right now. good evening, alex. >> well, cat's out of the bag. >> thank you for the book plug as well. thank you for joining us this hour. the year was 1990. republican incumbent north

carolina senator jesse helms was pulling behind his black democratic challenger. so helms called in the political consultants who in turn helped the helms campaign to fight back. this is what theygn came up wit this ad. >> you needed that job because you were the best qualified, but they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. is that really fair? harvey gains says it is. your vote on this issue, for racial quota, harvey gain, against racial quotas, jesse helms. >> you were a better candidate than the minority guy that they went with. can you feel the injustice of it

all? that ad was exactly what senator jesse helms needed. he won re-election to a fourth term in the senate 54 to 46%. that strategy worked, it worked well, making gant the face of affirmative action, a racial quota system that kept whites at a disadvantage ipfavor of less qualified minorities, it was potent stuff. the race baiting and the zero-sum politics, it moved people because it angered them and made them believe the system was rigged against them and in favor of someone else. it was politically explosive and that was 33 years ago. but the strategy to undermine affirmative action, a program to combat racial injustice, it war against all that started well before jesse helms. this is what was happening 14 years before that.at >> certainly no one of us would challenge government's right and

its responsibility to eliminate discrimination in higher education, but in its zeal to accomplish this worthy purpose government orders what is in effect a quota system both in hiring and in education. they don't call it a quota system. it's an affirmative action program. now, if you happen to belong to an ethnic group thought recognized by the federal government noty entitled to special treatment, you are a victim of reverse discrimination. and i'd like to have an opportunity toha put an end to this federal distortion of equal rights. >> that was reagan. reagan didn't win the presidency, he didn't make it past the primaries but oh, boy did he get a chance to chip away at what he called the federal distortion of equal rights when he won the presidency of 1980.

and when reagan took office he found the perfect person to chip away at affirmative action. he put that man, that candidate in charge ofma the equal opportunity commission, the eeoc, the branch of the justice department. and the man's name was clarence thomas. he was a young, black lawyer who graduated from yale law school just eight years before reagan nominated, and this is how one of that man's classmates describes clarence thomas' feelings about affirmative action. clarence thomas, by the way, someone who had attended schools and universities that were specifically trying to increase the number of minority students in their student bodies. this is how clarence thomas felt about affirmative action. >> he believed that people assumed he was there as a beneficiary of affirmative action, and it grated on him. >> you have this feeling of, oh, i'm around these white students who he senses question his

presencequ at yale. how is it that you, not just clarence thomas but you say your here, is it because of merit or because of affirmative action? he said he would keep stacks of rejection letters he had gotten from law firms. even when he got lected supreme court justice he had these letters to remind himself of the kind of rerejection by the elite law firms. >>clarant thomas blamed yale's policies for his own trouble finding a job after graduation. he even stuck a 15 cent sticker from a cigar package on the back -- with clarjs thomas as eeoc chair and william bradford reynolds as head of the justice department civil rights division

the reagan doj pursued cases that sought to ban affirmative action policies. and thomas for his part stopped bringing class action lawsuits. that pattern earned clarence thomas a public admonishment from the naacp, but in the reagan justice department it earned him praise. thomas was flagged by edward niece and senator john thurman as well as bradford reynolds who lauded thomas as the epitome of the right kindho of affirmative action working the right way. bradford reynolds called thomas' reappointment a proud moment. but thomas wasn't alone in the fight against affirmative action. at the same time was a man named john roberts. as a young white house lawyer roberts helped the justice department make arguments against any government use of

race as a basis for hiring and diversifying hiinstitutions, an he carried those beliefs with him throughout his 30s when he became the0s deputy solicitor-general in the george h.w. bush administration. and those ideas about color-blindness would become a key feature of john roberts legal j career. and then in 1991 clarence thomas was sworn in as a supreme court justice. in 2005 it was john roberts turn, and together these two men, these two justices have made ending race consciousness in american law whether in affirmative action or voting rights, they have made that one central causes of the court. >> the u.s. supreme court today ended its 2007 term with a history making ruling. the court made it much tougher for school districts to control the mixri of children in americ classrooms based on race. the court said deciding on a student d body in that way is n

allowed under the constitution. >> so theyun tried in 2000 and tried again in 2013 and then again in 2014. but today -- today they succeed. roberts and thomas joined by the court's four other conservative justices voted to effectively strike down race conscious admissions. in a 6-3 ruling the supreme court found race admissions program at harvard and the university of north carolina, they found them unconstitutional in violation of the equal protections clause of the 14th amendment. chief justice roberts wrote the harvard and unc admissions programs cannot be reconciled with thebe equal protection clause. both programs lacked sufficient focus warranting the use of race, avoidable employ race in a negative manner, enjoy racial stereo-typing and lack meaningful end points. we have never permitted admissions programs to work in that way and we will not do so

today. in a fiery dissent ketanji brown jackson called that ruling a tragedy for us all, today she wrote the majority pulls the rip cord and announces color-blindness forou all by lel fiat. but deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life. if the colleges of this country are required tos ignore a thin that matters, it will not just go away, it will take longer for racism to leave us, and ultimately ignoring race just or makes it matter more. joining us now to discuss are melissa murray, and dahlia lithwick. there's a lot to talk about, ladies. melissa, let me start with you. the reason we went back through the history of the rights war

against affirmative action is because this is a signal moment. and i think for a lot of people this is similar to what happened to dobbs, a i victory for the right that they have been wanting forth decades, that wil restructure american society. i know we expected it, but what are your initial thoughts about what hasyo happened today? >> i don't think it's hyperbolic to put it in that context. affirmative action perhaps more than any other race conscious measure has been a means of actually promoting the social mobility of those who historically have been excluded from major institutions in american life, whether it was institutions of employment or higher education, it has been a means by which those left behind consciously were able to come back in and function as equal citizens. the right has been on the tail ofe affirmative action since t very beginning. it was called reverse discrimination. it has been targeted from the very start. nobody on the right has wanted it,t and now they've finally

gotten whatna they wanted. you're exactly right toen compa it to dobbs. we didn'tit talk about this in e opening tpackage, but the cour effectively overruled an existing precedent. when they said the limited and holitzic use of race was permissible in the context of college admissions in order to foster aad diverse classroom environment. it didn't meaner that race was tipping point. it didn't mean race was a preference. it meant that race along with a multitude of other factors could be considered. and the chief justice very disingenuously in this opinion seems to suggest any minority student admitted to one of these schools got there because of race when in fact it was a lot of different factors that went into this, grades, test scores, work experience, and race may have played a part in it. by the time they get to those points, these students --

>> dahlia, to the dobbs parallel, it's also at odds with public opinion, where the public is on this. look at the polling. i think 57% of the public opposed the court's overturning of roe and thought affirmative action could continue. ap in may of this year, 63 perls of the public believes that supporting affirmative action in colleges is a good thing. i mean, am i wrong to say that this feels like a hangover of the civil rights era? they couldn't win on civil rights, affirmative action became the hobbyhorse in the late rs'70s and '80s and now th issue a death nel in the same way the women's liberation movement they couldn't stop and they have this victory with dobbs. >> it feels so familiar with dobbs in some sense, alex,

because i think it's worth lingering for a moment at least in dobbs they were honest enough to say we are overturning roe v. wade. it's not even clear from the majority opinion it functionally overturns bache and gruder and fisher and all the affirmative action cases. it doesn't say it, and justice sotomayor calls out the chief and says you can't say you're not overturning it when you're overturning it. i think something that's shocking and feels familiar from dobbs is this very cynical use of this long amazingly important history of civil rights victory that culminates in some sense with brown v. board. and much like justice aalito

cites brown in dobbs to argue he's in a long line of cases where you overturn current precedent. again today theov c majority do this double troll where it's not enough to do away with, you know, 50 years of affirmative action doctrine but somehow lashes itself to brown and its progeny, the reconstruction era project of trying to create equality and says this all follows on fromay that. to not even have the courage to say this has nothing to do with civil rights, we're not civil rights warriors, we're fundamentally undermining civil rights project, the project of equality. and to instead say if we take ground what it meant, then this follows logically from that. it's such cynical gaslighting, alex, it almost makes it a double whammy to have to sit there and listen to them say this is victory for civil rights

and forci color blindness. >> i think it's part of the arsenal ofs the right to quote martin luther king as you promote white nationalism. but i was struck to talk about hypocrisy. two parts of roberts' opinion. the carve out for affirmative action programs in military academies, which -- which roberts says no military academy is a party to these cases, however, and none of the courts below address race based admissions in that context. this opinion also does not address the issueni in light of the potential distinct interests that military academies may present. first of all, he's acknowledging what the military has said along which many people say is that diversity is paramount to having a functioning society but also a functioning business and a great college and university. and he acknowledges that's okay for the military but not okay

for other areas of american life. the cynicism of that when we're talking about brown and black people, it'slk okay to shift th off to war, but don't as ketanji brown jackson said in her opinion, put them in the boardroom. >> john roberts he's had to mask it in a bit of ways, but at bottom this is a conservative court. it continues to be a super majority of conservative justices doing conservative things. and d here this whole nod to th militaryno academies, the mility academies are no different from other institutions of higher education. colleges have programs that feed officers into our fighting force. the military has always been ths most integrated institution in american life, and he knows that, but that's not what's going to sell here. he has a project that he wants to prosecute, and it's dismantling affirmative action, slowly. he's on the jolly trolley. clarence thomas is on the asella, wants to get there

faster. he's the one saying we are actually overruling gruder -- and it's the two women on the court stepping up to say not on our watch. you're not going to say thurgood marshal, and of this mission to overrule affirmative action and roll back the 20th century. >> dahlia, the hypocrisy, the gaslighting, the really bad opinion making and logic of allowing colleges to accept application essays that gesture towards race but cannot explicitly use them as a selling point, we should talk about this because among the other carve outs that are in this, roberts suggests that people applying to college can talk about race

insofar as it helped create their identity, but they can't use it as an explicit means to gain entry into a university. it is so confounding the logic i there, i wonder if you could make sense of how and why this is part of roberts opinion. >> no, it's nonsensical. i mean he simultaneously ends the opinion saying you can still kind of flip it in your essay and then goes onto say don't do anything with your essay program that undermines this holding. so he's both trying to suck and blow on this sort of essay escape hatch. and again, justice jackson, justice sotomayor call him out for it. i think there's a way in which he's thinking if you're an applicant to any university now i think you're supposed to hint at your racial history and your identity the same way donald trump declassifies classified

documents. you can sort of do it with your mind and hope that the colleges figure it out.gu i mean that's clearly to the extent there's an escape hatch here, i guess that's it. but, again, i just think to melissa's point, the utter cynicism of saying, you know, that this is what, you know, the reconstruction amendments that the radical abolitionists who wrote those amendments were trying to do, the congress that passed clearly race conscious remedial efforts and the entire history, justice jackson's minority dissenting opinion here is a master class on the history of racism, red lining, the g.i. bill, getting loans, share cropping. it's all in there, and the idea that all of that just goes away, poof, because if you somehow hint in yourus essay that that part of your t story, it can be considered so profoundly

insulting that it almost doesn't bear taking seriously. >> yeah, i am also just struck by how much of this is so deeply personal for clarence thomas. you know, there's a reason we went through his history and his distaste for affirmative action as it personally intersects with his own story, the sense of grievance he has and how it's the opposite of what supreme court justices are supposed to do, make the personal the national, and yet it seems that's exactly what he's done. >> i mean who hurt you, boo, is really the bottom line here. this is a man who's been clear he believes affirmative action is stigmatizing. he says nothing of the fact that affirmative action programs got him in the seminary and then allowed him to enter into holy cross and then allowed him to graduate from yale law school which put him in a prime position where he could be noticed by john danforth, go to missouri andth then be propelle to the center of politics in washington, d.c. he completely misseshe the fact when george h.

bush were searching, there weren't a lot of black conservatives but clarence thomas was there and he was identified because he was a black conservative. that's affirmative action, and if he doesn't understand how he's there because of this policy and he has all these questions about the stigmatizing effects of it, you're still in the supreme court. you're still making policy for everyone, and you're basically allowing your own personal issues around your life story and your biography to basically shape policy for all of the rest of us. and, again, i'm so glad the women of, color on this court were here to call him out. >> everybody who has not read ketanji brown jackson's opinion should go read it. it is a master class. it should be a pamphlet. thank you both for being here. ith really appreciate your insit and thoughts citoday, this big y in american courts. we have a lot more to get to tonight including the shock waves that could result from today's ruling. right-wing groups are already promising a, quote, free-for-all when it comes to challenging

diversity initiatives. and later look who's talking now? new reporting that a key figure in trump's re-election campaign has been meeting with the special counsel's prosecutors. well, it's a development that has apparently blind-sided the former president's inner circle. we'll have more on that just ahead. l havemor more on that jut ahead.

the decision by the supreme

court to end affirmative action will have direct legal impact on admissions at colleges and universities across the country, but it also has far reaching implications for diversity, equity and inclusion across the private sector, and it can be a boom for conservative groups who have made dismantling corporate diversity initiatives their common cause. for the past several months america-first legal a conservative group led by former trump advisor stephen miller, that group has been filing civil rights complaints with the equal employment opportunity commission against private sector companies like starbucks and mcdonald's and alaska airlines for their efforts to increase diversity in their work forces. two other conservative groups are challenging a rule approved by the sec that requires the nasdaq stock exchange to publicly disclose the diversity of their boards and mandate two diverse directors. a ruling on that is pending before the fifth circuit court of appeals. will hill who leads the

right-wing group consumers research was eagerly awaiting today's supreme court decision and told "the washington post" it will, quote, put the wind in the sails of groups like ours whose want to get the woke racially based hiring and promotion schemes out of america. and called it a fig leaf for the private sector's diversity initiatives. quote, once that goes away it is going to be a free-for-all on pushing back against that. joining us now is the president of the naacp legal defense fund. thanks for being here. i'm sorry you have to be here to talk about this because i do think this is a very dark day for people who care about a more equitable society. first let me get your thoughts on what this does to the broader movement that seems to have some wind in its sails to dismantle the progress we've made as a society to have more inclusive workplaces, more inclusive schools and generally a more inclusive society? >> well, what this decision does is largely up to see many actors

in the system and whether they will be cowed by this court's decision, whether the chilling effect that these extreme conservative groups want to spread actually takes root. we have some agency in this. corporate america has a moral imperative, it has a business imperative to ensure that we continue to diversify the ranks of leadership in this country. we know that in 20 years this will be a majority people of color country. we know that the consumer base will include more and more people of color. our electorate will include more and more people of color. we want to have a health ey, functioning, multiracial democracy we need to make sure that we are educating people together so that they can respect one another and learn about one another, and we need to make sure we're hiring leaders and diversifying our decision makers in corporate america who can help us meet this new evolving american

democracy with some promise and hope as opposed to division and hate. >> i get -- i mean i agree with you in terms of where culture is, where consumers are at, which is obviously where business is going to be responsive, but, you know, from a legal perspective what are the kind of -- you say we have opportunities, that we have leverage, where do you see that opportunity and that leverage given what the supreme court did today? >> so first it's so important to recognize what this decision does, who it impacts directly and who it doesn't. so in this case we are talking about admissions processes between two institutions, harvard and unc. so every college and university needs to think about their admissions process and how similar to harvard's and unc's it is and how different it is and weather based on the interpretation of that decision their admissions process is legal or not. so that's the first step, and those are the only entities who

really are directly implicated by this decision. this does not affect court and it doesn't affect recruitment efforts, doesn't affect dei programs, doesn't affect any of that. to the extent it affects it all means that we need to double down on those things. we need to embrace the ability we all have an equal opportunity and recognize it took over a decade to get this case to actually yield the result that it did today. >> i've got to ask because you mention dei. that is such -- diversity, equity, and inclusion has become a buzzword on the right especially. they have their knives out for it. you hear what the advocates are saying, it's dominos, this is the first one to fall. dei is next. you have lawsuits in various states about dei and environmental, social corporate responsibility measures. i guess i wonder are we being chicken littles about it, or do you think -- do you think the sort of social capital that

these initiatives have and the desire to be more broadly inclusive in america, right, which is shared among a majority of americans can outflank what will be a concerted legal effort on the part of the right to get the stuff dismantled? >> well, again, i think if we sit back and watch it happen it will, right, but if we actually react and say this is the democracy we want, this is the united states that we want to embrace, if we recognize that diversity is truly our strength, that it does make us safer as president biden said earlier today, we know that racist domestic terrorism is the number one national security threat in this nation. white supremacist racist terrorism. so we have to find ways to make sure that those types of harmful ideologies don't continue to take root and become a galvanizing force for evil in this country.

and the only way to do that is to ensure that we're giving opportunity to everyone, that we are educating people, that we're not denying them truth and the truth about our history, the truth about the progress we've made, and that we have a society that it has an open, welcoming of ideas and a variety of viewpoints. that's the america that we all want to see or that a majority of us do, but we cannot let this extreme but quite vociferous minority just eclipse the entire conversation. >> yeah, and that's the position i think sonia sotomayor, another justice on the supreme court has taken, which is society's progress towards equality cain be permanently halted. i do have to ask because you point outrightly so the immediate effects of this at places like unc and harvard and other colleges and universities. a lot of people have pointed out the implications for health among communities of color because of what this does to medical programs and medical school admissions.

this seems like a very real, very tangible outcome here you are going to have potentially less candidates of color going to medical schools, which means fewer doctors of color, which has real, tangible metrics in terms of bad outcomes for communities of color. i think it is for marginalized -- for example, for marginalized communities in north carolina research shows that black physicians are more likely to accurately assess black patients' pain tolerance and treat them. for high risk black newborns having a black physician more than doubles the likelihood that baby will live and not die. i don't think people understand how much diversity is sort of an ideal but it is an urgent need in terms of basics, for example, of saving lives. >> you are absolutely correct. the consequences of this could be absolutely devastating, but it's going to take real leadership on the part of universities and colleges, admissions counselors,

university presidents because the supreme court did say in this opinion something really important that cannot be lost on us. it said nothing in this opinion should be read as prohibiting an applicant from talking about their race and how it affects their lives. so it doesn't take the conversation of race off the table. it doesn't take the conversation of how race intersects with so many other factors in this world and affects peoples lives and lived experiences, and it's going to be up to colleges and universities to take that information and still exercise their decision making in how they constitute a class of students who can learn from one another, who can enrich each other with different perspectives and who can be the next generation of doctors and lawyers and others who are going to lead society. that's absolutely essential because race continues to play a role in our society. that's an undeniable fact. >> i know the naacp has a legal

defense fund, but perhaps they should have a college application essay fund that people can donate directly to help people write these things. >> we do have a scholarship fund. the legal defense fund has always had it ever since we became separate from the naacp as our separate legal arm, but we've maintained the scholarship portion because we believe in education. it's an outgrowth of the seminole case we won in 1954, brown vs. board of education. and we have the ability to ensure nothing further happens to that decision that really made us a multiracial democracy. we really weren't one until we ended segregation and began to integrate our society and hold up our constitutional ideals. >> janai nelson, thank you so much for your time. we look forward to having you back to talk about how this is affecting us in the months to come. when we come back, we have

new reporting today revealing that the investigation into the trump documents case is still going. it is still going. and the special counsel is reportedly issuing new speen oz. does that mean more charges are coming down the pike? stay with us. s are coming down the pike stay with us ♪ ♪ ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪

sleepovers just aren't what they used to be. voltaren. a house full of screens? basically no hiccups? you guys have no idea how good you've got it. how old are you? like, 80? back in my day, it was scary stories and flashlights.

we don't get scared. oh, really? mom can see your search history. that's what i thought. introducing the next generation 10g network. only from xfinity.

by now you are probably familiar with this unbelievable tape of donald trump appearing to show-off classified documents at his new jersey home. >> these are the papers. this was done by the military and given to me. i think we can probably, right? >> i don't know. we'll have to see. you know, we'll have to try to -- >> declassify it. >> figure out, yeah. >> see as president i could have declassified it. now i can't. but this is classified. isn't that interesting? it's so cool. look, we're -- her and i -- you probably didn't believe me, now you believe me. it's incredible. >> hey, bring some cokes in. the coke thing never gets old. trump has tried to explain away that moment saying it was just bravado and he wasn't really showing off our nation's most highly kept secrets. but the cokes tape was not the

only instance in which prosecutors have alleged trump was waving around classified documents in front of people who had no business looking at them. this is from special counsel jack smith's indictment. quote, in august september 2021 when he was no longer president, trump met in his office at am bedminster club with a representative of his action committee. he said an ongoing military option in country "b" was not going well, trump showed the-pack representative a classified map and told the representative he should not be showing the map to the pac representative and not get too close. the pac representative did not have security clearance or any need to know about the military operation. classified information being waved in front of a person who had no clearance to see the classified information. just don't get too close, stay over there. well, multiple news outlets are now reporting that the person donald trump was speaking to in that moment, the pac

representative with no security clearance, that person was a trump political advisor named suzy wilds. ms. wilds is one of trump's top aides for his 2024 re-election campaign. she's someone who's stood by the former president through january 6th and his claims of a stolen election and all the rest. so suzy wilds probably a loyal trump filter, right? maybe but maybe not. cnn is now reporting that susie wilds has met numerous times with the special counsel investigation. susie wilds is still a top advisor to trump's presidential campaign, someone who likely still has regular access to trump himself, but trump world apparently did not know she was talking to the special counsel's office, so that could be a big problem for the trump team going forward. and today "the new york times" has explosive new reporting suggesting that special counsel jack smith may not be done investigating the classified

documents case. according to "the times" a grand jury in the classified documents case has issued more subpoenas for people to testify despite the fact the special counsel has already charged the former president and his valet with 38 felony counts. as "the times" reports, post-indictment investigations can result in additional charges against people who have already been accused of crimes in the case. the investigations can also be used to bring charges against new defendants. what could that mean for the people who have already been accused of crimes in this case, namely donald trump, and what does it mean for the people around him? we'll talk about that after the break. around him we'll talk about that after the break. with a majority of my patience with sensitivity, i see irritated gums and weak enamel. sensodyne sensitivity gum & enamel relieves sensitivity, helps restore gum health, and rehardens enamel.

i'm a big advocate of recommending things that i know work.

i'm jonathan lawson here to tell you about life insurance i'm a big advocate of through the colonial penn program. if you're age 50 to 85, and looking to buy life insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. what are the three ps? the three ps of life insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. a price you can afford, a price that can't increase, and a price that fits your budget. i'm 54, what's my price? you can get coverage for $9.95 a month. i'm 65 and take medications. what's my price? also $9.95 a month. i just turned 80, what's my price? $9.95 a month for you too. if you're age 50 to 85, call now about the #1 most popular whole life insurance plan available through the colonial penn program.

it has an affordable rate starting at $9.95 a month. no medical exam, no health questions. your acceptance is guaranteed. and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock so your rate can never go up for any reason. so call now for free information and you'll also get this free beneficiary planner. and it's yours free just for calling. so call now for free information.

three weeks ago former president donald trump was charged with 37 criminal counts for unlawful retention of classified documents and frizz efforts to obstruct the justice department from recovering secret materials. that on its own is a story of historic proportions except it might not be over yet. "the new york times" is reporting today that a federal grand jury in miami is still investigating the mar-a-lago case and that in recent days, quote, the grand jury has issued subpoenas to a handful of people who are connected to the inquiry. now, we don't know who received those subpoenas or what kind of information prosecutors are after, but post-indictment investigations can result in additional charges including charges against new defendants. well, joining me now is dona

perry. thank you for being here tonight and helping me as well as everybody else understand exactly what the implications are of the special counsel investigation continuing forward with new subpoenas. is that as interesting to you as it is to the rest of us? >> it's interesting. it's not atypical at all. once charges are filed and an original indictment the grand jury often continues its work and the filing of initial charges often has a way of dislodging witnesses and encouraging them essentially to come forward. it sounds from reporting and my experience and common sense that's exactly what's happening now that the grand jury is marching on, continuing with its work and issuing additional subpoenas and potential hauling the witnesses in front of them.

and we've heard about a big one today. >> do you think it's inevitable there are new indictments coming? and how would this affect the broader time line for the indictments we do know about? >> it's certainly not inevitable. in this case from the reporting and from the nature of the subpoenas issued and what we're hearing from this top campaign official we're talking about it does sound there will likely be superseding charges. we've seen a number of charges for unlawful willful retention of national defense information, and it seems the next step here perhaps will be charges for having shared the information, which would be charges that obviously pack more of a punch. and also would rebut any claim of accident or lack of intent or

knowledge. it seems to me illegal that what we'll follow but certainly not inevitable. >> you're suggesting there might be more charges for donald trump related to dissemination? that's the charge that the special counsel did not. is that your suggestion there? >> i think that's the implication. that's my read from the reporting, and it -- it does sound like that would be the logical next step that would flow out of this investigation and out of the continued investigation by this grand jury, and it also sounds like this stage might be focusing on a different location, on new jersey. and there's also reporting that -- and it also, again, is a matter of common sense it may well be that the special counsel is looking at filing additional charges perhaps in that

jurisdiction. and which would be the natural locus i think just for these charges just as some of these charges have been filed in the southern district of florida for retention and for obstruction. if there was in fact dissemination in the district of new jersey that would be the obvious place for the filing of either additional charges or what would have to be a different indictment. so there are numerous possibilities. there could be a superseding indictment. there could be another indictment in a different district or there, of course, could be no additional charges at all. but it certainly sounds like from what we're hearing there is an investigation continues, the grand jury is lookling at it. and any investigation done by the florida grand jury could of course be transferred over to new jersey. >> wow. well, those are a bevy of very explosive -- well, at least two

of them are more explosive than the other, but still that's kind of headline news if that is what ends up happening. i do have to ask you about susie wilds, the top trump campaign advisor who is apparently speaking undercover, or at least not to the knowledge of the trump campaign. she is speaking to the special counsel. you sort of nodded towards that, but can you talk a little bit more about how unusual that is and your expectation about what the implications for her work with trump given the fact she may be a witness for the special counsel? >> it seemed to me quite obvious from the face of indictment there was a witness for that second incident you talked about in bedminster in august or september of 2021, and it sounds like she has an incentive to speak with the prosecutors and a disincentive to lie to them. so it sounds like she's speaking with them and is being truthful,

otherwise they'd have to turn over what is known as exculpatory material and it does not sound like that's what's happened. it sounds like she's corroborating what's already in this original indictment. and again, i'm speculating so i don't want to make headline news. it just seems to me like a possible logical flow from what we are hearing and exactly what the special counsel would be interest in looking at. so that's -- you know, that's just my read from the bread crumbs we have. >> well, and we appreciate your read. thank you for making the time. we will be right back. thank you for making the time. we will be right back.

i know there's conflicting information about dupuytren's contracture. i thought i couldn't get treatment yet? well, people may think that their contracture has to be severe to be treated, but it doesn't. if you can't lay your hand flat on the table, talk to a hand specialist. but what if i don't want surgery? well, then you should find a hand specialist certified to offer nonsurgical treatments.

what's the next step? visit findahandspecialist.com today to get started. that is our show for this evening. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. you said this court is not normal. what did you mean? >> what i meant with that is it's done m