and for all of those kamala curious voters out there, she is doing a great job. extending an invitation to build a new way forward for this country and unite us as a people. and i'm proud to be able to do it with her. >> thank you very much for your time tonight. appreciate it. >> thanks. >> that's all in on this tuesday night. alex wagner starts now. >> sticking the landing. yeah. >> much like vice president harris. >> we all perform in different ways. >> we all have our lanes. really stuck it tonight. ur lan really stuck it tonight. different ways >> we all have our lane. really stuck with it tonight now we've gone 20 seconds over

vice presidential candidate j.d. vance has a new line he likes to repeat on the >> grow know the big difference between conservatives and liberals is no one has tried to kill kamala harris in the last couple of months and two people now have tried to kill donald trump in the last couple of months. i'd say that's pretty strong evidence that the left needs to tone down the rhetoric. two assassination attempts in as many months, and i think it's time to say to the democrats, to the media, to everybody that has beena, attacking this man and trying to censor this man for going on ten years, cut it out or you're going to get someone killed. >> his running g mate, j.d. van, wants the public to believe it is the left's reinflammatory rhetoric hat has motivated these attacks. donald trump has taken t it a sp further directly blaming kamala

harris and president joe biden for the attacks. in an interview with fox news digital trump said somewhat inscrutably, they use highly inflammatory language. i can use it too, far better an they can, but i don't. so far there's no evidence to support the claim rhetoric from biden or harris was in any way in these attacks. he was remembered as a conservative withem no discernie animosity towards trump and there's some evidence that suggests he may have also explored opportunities to attack presidentni biden. the latest alleged assassin does appear to have a history of political animus against trump, but it doesn't necessarily mean he was a democrat. his profile suggests he was a disillusioned trump supporter in 2016 who then superior courted nikki haley and vivek ramaswamy in this year' republican

primary, which is not the typical profile of a democrat or republican, for that matter. now, there's still a lot we don't know about both of these apparent attempts on trump's life and what may or may not have motivated the gunmen, but trump and vance's sudden concern about inflammatory language is suddenly disingenuous to say the least. it's s been a week since trump baselessly claimed on the debate station haitian immigrants in springfield, ohio, were eating the pets of local residents or cats or dogs, and that lie has wreaked havoc on that small ohio community. the city's mayor has received death threats. the city has received more than 30 bomb threats in the past few days. the city was forced to cancel annual celebration amid safety concerns. schools have been evacuated, and state police have been dispatched to protect school age children.

all of it because of something donald trump said. sort of the literal dictionary definition of inflammatory rhetoric.in despite all that along with the repeated insistence by local officials that there is no truth to trump's claim, trump and vance won't give it up. this week j.d. vance even appeared toce admit that he and trump created this story out of whole cloth, but he was still sticking b to it. >> the american media totally ignoredll this stuff until dona trump and i started talking about cat memes. if i have to -- >> it wasn'tav just a meme, though. >> if i have to create stories so that the american media actually pays attention to the suffering of the american people, then that's what i'm do, dana. because you guys are completely letting kamala harris coast. >>ka you just said this is stor you created. so eating dogs and cats thing is

not -- >> we arein creating. dana, it comes from first-hand accounts from my constituents. i say we're creating a story meaning we're creating the american media focusing on it. >> i'm going to try to unpack that a little bit. i think j.d. vance is trying to say he is fabricating a story about immigrants so that the media will focus on immigrants, which sort of feels like the textbook definition ofke a bait and switch or a red herring or a canard or a lie. meanwhile, kamala harris sat down today for an interview with the national association of black journalists where she was asked about the situation in springfield and offered her most fulsome response on the issue yet. >> when you have these positions, when you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought to understand atll a very deep lev how much your words have meaning. if it means you have been invested with trust to be responsible in theh way you us

your words, much less how you conduct yourself. and especially when you have been and then seek to be again president of the united states of america. >> so that's what it looks like when a politician considers the impact of her words. and then there is the man she is running against. >> we pledge to you that we will root outat the communists, marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country. the threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous, and, grave than the threat fro within. we got a lot of work to do. they're poisoning the blood of our country. that's what they've done. together we will take on the ultraleft wing liars, losers, creeps, rsperverts, and freaks o are andevouring the future of ts state like a swarm of locusts.

and we fight. we fight like hell. and if you don't fight like hell, you're not going toon hava country anymore. >> joining me now are claire mccaskill, former democratic senator fromme missouri. also with me, eugene daniels, coauthor of politico's plibook and white house correspondent forli politico, and also one of the journalists who interviewed kamala harris today at the national black association of journalists event. it's great to have you both here with me. claire, you know, calling out inflammatory rhetoric while at the same time engaging endlessly in inflammatory rhetoric seems like i think textbook version of hypocrisy, but i sort of wonder whether trump and vance are going to getwh away with this b saying thesewi assassination attempts are happening publicly as far as we know only against us,w therefore this is all the democrats fault. >> e yeah, blaming -- the way t de-escalate violence is not by

blaming the other side for politicalot violence. that's not how you de-escalate. and, frankly, we could take this entire show and just run clips of the things that have been said by both donald trump and j.d. vance that are incredibly imbued with ideas of political violence. it's going to be bloody. >> fight like hell. >> going back to 2016 when trump encouraged people to hit people at hised rallies. so that doesn't work. i think -- i'm very proud of both joe biden and kamala harris. they called donald trump. they said they were glad he was okay. i think they still w have to continue to point out the differences between these two campaigns. it's incumbent on us to make everybody realize that one is darkness ande rounding up peop

andnd putting their political opponents in jail, and the other is, you know what, we try to help you and your family. we're going to try to make your lives a better. >> genuinely bu reft this is what donald trump is doing to the country. almost a kind of resignation he's not going to change and a sort of encouragement to just turn the page. how was it on stage, and what was your sort of sense of her mood? >> i think that's right.f and i've covered her the entire

time that she's been vice president, and i've never seen her react to a question like that. i don't think it had anything to do with the question or the question but really the moment that we'ree living in, and she hadn't really spoken about springfield. so we were thinking about the topics we wanted to work on. and when i was writing the question really i wanted to hear what she had to say. i wanted to hear if there was a policy she felt the federal government could use to help communities and she took the opportunity to take the moment to talk about history, talk about someone who's a current leader, wants too' continue to aon leader of this country as w move forward. and she didn't even really say trump'say name. it was clear what she was talking cabout. she, you know, was talking about the y kids. she's obsessed with kids.ob she was talking about the

concerns that she has about the way this kind of rhetoric and these tropes as she said more than once are dangerous for people, right? because at the end of the day the conspiracy theories are -- have no basis in fact, right? and you played the clip of senator j.d. vance and him saying he kind of created a story. i don't know if he created it, but he did parrot, and donald trump did it on the debate stage. there were a lot of democrats who ask me with requests as you imagine when these opportunities come up and democrats wondering why she didn't say anything on the debate stage. i knew that was something people in t her party wondered how she felt about what was going on in springfield. andin i it's going to continue. vivek ramaswamy is going to do some kind of town hall there. donald trump said he's going to go. so this isn't g going anywhere,o she's going to have to continue

making these same points because both in springfield and general the racist conspiracy theories inir this country aren't going anywhere, especially dark skinned democrats. >> she didn't as, eugene points out, necessarily focus that much on trump. sheoc talked about the little children in springfield who were going into school for picture day. and she talked about them being dressed up to get their photos taken and that they couldn't do it because donald trump and j.d. vance have beense spreading the lies. i think one of there things thas important about this conversationou is it doesn't ext in the abstract and that it's about real lives and not just the lives of the powerful people who are potentially in the crosshairs, but the normal everyday people who don't have secret service protection, who didn't ask for any of this, who are caught up in the maelstrom that trump has created. i wonder setting aside the

rhetorical value of that, as a political strategy in terms of bringing people into the democratic tent and saying we've got to get past this because this guy is costing all of us. >> i think it is helpful. i think when donald trump made the famous line they're eating the dogs, which will go down in presidentialo debate history a the most inane thing that has ever been spoken from a debate stage. i think it's important to point out, alex, this is first time they have really gone after legal immigrants. these people in springfield are there legally. they're not illegal in any way. they have status. they've been told by the government of our country that they are there, they can work, they can raise their families. the fact they're going after them, they've really crossed a border here. you know, paradoxically and said now we're goingra to try to demonize people that have legal status in this country. and the republican mayor is

saying don't come here. this is total b.s. the republican governor is saying this is g garbage. the employers of these haitian legal immigrants have said they'rean wonderful employees. people ofwo springfield have spoken out and said leave us alone, we're fine, all of that. now they're going to continue to try to marginalize these people and in the long run impact these children's lives in a way they will never, ever forget as long as they're alive. >>he it's such a searing point, claire. and you gene, you know, you mentioned the way in which j.d. vance when honestly given the chance --gi not that he would er issue a maya culpa -- but to admit he's wrong, that the eating of dogs and cats isn't happening in springfield doubles down ininate interview on cnn with o dana bash and says

basically it's aa means to an d and if people are caught up in it, then so be it but this is what it takes to get people to understand the stakes, i guess, of the immigration crisis as the right-wing would have them. what did you think about his answer? >> i mean, at the endis of the y the answer he's given to dana and other journalists, too, it doesn't hold water. because if your constituents come to you as a senator and say this thing happened and it didn't happen, it's important for you to say we looked into it, it didn't happen. if your kids, if someone's children came to you and said, mom, this thing happened and that thing did not happen, it is your duty as the adult in the room to say actually there's no demon underac your bed. right, that is an important aspect oft being a leader. and i think that is the point our colleagues are making when they're asking him these questions. is that asim leaders you aren't just someone's crazy uncle online retweeting cat memes, right?

the words s,matter. and we've seen over and over and over again you laid it out, vice president harris laid it out, the kinds of impact that happen toevery day people's lives, to kids lives who are just living in this community, and the community that is dealing with eresource issues, could probably use federal assistance when it comes to translators on the ground sons there aren't such backlogs in the hospitals. there's a policy prescription that would be useful here. so when you see leaders engage in racist conspiracy theories instead of talking about the policy, it kind of tells you a lot about where the republican party is right now. >> claire mccaskill and eugene daniels, thank you botheu for yr time and thoughts tonight. it's great to have you here. coming up j.d. vance defends his party's position on abortion as that exact position appears to have cost one georgia woman lifesaving care.

but first, did you think you knew everything about donald schemes to get rich? you do not. the intrepped "the new york times" reporters behind the bombshell book, lucky loser, coming up next. stay with us. , lucky loser, coming up next stay with us 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. ask your doctor or pharmacist about shingrix today.

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that was the demolition of the trump plaza hotel and casino in atlantic city back in 2021. and if you know anything about the story of trump and his casino businesses, i bet you know that the story does not end well. multiple trump casinos ended up filing for bankruptcy. that much i bet you already knew, but you probably don't know this story. the year was 1982, the first year that forbes magazine published its list of the 400 richest americans. donald trump made the list claiming he was worth $100

million. but at the time trump was really only worth about $5 million, and he was also hemorrhaging cash. but donald trump had a plan. that year trump got a license from the new jersey casino control commission to operate a casino in atlantic city, new jersey, and trump found an investor to help him finance the project. holiday inn, which owned the casino chain harrah's would give trump $50 million to build the aseeno and they would split the profits. trump just had to prove one little thing. here's how they tell the story in their new book, lucky loser. donald was on the verge of a great deal, one that would also get him out of a bind. before leaving the ceo of holiday inn told donald his board of directors would want to see with their own eyes construction on the casino was underway, evidence this young

builder could make this happen. donald kept the truth to himself. he did not have things underway because he did not have the money, so he directed his construction supervisor to hire every piece of earth moving machinery he could find. the day the holiday inn visited the site, dozens of bulldozers and back hoes pointlessly pushed mounds of earth around the 2.6-acre site in an elaborate rouse with no purpose other than to fool trump's new business partner. afterwards trump introduced himself with one of the new holiday inn executives with a line he'd never forget. i think i'm probably the most successful person my age in the united states. that was how trump started the trump hotel and casino. he bluffed himself into it. trump created the myth of himself as a successful businessman, and he told is to the public so he could then sell it to his business partners. and for a long time that myth

really worked out. >> there is a new billionaire in town. trump's the name. donald trump is a major deal maker, a swashbuckler. >> today a lot of this country still believes that myth. and donald trump is still cashing in on it. this week trump may try and pull off one of his biggest schemes yet. i know it is very difficult to keep track of all trump's cash gambits. just yesterday, 50 days before the election, trump launched his own crypto currency platform. before that there were the gold trump sneakers and the trump endorsed bible, the nft trump trading cards. this thursday could be trump's biggest thursday ever. this thursday is the day that donald trump will finally be able to sell his stock in trump media, the parent company of trump's website, truth social. and if trump plays his cards right in that sale, he could net around $2 billion.

now, that is not because the company is doing well but because donald trump has convinced so many people that he is a successful businessman and so many of those people have in turn invested in that company. the reality of that company is that truth social stock has been going down consistently since the day the company launched. on friday trump told the press that he will not be selling his stock on thursday saying he loves it, but you should know there's a huge incentive for trump to say he won't sell even if that isn't the truth. and that's because trump is beholden to rules that stipulate trump is only allowed to start selling his shares on thursday if trump media stock remains above $12 a share. today they were trading for around $16. so is this yet another trump con job and what are trump's finances actually like these days? suzanne craig and rust buttener

join me next to discuss. d rust join me next to discuss. visit purple.com or a store near you today

it is not just donald trump the republican nominee who is having a busy week, donald trump the businessman also has a lot on his plate. there's his new crypto currency venture and his possible sales of his shares of trump media. as "the new york times" suzanne craig and russ buttener point out trump's successes aren't the result of shrewd business

acumen, they're the results of many, many lucky breaks. good things happened to donald trump. he did not earn most of those big things. he was born. he was discovered by a revolutionary television producer and pushed into the vestment against his will. and from those three bits of good luck came for heivquentlife of more than $1.3 billion. that could still fund a lavish life, and there is no evidence in 50 years of labor donald trump added to his lucky fortunes. he would have been better off betting on the stock market than on himself. joining me now our pulitzer prizewinning investigative reporter suzanne craig and russ buttener, authors of "lucky loser," how donald trump squandered his family fortune and created the illusion of success. congratulations, guys, on this exhaustive, really like delicious read i should say.

filled with a lot of new reporting and some deeply informative reporting on stories we sort of knew. i want to talk about first about -- because the word father is in the subhead of the book, maybe, suzanne, you can start first. just the relationship between donald trump and fred trump was more beneficial to donald trump than i think people even imagine, right? he's prone these days to calling him his brooklyn builder of a dad, but the reality is he's the money man behind donald trump's entire fortune. can you talk a little bit about it? >> i think we'd all in some ways like to have a father -- >> in some ways, in all ways, just throwing millions of dollars. >> donald trump definitely benefitted with his relationship with his father when it comes to the finances. he was born into an incredibly wealthy family. i remember one of the stories i was thinking about the family and they grew up in queens and all the kids in the neighborhood

used to marvel for the fact they had an electric door opener for the garage. they had everything. they had the first colored tv, and he really -- he grew up very, very wealthy. and he inherited a lot of money. and we've written about the fact he inherited and it was enhanced by tax fraud. that was really like the first hugely lucky break of his life. and he has spent so much time talking about how his father really a small-time guy, nothing to look at here. >> never could have made the fortune trump did. >> small time guy, gave him a very small loan, and donald trump did it all himself. it was as if he was robbed of a hard scrapble story and he had to come up with one. it's incredible how he's gone out of his way. first we see in his early business career how he appropriates his father's wealth. news story where he says he's worth $200 million and grows to it 2 billion and he spends his

life diminishing his father's accomplishments. donald became a black hole for fred's money, eventually. >> and fred trump abides this smack talking from his chosen son. not only does he single out trump of the five trump kids, donald is the chosen one, and he allows trump, his son, to basically diminish his legacy and suggest he's some kind of mastermind when really the inverse is true, is it not? >> it really is. and i think that's one of most remarkable parts of this as a long story. that's a part of thread that weaves through decades of this thing. fred has done everything -- he's broken rules but as a businessman he follows very strict procedures. he always estimates correctly what his revenue is going to be. he doesn't spend more than that's going to take in. all his projects make money and very careful. donald is just the opposite sort. when donald first arrives in 1968 he immediately starts

taking over the business. he becomes the public spokesperson for it. this name called john baron becomes the spokesperson. >> his alias. >> they're going to do all these things and it's all smoke and mirrors. fred's never done that in his life, but he goes along for the ride. and when donald just get a project up, when he gets his first building up, donald starts telling the world he's fully taken over the finances of his father's company. he has not, but fred goes along with that and allows donald to say and echoes it that donald has surpassed me when donald literally had one building up of his own. it's really a remarkable relationship that's very central to what he was able to become. >> setting in motion what would become a long career of diminishing people closest to him, who support him, and assuming they're loyalty is

inviable. >> and tossing them overboard when they're not loyal. >> what is staggering to a lot of folks who remember trump in the '80s and '90s, even "the apprentice" years it's a papers tiger. the offices "the apprentice" is filmed in are so shabby they have to use smoke and mirrors. can you talk about the stagecraft of pretending donald trump is actually a successful businessman? >> there's a lot of stagecraft involved when mark barnett showed up at the offices and his producers. they came in thinking they were going to be casting a billionaire. and keep in mind donald trump was the host of the show. he was the prize all these contestants, they were vying and they were scheming to work for. and the producers showed up, and they found chipped furniture, and they said the carpets smelled. they said it was awful, so they ended up creating a whole other area on the fourth floor of trump tower partly where the

contestants would live, but the whole boardroom was fake. that was not donald trump's boardroom. they had to re-create the whole thing. >> the one thing that escapes me given the fact this guy is hemorrhaging cash, being bailed out by other investors that are being brought in, he continues to sell himself publicly as a businessman. nobody pipes up. i mean here we are looking today at the potential sale of trump's social stuff which is largely built on trump's reputation and not at all on truth social's ability to generate revenue. do you have a have a working thesis how he's able to convince people over and over and over again? >> i think there's a couple things you have to give him credit for. he has this innate charisma that's followed him his entire life. every aspect of life there were people ruled by him and also he can be incredibly persuasive. throughout this book there are people very smart and very accomplished who give him opportunities to do something when he hasn't done it before

because he convinced them that he could. that has been a diminishing trend over the last ten years, right? the things that he -- once he got the money from "the apprentice," he decided again to undertake this effort to make himself look like a businessman by starting a business. he started a tower in chicago, he remodeled the old post office into a hotel in d.c. he lost 7 to $10 million every year, and he had to sell that. he bought some golf courses in the u.k. they all were sucking money, and he had to subsidize them with this money from his fame. he's not really convincing people much and more, but now he's got this new audience, which are his political followers. and i really think truth social is marketing to them. he's selling their persecution complex to them. and if you look at the site and read the people invested, that's the thing they grab onto, is

we're under assault from all sides, we have to protect this site, we have to protect donald trump, he's our only chance. >> he was once monetizing this sort of trump brand in this '80s, '90s gilded new york and now he's monetizing his rage. guys, it is -- i said delicious, but it's a work, it's a real work and a great time to be reading it especially as we're on the edge of, you know, the trump crypto currency platform and potential sale of truth social. thank you for writing it. congratulations suzanne craig and russ buttener with "the new york times." the book is "lucky loser how donald trump squandered his family's fortune and created the illusion of success." and it is out today. coming up new reporting from propublica reveals the first publicly reported death that is likely linked to extreme state abortion bans. i'm going to speak to jessica macular about that coming up next. a macular about that coming up

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i don't know if anyone here has heard most recently the stories out of georgia. tragic story about a young woman who died because it appears the people who should have given her health care were afraid they'd be criminalized after the dobbs decision came down. >> vice president kamala harris

earlier today in philadelphia and the woman she's referring to there is amber nicole therman, a healthy 28-year-old mother of a 6-year-old boy. therman died in 2022 after doctors waited 20 hours to administer lifesaving reproductive care that she desperately neededch they waited to operate on her even after she had been diagnosed with sepsis, after her organs had begun failing, and after they determined she was at risk of bleeding out. according to new reporting from propublica, the reason for that deadly wait was most likely georgia's post-dobbs 6-week abortion ban, which had just gone into effect. miss thurman needed a routine procedure called the d&c. any doctor who violated it could be prosecuted and face-up to a decade in prison. here is how vice presidential candidate j.d. vance responded to that story today. >> i'd like to learn a little bit more about this case and

understand the details a little bit better, but it's an unspeakable tragedy. it should never happen in this country, and that's we believe on the pro-life side in the life of the mother exception. >> joining me now is jessica mackler. thank you for joining me. it's worth noting to everybody here georgia does have an exception for the life of the mother, and that's probably precisely what led to this doctors basically had to wait until she was about to die before they could offer her a routine procedure that should have saved her life a lot earlier. what's your reaction to the vice presidential nominee's statement today? >> well, what j.d. vance just showed everyone today across the country is exactly the problem with this position. this is not a question of weeks or exceptions. it's a question of who gets to make choices about what happens to our body? and it is a question of will patients get lifesaving care

when they need it? amber's death is just a horrible, heart breaking tragedy, but it is a direct result as vice president harris said of the georgia ban and a direct result of the fact that the overturning of roe v. wade, which was because donald trump hand picked those judges, and that's what got us into this position. so we hear from j.d. vance, first of all, the equivalent of thoughts and prayers really just rings very hollow right now. but it's also -- it's really important that we both share amber's story, so thank you for doing that, but also we make clear this is what is at stake in this election cycle. >> yeah, it's also -- you know, the other part of this story is that part of the reason she had to go -- ms. thurman had to go to north carolina is because there's nowhere else for her to seek reproductive care, abortion care in the state of georgia given her pregnancy. and because so many women from the south live in what are

termed abortion deserts, there's a real bottleneck of patients in states like north carolina, where you can more freely control your own body. and she misses her initial appointment, she can't get follow up care at the abortion clinic, and so she's forced to go to the emergency room in a state not friendly to women seeking necessary abortion care. it seems that's kind of the after effect of it as well, that the pressure we are now as a society putting on the few clinics that do offer reproductive care. can you talk a little bit more about that reality? >> what we're facing in this country right now is nothing short of a state of emergency, which it comes to reproductive aka. to your point we have doctors also refusing to provide care in places where they are under these bans, even care that isn't necessarily related to reproductive care because they are -- they don't want to be under the mike scope of the government and have the government telling them how to provide care. so the ramifications of these abortion bans, of the fall of

roe v. wade are far and wide, and people are living with the devastating consequences every day. amber's story is so heart breaking and tragic. we have a child who's going to grow up without a mother because of it. but what is even more horrifying is the fact this is happening to people all over the country every day, and people are living in fear, the panic. and they are not able to get the care that they need, and that really is what's at the heart of this conversation around the future of reproductive freedom in this country. how do we chart a path back? and it's going to be democratic pro-choice leaders, particularly, democratic pro-choice women that are going to lead us out of this if we elect them this november. >> i do wonder, you know, we are now beginning to get the first bits of reporting about women who have not just suffered but lost their lives because of these abortion bans, and i wonder what you think that does to the national conversation. it's certainly not changed donald trump or j.d. vance's

position, but i do wonder whether you think this moves people in a way even other stories of women bleeding out in parking lots but actually surviving, whether this changes the sort of people who might be moved to do something about it. >> well, one of the reasons the issue for reproductive freedom has had such power with voters it is a deeply intuitive and deeply personal issue. when leaders like the vice president and vice president kamala harris speak about this and talk about their work on this, they're doing this from a place where they understand how deeply and personally intuitive it is. that's one of the reasons she shares stories so often. she shared the stage frequently with story tellers like amanda who also faced denial of care until she was on death's door. to answer your question, yes, i do think this makes a big difference. i think all the stories we tell makes a big difference because it really continues to put in front of people, it is a very

stark question what is at stake, what is happening to women across america. when we know voters have that in front of them and understand the stakes around reproductive freedom, they are with us. they've shown up. we saw that in the mid-terms and we see that in the response to the vice president's campaign, so that's the work we're going to do need to do over the next 49 days. >> jessica mackler, plegs to vu-on the program. thanks for your time and thoughts on this. coming up chief justice john roberts famously likened himself to an umpire calling balls and strikes. but explosive new reporting suggests when it came to the big cases concerning donald trump, justice roberts was very much a team player. more on that next. much a team player. more on that next.

during his 2005 confirmation hearing supreme court chief justice john roberts famously said his job was, quote, to call balls and strikes and not pitch or bat. but this week stunning new reporting from "the new york times" is dit mantling chief justice roberts cultivated new tragedy. in a trio of cases last term the court found itself more entangled in presidential politics than at any time in the 2000 election even as it was contending with its own controversies related to that day. the chief justice responded to its own authority to steer rulings that benefitted mr. trump. according to "the new york times" reporting that uncovered.

his latest piece co-written with the great dahlia lithwick entitled we help john roberts construct his image as a sentist, we were so wrong. mark joseph stern, why were you wrong, and who do you think john roberts is at this point? >> we were wrong because we really believe even though john roberts was conservative through and through and shared the goals of the conservative legal movement, that he was not a maga-pilled extremist, that he did not support the excesses of trumpism, and that he would at least attempt to guide his court towards some kind of middle ground in at least some cases that involved donald trump and the election. and the reality is dahlia and i were wrong about that. you know, this new reporting demonstrates that roberts really froze out his liberal colleagues when they came to him attempting to make compromises in these momentous cases. instead, he was delusional

enough to believe the praise from sycophants like neil gorsuch and brett kavanaugh who promised him these would be decisions for the ages and the public would embrace and celebrate a sweeping ruling granting trump criminal immunity for attempting to subvert the 2020 election. i think we believe that roberts still had some eagerness for compromise, and we thought that he cared about the court's institutional legitimacy as a good in itself, when in reality he just wants to know just how far he can push the court before he breaks it, how much he can get away with. and as long as he doesn't think he can destroy the institution, he will push to help donald trump in every way possible. >> you know, to that end, he was offered effectively an olive branch from the liberals on the court ready to make deals on some of these cases, and he basically rebuffed them. that shocked me. i don't know how you sort of processed that information. >> i was stunned. i mean, i think that was a real

mask-off moment because when john roberts first was potentially relegated to the side line after amy coney barrett and ruth bader ginsburg, there was a new conservative majority. john roberts did not join them in every case. he famously declined to overturn roe v. wade and shadow docket decisions he said the conservatives on his right went too far. he kind of got sick of losing. he decided losing was for suckers and so instead because he couldn't beat them, he joined the five conservatives and sort of almost out-conservatived them these cases preserving himself as trump's chief defender behind the scenes. it seemed he had some contempt for trump's extremism and spoken out in fact about trump's degrogation of the judiciary but

none of this came through, and he never wavered in his commitment giving trump all the imine taw he wanted and more and giving trump a major victory in 2024 that would reshape the law in his own image. >> it just feels like we need more leaks from this court. you think we're going to get them, mark? >> i do. i think we've entered a great new age of reporting where journalists are no longer stenographers but cultivating behind the scenes and treating the court like an institution of flawed government employees that it actually is. that gives me a lot of optimism this will be not the last leak we see about the roberts court. >> nor should it be. mark joseph stern, always great to have you on this program. thanks for your time tonight. that is our show for tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. they're very hurtful.