states in the west wing of the white house. later in the interview, ivanka trump said she would give her father a for the job he has done as president so far. that is our broadcast as we start a new week. thank you for being here with us. good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. the president's son-in-law has tonight hired one the of country's most prominent criminal defense lawyers. this prominent criminal defense lawyer will be representing jared kushner personally in the trump/russia investigation. his name is abbe lowell. he is one of the few criminal defense lawyers in america who i think counts as household name. he is most famous for having been the democrats' top lawyer during the impeachment proceedings against bill clinton. he also represented the fabulously corrupt convicted republican super lobbyist, jack abram off.

he also remitted john edwards when he was charged with using illegal campaign contributions to pay for the living expenses for his secret second family that nobody knew about. abbe lowell has been the defense lawyer -- he's been the defense lawyer in the middle of taunl of lurid political scandals. jim wright who was the first speaker of the house to ever resign in scandal, he had he abbe lowell as his lawyer. dan ross tin kowsky who went straight from being chairman of the ways and means committee to serving 17 months this federal prison, abbe lowell was his lawyer. and now he'll be the defense lawyer for jared kushner too. mr. kushner is reportedly keeping his existing private

lawyer, another washington a-lister. but in addition, he is now adding abbe lowell which means like mike pence, presidential senior adviser and presidential son-in-law and de facto crown prince of the trump administration, jared kushner and mike pence now both have better legal representation in this matter than the president does. and i don't mean to be weird ad hominem about this, but to face this scandal, to mount a personal defense, the president himself has hired this guy. like handled some of his divorce stuff. he hired a lawyer who mostly does religious right televangelist stuff and he hired this guy. >> you're going to want to watch this next piece of video that we are going to show you. he is out on bail after being convicted of all 14 counts of conspiracy and fraud. in his insider trading trial.

his attorney, john dowd has promised to appeal those convictions. this is the video that i was talking about. cnbc caught up with mr. dowd a short time ago. >> get the [ bleep ] out of here. >> that's what i got for cnbc. >> wow! >> that's what i got for cnbc. cnbc. doesn't usually have to blur hand gestures. it is like business stuff. you know what i mean? but the president has hired this star wars bar scene legal team to mount his own defense in the russia scandal. and that is fine. that's his prerogative. he gets to do it however he wants to do it. it is worth noting that now in contrast, his vice president, mike pence, and his son-in-law jared kushner, in contrast to what he's done, they've hired real big-name lawyers with tons

of relevant experience in big-name political scandals. mike pence hired richard cullen. jared kushner just hired abbe lowell. we'll have more coming up in a couple minutes about why jared kushner may be feeling the need to add such an a-list lawyer to his personal pay roll. there are two things have just come up that may explain the sense of urgency with his legal team and hiring one of the most famous criminal defense lawyers in the country 6789 so we'll get to that in a couple minutes. i want to start tonight with this airplane banner which was seen today flying high over, well, flying high, well above what typically counts as american politics. the plane is on the left side of the screen. the banner is on the lower right. can we zoom in so you can see what it says? senator heller, keep your word, vote no on trump care.

the only problem with this high-flying message is that although this message targets senator dean heller of nevada, this banner actually flew today over charleston, west virginia, which i think was just a screw-up. i think this is also a heads-up to the people of nevada that somewhere above reno or las vegas, you're probably about to start seeing a plane flying a banner for somebody named senator capito, because that is the one meant for west virginia. they're probably going to have to swap their bi-plane banners. the senator did get wrong banner for the wrong senator flying over her office in charleston today. but the senator got a lot of people on the ground in exactly the right place. her constituents coming to her office in charleston, west virginia's largest city, including a half dozen residents who not only came to the office but they came inside the office and they said they would stay in there.

they would sit in in an act of peaceful civil disobedience. they pledged to stay until she pledged to vote no on the republican health care bill. they said they would stay until she said she would vote no or until they get arrested, whichever came first. and this afternoon they got arrested. six of them were arrested at senator capitto's office. including a priest. senator capito is one of the republican senators who might vote no on this bill. the high number of people in her state that would be expected to lose all health care coverage and have no options if this bill becomes law. the senator of virginia has not said anything about how she is going to vote on it. you can see the arrests today. you can see the people at her charleston office today. watch this. >> i want you to see a picture

of somebody, a face. that's my daughter. >> okay. >> okay? she is beautiful. >> she doesn't take after her mom. but that's okay. i want you to see her in treatment. >> oh, my gosh. how old is she? >> 41 years old. she's been fighting this cancer. >> what's her name? >> amy elizabeth stills. she's been fighting this cancer for four years. very diligently. she has maintained her jobs. she's gotten promotions. has led teams. as sick as she has been. she would not be alive today if it wasn't for the aca. >> is she on medicaid? >> no. she's working. >> she's able to get -- >> with her job. but if she ever lost her insurance, in seven months, she

went over $10,200,000,000 and this has been going on for four years. pre-existing condition? and we're not sure how long she'll be able to work. maybe forever. that's what our goal is. but these are real people. my daughter. so i want you to have that in your brain. look at this. i understand pressure. i understand what, no, i don't. i can only imagine. but west virginia needs you so desperately to stand up against this i am moral bill. >> senator shelly moore capito, one of those votes who will be a make or break vote. for the republican plan to kill the affordable care act, which they reportedly want to take votes on and try to pass this week. the congressional budget office today put out its new score of what the bill will do. that score projects if the republicans are able to pass this thing, it will kick 22 million americans off of health insurance.

before today's score, nevada senator dean heller already said he was a no vote on the bill. after the score came out today, senator sues an collins of maine said she too will be a no vote on the bill. that's two. that's all the no votes republicans can spare. if they get to three, if just one more republican senator decides to vote no, this thing will be over. senate democrats tonight are once again holding the floor of the united states senate. they'll be holding the floor of the senate indefinitely tonight. they've been there already several hours. they're try to sound the alarm against the republicans' bill, rally more no votes against it. the democrats' takeover of the senate floor tonight was led by the hawaii senator who will be leaving the senate tomorrow to undergo a second round of surgery to fight kidney cancer which she was just diagnosed with. so tomorrow, she will have

a legacy on her rib removed in conjunction her cancer treatment. but tonight she is leading the senate. in this effort to try to save the affordable care act. but you know, no matter how dramatic things get in this fight on this issue in washington, d.c., the real potent politics of this have been shaped not in d.c. they've been shaped at home, in the home states of all these people. every time they show up in their home districts is that, in their home states. [ chanting ] >> if you want to travel fast, go alone. if you want to travel far, go together. [ chanting ]

>> we are going to make the changes, we are going to pass the bill, and we're going to repeal obamacare. [ booing ] >> that was not the response that texas congressman pete sessions wanted to get from a room full of his constituents there. but that's what it's been like. hometown lawmakers have been getting an earful from town halls. it is also involved these organic grassroots group that have sprung up all over the country in every congressional district in the country. indivisible movement, holding rallies at lawmaker offices. demanding that their refts do town hall events and meet with their constituents and explain their votes. sometimes it has involved

creative protests like bringing props to the offices. this was a very good one. each of these balloons delivered to new jersey republican congressman tom macarthur's office, in the third district in new jersey, handed him these balloons to the staffer, each one representing 1,000 people who would lose coverage as a result of his vote for the bill that he helped pass in the house. you will notice the balloons are themselves filled with confetti which creates quite conundrum in terms of what do you with all those balloons once you get them in the office. the activism has been tremendous in the home states and home districts of representatives from before the inauguration. from the fist moments of people organizing to see if the republicans would do what they said they would do. in repealing the affordable care act. it has involved a lot of meetings with the staffers. it involves not listening to the staffers when they try play indicate the crowds.

in absence of said lawmakers. aides found that out the hard way. a constituent event in february where you can tell, they were just not prepared. >> we need help with medicare and social security. so many of you have already sign up on our sign-up sheet. but if you have not, this is how we're going to be calling folks back into the conference room to discuss matters. [ booing ] >> huge constituent crowds were a staple of life for republican lawmakers whenever they went back home this spring. now we're seeing the protests which never really went away. now we're seeing them spring up with a new sense of urgency in response to the bill that is now pending in the senate. in asheville, north carolina, hundreds of people gathered to protest the new senate bill. they gathered at the vance memorial in asheville.

most in tennessee said the rally was aimed at the he 22 million people who could lose health care coverage if this bill becomes law. protesters show up outside the offices in florida. 100 or so demonstrators showed up outside marco rubio's office to chant vote no, marco, vote no, marco. the protesters staging die-in, be a technique from the aids activist movement which started in this country in the late 1980s. people lying down to represent people who they believe will be killed as a result of this legislation. if you can hear what they're saying there, they're saying marco polio, a rif on both marco rubio and marco polo. that was in florida today. in charleston, protesters rallied in senator shelley capito's office to make their message heard. >> if this bill passes, if senator capito does not vote no,

170,000 west virginians will be losing their health care. over 25,000 west virginians will not be able to get drug treatment. senator capito certainly knows that. and so, to protect west virginia uns, she needs to vote no on this health care bill. >> to protect our whole nation. 22 million people who lose health care if this is not voted no. >> we're showing any ounce of courage today, it is to inspire senator capito to show that same amount of courage in this odd state of politics where defending the health care of 22 million people requires courage. it should be common sense. >> senator shelley moore capito. that was her district office in charleston, west virginia today. she is one of the republican senators who appears to be on the fence in this bill.

it is down to one vote right now as to whether or not this will pass. if it does pass, the cbo projects as of today that will result in 22 million americans not just losing the health insurance they're on, losing health insurance coverage altogether. will protests through the spring like today. joining us, the co-executive director, one of the architects of the protests against these efforts to repeal the affordable care act. nice to see you again. thank you for being here. a lot has changed since we first talked with you about this little movement seemed to be springing forth out of nowhere. >> i'm surprised as you are. we have an average of 13 groups in every month congressional district in the country. >> 13 different groups in each district? >> 13, and this is not just an east coast thing or west coast thing. this is indivisible alabama, in tennessee, there are groups in

maine that spent last week going to every single congressional district office that susan collins had. they only had five of the six covered. so one of the groups drove four hours to drive to the caribou office. they did a sit-in there. drove back the next four hours. then they went to their weekly indevisable meeting to do more. she announced she was against the bill. this is working because people are standing up. >> when we look at the short history, this phenomenal growth of the group that you've been part of and you helped start as a staffer, the growth of your organization and the visibility of the protests is something that is remarkable and it is easy to track. your track record on the aca, however, was that i think that the work that you guys did slowed the republicans' effort to pass it in the house. in march, they put it up for a vote. it didn't pass. in april, they tried to bring it back, it didn't pass.

then in may they brought it back and it did pass. what did you learn from that in. process as the senate is considering it? >> early on there was a ton of pressure during the february recess is when people were back in their districts. they were hearing from their constituents and they heard from all over they didn't want to see this go through. ultimately they rush it through right in the end. they were able to get it in the house. not without pain. they barely did it with two votes. then we saw mitch mcconnell, he is smart. he saw what happened in the house. so what he did was try to keep it in the dark. for the last several weeks, he's been crafting this bill in the dark. he knew if there was sunlight on it, people would see everything that was wrong with it and they would stand up and pressure their senators to oppose it. so what has happened with the cbo report, the actual bill. we know it is really bad. we know millions of people lose their health insurance.

we know thousands could die. we know this is all in service of cutting billions of dollars in taxes for millionaires. but there's one good thing. it is public now. we know about it. so people are coming out. we identified 11 republicans in ten states a couple weeks ago. they look gettable. in each of those states, there have been indivisible groups going out the past couple weeks saying, look, i could be bankrupt or dead without the affordable care act. you need stand up for me. don't stand up for trump care. we see that's working right now. it is not just democrats standing up against the bill. you've dhofrd covered this already. we've seen senator collins in maine. >> were they two of the ones you targeted? >> absolutely. there's a brought resistance out there made up of folks joining planned parenthood or working families party, or ofa. a lot of folks are coming out against this.

this not just democrats. this bill has an approval rating less than 20% for a reason. people recognize that it will really affect their lives. for folks watching right now, the answer should be really clear. you should look at what's going on around you, see that people are standing up and making their voices heard, and stands up yourself. there is a rally going on outside the white house, or outside the capitol, senator booker, john lewis, they're saying this isn't just about health care. this is a massive social justice issue. if you look throughout history and wonder, what would i do? if i were alive back there, would i stand up? the answer is, it is what you're doing now. and you have a chance. people all across the country are standing up now. the next 48 hours is crucial. like you said, we need one more republican to drop off this bill and we can save thousands of lives or health coverage for millions if people stand up over the next 48 hours. >> the co-executive director and one of the founders of the indivisible project. thank you for coming in. ezra.

and i do want to say as people are watching this unfold and try to understand this in policy terms and political materials, everybody keeps looking at washington. but honestly it is in the hall ways outside the district office where i think the real politics is being shaped here. thanks for helping us understand. coming up, a really, really good question. for the really high florida lawsuiting criminal defense attorney hired by the president's son-in-law. stay with us. eye drop approved for both the signs and symptoms of dry eye. one drop in each eye, twice a day. common side effects include eye irritation, discomfort or blurred vision when applied to the eye, and unusual taste sensation. don't touch container tip to your eye or any surface. remove contacts before using xiidra and wait at least 15 minutes before reinserting. chat with your eye doctor about xiidra. can we at least analyze customer can we push the offer online?

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a bizarre combination of things in america. jared kushner, 36 years old, no politics back ground. he worked in his family's real estate company and then married ivanka trump. jared kushner is now a senior white house adviser as well as being related by marriage to the president. he has just hired one of the most prominent criminal defense lawyers in the country. he has hired abbe lowell. that news coming in tonight as the white house also announced that they have finally submitted the nomination for the person they want to be the new fbi director after the president fired james comey. christopher wray christopher wray. w he was named as the new nominee several weeks ago but tonight the white house finally put his name forward to the senate. formally. so they can consider his nomination. those confirmation hearings should be fun. i mentioned before there are two things we're gesture learning about now that may explain why jared kushner is putting

together a nuclear criminal defense legal team. one was the "a" story in the "washington post." but the other one was about something that happened in december between jared kushner and something that everybody calls v.e.b., because the the full thing is stands for is hard to pronounce. it's vnesheconombank. vnesheconombank, v.e.b. in new york in december during the transition, we know that jared took a meeting with vnesheconombank, v.e.b. the white house says this was a meeting that jared kushner took in his role as an official in the transition. but it was an unusual meeting. it was jared kushner and the chairman of v.e.b., a man named sergei gorkov. he's graduate of what's basically kbg school in russia. he was hand picked by vladimir putin personally. him coming to new york and

meeting with jared kushner during the election, during transition, that has been a matter of some interest because of who gorkov is but also because jared kushner didn't say that he had he taken this meeting when he applied for a security clearance. we reported on friday, writing letter from the senate judiciary committee writing to the white house and the fbi expressing concerns about jared kushner's security clearance, asking the white house and the fbi about the status of the clearance. now we have this from the "financial times" which makes this already mysterious meeting between the v.e.b. guy and jared kushner all the more intriguing. we had known before that the v.e.b. had been used as a cover by the russian intelligence services in the recent past. we knew, for example about, the intelligence back ground of the chief executive who met with kushner but we also knew the number two official in the new york office just finished a federal prison term for

espionage, basically, work working as russian spy. undercover as working as an official at v.e.b. we also know the v.e.b. paid the spy's legal fees in that case. we also knew v.e.b. was singled out because of its importance to the russian government. what we didn't know before this reporting today from the "financial times" is that while v.e.b. is technically described as a bank and the v.e.b. statement about why they were meeting with kushner was that they said it had to do with the business strategy as a bank, v.e.b. did you notice appear to actually be a bank. as reported today by the "financial times," v.e.b. has no banking license. they're also not regulated as if they're a central blank. they have no independent board that oversees them which banks have to have. in v.e.b.'s case, they do have a

board a supervisory board who approves their decisions but every person who serves on that board is a currently serving government official, including the prime minister. v.e.b. is also not in a position where they can raise capital like a normal bank. they're basically a pass-through for russian government money. vladimir putin gives them about 300 billion rubles a year from government funds and that's their capital. that's what they have to spend. and that's a lot of things, but that's not a bank. at least not in the way we usually think of a bank. from the financial times today, quote, the bank has no cash. they have no capital. they're basically just an arm of the russian government. so why were they meeting with jared kushner during the transition? and a meeting that was reportedly requested by the russian ambassador, and a meeting that jared kushner did not disclose when he was asked to until he

was forced to by press reports about the meeting. i don't know why jared kushner took meeting and i don't know what v.e.b. was doing with anyone during arn american transition, but jared kushner is very expensive new criminal defense lawyer may have a crack at that soon. plus the bigger, weirder stuff that also broke today. that's next. thanks for the ride around norfolk! and i just wanted to say, geico is proud to have served the military for over 75 years! roger that. captain's waiting to give you a tour of the wisconsin now. could've parked a little bit closer... it's gonna be dark by the time i get there. geico®. proudly serving the military for over 75 years. if you could book a flight, then add a hotel, or car, or activity in one place and save,

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the president has not released his tax returns other than the two pages of his 2005

return that david k. johnson got his hands on a few weeks ago. so he hasn't really released tax information of any consequence. and no tax information that looks anything like what other modern presidents have released. but he has released financial disclosure statements and those make clear there's one bank he owes more money to than any other learned, and that bank is deutsche bank. a major reason he owes they will hundreds of millions of dollars is because for a long time, deutsche bank was pretty much the only bank that would still do business with him. during his decades in the new i don't work real estate world, donald trump became notorious for reneging on his financial obligations for failing to pay back loans. i'm not saying whether that's good business or bad business but that's famously the way he did business to the point every bank in new york refused to take him on as a customer anymore, except one. except for deutsche bank.

and the weird thing about that, by all appearances, deutsche bank had just as much reason to want to be rid of him as customer as the other banks did, maybe even more so. less than a decade ago, not only did trump fail to pay deutsche bank over $330 million he owed them on a loan for trump tower in chicago. when they tried to collect only loan, he turned around and sued them. he claimed it was their fault that the apartments in his new trump tower were not selling. he turned around, he owed they them $330 million. he turned around and sued them for $3 billion. he did not win. but even after stunts like that, deutsche bank explicably continued lending him hundreds of millions of dollars. and that is now a new kind of awkward because trump is now president of the united states

and the justice department is currently deciding whether or not to bring federal criminal charges had for its role in a $10 billion russian money laundering operation. deutsche bank has paid hundreds of millions in fines over the money laundering fiasco but that's nothing compared to what the feds could extract from them if federal prosecutors decide to bring charges on top of the state charges they have faced. congressional democrats have recently been sounding alarms about the ability of the trump justice department to conduct this investigation into deutsche bank and russian money laundering to be able to do it fairly given trump's personal obligations to that bank. congressional democrats led by maxine waters have been asking deutsche bank to turn over documents directly to congress. so far the bank has refused those requests. we've known all of this for a while. this mysteriously unshakeable relationship between trump and deutsche bank.

but it turns out the bank also has a special relationship with donald trump's increasingly beleaguered son-in-law. "washington post" reports today that one month before election day, so october, this past october, jared kushner's real estate company got a $285 million loan from deutsche bank. it was part of a refinancing package from a year earlier. a property had increased in value by nearly 60% in just that one year that kushner's family -- company had been managing it. that magnificent appraisal allowed the company of kushner's to get an extra $74 million in cash over what they paid for that property year earlier. another interesting part of this is that jared kushner reportedly personally guaranteed this loan. meaning he is personally on the hook if the whole deal goes south. and yet despite taking out this

massive loan just before the election on very impressively rosy terms, just before deutsche bank was about to pay hundreds of millions for russian money laundering, despite being the personal guarantor, the "washington post" reports that jared kushner did not mention this $285 million loan on his financial disclosure form. when he entered his father-in-law's administration. again, he only got the loan a month before election day, but it slipped his mind when it came time to disclose these things. he kept it secret west already know that he failed on report his meetings with the russian ambassador and the head of a russian state bank at his security clearance form. be it turns out he failed on disclose this giant personally guaranteed loan from deutsche bank that's in the middle of a russia money laundering scandal. i don't know jared kushner personally. i don't know anybody who knows jared kushner personally.

but everybody who has had any interactions with him say that he is so poised, so savvy. this guy can move among rich and powerful in a way that just exudes competence. why can't this guy fill out his forms properly? we did get the news today that jared kushner has hired a big name criminal defense lawyer. to add to the team repping him in all the investigations. it seems like he'll need the extra help. a millie dresselhaus doll!

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one of the first things that donald trump did as president seven days after he was inaugurated. he tried to enact the muslim ban he had been promising for all those months as a candidate. on a friday afternoon, his first full friday on the job after the inauguration, he signed an executive order bands people from muslim majority countries from coming to the united states biflt the following day, by saturday, this is what our nation's airports looked like. protesters descended at airports. volunteer lawyers did as well. by saturday night the day of he had sign the order, president trump's muslim ban was handed its first legal setback. in the first ruling on it, a federal judge blocked the deportations of people who had valid visas who were being detained. that was day one. and it got worse and worse for the administration from there. president trump's muslim ban has been blocked and revised and blocked again at every level and every court where it has been considered.

the muslim ban has been slowed and stopped by the federal courts. but now today, the president and his supporters are celebrating what they were calling a victory on this issue at the supreme court. next to the court's decision today, starting on thursday, so starting the end of this week, a partial version of the muslim ban will go into effect. the court announced today that it will hear the case, it will review the lower court rulings in the fall. but in the meantime, between now and the fall, part of the ban gets put in place. the court says the ban can't target people who have a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the united states. so if you're from one of these muslim majority countries, you have a family member living in the u.s., a job offer, you're going to school in the u.s., you won't be banned. at least not yet. but everybody else who doesn't have that kind of connection, if you're from one of those countries, president trump's ban will now keep you from being

allowed to come into this country. and the president and his allies are obviously very happy about it. attorney general jeff sessions said the decision is an important step toward restoring the separation of powers. trump's department of homeland security says the decision strorz to the executive branch krushl and constitutional authority. but with all of that, even as the president is declaring this a victory, i have to tell you one of the key figures in the fight against the muslim ban begs to differ. and he joins us tonight to explain why. neal katyal was act shoplift tore general in the obama administration. he was the lead attorney for the state of hawaii's challenge to the travel ban and he joins us now. mr. katyal, thank you very much for being here. >> always fabulous to be with you. >> i wanted to talk to you today because i went to go look at your twitter feed to get your response on the ruling of the supreme court as the president had is celebrating it.

and i expected you to be against this ruling, but you seem sort of positive about it. >> absolutely. i was surprised to hear the president declare a unanimous victory today. if the president wants victories like this, we'll give to it him. here's what happened today. the u.s. supreme court, 6-3, not unanimous, a 6-3 ruling against him, said the key parts of the muslim ban and the refugee ban can't go into effect. and to be sure, there's this technical piece for people who have no u.s. connection that they, the supreme court said the president had won on. that is not and has never been the kind of heart of our challenge. it has been you have all these people in the pipeline who want to visit, and the as opposed to having a 90-day, a 120-day suspension. those people are vex people who have connections to the united states. so it is true, he won something like that.

so if there is a somali or yemeni tourist who wants to come to the united states who doesn't know anyone here, yes, the president has been able to block that person from coming in as a result of the supreme court decision today. if you think that's some big threat to our national security, i'm not sure that any such tourists exist, but that's what the president won. ultimately it has been a lot more talk than action on the national security front. >> neil, let me ask you about the 90-day threshold too. i may just know naive about this. the way they phrased the ban initially was that an emergency national security emergency in effect. they needed to take this extreme measure in a temporary way for 90 days in order to get a handle on this situation. with what the supreme court did today, by the time the supreme court hears arguments on this in the fall, 90

days will be, will have elapsed between when this starts on thursday and at the end of 90 days. so is there a chance it will get thrown out because it will be expired by the time they hear the case? >> that's the million-dollar question. it is always tough to read too much into a 12-page supreme court opinion. but i do think that the supreme court was deeply skeptical of the president's rationale. he kept saying i need 90 days to study the problem. he's already had more than 90 days. he wants another fresh 90-day clock. the supreme court said okay, today we'll give you that extra 90 days to study the problem, but by the time we this area case in october, you know, you've been able to study the problem all you want. so there really a national security justification? i expect to be front and center of the argument we'll hear if october. what is the true national security rationale for this as opposed to what the president has voiced time and again against muslims, which seems

like the animated focus against the ban. >> you have been supportive of this neil gorsuch. were you disappointed in his vote today? >> look, my view on justice gorsk is that the democratic should have applied the same standard to him that we asked the republicans to apply to justice kay began and so to ma your. i was very clear in my support for justice gorsuch that he wouldn't have been my first choice but we lost the election. i think we will see over time a principled good jurist in neil gorsuch. not someone that democrats would appoint but someone who is the kind of republican equivalent to the democratic nominees that i mentioned before. >> neal katyal, former u.s. acting shoplift tore general. really appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you. >> we have much more ahead. stay with us.

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as we've been talking about tonight, today there were major decisions from the u.s. supreme court, but those major decisions today were not the biggest news out of the supreme court. the biggest news out of the court today is that these guys are still on it. justices sometimes take the last day of the term to announce they are retiring. but today was the last day of the term and neither 80-year-old anthony kennedy nor 69-year-old clarence thomas said anything about leaving. and that will be seen as good news for anybody who doesn't want the new president to have the chance to pull the arm off another soon to be supreme court justice anytime soon.

even though no one retired today, should we be expecting that sometime soon anyway? now that this term of the supreme court is over, what did donald trump's first supreme court pick end up being like anyway? joining us now is dahlia lithwick. senior editor at slate.com. ms. lithwick, it is lovely to see you. thank you for being here. >> hey there, rachel. >> what is the scuttlebutt about retiring justices? does no word on that today mean nobody is stepping down in the foreseeable future? >> i think it becomes very unlikely. i think particularly when we see the gerrymander cases are coming up, those are reverse engineered to be kennedy babies. now i think the travel ban cases also reverse engineered to be like, please, justice kennedy. i think he's in it, at least for the next term. and i also think it's worth saying, you know, it's not at all clear that these rumors were coming anywhere from him in the first instance. >> it was just people doing numerology with the calendar. >> well, and maybe a little

upselling, maybe trying to say, hey, we did so well with gorsuch, we can get you another one, people who held your nose and voted for trump about the supreme court. so i think it was a little bit of an effort to keep people who were engaged because of the supreme court engaged over the summer. >> let me ask you about gorsuch. we just had neal katyal because of his remotely fighting the muslim ban, controversially for a democrat, somebody who was an obama administration official, he also supported neil gorsuch's nomination, sort of vouched for him, which was important coming from a democrat. what do you make of what we have learned about gorsuch? what's he going to be like? what have we seen in the weeks he's been on the court? >> this has been really dispiriting, rachel. you can call this the you told me so portion where i came and said to you, no, no, helmeted he might even be to the left of scalia. he's clearly aligned himself time and time again actually with clarence thomas more than right to anyone.

and today especially just a whole raft of decisions that came from him that show he is going to be anti-same-sex marriage, very, very eager to pull down the wall between church and state. and as we saw on the travel ban, really eager to afford trump broad, broad executive power. so this is not your center right justice. this is somebody who i think in hindsight, when dems decided to filibuster him, i think they knew what was coming up the pike. >> dahlia lithwick, it's great to see you. thanks for being here. >> thank you. >> all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. ♪

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aleve. all day strong. all day long. so we have breaking news just in in the last couple of minutes from the white house. i have to tell you we don't really know what to make of this. but it is a serious-sounding statement from the white house. we do believe this has come from them. i should tell you they put out no supporting information to explain what this was about or what they're sort of bracing us for here. i'm going to tell you exactly what they've just said. this has just come out without warning. the united states -- a statement from the press secretary. the united states has identified potential preparations for another chemical weapons attack by the assad regime that would likely result in the mass murder of civilians including innocent children. the activities are similar to preparations the regime made before its april 4th chemical weapons attack. as we've previously stated the u.s. is in syria to eliminate isis. if, however, mr. assad conducts another mass murder attack using chemical weapons, he and his

military will pay a heavy price. again, we do not know what this is about. the white house has not put out any supporting information, nor have they made any officials available to explain this. our producers at the pentagon and state department are trying to chase this down but at this point can't get any supporting information either. we'll let you know as we learn more. that april 4th chemical weapons attack referenced in the statement of course was followed on april 6th by president trump ordering 59 tomahawk missiles to be shot into syria. i don't know if that's what they're sort of -- if that's what they're implicitly referencing here. but, again, an unusual statement just moments ago from the white >> good evening rachel. i'm hearing that statement as you read it, and this is one of those times where credibility in a white house really matters. credibility in the president really matters. credibility in the president's communications staff members. >> yes.