think the biden campaign is doing what they should continue to do, fact check that, put ads out there, and he's literally making these ads for us and if we continue to do those, voters old continue to remember the policies in positions as they come to the bell a box. >> valencia johnson and david, we appreciate it. that's all in on this tuesday night, alex wagner tonight starts right now. good evening, alex. >> i don't know how you appealed to the hard-line conservative based on abortion and also try to recruit people who care about reproductive freedom. i do not understand how it's possible. >> the thing is a bubble of 2016 is that people look to this guy and they're like he's not true about banning banning abortion, but it helped win the election. >> except now the republican minority, majority is empowered you can't just hope there isn't a real pro-anti-choicer. >> that ship has sailed. he's going to try.

>> well, we'll see. thank you, my friend, as always. and thanks to you at home for joining me this hour. one of the recurring characters in donald trump's classified documents indictment, the superseding indictment, that is, is someone named trump employee number 2. that employee gave trump this photo showing the number of boxes in the mar-a-lago storage room in november 2021. there were a lot of boxes. then the next month in december 2021 trump's valet, walt nauta, texted this photo to that same trump employee number 2 showing documents clearly marked secret spilled all over the floor at mar-a-lago. mr. nauta and employee number 2 coordinated for months and personally moved several of trump's boxes around the property. while nbc news has not independently confirmed this "the new york times" and "the washington post" and abc news have all identified trump

employee number 2 as his former executive assistant, a woman named molly michael. and abc news reports when trump heard the fbi wanted to talk to ms. michael last year, trump didn't overtly tell molly michael to lie. it wasn't as straightforward as that. instead trump reportedly told his assistant molly michael, who he knew knew a ton about these boxes, he reportedly told her, you don't know anything about the boxes. you don't know anything about those boxes. that kind of mafia-like double speak is really helpful as we try to begin to understand the former president's defense here. just last week trump said this to my colleague, kristen welker. >> i want to ask you about the case related to mar-a-lago. a new charge suggests you asked a staffer to delete security camera footage so it wouldn't get into the hands of investigators. would you testify to that under oath? >> i'll testify to that, yeah.

it's a fake charge. >> now, testifying under oath about whether or not he asked his staff to delete security footage does not sound like a good idea for mr. trump. we know from the criminal indictment on june 22, 2022 the justice department told trump's lawyers they were drafting subpoenas from trump's security footage from mar-a-lago. and the next day trump had a 24-minute phone call with the property manager, a gentleman named carlos de oliveira. a few days after that he pulled the i.t. director into a closet and said, again, according to the indictment, the boss wanted the security camera server deleted. but if donald trump did have to testify about that, about whether he asked a member of his staff to delete security camera footage, what if his literal answer to that question is no? what if his construction was

more like it would be a real shame if something were to happen to that security camera footage? i mean it's not a direct order to delete the footage but the meeting is pretty clear, that is the way it seems trump operates. say it but don't actually say it. remember trump's lawyer, evan corcoran, after trump got a federal subpoena demanding trump return all the classified documents in his possession, evan corcoran noted in a meeting trump asked him, what happens if we just don't respond at all or don't play ball with them? before evan corcoran was set to return a folder of classified documents to the fbi, trump didn't even use words. evan corcoran noted at the time trump made a funny motion as though, well, okay why don't you take them with you to your hotel room and if there's anything bad in there, pluck it out.

and that was the motion he made. he didn't say that. nothing direct, just hint, hint, nudge, nudge. former white house aide cassidy hutchinson testified to the january 6th committee the lawyer trump's team set her up with instructed her the less he remember, the better. the less he remember the better. in 2019 trump's former attorney and fixer michael cohen offered this explanation for trump's penchant for thinly veiled suggestions. >> he doesn't give you questions, he doesn't give you orders. he speaks in a code, and i understand the code because i've been around him for a decade. >> you don't know anything about the boxes. the less you remember the better. there is a lot of plausible deniability there, but there is also very clearly a pattern. joining me now andrew wiseman, former fbi general council and former member of special robert

mueller's investigation. thank you both for joining me as i lose my voice throughout the hour. >> we'll talk. >> exactly, that was my hope. let me start with you, george. it is not subtle what trump's strategy here is, right? there's a reason "the godfather" imagery is around us. can it work? >> no, not in this case because there's just too much of it. if you have just one of these incidents, one circumstance where he's saying, jeez, what if we didn't hand these documents to corcoran, maybe alone it wouldn't be enough, but you've got him moving the documents. you've got the direction about destroying the videotape footage. now you've got this statement that he made to molly michaels, which is pretty close -- you don't know anything about this when she knows damn well she

knew there were more than 50 boxes of ones turned over to the government. you've got that, the plucking. corcoran saying what if -- there's anything bad in there, he's got that. his lawyer felt compelled to write all that down, and then there's the telling -- he was hiding the documents from corcoran so that corcoran wouldn't tell the government. he just doesn't stop, and that's why all of this, it all fits together. and when we see count 33 of the indictment of the mar-a-lago indictment, which is the conspiracy to obstruct, they listed these things a, b, c, d, ef, and g. they have this dead to rights on this. >> george conway has a piece on this and i believe dead to rights is what he used. it seems like a fairly rudimentary strategy.

i'm not going to say the words. i'm going to wink, wink, and judge may way through. how do prosecutors go about proving what trump's actual intent was? >> this is what jurors are for. this is why you basically say to a jury to use your common sense, but there's too many instances, this goes back to -- let's remember we're talking about somebody who's the leader of the free world, and this is basically time when you say to a jury let's just grow up and look at this like an adult. what would a president who wants to comply with the law be saying? they would be saying have we turned everything over, you model what the right behavior is and then you go through all the things he did. i have to say here i don't think it's plausible deniability. i think it's implausible deniability. and it's not going to be denied because donald trump no matter how many times he says now he's

willing to testify to it, i am 100% positive that's not happening for the same reason i'm old enough to know he said don't worry, i'm going to come and talk to you during the mueller investigation. that didn't happen. and by the way, that was the right move for him. it would have been awful for him to come in and testify for us in the same way it would be really now to testify in all these cases. >> why do you think we're getting the reporting largely from abc news about molly michael? why are details about her testimony leaking? is this molly michael worried about her own legal peril? >> i doubt that. i assume that's been resolved and she has counsel and that's been worked out, if she is somebody employee 2 in the indictment, then that's not something that the government has left dangling. that means they're fairly confident she'd be a witness. why it is leaking now, the one

thing i'd say obviously it comes from the government, it's correct to say it's a leak. if it comes from molly michael or some lawyer who knows it, that's not a leak. they're entitled to speak to whoever they want to speak to. they are giving that information, but there's no law, there's no ethics rules that would prevent that. why it's happening now, though, i don't know. it could be a whole variety of reasons, but it is happening. it seems entirely consistent with as george said all the other information in the charge. >> and what keeps happening, each one of these nuggets of information we get, trump continues to depress, he continues to talk about it and dig a hole in his defense. it's going to be just a few minutes. >> he'd be destroyed on the stand in 30 seconds on any cross examine on almost any subject.

you cannot pull the stuff you can pull-on a town hall or even in a one-on-one with an interviewer, you can't just fold it in on some other subject. you have to answer questions and get pinned down. every single one of them, this one, that one, that one. it's like, okay, so then the prosecutor after asking those questions are like, so, you heard from the man himself. everybody is lying except for him. does that make sense? >> george is ready for -- >> i just saw it. it's like perry mason. what is also remarkable and i pose this to both of you guys is the way trump has left -- the government hasn't left things hanging, but trump has left things hanging with some of the people going to be critical to his own defense. i have to ask about rudy giuliani who is being sued by his former lawyer costello for

$1.4 million. his new york apartment is up for sale for $6.4 million. he's been ordered to pay $100,000 in court ordered legal fees for the women he supposedly allegedly reportedly defamed, shaye moss and ruby freeman. i mean he's been disbarred, he can't actually work. this person is if you're trump he can't take of them and he's hanging them out to dry. >> he's under criminal indictment, he's awaiting civil trial in the dominion case just like fox. and it's not an allegation with respect to shaye moss and ruby freeman. and he is awaiting an upcoming imminent trial on damages, and that is one where it is hard to see where a jury wouldn't take

that unbelievably seriously given what they went through and it sort of ties into trump being a mob boss because, you know, they have borne the brunt of that kind of defamation from the former president. >> but doesn't the mob boss take the lesson when the screws are tightening, you keep your coppos close to the vest. >> he's trying to raise money. >> for a guy who's in the hole to the tune of multi-millions of dollars with more indictments to come as a codefendant in the georgia case. >> first of all, there's two things. you're the mob prosecutor. >> point two, is the mob point which is you've caused everyone to join you in the conspiracy, so they have every bit as much

motivation. it's like when tony sent out something you want to become a made man and tony sends christopher out to do the hit on the cop, remember that? it's exactly the same thing. it's like once you do his bidding, you're kind of stuck because you did everything he did. and the third thing is trump's absolute stupidity. because there is nobody other than donald trump more responsible for the two impeachments than rudy giuliani. so you would think he would have learned his lesson about dealing with rudy, but he can't help himself. >> it boggles the mind. i understand rudy giuliani is quite literally implicated in all this. and yet because he's so central to the case, i mean do you think it's even -- jenna ellis, another trump lawyer calls trump a malignant --

>> it focuses the mind to be facing charges. there's no more deniability where you're thinking maybe i'm going to escape. the fact you might be named as one of the unindicted coconspirators by jack smith, everybody can read into that, but it's just a matter of time before they were indicted coconspirators so they could be facing state and federal crimes. there's a lot of pressure on all sorts of people to cooperate. one thing that's clear is neither prosecutor needs these people, so in many ways their window for doing this is not over, but it's not the ideal time. they really should have done it before. >> you think that rudy giuliani may not be as of interest to the prosecution at this point in terms of cooperating witness? >> i would say it reminds me a lot of in special counsel mueller's investigation there were people that we didn't need

to have as cooperators, but we wanted the information. so paul manafort after he would call blue trial and he offered to cooperate, and we had a lot of suspicions it wasn't going to be real, but the reason we went forward is we said you have to plead to every single thing you did, but we wanted information because it was so important to the country to know what he knew if he was going to be truthful. so i could see jack smith and fani willis thinking if he was going to be truthful there could be information important. >> he's had so many -- i mean you can't count the number of ridiculous and stupid and false things that rudy giuliani has said over the years. >> we're going to try, george. over the course of the next several months i'm on record saying we're going to try to do that. >> good luck with that. >> he rolls his eyes. it's been a theatrical block i

would say between my voice and perry mason. we didn't even say the co-host of this indispensable msnbc podcast "prosecuting donald trump." we have a lot to get to this evening including the detroit auto worker's rally that donald trump has conveniently scheduled to counter program next week's second republican debate. but first, there are a lot of things people accidently leave on baby changing tables in public restrooms. it could be pacifiers, spare diapers. i have left my cellphone on one. but one reporter today said he found something altogether different at a bathroom inside the u.s. capitol, and speaker kevin mccarthy's fate may hang on it. we'll explain coming up next. on it. we'll explain coming up next ♪ oh what a good time we will have ♪ ♪ you can make it happen ♪

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as republican speaker kevin mccarthy works to manage the utter chaos of the house republican conference, independent journalist matt lazlow said he found something very interesting today on one of it baby changing tables in a restroom in the u.s. capitol. he found a document, and it reads, resolve that the office of the speaker of the house of representatives is here by declared to be vacant. that is correct. it appears -- it's hard to even describe this without laughing. it appears someone left a draft motion to boot kevin mccarthy from his speakership -- it appears they left that draft on a baby changing table. and it quite literally has congressman matt gaetz's name written all over it. nbc news hat not verified if

congressman gaetz drafted such a motion, but it sure seems on brand, doesn't it? back with me is george conway. george, it's too cued by half to leave a motion to vacate on the baby changing table. i'll let everybody work their minds through that. >> it's theater of the absurd, but i don't want to talk about theaters. >> i don't know whether it was done on purpose, but for this to come up at this particular moment when kevin mccarthy is having one of the worst weeks in his entire political career and it may just get worse, it doesn't seem like a coincidence. >> why are you carrying that around? why are you carrying it around? move a comma here or there? i can't imagine. it's not like it's a big secret, though. he's been threatening to do this from day one.

>> but do you think it's -- do you think it's -- we are inevitably heading towards kevin mccarthy being ousted at this point? >> i have no idea. all i can tell you is nobody cares about governing. they do not care. and it's all about competing for attention. it's why they're going to have such trouble maintaining a majority. they don't really care. these people from these districts where they're going to win no matter what and so on, they don't care about winning, they don't care about governing but why do they need to be in the majority? they just want chaos, and they're going to get it. >> if you were a democrat in the house, what is theical clagz here? i mean democrats can also raise a motion to vacate. is kevin mccarthy their best option for someone who seems vaguely tethered to the notion

of institutional functionality. >> well, i think my attitude if i were a democrat would be the old political adage when your opponents are basically hanging themselves, doing themselves harm, get out of the way. all they have to point and look at this des function. >> that said, there is a government shutdown looming. and while it is distinctly bad politics for republicans, democrats would like to see the deal function. >> the problem is speaker mccarthy can't play any role in that because he'll lose his job. he's in a complete box. i don't know whether -- but the problem also from a republican standpoint is that if you cooperate in any way, you know, even if you get something that's useful from your standpoint as a republican -- but they don't have a any policy positions, but

suppose they had -- and they got something for their troubles and gave something up to democrats, a significant portion of the republican base is going to say you're collaborating with the enemy. okay, they just are not capable of governing. they have no desire of governing. and basically that's their appeal to a large swath of the republican electorate now. they don't want governance. >> i mean you've been warning -- you've been raising the alarm bells about what's happening inside the republican party for a long time now. what is unfolding right now between donald trump being the presumptive nominee, and being nonfunctional and completely uninterested in governing, is this the nightmare? is this worse than what you thought might happen? >> i remember in 2018 i'd be registered as an independent, march 2018. and my restated reason for doing that then is i thought the republican party had become a

personality cult. i mean i could not have conceived. i did come to the conclusion by 2019 that donald trump was a criminal and a recidivist criminal, but the notion we would be charged with -- these documents they would foment an insurrection, and it would do all the things he did, even i couldn't conceive it. i thought he committed obstruction. we have andrew wiseman here and a whole 300 page, and i thought the ukraine scandal was extortion and i thought that was chargeable, too. i didn't think he would try to overthrow american democracy all together all at once the way he did. i thought he'd undermine it bit by bit. >> and effectively find many

versions of insurrectionists in the halls of congress. thank you for joining me to conjure this dystopia, at least an analysis of this dystopia. >> there's more to come. >> thank you for your time, sir. we have a lot more tonight including the political fallout from the uaw strike and what it means for both joe biden and donald trump. white house press secretary karine jean pierre will join me in the studio when we come back. stay with us. e come back. stay with us

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the auto workers and the big three auto manufacturers, my question, mr. president, whose side are you on on this? >> i'm on the side of making our country great. the auto workers have been sold down by their leadship, and their leadership should endorse trump. >> donald trump is a criminal defendant but he's also very much a political canned dlt, and he's currently pushing one of his famous political tropes, donald trump the populist. he's planning to skip the second debate next week and extend hold a rally in detroit to court striking auto workers. this is not a new gambit. in 2016 trump who as a reminder has always been an ultra-wealthy coastal elite, trump rebranded himself as a champion of blue collar union workers helping him

win support in key swing states like michigan and ohio. here he was at a campaign rally in michigan in 2016. >> i've been talking about michigan for a long time. we can't let them take your car industry out or your industry out of your state any longer. not going to happen. >> and so now trump wants to rup that play again. he wants to show the union workers he is their man. except president trump spent four years in office distinguishing himself as the most anti-union president of the last three decades. he appointed eugene scalia, one of the nation's top anti-union lawyers to be his secretary of labor. under trump's administration the national labor relations board implemented sweeping new rules that made it harder for workers to form unions, rules, by the way, joe biden reversed when he took office. trump packed the courts with

anti-labor judges, people like thomas farr who spent his career bringing cases before the courts to beacon unions. president trump made it harder for workers to earn overtime, and he gutted the federal agency in charge of workplace safety. now, by contrast president biden has pushed a decidedly pro-labor agenda since taking office. he's voiced support for striking auto workers demands, met with big businesses including amazon and starbucks, and even asked republicans to continue to block president biden's pro-union candidate for secretary of labor, the biden administration has been able to traumatically expand union rights through his appointees at the national labor relations board. now looking for an opening in a key demographic in key swing states, the trump team is trying to use biden's push for things like electric vehicles to drive a wedge between biden and the unions that have supported him. is it going to work? all we know is that this strike

could end up deciding a lot. joe biden won michigan by less than 3 percentage points. he won pennsylvania by just over a single point. i'm going to ask white house press secretary karine jean pierre about all of that next. pierre about all of that next. c. ♪ 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,

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you know rca. the quality is there. you got a company behind it that is the leader in the industry in sound. with completely adjustable volume, built in. simply slip on rca's rechargeable otc hearing aids and instantly hear your world again! i love you. never miss a moment again. after you get your hearing aids you realize how much you were missing, you know. i can't wait to get home and hear my grandkids playing. no more missed moments. that's right. don't wait any longer to finally hear what you've been missing. no doctors. no tools required, and no batteries to fumble with! it's not worth waiting. oh my gosh if i had only known, i would have gotten these years ago. you cleared up decades of frustration in a second. i hate that i waited this long. order now for the low introductory price of just $99. you get a carrying case and accessory kit, plus free shipping. add a second hearing aid and we'll include a bonus deluxe charging cradle free! order now...call this number, or visit rcahearingaids.com meet the portable blender

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go beyond. the white house is trying to balance president biden's union support with a potential fallout from extended strike. joining me now is white house press secretary karine jean pierre. thank you for taking a little bit of time during an extraordinary busy week, and we'll talk about the president. but i want to ask about this strike. first we spent the last block outlining the ways in this administration has been remarkably decidedly pro-union and union workers, rank and filers you're seeing a lot of them pretty disallusioned and this is from politico reporting, uaw democrats were for the working people. that has changed. i'm telling you what -- what to

do about this perception and what is at the root of it? >> look, we've just got to keep talking about it. you did a fantastic job laying out what the president has done, really undoing a lot of the damage the last administration did when they were not pro-union, when they were not about the workers. and so here's the thing, and the president talks about this every time we talk about the economy, every time we talk about these types of issues about how much he has been for unions. he's a pro-union guy, how he believes that we have to continue to build an economy that really puts workers add the middle, right -- he always says the unions built the middle class which is incredibly true. he's been saying that for years. here's the thing, if you look at the last two years, you see how collective bargaining has played a role here. you saw that with the west port situation. you saw that with uaw -- i'm sorry the ups and teamsters.

he's going to continue to say that and be forceful about it. how it's important to have collective bargaining, important to have a right to strike, and the president has been talking about that for some time now. look, he's going to continue to do that. the president is going to continue to do the work. if you think about the policies he's pass asked the legislation that's gone through now law and how it puts workers at the center of this, how it makes sure we have good pay jobs, union paying jobs because it's important to continue to do that. and the president speaks from experience when he talks about that. >> and i get the things that have been done, and i think there's like a weird lacuna around what is the messaging. should the president go to the picket lines, he walk with the striking workers? >> he's going to basically

continue to say we support the unions. we believe when companies make record profits so this contract should be a record contract, right, for uaw. he's going to say they have the right to have collective bargaining, they have a right to strike. and there he's going to give them the opportunity to continue to negotiate. it is up to them to negotiate. we will engage. we will assist in any way that we can, but we have to give them the space to have those conversations, and that's where the president is, and that's basically what he said not too long ago. >> and you guys at all worried about the way in which republicans and trump are trying to drive a wedge between workers over the question of electric vehicles and his climate change agenda? >> i'm gad you asked that question. the last administration, president trump, and i'm going to be careful not to talk about the next election because of the hatch act -- >> oh, an administration official that cares about the hatch act.

refreshing. >> shocker. but what i can say is that when you look at kind of an ev future, the last administration ceded that to our competitors. he ceded that to china, and the president did everything he can to move forward with legislation, with his policy to make sure that we focus on an ev future that makes us competitive and not only that that builds in america, that made in america, that's one thing we continue to say we have to bring back those manufacturing jobs. and when you think about the ev future, that's what we're going to do. we're going to make that in america, and that's what matters so we can be competitive as a country. >> when you talk about evs, that's a huge part of the president's climate agenda. this administration cares about climate change. it acknowledges it's real, and yet it can't be one country pushing for it, a handful of

countries. is the u.n. -- is the u.n. the right format anymore for global initiatives. >> as you know -- >> the u.n. general assembly. >> but it really matters. you saw the president this morning. he laid out how he sees the future of this country moving forward, and it is working with our partners, working with our allies, and one of the things he talked about how it's important to we secure -- we are more prosperous not just for us as americans but for the world, that's how we're going to move forward. he talked about how climate is an existential threat, we see the extreme with weather, we think about the flooding and the heat. that's just not here. that's globally, and so that's why something like the inflation reduction act, which is the biggest investment in climate change to deal with the climate

crisis is so important. and so the president's going to continue to move forward in that way, he talked about russia's aggression and think how russia is going to be weary and leave ukraine and forget about it, and that's not something we're going to do. i was in the hall when the president gave those remarks. and when he said that, continuing to make sure we give ukraine the support they need so they can fight for their freedom, democracy, you heard that room clap and really react to the president's comments. so that is the world stage the president stands on, and let's not forget he has changed the perception of america in the last two years. and what we saw from the last administration to make sure that we continue to be leaders, and that's what's been important this week to continue to have those conversations. >> now he just needs to get republicans in the same room clapping for support for ukraine. >> we've seen bipartisan support

for the financial security support, the financial support we've been able to give ukraine. we've seen that. we've been incredibly appreciative and continue to have the conversations. it's important to do so, and it's not just us, it's our allies and partners. and because we've been able to do that, ukraine on the ground, we've seen them fight bravery. they've been able to have successes on the battlefield, and we have to be there for them as long as it takes. >> mitch mcconnell, a nation turns its lonely eyes to it you. white house press secretary karine jean pierre, i'm so appreciative of you taking a couple minutes for you to visit us at 30 rock. did the supreme court justice brett kavanaugh send a not so secret message to right-wing activists? what is really going on behind the scenes in the fight of one the most important civil rights laws of our time. that is next. r time that is next ts. save $400 on the new sleep number c4 smart bed. now only $1,499.

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so we have some new

bombshell reporting from a journalistic outlet in alabama that helps you explain something that was previously kind of inexplicable. earlier this year alabama republicans decided to defy a direct order from the supreme court to change their racially jerry manddered congressional maps, ones that were in direct violation of the voting rights act. according to the alabama political reporter, that's the outlet, as republican lawmakers worked to redraw their congressional map, they got intelligence that justice brett kavanaugh who had originally voted against the use of jerry manddered maps, they got intelligence that justice kavanaugh was open to rehearing the republicans case under a different legal theory. lo and behold just last week, alabama republicans petitioned the court for that rehearing, and now the alabama political report, it is adding to its reporting with revelations of its decision to defy the court in the first place was driven by

nationally connected political operatives at the center of the well-documented right-wing effort to overturn the remaining key protections established by the 1965 voting rights act. excuse me for losing my voice. the news outlet goes onto outline connections between alabama republicans justice kavanaugh and the web of dark money groups connected by conservative activist leonard leo. joining me now is the invaluable dahlia lithwick who i hope is going to talk more than i am. author oof the book lady justice out in paper back today. i'm going to wave it around and stop talking. dahlia, first talk to me a little bit about what seems to be happening with conservative activists taking like winking -- i don't know it is wink, wink nudge nudge from the supreme court justice. he's suggesting, hey, guys come back here in a different fashion

for lack of a better term. >> this is i mean under any other guise this is nullification, right? this is what happened after when southern states we're not going to comply. you would think any of the nine supreme court justices would be horrified when the ink is not dry, said create another majority black districts -- new maps this is what it looks like. go back, alabama, they said no. either of the theories are horrifying, right, alex? >> yes. >> one is they have inside intel because everybody in the alabama legislature is in bed with leonard leo, and he's in bed with brett kavanaugh and the donors and slush money. that's awful. the other possibility is they don't care, and that's almost worse, right, that they're just going to take this case back to the supreme court under a theory that brett kavanaugh through

into a conquering opinion, and they're like we think we can flip thim his time. >> for those of us expecting a bad for civil rights rule on affirmative action and were given exactly that bad ruling, the alabama ruling was kind of like, oh, surprise, the court isn't as -- isn't denying our country's racist history in a way we thought it would. it now seem like that affirmative action ruling may be of use to people who want to get rid effectively of the ruling the supreme court made on alabama. can you explain that more particularly than i have? >> no, you've exactly nailed it. justice kavanaugh's theory in both cases is that, you know, remediation of centuries of civil rights abuses is like milk, and it has a sell by date. and, you know, in the affirmative action cases he won on that theory, right? that's what the court said like, bing, your pop tart is done and

we can't use affirmative action anymore. it almost makes more sense for him to square the circle and say that's the theory neither briefed nor argued in the alabama gerrymandering case, that's a theory he pops into concurrences like, oh, i think section 2 of the voting rights act also has a, bing, sell by date. and come back to me and see when it happens. i'll keep sniffing the milk. >> come back two minutes later. they're petitioning to get this case back on the docket. is it going to happen? >> it's been hustled back to the court on an emergency basis. we may find out about it sooner rather than not. joseph stern and i wrote a piece today at slate saying justice clarence thomas used to do this trick, right? he'd drop a footnote or he's write in a dissent like oh, you know, it's 1997, i sure hope

someone brings a case making a claim the second amendment is an individual right. and then like years later that case is brought and it comes before the court and the court changes the law. now that time frame is so pancaked because you could have justice kavanaugh write, huh, i'm going to just kind of wink at you and say bring it back under this theory and in three months i might change my mind. so what's astounding isn't just the defiance and the certainty shown by the alabama legislature, it's that we're now in a climate where this conservative super majority, six justices on the court, can literally signal to the country, to judges around the country and legislatures around the country we're in the bag for you, just bring us a better case. >> unbelievable the impunity, the transparency i'm going to say the corruption because the other thing the alabama political reporter does, the outlet we cited at the beginning

of this block, they established a web of connections between the justices. and we've all known that leonard leo is kind of the -- of this court. people on the payroll, gini thomas, it's too elaborate for me to go into in the remaining television we have, but the relationship between conservative dark money and the justices on the supreme court is not hard to trace. and in this particular case it seems that is very much at the root of how these justices send out their smoke signals and how the lawmakers and the lawyers on the other end understand them and read the smoke signals to begin with. >> that's why i'm so glad you said that because that's why this particular incident is so telling. we tend to completely bifurcate the supreme court coverage. we cover the cases, we cover the docket. oh, i wonder whether the chevron docket is going to be overruled

this turn. and we cover the scandal and the pay to play. and this illuminates it's the same story that the pay to play guys all involved with leonard leo, involved in efforts to suppress the vote, they're now paying to play the game of managing the docket itself, of doctrine itself. it's one story and we have to start treating it like it's one story. >> it is devastating and deeply distressing. there's truly no better person to talk to especially when we're talking about matters of great import. the book is out in paper back today. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. for the second year in a row this gathering dedicated to peaceful resolution of