nation's 116th justice and the first black woman ever to serve often the high supreme court. her husband held two bibles on which she swore, a family bible and the court's bible. a former federal appeals court judge and public defender, jackson replaced stephen breyer who stepped down after nearly three decades on the bench, justice breyer hired ketanji brown jackson as a clerk in 1979 making it a full circle moment when he administered the judicial oath to her today. a formal moment will occur in the fall. taking the oath allows her to begin judicial duties. she arivs on the bench in the wake of several hugely polarizing decisions issued by the court on abortion, gun rights and today's ruling limiting the epa's authority to fight climate change. much more on that ruling

specifically. and on the future of the court, and newest member, st ahead. before we get to all of that, do you remember when the donald trump campaign was caught scamming its own donors? i just have to read you the lead from the "new york times," the story that broke the scandal open. quote, stacy blatt was in hospice care in september 2020 listening to rush limbaugh's dire warnings about how badly donald trump's campaign needed money when he went online and chipped in everything he could. $500. it was a big sum for a 63-year-old battling cancer and living in kansas city. on less than $1,000 a month but that single contribution quickly multiplied. another $500 was withdrawn the next day, then $500 the next week, and every week through mid october, without his knowledge. until mr. blatt's bank account had been depleted and frozen. when his utility and rent payments bounced he called his

brother russell for help but the blatts soon discovered, $3,000 in withdrawals by the trump campaign in less than 30 days. they called their bank and said they thought they were victims of fraud. russell said, quote, it felt like it was a scam. it was. it was a scam. the trump campaign was putting these little check boxes on its online donation portal. they were already pre-checked when he went to make a donation. the fine print saying if you were agreeing to make a weekly donation, well, that was buried beneath all of the bold-faced all cap verbiage. so if you did not want the trump campaign to keep reaching into your bank account or your credit card, you would have to see those boxes, read them, understand them, and then uncheck them. the then president of the united states, raked in millions of dollars, perpetrating the scam, on his most ardent supporters but as it turned out, that was just the beginning. then trump launched something called "save america,"

ostensibly to raise money to fight the stolen election and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to stop the steal except that's not where the money all went. here is how one of the january 6th investigators laid it out in a public hearing earlier this month. >> between election day and january 6th, emails to trump supporters sometimes as many as 25 a day and continued to barrage small dollar donors and encourage them to donate to the official election defense fund. the select committee discovered no such fund existed. the claims of the election was stolen were so successful, president trump and his allies raised $250 million. nearly $100 million in the first week after the election. on november 9th, 2020, president trump created a separate entity called save america pac, most of the money went to this newly

created pac, the select committee discovered that the save america pac made millions of dollars of contributions to pro-trump organizations, including $1 million to trump chief of staff mark meadows' charitable foundation. $1 million to the america first policy institute, a conservative organization which employs several former trump administration officials, $204,857 to the trump hotel collection, and over $5 million to event strategies inc., the company that ran president trump's january 6th rally on the ellipse. >> throughout the kmit committee's investigation, we found evidence that the trump campaigned a its surrogates misled donors where their funds would go and what they would be used for. not only was there the big lie, there was the big ripoff. >> the big ripoff. so donald trump's been raising all of this money. hundreds of millions of dollars by promising supporters that he can still win the 2020 election.

or something. but in fact, money was line can he and his friends' pockets and we have to reason to worry that some of the money might be spent in more insidious ways because here the congresswoman zoe lofgren who sits on the january 6th committee told me last night. >> we know that a large amount of money has been spent out of the fund that was amassed by the former president, and is being used to pay for lawyers to various witnesses. the potential for coercion in that case is pretty obvious. >> what the congresswoman is describing there is a neat trick. donald trump raises all this money, supposedly to try to overturn the 2020 election results, then along comes this giant investigation into his attempts to overturn the election, so donald trump uses that big pile of money to pay

for lawyers for all the people who used to work for him who are being subpoenaed by that very investigation. and you may not be a lawyer. i certainly am not. but you don't have to have a law degree to understand why it might be in the congresswoman's words coercive for trump to be paying for witnesses' lawyers. imagine you are say cassidy hutchinson. a white house staffer. subpoenaed by the january 6th investigation. and donald trump is paying for your lawyer. who's interest is your lawyer serving? yours or trumps? and hanging over your head at all times is the possibility that if you displease trump somehow, he might cut off the money and you'll lose your representation. today, one of cassidy hutchinson's former white house colleagues said it was her understanding that when ms. hutchinson first testified behind closed doors months ago, she was represented by a lawyer paid for by trump or his allies.

>> cassidy came to me and said there's more i want to share with the committee, a couple of months ago, i put her in touch with congressman cheney, she got a new lawyer, and that's how this testimony came about. >> she came to you and said she had more even after she had spoken to them once. >> what people need to understand is trump world was assigning lawyers to a lot of these staffers who then said don't -- >> assigning lawyers? >> covering the cost of lawyers for people who don't have defense funds to themselves. >> cassidy hutchison's lawyer? >> it is my understanding. she had someone who had been in the white house counsel's office and still aligned with trump world. she did her interview. she complied with the committee. but she shared with me, there is more i want to share that was not asked in those settings, how do we do this? and in that process, she got a new attorney of her own. >> the name that the former white house staffer there was searching for was pasantino, her

lawyer until a month ago, a former white house lawyer with all kinds of trump world connections, was he being paid by trump to represent ms. hutchinson? we don't know that. we reached out to mr. pasantino today but we have not heard back. but what we do know is that a law firm that he runs has been getting regular payments of tens of thousands of dollars from that very same trump save america pac. here are the payments from trump's save america pac to pasatino's firm, elections llc for the last year and a half for legal consulting payments ranging from $10,000 to $45,000 multiple times a month. now, to be entirely clear, mr. pasantion is a lawyer. it is entirely possible that all of the money he is getting from trump's pac is for actual legal services rendered that have

nothing it do with representing cassidy hutchinson. again, we've reached out to mr. pasatino and we haven't heard anything back but you got to admit you're a witness before the january 6th investigation and your lawyer is getting regular payments from trump's quasi--slush fund pac, it may be a situation. and it may be why she was so much more forthcoming once she switched lawyers a month ago and makes you wonder if there are other witnesses who are being paid by trump world or this super pac and then what they might be willing to say under different circumstances if they had different lawyers or not from trump allies. and that same trump pac to law firms representing several other january 6th witnesses. again, it doesn't mean those payments are specifically tied to the representation of those

witnesses, someone else might be paying for those witnesses, those witnesses might be paying their own bills, we don't know that information yet, but you can understand why january 6th investigators would be very interested in that information. following the money. especially when the committee is already put forward evidence of witness intimidation by trump allies, messages to witnesses that appear to be veiled threats, reminding witnesses that trump is watching, and urging them to quote do the right thing. here's what congresswoman zoe lofgren told me last night about that. >> i'm not going to comment on which witness those threatening messages were sent to, but obviously, if you read them, there's an intent to dissuade a witness from testifying honestly. so this is a concern. and i just want people who would try and interfere with a witness, who would coerce them, or threaten them, to know that

that's not legal. and we do not intend to just sit by and watch that happen. as to witness intimidation, that's a crime. and individuals who are trying to protect the president are committing a crime. we intend to take the evidence that we get of that and not just sit on it. people ought to be aware that committing the crime of witness tampering is a serious matter and it's not going to be ignored. >> donald trump and his allies like to claim that the january 6th investigation is a ridiculous side show, that they're not even paying attention to. but it sure seems like behind the scenes, they're working pretty hard to keep witnesses from saying too much. or saying what they don't want them to say. joining us now, barbara mcquade, former united states attorney for the eastern district of michigan, now a professor at the university of michigan law school, and an msnbc legal analyst. barbara, good evening to you and good to see you. thanks for joining us.

i want to keep pull thong thread. last night when we had congresswoman lofgren on, she told me. so money by the save america pac is going to lawyers by trump staffers asked to cooperate with the january 6th investigation. just tonight, brand new reporting from the "new york times" reporting that at least a dozen of the january 6th witnesses are either having their legal fees paid by trump's political organization, and his allies, or have received promises that they will do so. so i have to ask you, as a former prosecutor, what does this all mean? when you hear about these things, is it relevant, when you are prosecuting someone and someone other than that person, or their family are paying their legal bills? >> it is absolutely something that is of concern. it's lawful for somebody to pay someone else's legal bills, there's not a problem with that. there's not a crime with. that but the lawyer's ethical obligation is to represent the

client, regardless of who is paying the bills. sometimes you would see these matters come before the court, and the court can play referee a little bit to make sure that the client is satisfied with the legal representation and that the client believes that the lawyer is representing the client's best interests. but there is an inherent conflict of history and michael cohen has described this is how it works in trump world and when the lawyer is being paid by someone else, there is at least a human element of incentive to please the one who is paying you as opposed to the one you are representing in. >> is there -- the january 6th investigation is not a prosecution by nature, by nature of the committee and how it is constitute and allowed to do, but donald trump and his activities are subject, are subject to that investigation. if this were a court case, would that make a difference? would it make a difference if the person paying the bills of the witnesses is the person being investigated? >> i think it's probably problematic in both contexts.

because what you want to avoid is some sort of obstruction of justice, that the lawyer is persuading the witness not to be as forthcoming as they might otherwise be, because they want to please the boss, and so i think in either context, it is very problematic. and at its worst, it could be a crime of obstruction of justice. at its best, it is somebody generously paying the legal fees of a person who can't otherwise afford, it but i think it behooves the fact finder, whether a judge or in this case, members of congress, to make sure that this sees the light of day, that people understand what this relationship is, and because i think that transparency is the best way to expose wrong doing. >> to be clear, if i am being investigated, if i'm being deposed, if i'm testifying before the committee, and i'm being represented by a lawyer who is paid for by donald trump's super pac, the lawyer i have has got to represent me and my interests, that is their ethical responsibility as a lawyer. >> that's absolutely right, ali.

they can't ask you to pull punches or lie or forthcoming as you would otherwise be just because they're being paid. >> and the letter to cassidy hutchinson warned, trump does read transcripts. i'm not sure what is that supposed to mean. is it suggesting that one of the trump lawyers may have been passing deposition transcripts to former president trump, does that matter? >> well, i think number one, we don't know there would have been accessible to donald trump, so the fact that he, if he is actually reading transcripts, does that suggest that he gets some improper access. what i think it tends to mean is watch what you say because donald trump is going to know every word that you said, and so be careful, be loyal, remember who's team you're on here, all of those kinds of things. i think that they are really careful not to go so far as to say be sure to lie for the boss,

but they do say things like, we're watching, and that is enough, i think, to very subtly suggest that you need to remember whose team you are on. >> barbara, good to see you. a former united states attorney for the eastern district of michigan and an msnbc legal analyst, always a pleasure to see you, my friend. >> thank you. today the supreme court made a decision that has an impact on the entire world. we're going to break down that decision and what can be done to gite it next. be done to gite it ne xt

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where did we go wrong? >> we tried. we always said if we accomplish even one small thing, bring a little smile to one major strip miner, or a little happiness to one large oil cartel, then it's all worth it. how will repay? >> unmarked 50s and 100s. >> that was "snl" in 1983, making fun of a couple of scandal-plagued cabinet members, the interior secretary james watt and the former epa administrator ann burford. ann has since passed on but her legacy lives on. her obituary described her, she wore fur coats and smoked two packs of marlboros a day, her government-issued car got about 15 miles per flop. she was an epa administrator who worked actively to gut the epa. the "washington post" remembers her as a firm believer that the federal government, and

specifically the epa, was too big, too wasteful and to restrictive of business. she cut the epa's budget by 22%, and boasted that she reduced the thickness of the book of clean water regulation from six inches to half an inch. under her watch, the agency tried to set aside a 30 by 40 mile rectangle of ocean due east of the delaware-maryland coast, where incinerator ships would burn toxic wastes at 1200 degrees centigrade. she was eventually forced out of the epa, over a scandal about mismanaging a $1.6 billion program to clean up hazardous waste dumps, but like i said, her legacy, the desire to gut the epa, well that legacy lives on, in her now adult son, the supreme court associate justice, neil gorsuch. not only did the supreme court rule 6-3 against biden's epa today, severely curtailing the epa's ability to limit greenhouse gas emissions but

gorsuch authored a con occurring opinion, voting with the majority and signaling we go further in limiting agency's power if could. today is a sad day for our planet and a day long in the making but getting depressed helps no one, so i want to know what we can do. and just like ann burford and her son neil gorsuch in this fight for decades, so has hour next guest a pioneer in environmental activism. joining us now is bill mckibben, an environmentalist and a founder of an organization called third act, which comprise of the people over the age of 60 who is determined to change the world for the better and author of a memoir "the flag, the cross and the station wagon," bill, thanks for joining us. >> a pleasure to be with you. >> so tell me, you can help me understand what this ruling does to the epa? it limits their ability to limit or restrict the negative, environmentally negative output

of power plants. >> that's right. the epa is filled with experts whose job it is to figure out how to regulate pollution that comes out of power plants and things. but the supreme court today said we don't care about that, that if there's going to be any serious regulation, congress has to specifically tell us how much methane or what kind of carbon or on and on down the list, and of course, as anybody who has followed congress as you have every night, for years now, knows, that's exactly the same thing as saying we'll not have any regulation at all. this, in facing the greatest crisis the world has ever faced, this goes a long ways towards removing the chance that the u.s. will step up to its obligations. >> very much like abortion, there are a number of us who have come to sort of think that the world has moved ahead, that we have changed our views, as it relates to environmentalism, that we have discounted the deniers and they're not sort of,

they don't have an equal place at the table and suddenly a ruling like this comes down, that shows that not only do the deniers have an equal place at the table, they have a prominent place at the table, a leadership role in the discussion. how does this come to pass in 2022 when it ems that people in the world, at least outside of america, but even in america, most people seem to think that environmental damage is done when there is an absence of regulation. >> well, ali, i think you really hit the nail squarely on the head. each of the big decisions in the last week, the one that made it easy to carry guns any place you wanted, the one that overturned a woman's right to choose, and now, this one, this gutting the clean air act, they're all deeply unpopular. these are all things that by margins of 65, 70, 75, 80, 90% americans want done so what we're seeing is the payoff of a 50-year effort, that pre-dates

even neil gorsuch. we go back straight to that famous meo that lewis powell soon to become a justice of the supreme court wrote in 1971 within months of the clean air act being adopted saying business has to get its act together, so that we can stand up to this kind of regulation. this is today the thing that the koch brothers were working for, that's what the last few decades of right wing organizing and court packing and everything else was about. and it's going to put us in a real hole. but, and this is important, these things are so unpopular, they should be the spring board for a kind of reaction. we need now, leadership out of the democratic party, and out of joe biden, to really take this to the american public. i said the other day that he should, joe biden should say, i'm, my frame is not going to darken the white house door for the next 132 days until this

election. i will do every day, get me a train, i like amtrak, and crisscross the country taking this case, because now he has a case to make. now we don't have to have an election that's just dominated by inflation. now, people understand that the most basic rights and the most basic questions about the future, not just of our country, but our planet, are at stake, so this is a terrible week but if the supreme court kicked over a hornet's nest, then maybe, maybe something can be salvaged from it. >> you walked into my wheelhouse now and something you wrote in the new yorker struck me, while the conservative push to roll back environmental regulations have been profit-driven, since the 1980s, including the work done by the koch brothers, you mentioned it is more ideological than practice kal now because climate change is going to lead to such a financially unstable world. tell me what you mean by that. >> well, look, the current high

end estimate for economic damage from unchecked global warming, the last n-numb i saw was $551 trillion by centuries end which is more money than currently exists on planet earth. i mean we're talking about an issue by far the largest thing that human beings have ever done. while the supreme court is playing these kind of ideological games, on behalf of the vested interests of wanting to delay our energy transition for a couple of decades, while they're doing that, the arctic is melting, the seas are rising and we're seeing fire and flood and drought in areas we've never observed before and this couldn't be more serious and they couldn't be at some level less serious. all they're doing is carrying water for the fossil fuel industry. they've gotten their money's worth for the, you know, ever since citizens united, what they've poured into the system,

they've returned on investments and more. >> bill, good to see you. thanks for the work that you do. and like the work they've been doing for decades, you've been doing this work for decks, an environmentalist, a founder of the organization third act, the author of a memoir called "the flag, the cross and the station wagon," we appreciate your time, sir. well, today was the end of the supreme court term. and to put it slightly as bill said the decisions we got this term were bananas. we'll talk about those decisions and the future of court on the other side of this break. r sidek

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after 230 years, today at noon, it finally happened. with her swearing in, earlier this afternoon, judge ketanji brown jackson became the first black woman to sit on the supreme court after justice stephen breyer retired today after nearly 30 years on the high court himself. justice jackson said in a written statement, today, quote, with a full heart, i accept the solemn responsibility of supporting and defending the constitution of the united states, and administering justice without fear or favor, so help me god. and justice jackson is joining the nation's highest court in an historically divisive time, a supreme court under siege in the wake of popular opinion. tomorrow will mark one week since the supreme court overturned roe v. wade. and ruled that an abortion is not a constitutional right after nearly 50 years of precedent that said that it was. protests have erupted across the

nation, seven states have already banned abortion, several following suit soon. today as we just heard, the court has ruled against the biden administration's environmental protection agency, limiting the agency's authority to regulate emissions, delivering a serious blow to our planet but not all the decisions today had the liberals in the minority. today, the court also rejected a challenge to the biden administration's attempt to end trump's remain in mexico policy, which sent migrants seeking refuge in the u.s. back across the border to wait to be heard. and the court declined to take up a legal challenge brought by the health care workers in new york, who opposed the state's vaccine mandate, on religious grounds. justices thomas, alito and gorsuch said the court should take the case up, but they were in the minority. well today ends this year's term, the court agreed to hear one case from north carolina, for next term, that could have potentially cataclysmic repercussions. the "washington post" writes

quote, the supreme court on thursday said it will consider what would be a radical change in the way federal elections are conducted, giving state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests even if their actions violated state constitutions and resulted in extreme partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats. even if their actions violated state constitutions. republicans argued that the courts have no rights to second-guess state legislatures when it comes to federal elections. the buck stop with the legislatures, they say. if the supreme court decides this case in the republicans' favor next term, state courts would no longer be a check on state lawmakers when it comes to our nation's elections, and that is something to digest for a moment. because after what we saw happen in the 2020 election, with states trying to send fake electors to congress, this could lead to catastrophic consequences for our democracy. or at least extreme partisan

gerrymandering across the country the next time they get the chance this. case is about north carolina. but if the conservative justices rule in favor of the republicans it could have an outsized impact because republicans control both houses of state legislatures. in 30 states. what is the future of this conservative court look like? what can we expect next term? i've got the person to ask. joining us is the senior editor and legal correspondent for slate.com. dalia, good to see you. thanks for making time for us tonight. what was your reaction when you learned that the court would be taking up this case from north carolina about state legislatures having absolute power over elections and that courts can't get involved in decisions made by the legislature, even if those decisions seemed to be counter to the constitution? >> yes, this is the thermo nuclear option. this is the thing we've all been waiting to see. if the court was going to take

up. and i think you've described it perfectly, i mean this was more or less, the theory that was being pushed by john eastman, and jeffery clark, and the folks who were asking to set aside the results of the 2020 election. so the idea that the court is now agreeing to take it up in advance of the 2024 election, we know by the way that there are already four justices who have signaled in various cases that have come before it, there's already four justices who are kind of on board with this. so the idea that the court is teeing this up, in advance of 2024, is pretty bone-chilling. >> just let's talk about this for a second. the idea is that the courts are there. if they're operating properly, to have a check on when there's legislation that is challenged because it is, deemed to be, it is deemed to be unconstitutional.

what's the logic behind a case like this? what's the logic behind saying the courts can't have a role even if the state does something that's wrong? >> i think you're making the mistake of trying to find logic. this is a profound misreading of, you know, of an opinion, in bush v gore, that only garnered three votes. it's a profound misreading of the word legislature. this is another one of those ideas that kind of comes up from, you know, the bowels of the kind of far, far, far reaches of the conservative legal movement. it has no actual sailence. it's just really i think a totally instrumental way to give state legislatures the power to override the judiciary. and i think that, you know, we can talk for hours and hours about what the word legislature means in the construction but the truth is it is just another one of those theories that

didn't exist until it did, and now evidently it does. >> you wrote in "slate," the latest piece about the court this term, and you said that quote, those arguing that the brand-new jurisprudence emerging this week is markedly more cruel, more overtly theological, more contextous of the regulatory state are all correct. tall to me about what you meant by that. >> this term has been like nothing i have ever seen, and nothing that most court watchers have ever seen. it has been both a kind of ends-driven maximalist, you know, swing for the fences, go for broke on everything kind of term, and i've been thinking about this a lot in the last week, and it occurs to me that we've been so institutionalized that we tend to say there is a new test for gun regulations, they built a new test, there is a new test for abortion

regulations, they built a new test, there is a new test for church state separation, they built a new test. today, they built a new test, this weird major question for doctors that is going to be going forward how we think about regulatory agencies and we make the mistake of putting common law professors on this as if there is a new test today. there is no new test. the test is whatever the court wants, the police always win, the women always lose, the condemned always die and i think we make the mistake of treating this as doctrine, it's not doctrine, it's a checklist of what this conservative legal movement has always wanted. >> this is a big deal coming from you because you watch this very closely and you're not pessimistic and skeptical about the court typically. >> well, i am now. >> you are now. a lot of people who are in the same position they weren't before and they are now. dahla, thanks for being with us, regardless of where you stand on

this, we will be talking to you a lot about it because you are one of best minds on the supreme court. the past three conservative supreme court judges were nominated by a president who lost the popular vote and they were k by senators representing a minority of americans. the current conservative majority on the court is in effect minority ruled. how do we fix that? that's next. how do we fix that that's next.

we're now at the end of the

supreme court term that has up ended america's understanding of its supreme court. the legal architecture under which we all existed for at least the past half century has been fundamentally changed and the question now is what can be done about it? brian fallon is someone who has been near the center of power in washington for over a decade and served as a top aide for senator chuck schumer, as a spokesman for eric holder when he was attorney general and a press secretary for hillary clinton's 2016 presidential campaign, but after the electoral college handed donald trump the presidency, he decided to take a different path towards making change. he started by raising the alarm about america's broken institutions and there was one institution in particular that he thought needed radical change, america's courts. in 2018, brian co-founded an organization called, demand justice, an organization whose mission was to make a broad majority of americans understand the risks posed by the increasingly radical conservative majority on the supreme court, and across lower courts as well.

the group has pushed for sweeping changes to those institutions, sweeping changes to meet the urgency of what they say is a crisis in american jurisprudence. brian fallon has been warning about this moment we're in now for nearly four years and he and his organization have been thinking harder than any other about how to fix. itoining us now is brian fallon, co-founder and executive director of demand justice. good to see you. thanks for joining us tonight. >> thank you for having me. >> what do you think needs to happen, what needs to happen, to fix the supreme court, and what in your opinion is possible with fixing the supreme court? >> well, ali, unfortunately, events of the last week to ten days, these huge cases, involving gun law safety, roe, the ability for the epa to regulate greenhouse gases, this is a culmination of a 50-year project that has been arranged by the conservative movement and it has frankly caught democrats

flatfooted and as recently as ten years ago when i was working in the senate i wasn't appreciating the immediate immediacy of it. and even with hillary clinton's campaign, and filling the seat would be decided by the election and voters are not sufficiently voted to come out and vote based on the supreme court and that is a very disspiriting things. the events of the last few years, including the nomination of amy coney barrett and the decision to overturn roe that we saw last week is causing the public to take notice and this is the positive thing that's happened. we have seen in poll after poll, that the public disapproval of the supreme court as an institution is at the highest overall level, the public is crying out that something be done to rein in the supreme court court's power and we need the party leaders to catch up where the public increasingly is about wanting to corral this

extreme out of control supreme court and the problem we have is the party leadership that i very much admire, and people that i've worked closely with, that came of age politically at a time where talking about the court was dangerous, or politically risky because it was frequently seen as motivating republican voters and not democratic voters and polls show that that tren has shifted and democratic voters are looking at it. and i think we are party leaders to react to this moment appropriately and channel the outrage seen in the public and propose real series proposals to rein in the court's power. >> when you talk about democrats being caught flat-footed, in fact, over the last 40 or 50 years, have republicans voters been more motivated or the work of the federalist society and the koch brothers and the peppering of conservative judges

in local districts and some financing for them to win elections on name recognition, were conservative voters all the more motivated about it than democratic voters or were conservative organizations spearheading the selection of judges and appointment of judges to lower courts who subsequently became supreme court justices. >> i believe it was both. i believe it was a confluence, sort of unholy marriage between conservative elites namely corporatist republicans who wanted to switch the courts to be a bastian for the free enterprise, in their terms, to crush labor unions, this is the power, the luis powell member of the 1970s, who became a supreme court justice, thanks to richard nixon but he is 1970s, the chamber of commerce and that was the people of the court, the twilight of the court in the 1970s, and he laid out a memo suggesting that conservative elites needed to start funding

nonprofit institutions, needed to start being better represented in the legal academy and start raising a new generation of law students that were trained to think in ways that were found in business interests, and in forms of the federalist society, they found an elite sort of petry dish that would train the next generation of law clerks and then judges to think and fashion these theories that dahlia in the previous segment was telling you, not based on the constitution, and not based on -- fab rated out of whole cloth bationed on outcome-based reasoning and they paired that with a political strategy, that forged a union with the evangelical movement in this country, weaponized the roe issue, the roe issue is not something right after 1973 was immediately something that the republicans seized on, it was something that about a decade later they realized had some political opportunity that they could mobilize for those at a grass roots level, and also gun voters and animating the second amendment issue, and as a way to

mobilize voters at the polls in service of a project that was conceived of by the republican legal establishment elites, so it was both, on the ground foot soldier strategy, combined with a lot of resources, deep pockets, and establishment-types of the conservative movement. >> it is important to consider all of this now, as we look at our court and many americans look at it with deep skepticism and disappointment. thank you very much for joining us tonight. the co-founder and executive director of demand justice. appreciate your time. coming up next, a small but important victory that gives the world reason to hope. stay with us. world reason to hope stay with us

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i mean, you. in the first days of the russia invasion, vladimir putin's troops were attacking ukraine on many separate fronts so sort of an eyebrow raising movement when they decided to use their biggest ship to point its guns at this tiny ukrainian outcrop in the middle of the black sea called snake island. what happened next is one of the most well known stories of the war to date because instead of

surrendering as ordered torque the ukrainian soldiers posted on the island to russians to go f yourself, russia eventually took control of the island and the plant with a purpose by the way, a plan with a purpose by seizing snake island, putin essentially set up a naval blockade stopping anything from getting in or out of ukraine's biggest port city of odesa. this noticeably included, notably included food cargo. ukraine is traditionally one of the world's leading suppliers of grain. and sun flower oil. so for four months now the russians have occupied the island blocking anything that tries to move past and because ukraine has very limited naval capacity, liberating the island has been almost impossible. until today. ukraine announced today that after a successful artillery and missile attack overnight, all russians are now gone from the island, quote, kaboom, no russian troops on snake island anymore, said the top adviser to president zelenskyy, our armed

forces did a great job, more kaboom news to follow. russia is denying it and said it was a voluntary withdrawal, and a quote gesture of goodwill, to show that they're no longer obstructing the ports, but they left in the middle of night on two speedboats leaving behind a column of smoke, so you tell me. this of course is very good news for ukraine. but many are wondering how they did it. how is it that after so many attempts, the ukrainians finally kicked the russians off of snake island? it turns out they might have had a little bit of help. new weapons sent by the west made the russian garrison even more vulnerable, especially himars a rocket system supplied by the united states which ukraine began fielding last week. rob lee of the u.s.-based foreign policy research institute says russia's abandonment of the island was likely a tangible result of nato arms deliveries to ukraine. ukraine is not asking for long-term promises or diplomatic visits, they want weapons, and

they want them now, and when those weapons are delivered in a timely manner, they can make the difference to the outcome of this war. case in point. snake island. watch this space. that does it for us tonight. we will see you again tomorrow. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. s up next. new concerns of possible coercion and witness pressure after the revelation that donald trump's political organization and allies are covering the legal fees of some witnesses in the house investigate into january 6th. we'll have the latest. plus, president biden says the senate should make an exception and suspend filibuster rules to allow abortion rights legislation to make it through congress. but does he have the votes to do it? and the latest on the economy, a brutal six months for financial markets, closing out the worst first half of the year, in more than 50 years.