good to see a great show as. all right tonight on ayman four seasons of accountability, we're going to dive into his packed trial calendar and take a special look at the outstanding cases we are all waiting for including finding fani willis is the investigation in georgia. plus, fighting back texas women are opening up about the harsh dangerous restrictions on abortion in that state. republican roadblock john roberts won't fix the supreme courts. republicans in congress, they are giving him cover. i'm ayman mohyeldin let's get started. >> donald trump has escaped accountability almost his entire life. but this year, every thing is changing. welcome to the summer of accountability.

while we are at it now the welcome to the fall, the winter, the spring the 2024, all of them about accountability as well. there is a litigation there's civil trials, everywhere you look for donald trump there is a legal challenge. the latest calendar entry, may 20th 2024. that is the day judge aileen kevin just announced for the classified documents trial against trump. at least four other cases are scheduled to go to trial before the documents case. we want to give you a quick recap of what they are. they are the trump organization civil fraud trial. that's scheduled for october 2nd. the lawsuit brought by new york attorney general letitia james claiming trump committed fraud by inflating his net worth by billions of dollars. only to get richer. two months, later eugene carroll's a second civil defamation lawsuit will go to trial on january 5th 2024. that same month on january 29th, a trial is scheduled in a federal class action lawsuit

against or accusing trump and his company of promoting a pyramid scheme. there is march 25th where he will face a jury on new york state criminal charges that he falsified business records in connection with hush money payments to stormy daniels. but wait there is more. there are at least two other investigations in which trump might be charged. special counsel jack smith's probe into the efforts to overturn the 2020 election and of course fani willis's election interference investigations down in georgia. donald trump has never been more legally vulnerable. guess what it shows. >> if you do something bad to us we are going to do things to you that even have never been done before. >> trump shared that deranged video on his failed social media site this week. trump can run while hurling mafia like threats.

but i the truth is, there is nowhere for him to hide. even if he waives his right to testify in these trials, repeating his decision in that first carol trial, even then, his own words and a video deposition came back to haunt him. can't while it's obvious that this news isn't good for trump himself, it's also terrible for the republican party. the classified documents trial will start at the tail end of the gop primary calendar. and he could already be by that point the republican nominee. by then the potential nominee will have been twice impeached at least twice indicted, possibly more. and could face more fines and penalties as the focus of those civil and criminal trials. we all know how trump feels about candidates like that. >> we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and ultimately a criminal trial. >> if she were to win this election it would create an unprecedented constitutional

crisis. >> we have an all-star panel tonight. lisa reuben, msnbc legal analyst, christina greer, associate professor of political science at fordham university. author of the book black ethics race immigration and the pursuit of the american dream. tim heyfeigh, former lead investigator for the january 6th select committee. it's great to have all three of you with us. lisa, i will start with you, i mean what is the most potentially dangerous trial trump is facing here. there are still some in the pipeline. at least from the ones that we know about definitively. >> with respect ayman into the ones we know about definitively, there is no question that it's the records case that's pending and the district of florida. however the two that are outstanding in that chart that you showed, the department of justice and special counsel's outstanding investigation into january six, an election interference, and then fulton county georgia district

attorney fani willis'own investigation into election interference. those are largely thought to cause more danger to donald trump than anything that he's currently facing. both in terms of time that would be served, but also in terms of electoral consequences. in terms of reminding the american people what exactly donald trump tried to do and how narrowly he was prevented from doing it. >> christina, how can trump campaigns with all these trials and investigations going on at the same time, it is a guy, he's demonstrated he's able to spin everything to his advantage. certainly, he can fund-raise. can it politically work for him as well? >> i think so, ayman because he will be both the victim and the hero of his own story that he narrates. we know that the media has an obsession with talking about him. we are talking about him on a sunday night. he knows he will get lots of free press. so the money that he is raising from these, you know, individuals in the party who were cobbling together their pennies to give him money, he's using it for his legal fees. he is a master at getting free

press. he will go around the country as a snake oil salesman does. saying he's the victime, this is a witch hunt, this has been a witch hunt since 2016. he never wanted to be present. and now they're preventing it again. and then it will turn on people in his own party. essentially with democrats. and he knows that his primary voters are very strong voters. he's intimidated people at his own party. so he's a hero storming to the country protecting them and taking away other peoples civil liberties and we have. he's also the victim which is why he needs their money and their time and their attention and their vote. >> tim, as a former lead investigator of the january 6th select committee, what was your reaction to that target letter that smith sent to trump this weekend and how much of it matches up to what you and your colleagues on the committee were able to dig up and find.

>> yes, ayman we sent him a subpoena and asked him actually, try to compel him to come in and tell the story. he ignored it. jack smith very similarly is giving him an opportunity to provide information that would bear upon prosecutorial decisions. not surprisingly, much like his response to us, which was silence. jack smith is getting the same. the offenses, they are identified in the target letter. very familiar to us. we looked at the entire federal criminal code we recommended that the justice department evaluate obstruction of an offiucial proceeding, 1512, conspiracy to defraud the united states. disrupt the function of government. 18usc381, they fall statement claim that corresponds to the fake electors. we identified aiding and comforting an insurrection. we did not identify the 241 deprivation of several rights. i think that there are a lot of statutes, that one included, that fit the court conduct.

the key here, ayman, there are a number of federal statutes that the special counsel's identifying. all of which may apply to not just the president and former president, conspiracy of others. the only mystery left, here is who will be charged in the conspiracy and what will the counts be? how much detailed information will be indictment contain? >> lisa, we also learned this week, the federal grand jury and the election interference case heard testimony from former white house aide will russell who was with trump on january six. you tweeted out earlier this week that you actually talked to sources about his testimony. tell us what you heard. what might his testimony -- why might his testimony be compelling? >> ayman, i want to make sure that i am clear about what it was that folks said to us. it wasn't so much about his grand jury testimony as it was about the lack of testimony either for moral or informal

that he gave to the january six committee. as you know, and as tim, knows well was extraordinarily thorough in covering the full landscape of folks involved in election interference efforts from folks involved in extremist movements to those at the highest levels of the white house. they really covered the range. will russell, not only wasn't among those witnesses, he wasn't a name that really came up at all. he's not mentioned in the report. and at least in my experience of reviewing the transcripts so far, he's not an entity where you would expect him to come up among people whose job functions were similar to his. so, what it is that he has to say to the grand jury, i think largely depends on what other folks who didn't come before the committee might say. that's a group of people that includes mark meadows, dan scavino, and additional testimony that was protected from the committ4ee because of privilege issues. people like eric herschmann, pat cipollone.

pat filbin. then they gave more extensive testimony on court order to the grand jury than they did to the january six committee. those folks might have a sense of what will russell overheard and or what the president said to him that bears on his knowledge. or intent. >> christina let me talk to you about the politics of this for a moment. i'm one of these who believe that the republican party now is donald trump. donald trump is the republican party. some people on the other hand they say, you have many candidates who are still running. they make up, if you take all their support, you get the sense that more republicans want somebody other than donald trump. they just can't agree on who that other person should be. how stressed must republicans be that the man they may nominate to be their presidential candidate will be the center of at least five trials by then. have been indicted at least twice. or do they not care? >> i think they are quite worried. a man, here is the deal. fortune favors the bold. we have yet to see a republican candidate who has the courage to come out and boldly say this

cannot this -- man cannot be our nominee. here all the reasons why. they can run through all the indictments. they can list all the reasons why by may 2024. this is a former president who will be -- i don't even know if he'll be politically damaged. what does it mean for our party? what does it mean for the future of the country? we don't have -- we haven't seen any republican candidates thus far who have the courage to come out against donald trump. because they are so afraid of his primary voters. they are so afraid, they know that donald trump will turn on them either, attacking some weaknesses that they may have had politically in the past or just making up lies. which we know that he is more than comfortable to do. so, until the republican party can organize themselves, and you can have a candidate or candidates plural come together, before they get to the stage before they start really

campaigning on a granular level, if they really start coming out and boldly saying it, then they might get some traction but before we see that it will continue to be the party of donald trump. they will be continued to he will -- lead all the conversation. policy and otherwise. because members of this party are quite frankly afraid of him. and tim i gotta get your reaction speaking of the spineless republicans, you got former vice president mike pence on another network this morning saying, while he found trump's words on january 6th to be reckless he's quote not convinced that they were criminal. mike pence just continues to defy every meaningful word you know about integrity, about principle, about moral character. he just continues to shock every time i hear him speak about this. >> well look, reckless can in of itself can be criminal. there are many examples of criminal law that reckless

conduct rise to criminality. i think select committee found was beyond recklessness but purposeful. there are intense standards in the criminal. i think there's ample evidence that president trump group of others at a very specific intent to obstruct that joint session. that was more than reckless. you think is maybe as words on the ellipse were reckless, speaking to an angry mob that he knew was armed, at least some of the people in that crowd were armed. but the whole course of dealing beyond the speech itself to the multi part plan to disrupt the joint session, that's more than reckless, that's intention. at least i believe that's what the evidence that we found show, that is the crucial question for jack smith. >> panel, please stick around to gallop more to discuss. we're gonna take a quick break. afterwards we are going to take a focus on georgia where a fourth indictment might soon await donald trump. don't go away. than detergent alone. if you want laundry to smell fresh for weeks, make sure you have downy unstopables in-wash scent boosters.

♪ ♪ ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of movement. make a splash with the ultimate pool party essential. blendjet gives you ice-crushing, big blender power on-the-go, so you can soak up the sun with a frosty beverage. enjoy 15+ blends before rapidly recharging via usb-c. and it even cleans itself with a drop of soap and water. stand out even when you're accidentally twinning with our kaleidoscope of colors. make this summer the coolest ever. order yours now from blendjet.com.

i'll always take care of you. ♪ i'm gonna hold you forever... ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ be by your side... ♪ ♪ i'll be there... ♪

♪ tourists tourists that turn into scientists. tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. it is almost time for county so researchers can help life underwater flourish. ♪

district attorney fani willis who has been investigating donald trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election in georgia, announced earlier this year that her staff would begin a remote work period during the first three weeks of august. that period is set to begin in just over a week from now. it has been speculated in this remote work section is the likeliest time during which willis might or will announce decisions in the election interference case to the public. just this week, state they rejected trump's bid to disqualify willis's bid from his case, and tossed out the special grand jury report the recommended criminal charges. let's bring in my panel to continue the conversation. lisa, how significant is this upcoming timeframe? the first three weeks of, august what if anything could we potentially hear from fani willis? >> i think ayman we are all waiting to hear that she has indicted a case. the grand juries that were sworn in earlier this month, they expire on september 1st, so the combination of that date

as sort of an outward bound and the letter that she sent explaining that 70% of our staff is going to be home leaves most people to believe that we will see an indictment if there is going to be one from fulton county in the first couple of weeks of august. the bounds of that indictment obviously are somewhat up in the air but increasingly there is a lot of chatter about fani willis bringing racketeering charges and having some underlying election interference charges that go along with it. >> yeah, of course everyone remembers when he was being indicted down in miami, fulton county sent the i, believe the sheriff's of a sense people to six see people posturing around security around the courthouse, so that may be also how they're preparing for that eventuality. christina, did trump's legal team ever have a shot at disqualifying willis from this investigation? or was this some kind of either delay tactic or for the four

dimensional fund raising ploy? >> the legal beagles and this thing, from a political standpoint, we know that trump and his lawyers really do like theatrical, they like to lead in the court of public opinion, especially if they can't actually lead in physical court. so what they're trying to do is cot of public opinion, let's be real ayman, is african american woman, we have willis in georgia, we have al braggs, an african american man, in the district of manhattan, and so he is essentially trying to make this case that these people can't be fair. they are african americans, they of course don't like me. so i was never going to get a fair shot. the facts are the facts though and so we know that this former president not only as cases spanning from florida to georgia to new york, these are really serious claims. and so whether or not he will be indicted doesn't seem to matter to his base though ayman.

many people don't fully know what indictment means, many people don't care, and as long as they think that he is either going to give them their tax breaks or build his wall or continue to take away rights and freedoms and civil liberties of people of color and women across the country, they are fine with it. this is just political theater for them. >> tim, based on your work with the january 6th committee and what we know from news reports, what do you think is the possibility that we will see another trump indictment in this georgia case specifically? >> i think it's almost a certainty ayman that there's going to be an indictment in georgia. we had some interaction with fani willis's team very early, like in the spring of 2021, they were already assembling a team, a very capable team in my limited experience with them,

that was gathering the facts surrounding attempts to essentially undercut the georgia election. georgia is a very stark example of the pattern that we saw happen all over the country. exhaustive research, federal government, fbi and doj evaluation of claims of election fraud and zero evidence being produced. nonetheless, the president and his enablers putting pressure on republican state officials up to and including the secretary of state in that very famous phone call, essentially telling him without foundation factually or legally that he ought to send this alternate fake set of trump electors, getting republicans to generate those fake electors. so i think that the case, the facts about georgia specifically are so compelling that i think they constitute criminal offenses that fani willis and her team will charge, not just against the people in georgia, but against the people in washington like the former president and others who essentially encouraged and facilitated the fraud. and again to be clear, it is a similar pattern that we saw in

michigan, arizona, that we saw in pennsylvania, nevada, right up all the states there was pressure on republican leadership to do things that they just couldn't do. thankfully there were a lot a very principled republicans that stood up and said no. >> elise, let me switch gears here and ask you about mark meadows. the washington post reports that in a text message that have been obtained by federal prosecutors, meadows joked about the baseless claim that large numbers of votes were cast in the names of dead people. this text was sent just before days before meadows joined that infamous phone call between trump and brad raffensperger the, secretary of state of georgia where trump pressured him to quote find 11,780 votes. talk about how this evidence might impact fani willis's investigation and why it might be significant? >> it would be significant first of all, let me say first of all ayman that text message was not just obtained by

federal prosecutors it was also obtained by the jan 6 committee, it's publicly available. i tweeted a copy of it earlier today and invite your viewers to go see it for themselves. it's significant because it shows mark meadows who was a participant on that january 2nd call very clearly doubting the veracity of claims about dead voters that the former president then made on that call to raffensperger with no interference by mark meadows. mark meadows never said, no sir that's not true, we never found anywhere near that number of deceased people voting, in fact we only found a handful of them. and so if i am fani willis, that phone call, coupled with the text message between mark meadows and eric herschmann, could be evidence of mark meadows's intent and his knowledge that the claims advanced by the president without any interference by him or with his help were in fact false and that mark meadows knew they were false in the entire time. >> thank you so much to the panel for joining us tonight.

we really appreciate your insights as always. ahead, texans fight the state's republican bacdfked abortion ban that is putting women in danger. but first my friend richard louis is here with the headlines. >> russian missiles striking on the city of odessa leaving one dead and 20 injured. to storage buildings were damaged in this including an early 19th century cathedral. president zelenskyy saying there will be quote definitely be a retaliation. this comes after president putin canceled a grain deal with ukraine. and wildfires rage in greece for the sixth day, forcing nearly 20,000 people to evacuate from the island of rhodes. so largest evacuation from off our in the country and more fires are breaking out today as temperatures hit 110 degrees. and the search continues for a nine month old baby swept away in pennsylvania floods last week. the infant's two-year-old sister and mother have already been confirmed dead. the search for the baby have led to an outburst on social

media. more ayman with ayman mohyeldin right after this break. reak is about to become a bad one. but then, i remembered that the world is so much bigger than that, with trelegy. because one dose a day helps keep my asthma symptoms under control. and with 3 medicines in 1 inhaler, trelegy helps improve lung function so i can breathe easier for a full 24 hours. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. trelegy contains a medicine that increases risk of hospitalizations and death from asthma problems when used alone. when this medicine is used with an inhaled corticosteroid, like in trelegy, there is not a significant increased risk of these events. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase risk of thrush and infections. get emergency care for serious allergic reactions. see your doctor if your asthma does not improve or gets worse. ♪ what a wonderful world. ♪ ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy for asthma - because breathing should be beautiful.

moderate to severe eczema still disrupts my skin. despite treatment it disrupts my skin with itch. it disrupts my skin with rash. but now, i can disrupt eczema with rinvoq. rinvoq is not a steroid, topical, or injection. it's one pill, once a day. many taking rinvoq saw clear or almost-clear skin while some saw up to 100% clear skin. and, they felt dramatic and fast itch relief some as early as 2 days.

that's rinvoq relief. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tb. serious infections and blood clots, some fatal, cancers including lymphoma and skin cancer, death, heart attack, stroke, and tears in the stomach or intestines occurred. people 50 and older with at least one heart disease risk factor have higher risks. don't take if allergic to rinvoq, as serious reactions can occur. tell your doctor if you are or may become pregnant. disrupt the itch and rash of eczema. talk to your doctor about rinvoq. learn how abbvie can help you save.

years ago, we used to just fall asleep with a full face of makeup. don't regret, just reverse. no7's new future renew with a world-first peptide technology no other skincare product has. even those that cost 10 times more. reverse visible signs of skin damage in 4 weeks. i don't feel safe to have

children in texas anymore. it was very clear that my health didn't really matter but my daughter's health certainly mattered. >> i'm so sorry that i couldn't help her and release her -- she had no mercy. there was no mercy. >> that powerful harrowing testimony was delivered during a two-day hearing this week on the legal challenge to texas's abortion ban. one of the plaintiffs in the ban, samantha casiano even vomited on the stand talking about her baby's fatal birth defect which also put her own life at risk and she was forced to continue carrying her unborn child. casiano is one of 13 women who along with two og by winds are suing the state of texas, demanding clarification into

all the scenarios that would be considered medical emergencies and allowed for a legal abortion under the state's harsh restrictions. once the supreme court overturned a constitutional right to an abortion last summer, republican backed ban went into effect at long all abortions except to save the life of a pregnant person. the procedure was already severely limited in the state following the passage of sb8 in 2021 and not fanned abortions at six weeks of pregnancy. so the vagueness of this current exception, saving the life of a pregnant person has really left doctors afraid, scared to perform even medically necessary abortions to save the life of another, because the consequences of violating that law including losing your medical license is facing up to 99 years in prison. and while this lawsuit is focus just on the texas ban, several states are facing several

crises. about half of the country has now banned abortion or severely limited the procedure leaving women and doctors with few options. joining me now is regina davis moss, president and ceo of in our own voice, a justice organization. and dr. wendy goodall mcdonald, a board certified ob/gyn based in chicago. it's good that both of you with us. dr. goodall mcdonald, i'd like to start with you. one of the women who testified this week, she was pregnant with one of the twins, one of the twins had a fatal condition called acrania, and the longer she carried the fetus, the more it put the other twin at risk. and we see clearly that abortions are unnecessary part of reproductive health care. how common are these types of complications and as we are now

well over a year into roe being overturned, what have you seen in your practice? >> so these kind of complications are extremely common. the unfortunate truth of when it comes to pregnancy is that it can be just as beautiful as it can be harmful. one of the other plaintiffs in the case had a pregnancy that the cervix began to open and she was going to inevitably lose the baby because the doctors were not allowed to do anything to intervene, which put her health at risk. it actually made her go into sepsis which is an infection that affects her entire body including her uterus, not only put her life in jeopardy but may have impacted her reproduction in the future. so here in my state, we are able to treat abortion as health care because it is that. it is life-saving, it can affect not only the life of the

mother but even of in this case the life of the twins, the child that was to live and go forward. it's really an unfortunate scenario is taking place in texas. >> can i just follow up on that really quickly if i can? what do lawmakers need to understand about how urgent this issue is? i mean, talk to us through the importance to have clarifications about exceptions so that abortions can be made when we need to save the life of the woman? >> so, the challenge with a lot of these cases is the legislation makes it seem as if the death of the harm to mom has to be impending in your face. we know is health care professionals that there are things that can happen in the coming days or weeks without intervention. so what i think needs to come as clarification is that is not only do these exceptions need to take place for certain pregnancies, it seems that the life of the mound may not be threatening the mound but you have to take if you take these actions, but there may be

inevitable harms that if we don't intervene, we're actually putting a life of the mom in the baby further at risk. >> regina, you had 19 republican attorneys general asking the biden administration to withdraw a proposed change to medical privacy laws that would ban doctors and nurses from reporting suspected abortions to law enforcement. in other words, they want the ability to continue prosecuting abortions even when it is outside of their jurisdiction. your reaction on how concerning this is. it is safe to say that women no longer have a right to privacy in this country, or at least in all states and expanding in this country? >> yeah, what we are seeing here is just another example of what we call reproductive oppression, which is the regulation of a person's capacity to get pregnant as a strategy to not only control people, but communities an entire populations. so we see things like attacks on health care records and the privacy, those things are meant to protect people.

doctors don't have to disclose that. we are venturing into things that are meant to protect us, and in fact they are not protecting us. i would say to those lawmakers, you are abandoning your citizens where they're dealing with life-threatening pregnancies, and this is the time where they really need you. so i would say we need to hold our elected officials accountable. i would also add that this is very much part of a lived experience of everyday women. we saw those heartbreaking testimonies, but that's happening all the time, particularly to black women that's why we have to continue to fight for bodily autonomy. >> actually regina it's not just the laws that ban abortion which are harming women, there are also ones that don't allow for proper time off after women experience the loss of their newborns. in texas, there was a woman who was denied maternity leave after delivering a stillborn baby which added injury to an already incredibly devastating tragedy.

she had to use up all her vacation and sick time, to receive disability coverage in order to take the come time off that she needed to recover from this. in this reality, what needs to change about these parental to leave parent policies across the country? >> well we know that we need parental leave, and paid parental leave because people need this because, they need not worry about need to make a living wage and to be attentive and fully present for a child. but i would also add, i know, when we look at these things we are thinking about people, and we're forgetting that these are people. we often focus on the statistics. this is real trauma and the reason the people need to seek an abortion is it's always urgent but most of all it's private. so what we want to make sure that we are supporting people in this time when they've

decided that right now it is just too much for me. >> as i was saying earlier, i think one of the things we are seeing more and more is that unfortunately the privacy of women in this country is constantly being eroded. regina davis moss, dr. wendy goodall mcdonald, thank you for your insights. coming up. the senate judiciary committee advances legislation to address the supreme courts ethical lapses but will it go anywhere? we carry that spirit with us. because you can take alfa romeo out of italy. but you best believe, you can't take the italy out of an alfa romeo.

my husband and i have never been more active. shingles doesn't care. i go to spin classes with my coworkers. good for you, shingles doesn't care. because no matter how healthy you feel, your risk of shingles sharply increases after age 50. but shingrix protects. proven over 90% effective, shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent shingles in adults 50 years and older. shingrix does not protect everyone and is not for those with severe allergic reactions to its ingredients or to a previous dose. an increased risk of guillain-barré syndrome was observed after getting shingrix. fainting can also happen. the most common side effects are pain, redness, and swelling at the injection site, muscle pain, tiredness, headache, shivering, fever, and upset stomach. shingles doesn't care but, shingrix protects. shingrix is now zero dollars for almost everyone. ask your doctor about shingrix today.

♪ tourists tourists that turn into scientists. tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. so researchers can help life underwater flourish. ♪ make a splash with the ultimate pool party essential. blendjet gives you ice-crushing, big blender power on-the-go, so you can soak up the sun with a frosty beverage. enjoy 15+ blends before rapidly recharging via usb-c. and it even cleans itself with a drop of soap and water. stand out even when you're accidentally twinning with our kaleidoscope of colors. make this summer the coolest ever. order yours now from blendjet.com.

-we're done. -what about these? looks right. all right, so fed up with chief nooo... nooo... quick, the quicker picker upper! bounty absorbs spills like a sponge. and is 2x more absorbent so you can use less. bounty, the quicker picker upper.

justice john roberts's refusal to tackle go the glaring ethical lapses that dominated the supreme court term. congress is finally taking action. is it week the senate judiciary committee advance legislation that would tighten disclosure recuse of rules that would require the court to finally adopt a formal ethics code. but that's as far as this bill might go. the new york times reports that center republicans have made it clear they will not support this legislation and has no chance of passing in the gop-controlled house. some underwrite are finally conceding that the justices have exhibited poor decision-making and that roberts should take steps to address those issues.

the fact that this legislation as even advance this far shows how much the court has fallen in the eyes of the public, as americans become more aware of the intimate ties between conservative justices and partisan donors. just this week, the washington post detailed the public relations campaign that leonard leo helped to celebrate justice clarence thomas. joining me now is mark joseph stern, it's great to see you. thanks for making time for us again. why does it only appear that democrats care about these supreme court ethical issues? what is chief justice john roberts, a man who i guess claims to care about a great deal about the perceived legitimacy of the court, cares about his reputation, its image, its perception not see them as a grave threat to his institution? >> well, you know the chief justice always wants to be calling the shots for the entire judiciary and for his court. remember, he's not the chief justice of the supreme court, he's the chief justice of the united states as he likes to remind people.

he sits at the head of the entire branch. and anytime he smells even a whiff of interference from congress, he gets his hackles up. he does not want to even create the perception that another branch will be intruding into the judge dish judiciary's prerogative. of course all the while, he's deeply striking down various laws passed by congress and enforced by the president, but to him the supreme court in the judiciary should remain a bastion protected by all other political headwinds, and i think he lumps ethics right in with everything else. he views that is just as crucial to judicial independence as the very premise that the court can strike down laws. he says if we are gonna start acting ethically, we won't write our own code and congress sure as hell is not gonna make us do it. >> what can you tell us about this reporting from the washington post about a public relations campaign for clarence thomas apparently organized by leonard leo this activist? he wasn't just helping justices get on the court, he ostensibly

guards their reputations once they are on the bench as well. if anybody needs the reputation at this moment defended, corrected, rehabilitated, it's clarence thomas? >> yes, so leonard leo who is still as we speak the co-chair of the federalist society fronts a massive multi billion dollar dark money network, that he puts into action in various ways. and one of the chief modes of operation over the last two years has been to try to launder and bolster clarence thomas's reputation. the post reporting tells us a lot of new stuff but some we already knew. it's no surprise that he was one of several republican donors to find that ridiculous part of propaganda created equal that actually aired on pbs to the shame of that channel forever i think, and

try to show clarence and ginni thomas as a walmart parking lot loving couple that stands for the constitution. so this is one arm of his operations. he is also with the federalist societies, also got a bunch of organizations that were supporting donald trump's judicial nominees the run ads against joe biden's judicial nominees, and senate republicans are taking money from this bucket as well, which is another reason why it is no surprise they are so vociferously against shining a light on ethics. >> speaking of ethics, i want to ask you about this propublica reporting. they've been digging into this. you've got gop megadonor harlan crow allegedly using his yacht trips with clarence thomas to reduce his tax bill. walk us through that. how did that happen? >> so harlan crow has claimed that he has a company that is a profit seeking enterprise that he uses to repair and refurbish his yacht. and by doing so, he is able to deduct a very large amount of money from his taxes, based on

the amount of money that business ostensibly loses each year. what propublica has turned up which appears to be true is that it's all a lie. that this company only exists to service his yachts and his yachts alone, that it's not a profit seeking business, that it's not a business expense in that he is manipulating and exploiting the tax code for illegal purposes. i think it's important we take a step back here ayman. the supreme court literally just took up a case that's designed to roll back the 16th amendment. that's the one that allows for an income tax. when you see clarence thomas hanging out with billionaire tax cheats, he sort of have to wonder if there might be some overlap between the goals of himself in his friends and his personal life and it jurisprudence goals that he claims are rooted solely in the constitution. >> that's a very important point.

i don't think a lot of people are falling it that intricately, so i'm glad that you flagged it for us. i want to get your final thoughts on this news out of texas. mclennan county justice of the peace diane handily filing a lawsuit after estate agency warned her about refusing to marry gay couples. she argues that supreme court's recent creative decision, the one with imaginary gay people at the center of it, should allow her to discriminate against queer americans. it's what we said when the decision came out. this has opened a pandora's box with how they can not discriminate against lgbtq americans? >> it's what justice sonia sonne amar predicted in her dissent. neil gorsuch gaslighted her and said she was exaggerating, making things up, but it only took a few weeks for this texas judge to step forward and say, i don't want to be helping same-sex marriage couples and i now have a first amendment right to do so.

it's not the last case we'll see of individuals who play some role in public life who simply don't want to interact with same-sex couples on an equal basis. they will use this decision as a shield to try to protect themselves against all legal ramifications, when what they really are engaging in is the most odious and discriminatory form of bigotry that for years our supreme court found to be incredibly obnoxious to the constitution and the people protection laws. >> absolutely incredible and it was clear as day for everyone who was watching that case once that decision was made that this was eventually going to happen. mark joseph stern, always a pleasure, thanks for joining us. ahead. alabama republicans refused to obey a court order to make their congressional maps more fair. are we surprised? next.

i'm a bear. i'm coming out of hibernation after the best nap of my life... and papa is hungry. and while you're hittin' the trail, i'm hitting your cooler. oh, cheddar! i've got hot dog buns! and your cut-rate car insurance might not pay for all this. so get allstate, and be better protected from mayhem, like me. roar. (sfx: family screams in background) power e*trade's easy-to-use tools, like dynamic charting and risk-reward analysis help make trading feel effortless. and its customizable scans with social sentiment help you find and unlock opportunities in the market. e*trade from morgan stanley. with powerful, easy-to-use tools, power e*trade makes complex trading easier.

react to fast-moving markets with dynamic charting and a futures ladder that lets you place, flatten, or reverse orders so you won't miss an opportunity. e*trade from morgan stanley ♪ ♪ ♪♪ voltaren. the joy of ♪♪ ♪ do you remember years ago we used to come in and just fall asleep with a face full of makeup? or worse. we'd try to take it off with soap. our poor dry faces. don't regret, just reverse. no7's new future renew damage reversal serum. with a world-first peptide technology you won't find in any other skincare product.

even those that cost 10 times more. reverse visible signs of skin damage who knew it's possible to undo the past? don't regret, just reverse. hi, my name's steve. i lost 138 pounds on golo and i kept it off. golo's changed my life in so many ways. before, i was over 300 pounds. now, i literally have the ability to take a shirt off and go out in the sun where i would have never done that before. try golo. it works. ♪ tourists tourists that turn into scientists.

tourists taking photos that are analyzed by ai. we have an important update to so researchers can help life underwater flourish. ♪ a story that we first brought you last month. a court ordered alabama's legislator to redraw its congressional map to give black voters more power, effectively more representation. the legislators response to that? not unless we have to. the gop dominated alabama legislation passed the map last week that disregarded a lower

federal court's objective. one reinforced in june by the supreme court, that it should include two districts with a black voting age majority or something quite close to it when it redraws its lines. as politico reported, over the unified objections of democrats, instead it came up with a map that fell short of that, with one narrowly black majority district in one of the black voting age population of just under 40%. in response, democratic state representative chris england, a member of the redistricting committee said, alabama does, what alabama does. ultimately what we are hoping, for i guess, at some point is that the federal court does what it always does to alabama. forces us to do the right thing. courts always have to come in and save us from ourselves. the fight over whether alabama's new congressional map complies with the voting rights act of 1965 now shifts back to federal courts. republicans have to submit this plan to the same three judge

panel that struck it down in previous districts. after the break, a preview of the new documentary series rainn wilson and the geography of bliss. don't go anywhere. trelegy for copd. ♪ birds flyin' high, you know how i feel. ♪ ♪ breeze driftin' on... ♪ [coughing] ♪ ...by, you know how i feel. ♪ if you're tired of staring down your copd,... ♪ it's a new dawn, ♪ ♪ it's a new day... ♪ ...stop settling. ♪ ...and i'm feelin' good. ♪ start a new day with trelegy. no once-daily copd medicine has the power to treat copd in as many ways as trelegy. with three medicines in one inhaler, trelegy makes breathing easier for a full 24 hours, improves lung function, and helps prevent future flare-ups. trelegy won't replace a rescue inhaler for sudden breathing problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking it. do not take trelegy more than prescribed. trelegy may increase your risk of thrush, pneumonia, and osteoporosis. call your doctor if worsened breathing,

chest pain, mouth or tongue swelling, problems urinating, vision changes, or eye pain occur. take a stand, and start a new day with trelegy. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, and save at trelegy.com i have moderate to severe crohn's disease. ask your doctor about once-daily trelegy, now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain

and fewer bowel movements at 4 weeks. skyrizi is the first and only il-23 inhibitor for crohn's that can deliver both clinical remission and endoscopic improvement. the majority of people on skyrizi achieved long lasting remission at 1 year. serious allergic reactions and an increased risk of infections or a lower ability to fight them may occur. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms, had a vaccine or plan to. liver problems may occur in crohn's disease. ask your gastroenterologist how you can take control of your crohn's with skyrizi. ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ learn how abbvie could help you save. sleepovers just aren't what they used to be. 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. some quick programming notes for you before we go. the fifa women's world cup continues this week broadcasting live from australia and new zealand. this upcoming wednesday, the united states women's national team takes on the netherlands live on peacock.

don't miss supporting team usa as they look to qualify for the knockout stages. kickoff is at 8:30 pm eastern time. and don't go anywhere. in just a moment catch the first episode of rainn wilson and the geography of bliss, the five-part documentary series follows actor rainn wilson exploring some of the happiest places on earth while unpacking the science of happiness along the way. first on rainn's journey, iceland. >> you started as a standup comic and then kind of almost as a joke ran for mayor of reykjavík and for four years served as mayor of this world capital. now are you playing a character when he ran for mayor? >> in the beginning, i was playing a character. of a fictional version of. yourself >> exactly. >> rainn wilson and the geography of bliss is next, ten pm eastern on msnbc, and it's of course streaming on peacock as well. thank you for making time for

us. you can catch ayman back here on msnbc on saturday, and twitter, all it aymanmsnbc. until then i am ayman mohyeldin in new york. have a good evening. evening. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." >> i'm craig melvin. hello, i'm craig melvin, and this is "dateline." >> and i'm natalie morales. >> and this is "dateline. " >> i refuse to live in fear. >> you're dead. >> ever since i heard it, it's been replaying in my head, over and over. it was, all, very unbelievable. >> it happened on thanksgiving. two teenagers, missing. >> i just buried my head into my hands, and i started to cry. >> where they were, and what