and my best friend who managed my campaign, we picked a district we couldn't possibly win. no democrat had ever won. but my problem was i had my sister doing my campaign. and we won. next thing i know i was part of a group assigned as young senators, young elected officials, to try to bring the party around to get someone to run for the united states senate. and i was put on a commission. when you're the young lawyer you get to turn the lights off and on after every meeting. so i remember going down to the democratic convention. off year. in dover, delaware. and after that afternoon session went back and i was in my room. a nice motel. a motel you just drive up, get out, walk in your door there. and you know, an 8 by 10 bathroom with shower and a

stall. and i had my towel around me and the shaving cream on my face. bam, bam, bam on my door. and i thought it was the guys i came down with. had a talk show named bob cunningham, was a big civil rights guy. and two others. so i thought it was them. i walked up and opened the door. there was a former governor, former supreme court justice. swear to god. the state chairman. and the former congressman. and they said we just had dinner -- i said i'm sorry, gentlemen. they walked in. i ran to the bathroom, put something on. i walked back out with a towel. i'm standing against a desk nailed to the wall and they're on the beds that are nailed -- where the headboards are nailed to the wall. four of them sitting across. they said joe, we were thinking, you should run for the united

states senate. i said gentlemen, are you crazy -- are you serious? [ laughter ] and they went on and made their case. i hope all of you had a professor enlighten his mind. i had one professor named dr. ingersoll, my political philosophy professor, at the uft university of delaware which is between dover and where i was going home. so i called and wanted to stop by and see him. i said what do you think i should do? he said joe, remember what plato said. i'm thinking, what the hell did plato say? [ laughter ] seriously. he said plato said the penalty good people pay pay for not being involved in politics is being governed by people worse thon" than themselves. i went home and talked to my deceased wife. she said you're working 40 hours as a week as i apublic defender, get in or get out. next thing i know i was running. nixon won my state by 60% of the vote. we won by a staggering 3800

votes. [ applause ] i didn't know what the hell i was doing. but look -- and i went on to be able to -- i had to wait a little bit to be sworn in. you've got to be 30 to be sworn in. and then i had -- i was the vice president for the first african american president in history. [ applause ] now i'm president to our first woman vice president. [ applause ] i've made clear how i feel about kamala, and she's been an incredible partner to me. a champion of civil rights throughout her career. and she'll continue to be an inspiring leader and project this very idea of america. the idea we're all created equal and deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. we've never fully lived up to it. we never walked away from it.

because of leaders like lyndon baines johnson. my fellow americans, in two years we'll commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the declaration of independence. that july 4th of 2026 will be a moment not only about our past but about our future. imagine that moment and ask yourself, what do we want to be? we can and must be protected and expand our civil rights in america. we can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power and restore faith in the supreme court. we can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy. and we must have to remind ourselves who we are. we're the united states of america. and there is nothing, nothing beyond our capacity. flog when we do it together. so let's stay together. and god bless you all. lyndon johnson, lady bird johnson, may god bless the whole family. ladies and gentlemen, may god protect our troops. thank you for listening.

>> and that was president biden down at the lbj library in austin, texas laying out his slate of ambitious supreme court reforms, including term limits on supreme court justices, a constitutional amendment to curb presidential immunity and a code of ethics and conduct for the supreme court. a couple of those would be legislative fixes if they could ever get a vote in congress or get passed. unlikely with this republican control. and the other of course, the one dealing with presidential immunity, a constitutional amendment, a very large hurdle to get over. we're back here with maya wiley, basil smikle and my friend mike murphy out in california. maya, you're the only lawyer on this panel. one of my contractual obligations is that lawyers are always a minority on the set. but that means you're also the only person here who's able -- i mean a minority in terms of the numbers.

you're always in the minority, in that sense. you're also the only person who has any qualification to talk about what joe biden just said brilliantly. so i ask you, what think you? >> joe biden just showed us what so many people respected him when after what we saw a few weeks ago with the debate performance, while there were so many black women who -- 1400 who signed a letter saying don't go joe. part of it is because joe biden not only has been very explicit about civil rights, from voting rights to the civil rights act of 1964, he just named right there exactly what has been so central to the debate we've been having in this country about who we are. and he made it plain when he went to project 2025. project 2025, which actually

stands as a christian nationalist document. and i mean that in the sense of an extremism. christianity in and of itself is not extremism. but when it's coupled with a nationalism that says we want to impose our beliefs on everybody else and we've got the document to take over the federal government to do it. that includes the erosion of the civil rights act of 1964 that he was up there talking about. and one of the things that has been so meaningful about what's been going on just in the past week is that sense that now, now not only do we have an administration that has a track record on civil rights at a time when there have been so many civil wrongs including from the supreme court. the very voting rights that lbj got across the finish line, that the leadership conference on civil and human rights that i'm

so privileged to lead fought for was eroded by justice roberts in 2013, and he made the explicit reference to it. when we think about the fact that women have lost the abortion rights as a federal constitutional protection, that's a fundamental right. and when he talks about the civil rights act of 1964, and he didn't quote this but it was lbj who said at howard university in 1965, the alma mater of the current vice president of the united states, a black woman, freedom is not enough. you do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying now you're free. but that's exactly what project 2025 is saying right now. and when he talks about the extremism of this supreme court and the need to create some checks and balances, he's absolutely right because it is

out of step with the american people. and there was one other thing he could have said. he could have said that the reason we need binding ethics is because justice alito has had over two different properties that he owns, flags that were flown by insurrectionists that he has not recused himself from when it comes to cases before the court itself. that is exactly what's at stake. and while we put out a very strong statement saying this is an important step on structural reform, this is important for democracy but it's enough to tell us what's at stake in this election. >> basil, i ask you, you have joe biden putting out these reforms. kamala harris has endorsed them. put out a statement. this is -- and i say with no disrespect to the importance of the substance of these. because of the nature of the composition of our congress, these are not going to become

law in this current congress. this is -- we're right in the middle of a presidential election. this is important politically because it elevates the issue of the supreme court. there are people who think that could be a good issue for democrats to run on given the frustration that a lot of americans, not just democrats, have with the court. talk to me about whether this is something you think vice president harris will grab hold of and will be able to make a centerpiece, not the centerpiece but a centerpiece of her campaign in the next 99 days. >> it's a very important part of the campaign because if you think about the interest in engaging and mobilizing young voters -- and i always try to center my students in all of this. they don't have trust for any of the institutions. not just little trust. they have no trust of any institutions. including the supreme court. and so if you use this as a campaign tool to try to energize your voters and say look, we're going to make some fundamental changes in some of these areas where you have no faith but have an enormous impact, i think it's a huge motivating factor.

as i said, particularly among young voters. very quickly i want o'to amplify and uplift something maya has said. the fact he's talking at the lbj library about the civil rights act, let's think about that era of equity. right? the civil rights act, the voting rights act, the bilingual education act, title 1, head start, all of these areas of policy that affected me as a gen x-er that would have been the beneficiary of so much of that. my generation has grown up thinking that presidents could use the power of their office working with and sometimes steamrolling congress to get these things done because it mattered to who we are as a country. everything that you've seen with donald trump, with j.d. vance and project 2025 continues the backlash against so much of that. so when vice president harris says forwards, never backwards, this is right in line with that. because this is about moving the ball forward. this is not about undoing so

much of what has been done through the work of so many activists but presidents and members of congress and members of the senate. >> no one here is going anywhere. we have mike murphy for a little bit on the other side. i've got to take this break really quick. i've got to get to mike. we also have to get to what was happening while president biden was speaking, which was with our other wise we were watching the pennsylvania governor josh shapiro in a fiery campaign speech for vice president harris. we'll play you some of that when we return. and hear from mike and of course maya and basil. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere, please. >> -- chose kamala harris because he wanted to govern with her and because he knew she was ready. vice president harris has been battle-tested. she is ready to not just be the standard bearer of our party but to be the 47th president of the united states of america! [ cheers and applause ] we are living with afib.

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can you do this? as early as your 40s you may lose muscle and strength. protein supports muscle health. ensure max protein has a 30 gram blend of high quality protein to feed muscles for up to seven hours. so take the challenge. ensure, nutrition for strength and energy. the election, this is not just about a name on the ballot. it's an election about all of us. and what it is that we're willing to fight for. what it is that we're willing to work for. and what kind of future we want to build for our children and our grandchildren. well, i don't know about you. i want a future that is cleaner and greener. i want a future with better schools and safer streets.

and i want a future with more freedom, not less. and i want a future where i can look the 47th president of the united states in the eye and say, hello, madam president! let us get to work! thank you. >> that was pennsylvania governor josh shapiro just moments ago at that campaign event in suburban philadelphia with gretchen whitmer, the governor of michigan. governor shapiro made a rousing speech attacking donald trump for taking freedoms away. let's take a listen to a little more of that speech. a man who might be kamala harris's running mate. >> it's not freedom to tell people they can go vote but he's going to pick the but he's going to pick the winner. that is not freedom, and that is what we have to stop. but you know what we believe in,

pennsylvania, we believe in real freedom in this commonwealth and in this country. and you know who else believes in real freedom? kamala harris believes in real freedom. kamala harris, she believes in the kind of freedom where we invest in that young girl's public school because we know if we give her a shot, she can make a real difference in life. that is real freedom. kamala harris knows we got to invest in public safety to keep our community safe so that young girl when she walks to school and home, she can get to and from her mama safely. that is real freedom. kamala harris knows real freedom means giving everybody in every community, especially communities that have been hollowed out and left behind,

economic opportunity. that is real freedom, and that is what we are fighting for. kamala harris knows women need to have the freedom to make decisions over their own bodies. kamala harris knows people need to have the freedom to marry why they love. i say love is love. kamala harris knows real freedom means worshipping where you want, living where you want, and experiencing the bountiful freedom all across this nation in rural, urban, and suburban communities. that is real freedom, and that is what we are fighting for. >> josh shapiro really fired up and ready to go, as they used to say about barack obama on his campaign, we're back with basil, maya, and mike. mike, i wanted to ask you, one, what do you think about josh shapiro?

is that a running mate right there obvious to you? i don't have a dog in this fight, i never to in these situations, but he is a very popular governor of the key state from both the biden -- now the, sorry, the harris campaign's point of view and the trump campaign's. everyone wants to win pennsylvania. they all think that's the tipping point state. is that not the obvious call as kamala harris' running mate? >> you know, i actually don't think so. i think he'd be a solid choice, but somebody ought to tell them we have microphones and amplifiers now. shouting speeches is highly overrated unless you're very, very good at it. he's on the short list. the theory is you pick a guy from the state, you win the state, that was right in 1908. elections are nationalized now. they're about message. my friend paul reminds us that mitt romney picked paul ryan, he didn't even carry ryan's congressional district. so i think the smart choice is buttigieg. because two reasons. that doubles down on the -- what

the election should be about if kamala harris wants to win, which is generational change versus somebody whose ideas are locked in 1955. and second, buttigieg is by far the best political athlete in the democratic party, and that's a weapon i'd want to deploy. i think there's also a case for governor walz of minnesota, who's incredibly authentic. shouting politician is not, to me, the formula. now, i don't think shapiro would be a bad choice, but i think he's overrated by conventional wisdom myth that, frankly, isn't that true in the real world of campaigns anymore. >> mike, because i made you stay quiet for so long, i want to ask you a follow-up question to give you a little more chance to talk here -- >> sure. >> -- the shortest version of this is vice president harris had an incredible week last week. >> yes. >> it was a high degree of difficulty, she performed well, the campaign performed well. she knocked it out of the park. she's unified the party. enthusiasm, energy.

everything you could ask for. she's got 20 days between now and the democratic convention where there's a massive struggle that's going to take place. she and her team have a lot to do. can they keep the harris honeymoon going and for how long? >> well, the best case is they keep it going through the convention and steph cotter over there runs a great convention, which i think is a safe bet. i'm a little worried they don't have paid advertising up. the super pac does, but the super pac is making it known in the consultant world they're not happy about moving a big spend up because the campaign can't get an ad up. that's the only ding. there's a lot of sugar high going on right now. you've got to remember the democratic party was in the dumps. they had given up on the campaign. they didn't think joe biden could win. the donors were on strike, and then president biden quite selflessly and heroically stepped aside, the kind of sacrifice you don't see in

american politics anymore, and there was this tornado of enthusiasm, which has picked up kamala harris kind of like a school bus in a tornado and she's doing an incredible job navigating it flying 300 feet above the air. but eventually, that tornado is going to weaken and the bus will come crashing down, and i think that's what they're preparing for. the battle is going to be the definition of vice president harris, and remember, even with the age issue, the polling was pretty clear, the country was ready to fire the biden/harris administration before the bad debate on the economy. so they're going to need issues to reconnect when the tornado goes away. i think what happened today, if president biden was a political attempt, as you said, to inject the supreme court in there. another weird issue where i think they could have some traction. but she's got to connect on middle class economics too, and they've got to handle this generational thing, which she's started doing. so if they can line all that up, then they have a formula for a

campaign post the big wave inside the democratic party that we've been watching now. and it'll be a real, real competitive race. but we're not going to know that until after labor day and after the convention and what the post-labor day polling shows, but she's off to a really strong start. >> all right, mike, thank you for that. you saved basil and maya from my next question, which was going to be not an endorsement but as matter of political analysis who would you put on the ticket with vice president harris. they got saved by that. they will not have to get stuck saying the wrong thing. thank you all three of you for spending this hour with us. we'll be back after one more quick break. see you on the other side. k break. see you on the other side. ♪ and i am lost and i can't ♪ punch buggy red. ♪ even say why ♪ ♪ i am, i said ♪

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solutions that grow with you. one bank for now. for later. for life. chase. make more of what's yours. thank y'all for spending part of your monday with us. right now it's time for "the beat" with a host who is definitely brat, ari melber. >> hi, welcome to "the beat," i'm ari melber. we're tracking