welcome back to "the weekend," everybody. so next week, the supreme court will hear major cases including access to tiktok, gun laws, free speech, and even the death penalty. but underneath the surface, the court is on trial with the american people. approval for the court is near an historic low. and this month, senate democrats called out the high court for a, quote, ethical crisis of its own

making. a report from democrats on the judiciary committee dives into the court's failure to enforce its own code of ethics. the investigation outlined clarence thomas' undisclosed luxury vacations, paid for by a billionaire buddy. democrats also blast thomas for not recusing himself from january 6th cases, despite his wife's support of donald trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. y'all remember that. joining us now, justice correspondent for "the nation," eliot nastall, and msnbc legal analyst and former u.s. attorney, joyce vance. she's a professor at the university of alabama school of law and co-host of the hashtag sisters podcast. sisters-in-law podcast. welcome to you both. >> so the court has a lot on his plate coming up. i mean, on january 10th, the court is going to hear arguments in the case about pausing this tiktok ban. i'm just wondering to the both

of you, donald trump is flip-flopping on the tiktok. obviously, somebody got to him here. at one point, he was for ban, then he was against the ban, then he was for the ban again, now he's against a tiktok ban. i personally am a tiktok user, honey, but the control -- the stake by the chinese government, allegedly, is very concerning. what do you all think about this? because his -- i just want to read -- this is from nbc news reporting. it notes that donald trump -- president -- this is what his lawyers say. president trump takes no position on the underlying merits of the dispute. instead, he respectfully requests that the court considers staying the acts deadline for divestment, while it considers the merits of the case. what does that mean? please? joyce, eli, please, what's going on? >> here's what it means. it means that trump's nominee to be solicitor general of the united states, john souer, the lawyer who wrote this brief,

which is an am icus brief, trum is not a party to this case, but they're filing on his behalf. in essence, the brief says, hey, donald trump is a great dealmaker and he's about to be president, so let's ignore all of this legal stuff about a law congress has passed that's about to go into effect that will make it problematic for the people that host tiktok in the united states to continue to do that. because that's what this legal fight is about. the enforcement mechanism, of course, is that the u.s. platforms can't continue to host tiktok in this country. it's not about donald trump making a business deal. but his lawyer, the future solicitor general, if he's confirmed, is making this nonsensical argument. it certainly diminishes their credibility in front of the supreme court. but you know, the problem, symone, is this. that's all happening at this meta technical inside the law issue and what americans are seeing is donald trump saying, hey, come to me and i will resolve your business and legal

problems for you. and boy, is that getting this administration off on exactly the footing we all knew it would start on. >> ellie, that sort of call-in response between the incoming president and the current supreme court is a part of what we already watched and will continue to watch for. and it happens as the court -- trust in the court is at an all-time low. you have this ethics report that came out. i'm sure you were just absolutely shocked by everything that was in it. but you had the senate review it and this is what they said. quote, any movement on the issue appears unlikely as republicans appear to take control of the senate in january, underscoring the hurdles in imposing restrictions on a separate branch of government, even as public confidence in the court has fallen to record lows, right? so you have what joyce is saying about the facts that folks can come directly to donald trump, make their argument to him about things that are before the court, but then you also have the reality that you no longer have the checks on that court, that you would want to have, particularly in this scenario.

where does that leave us, elie? >> yeah, there were never any checks on this court. i hope that the democrats feel better now that they've probed it. maybe dick durbin, he wrote a strongly worded letter to john roberts. maybe next time dick durbin from the minority can beseech john roberts. i don't think we've tried beseeching them yet. look, if donald trump really wants to save tiktok, all he's got to do is buy clarence thomas a new yacht. that is fundamentally the problem here. i'm not going to hear it from democrats who are like, oh, now that republicans are taking over, no, no. you had four years where you controlled the judiciary committee. you had two years where you controlled both the house and the senate and the white house and you did nothing! you did nothing to rein this court in ethically, morally, or legally, and now they're on fleek. now they are -- now they are off the chain. they can do whatever they want. chuck schumer has said, oh, the supreme court will be the bulwark against donald trump and

his craziness. are you kidding me? have you listened to this supreme court? have you seen how they just gave that man immunity, absolute immunity to commit crimes? you've got to remember, the courts during trump's first term had a person called ruth bader ginsburg on it, which brought the court to a 5-4 balance and gave roberts a whole lot more power, right? now she's passed away. amy coney barrett has replaced her, it's a 6-3 court. amy coney barrett has shown no interest in restraining trump at all. neither have the ones that are on the take. this is the reality that we face, because democrats did not do anything to restrain the court when they had the chance. and now, as the man who invented the internet said, we are about to enter a time of consequences. >> well, come on, come on, al gore! can i just say one thing, michael. this is me with my offer in play for the sermon that elie just

placed. i think this point he's making is really important. democrats did sent a lot of letters, they put out a lot of tweets and made a lot of floor speeches, but they asked that john roberts come to congress. he said, i'm not coming. and they were like, okay. and i think that, you know, there was some -- they could have upped the ante a little bit, ratcheted up the pressure. i didn't see any democrats making their way over into the supreme court justice chambers. and while that seems kind of like, aha to do, i think given the stakes here, what has been happening with the court, it was necessary. >> symone, the thing is, just to hop in -- the thing to do would be to cut their budget, right? the constitution says very little about the supreme court, but one of the things that's pretty clear is that congress, not the court, controls the court's budget. if you want these men to pay attention, especially with all the reporting, with all the ethical probing that we have done, if you want these people

to pay attention, you have to cut their money. the constitution says that there will be a supreme court. it doesn't say there has to be a nice, fancy office building to hold their hearings. they can have their hearings on the washington mall, for all of the constitution cares, right? so if you come at their money, that's a way to make them adhere to some basic minimal ethical standards. but congress doesn't have the will to do that. so again, now we live in these times. >> i think elie's absolutely right. and fundamentally, people immediate to understand that that bright, shiny building that they sit in was only given to them because the congress gave it to them. they didn't order it. they didn't have the -- put the construction plan together. they didn't spend the money for it, the congress did. sally's right about that. joyce, the other interesting aspect to this is how some judges now are looking at the future and saying, you know what, i think i'm going to need to stay in place, given what's

coming ahead of us. i have in mind particularly three federal judges who have reversed their decision to retire, which now seems to have set off some partisan alarm bells among democrats -- excuse me, republicans. let's listen to mitch mcconnell on the federal judges reversing the course of their retirement. >> they're changing their plans to keep a republican from doing it. it's a brazen admission, but it's clear now that they have a political finger on the scale. this sort of partisan behavior undermines the integrity of the judiciary. it exposes bold democratic blue where there should only be black robes. >> you know, tl a here's a cert richness to all of that, given when he's talking about a finger on the scale, when this man had

both palm prints on that judicial scale when barack obama was in office. it is interesting, though, to see judges say, you know what, no. what's your take of that and what does it mean in terms of what joe biden has done and what donald trump could potentially do. >> i'm really impressed that mitch mcconnell was able to get that out with a straight face. something that everyone on capitol hill and across the street and across the country knows is that this is exactly how it works. judges who want to have their successor appointed by a democrat try to hold on for a democratic president, republicans do exactly the same thing. it's a time-honored tradition in the federal judiciary. and i mean, look, we give federal judges a lot of power. they have life tenure.

they decide when they come and when they go. and there's absolutely nothing wrong about the decision that these judges have made to hold off on retiring. i think what's interesting and what's unique here is this republican outrage, because this is the same mitch mcconnell who when it came to the united states supreme court refused to let barack obama make an appointment during the last year he was in office. because mitch mcconnell thought a president shouldn't do that during a year that americans should vote. and fast forward to what elie is talking about, ruth bader ginsburg death where trump does this rush rush nomination of amy coney barrett after voting is actually underway in 2020. the idea that he would say this is about red and blue not about black robes is pretty ludicrous. it's a mountain out of a mole hill. god bless those judges that are willing to hold on for four years, because moat federal

judges, regardless of who appoints them will do the right thing once they're on the bench. and although it rings in some sense hollow for chuck schumer to say that the judiciary will be the bulwark against trumpism, after what we've all seen the supreme court do for the last eight years, in the sense that the district judges, the trial judges across the country who hear these issues in the first instance and often are the decider along with the courts of appeals, that still is important. that still resonates for americans. and those judges unlike their brethren and sisters on the united states supreme court are subject to an ethics code. >> yes, the judges in the lower courts are subject to an ethics code, a bar of which the judges that sit at the highest court of the land are not subject to. much like how elected officials all across the country are subject to checks and balances and ethics codes and they can't do whatever because their constituents, or the people that

they serve will stand up and defend their institution. meanwhile, the income president of the united states of america has said at one point, he could shoot someone in the middle of fifth avenue and essentially get away with it. and he has literally got away with so many things and is now literally thumbing his nose to his voters, the base of the people that put him in office, in siding with his billionaire buddies. honestly, i have no question here, i'm just aghast. i'm aghast. >> i will throw to elie for a second, because i think when you look at the summation of this conversation about the court that once stood in the highest regards of the american people, one. two, you had a chief justice in chief justice robert who is initially spoke with the fervor and commitment to the integrity of that court. wanting to honor the rule of law and the constitution the way

that he did not want politics to sort of diminish the brightness of the work that the court is charged to do. what happened, elie? in your estimation, what went wrong? because that corruption seemed to be in the institution and is now just being exposed, or is this something that is newly introduced? >> i think it goes back to the conservative theory of the case, right? when you're appointing a conservative justice, for the last 30 years, the only question that you had was, do you hate women enough to take away abortion rights? and if you answered yes to that question, nothing else mattered. if you were a solid "yes" to that question, nothing else matters. so what you had was justices that were chosen not for their commitment to the highest moral whatever, not for their commitment to the rule of law and to precedent, it was for

their commitment to overturning precedent, to take away abortion rights. and because that warped the entire aperture of what the conservatives were looking for, you were able to get in justices who had no commitment to the rule of law. who had no commitment to precedent. in fact, were designed to take away rights and take away precedent. and that's how you kind of have gotten here. it's theiring of session with taking away abortion rights, and quite frankly, their obsession with giving guns more rights than women, that have warped the conservative majority on this court, beyond all recognition. and that's fundamentally why we're here. but the other -- just the last point here is that -- we're also here, because only one party has taken the field, right? only the republicans. even in this last story, it's the republicans who are outraged about the partisanship of the -- not the democrats. the democrats aren't outraged by the fact that joe biden and dick

durbin did not appoint successors for these judge who is wanted to retire. and by the way, that's more on durbin than biden. biden's done a really good job in terms of the justices that he'll -- the judges he's been able to appoint. durbin hasn't pushed them through with the ferocity that a mitch mcconnell or a lindsey graham did when they had the opportunity, right? only one party has taken the field on the court, and they've taken the field to take away women's rights. and that's why the court is like it is now. and it's why the court is going to be like this, probably for the rest of my natural life. >> all right. elie, joyce, i beseech you to stick with us, because the house ethics committee has released its findings on matt gaetz, and despite it all, gaetz might still run for higher office. that is next on "the weekend." f. that is next on "the weekend." ...that stayed clear, even at 5 years. serious allergic reactions and increased risk of infections may occur. before treatment, your doctor should check you for infections and tb. tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms or if you need a vaccine.

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there has been major fallout for former florida congressman matt gaetz after the house ethics committee dropped its bombshell report on the

investigation into him. according to the report, quote, the committee determined that there is substantial evidence that representative gaetz violated house rules and other standards of conduct prohibiting prostitution, statutory rape, illicit drug use, impermissible drugs, special favors or privileges, and obstruction of congress. but gaetz who vacated his seat last month and withdrew his bid for attorney general is denying any wrongdoing. elie mystal and joyce vance are back with us. >> elie, prostitution! statutory rape! obstruction of congress! that's just the weekend. so here you've got -- >> not this show, matt gaetz. >> yeah, let's be clear. now, he's not admitting, oh, no, he's not admitting to any wrongdoing. in fact, he's following the trump playbook, right? where he's like, i'm the victim,

people coming after me. those investigated me hated me. you know, this is all mccarthy's fault, et cetera! i just give it to you, brother. what's your take? because i can't think of any brothers or sisters in this country, members of congress who could walk and stand from something like that, but here we go. what do you think? i don't know? >> here are two things going on here. in terms of gaetz specifically, gaetz is an example of how we're living in a post-shame society. in any sort of normal society, a person like gaetz would be drummed out of public life, he would be marched through the streets with a woman ringing a bell, shouting shame, shame, shame, as he walked down the daytona boulevard, right? but we don't live in this society. we live in a society that has no shame. so gaetz gets to still like shuck and jive out here. but we also live in a society

that's kind of post-law enforcement, right? because we had -- gaetz was investigator investigated by attorney general merrick garland, and it's one of the many things that merrick garland kind of never got done, dropped the investigation. so now the house investigates and is like, this guy seems shady and merrick garland is under his desk. as usual, merrick garland failed to meet the moment that was required of him, becoming, in my estimation, the worst democratic appointee in two successive democratic administrations, which has to be a record of some sort, right? but then grow to the state crimes, right? like, if gaetz is guilty of -- sorry, if gaetz is alleged to have been -- to have done any of these things, then that's -- there are state prosecutions, right, but where does he live? he lives in florida where governor ron desantis seems to control everything, and again, there seems to be no prosecutor on the ground in florida willing to take up these charges. so when we live in a post-shame

society, and a post-law enforcement society for republican politicians, this is what happens. you have people who seem to be in a lot of hot water, but nothing ever sticks to them, because there is no law enforcement and there is no shame. >> joyce, i wonder what you think about the -- i mean, in conversation with strategists, democrats and republicans, members of congress, even some people i know personally that work within the justice department, they have been just befuddled, for lack of a better term, about why no charges were brought against matt gaetz. then, i have talked to some other people, that shall remain nameless within the justice department, t say, well, one of the hang ups, no one on the investigation -- one of the hang ups could have been the type of witnesses that they would have had to call on and everybody that was looped up in this was

just shady. so there were other priorities, maybe this wasn't at the top of the list. there's lots of criticism for the justice department, specifically merrick garland on this and on many other -- i'm thinking back to the -- to what seems like a delay in the january 6th prosecutions. what say you as someone who worked inside the justice department. obviously, not within this one, but just the workings and just what history will say about the merrick garland justice department on some of these key things? >> yeah, so let me put my prosecutor hat on. not my former u.s. attorney hat, but my former prosecute hat, where for ten years, i had to look at cases like this and make decisions about whether to indict or not indict a given case. it looks different when you're the person who has to stand up in a courtroom and offer a jury proof beyond a reasonable doubt in order for them to convict in a case. doj standards say that

prosecutors can't bring cases unless they're confident that they have sufficient evidence to obtain a jury verdict and sustain it on appeal. and i've worked with the folks in the middle district of florida, who would have made the decisions in this case. as an appellate chief in my office, i worked closely with their appellate chief for years. i know their prosecutors. they are confident people. and it was the folks in the middle district of florida who made this decision. you know, sometimes we think everything devolves to the attorney general of the united states. in reality, especially in criminal cases, the u.s. attorney's offices and the u.s. attorney have enormous latitude to make these decisions. and they resist any interference by washington and the professional decisions that they make. i think it's safe to say that this is one that was made internally. they would have given d.c. a courtesy nod to let them know what was going on. but the folks that confronted the evidence in this case were in middle florida. and i think the case probably failed for a couple of reasons.

it may have had statute of limitation issues. the conduct allegedly occurred in 2017. they could have been out of statute by the time they looked at it. but also, i think you're right to point out that this is about the evidence and the quality of the evidence and whether prosecutors believe that there was a federal crime that occurred here, in line with other cases that that office would have prosecuted, and that a jury would have believed the witnesses. sometimes problems with witnesses and credibility can hold up a case. but you know where there was a clearly prosecutable case here was in the state of florida. a case for statutory rape. a case for drug possession. and those are cases that are prosecuted in that state system with regularity. and to give gaetz a pass there is for inpresenceable, in light of the sorts of cases that county prosecutors in florida bring day in and day out. >> elie mystal, what a treat to have the two of you on with us, on the last weekend of the year.

i knew we would get you before this year was over. i only got about a minute left, but can we talk about the fact, this is who donald trump wanted to run the department of justice. >> yeah! this was his first pick for ag. this was his first pick to replace merrick garland. and my argument is that he would have been fine. like, he would have been terrible for all of the reasons that we already discussed, he's obviously ethically compromised. he would have been terrible for america, but compared to the other people that trump was looking at, gaetz would have been fine. people have to remember that one of the good things -- and i'm using "good" in a very strained, overly generous way, but one of the good things about trump's cabinet picks so far is that they are so wholly universally incompetent and buffoonish. and when you're dealing with trump, when you're dealing with a wannabe authoritarian and dealing with a person with the ambitions of trump, having him

surrounded by loyal buffoons is actually better than having him surrounded by competent people, right? and so i think that there are some very dangerous cabinet picks, but the buffoons are not the ones that i'm worried about. and now his new attorney pick, pam bondi, former estate attorney general in florida, she's another one who's just -- her main kind of quality is loyalty. her main quality is looking the other way on trump's crimes in florida. where she refused to prosecute his charity for crimes that he allegedly -- that that charity allegedly committed. when he surroundssycophants, th the best we can hope for, because the alternative is fully competent -- the alternative is now watch this fully operational battle station. and i'm still hoping that we get the clown car for at least a

little while. >> i'm going to make you -- >> may i just say, madison cawthorn, perhaps people should have taken his problems more seriously. >> he had a lot of problems, but he was ant liar. >> i'll make elie come back and use that litmus test as we talk through these confirmation hearings. thank you both for spending some time with us. coming up, if you read "hillbilly elegy," you know j.d. vance's book could help bolster ramaswamy's argument for h1b visas. so where is the president-elect? you're watching "the weekend" 37. ing "the weekend" 37 ilosec otc.

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what's up, you seem kinda sluggish today. things aren't really movin'. you could use some metamucil. metamucil's psyllium fiber helps keep your digestive system moving so you can feel lighter and more energetic. metamucil keeps you movin'. and try fizzing fiber plus vitamins. as donald trump sides with elon musk and vivek ramaswamy on their h1b visa stance, the actual vice president-elect, j.d. vance, he's been on mute. let's not forget that vance's own memoir, "hillbilly elegy," and essentially laying out the same case that vivek ramaswamy

made. this is how j.d. vance got famous. he wrote this. many folks talk about working more than they actually work. he goes on to say, his own neighbors in kentucky's appalachian region were, quote, welfare queens and all were white. i think it's also important to note here in this conversation for y'all that because there's now an anti-indian, asian pacific islanders sentiment that has emerged within the maga universe, j.d. vance's own wife is of indian heritage, south african heritage, if you will. there's a lot happening here. i think j.d. vance needs to speak up. >> i'm still trying to figure out where he is. but if y'all find him. >> i want to give you credit, michael steele. you have been on this beat since before the election. >> you know, it fundamentally says something about what this administration is going to look like and the role that j.d. vance is going to play. don't give me this, oh, he's

behind the scenes, he's a mover and shaker. no, he's sitting on his behind waiting for donald trump to say, hi, what's your name again? that's what he's waiting for. because we've not seen him. elon musk has eclipsed him in this role. he's also eclipsed donald trump's role as an incoming president. and this whole narrative, very much to symone's point, is driven by a fundamental fact that the elegy pointed out, that j.d. vance wrote about, and that americans, largely, mainly white americans, are lazy. and that's what they're saying. in fact, you have willie carver on july 17th, here on msnbc, on our platform writing, real hill billies like me don't trust j.d. vance, you shouldn't trust him either. the narrative of the lazy hillbilly has existed for as long as rich folks outside of appalachia needed an explanation

for mountain poverty that doesn't include blaming themselves. hello! >> you better talk about it. >> that's what this boils down to. and so, yeah, j.d. book. they're talking about something you wrote about. they're talking about an america that you, yourself look at as lazy. >> mm-hmm. >> so why don't we hear from -- >> for all the ways in which -- >> -- i don't know. >> -- my republican friends, not michael, but the maga republican friends have talked about the ways in which democrats have demonized white people and white voters. if we really just look at the details and just read, it seems as though the people that have been doing the demonization are the folks inside the maga tent. it is j.d. vance. >> and i just want to say real quick, while they are doing all of this talking, one of the last action items you saw from the biden administration was from

dhs was actually a final rule that enhances company's ability to fill job vacancies in critical fields, strengthening the economy, doing what, modernizing the h-1b program. so let them chat amongst themselves while people are actually getting stuff done. >> honey, ha-ha! j.d. vance, honey, feel free to weigh in anytime as the vice president-elect. we'll be watching your twitter account. you can come here and do it. wherever you would like to weigh in, we look forward to hearing from you. i know you've got thoughts, because you're working. please, join us. until then, a north carolina state supreme court race remains less than 1,000 votes apart. the associate justice ahead in that race is here to talk about it. that's next. that race is here to talk about it that's next. look at this craftmanship. i mean they even got my nostrils right. it's just nice to know that years after i'm gone this guy will be standing the test of ti... he's melting! oh jeez... nooo... oh gaa... only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty, liberty, liberty, liberty ♪ (children speaking)

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north carolina's supreme court race is getting a fast track to a federal court. republican jefferson griffin is asking the state's court to throw out -- wait for it, 60,000 ballots in the contest between him and allison riggs, who is ahead by 744 votes. this has been a long-running saga, the democratic majority state elections board has already dismissed the bulk of griffin's ballot protests due to a lack of sufficient evidence. there is no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing in this election. so we have associate justice of

the north carolina supreme court, allison riggs to join us and talk about it. welcome. >> justice riggs, good morning to you. i problem that we'll get to the specifics of their trying to throw these votes out, the model for election denialism we could see coming out of your state. first, help us understand the decisions that are likely to be behind the north carolina supreme court this year that makes the stakes just so high. >> our court hearings every imaginable kind of case. importantly, after the u.s. supreme court's decision to punt gerrymandering to the states, after the u.s. supreme court's decision to punt reproductive freedom decisions to the states, state supreme courts have become even more important. and it's in part why these races are so hotly contested. but we -- it was a bright spot for progressives across the country this year, our work to

explain why it matters to have people who are interested in defending people's rights and freedoms, rather than chipping away at them on our state supreme court benches. >> propublica wrote this about the efforts by griffin to challenge these results, noting that republican jefferson griffin narrowly lost his race for a seat on the state supreme court. now he's asking that 60,000 ballots be thrown out based on the theory that a election denier said amounted to voter suppression. this year was too extreme for even self-described election deniers. what exactly is happening here? as michael and i were talking in the break, it seems as though folks can't win outright, so then they claim fraud and try to steal an election via the courts. that's what it looks like from where we're sitting, but you're on the ground. >> that's why we're here today.

i won my race. it was a tight race, but i won it. it's been confirmed by two separate recounts. i won by 734 votes. and now we're engaged in this protracted litigation about the only -- for my opponent, the only way he can try to engineer an outcome is by throwing away ballots. and i feel compelled, because i put my hand on a bible and swore a solemn oath to uphold the rights of north carolinians, to defend the state and federal constitutions. i feel honor bound to make sure that your viewers know that these 60,000 people are real. they did not wrong. they are our neighbors, our friends. in my case, they are my parents. they gave everything that was asked of them to election officials when they registered. many of them have been voting for decades. they include republican and democratic local elected officials.

just an incredible number of people who still, day-to-day, are learning that my opponent wants to throw out their plat. and most troublingly is that there's another 6,000 votes of uniformed and overseas voters, whose vote he wants to throw out, because they complied with the rules as told to them, before the election. and it should be troubling to everyone the idea of changing the rules after the game is over. i mean, it's -- if anyone read calvin and hobbs, it wreaks of calvin rules. but our democracy depends on the rule of law, respect for institutions like the courts, and respect for decisions that voters make, even if you don't like them. so the idea -- it's important to me that people understand that what's happening here in north carolina, we cannot become

inured to it. we cannot just say, oh, this is the new norm. our democracy cannot function in a healthy way if we let our guard down. >> justice riggs, i guess, what's the reality of this getting to the federal courts and the expectation once it gets there? my sense would be, that because this is a statewide election race. it's a local -- in those terms, local race, what does the federal court come down here in terms of these 60,000 ballots that were, as you noted, not only gone -- you know, went through the electoral process once, but twice. each time confirming your election by 734 votes. >> well, i will be in federal court for the next two weeks, as a party, not a judge, which is an unfortunate circumstance to be in, but i will be a party

defending my win and the right of those 60,000 or actually closer to 70,000 voters to have their votes counted. there are questions of federal law, the help america vote at, the uacava, the overseas citizens voting act that the federal court will be grappling with. and as of right now, if my opponent doesn't receive an injunction or a stay and my certificate of election is set to issue on january 10th and my hope is that more impacted voters in north carolina will speak up and speak out against this. but the federal court, you know, some of these arguments, legal arguments, have already been ejected, by federal courts and state courts already. so these zombie legal arguments risen from the dead, certainly, my position in court is that

this is a -- it's a legally erroneous position and my, you know -- until i have the certificate of election, i'm a candidate who is compelled to keep my voters updated, keep all voters updated, and make sure that every vote counts. >> yep, absolutely. because every vote does count. and we appreciate justice allison riggs coming on to talk about the state of her election to the state supreme court. thank you so much, justice riggs. there's more of "the weekend" after this. we'll be right back. "the weekend" after this. we'll be right back. m schwab. (uh-oh) producer : yeah, schwab lets you invest and trade on your own. and if you want they can even manage it for you. not to mention, schwab has a team of specialists for taxes, insurance, and estate planning. both producers: all with low fees. carl: we're experiencing technical difficulties... uh, carl... schwab! schwab. a modern approach to wealth management.

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. >> i just want to take a few seconds on justice riggs and what she's going through right now in her election. i really think people need to understand that this is not a

one-off in north carolina oh, a one-off in arizona, or a one-off somewhere else. it is an organizational infrastructure that is being put in place, that will challenge wherever there's an election for any office or any position, up and down the line, and democrats, please, please understand exactly what this means. and people who are advocates for democracy and a fair and open, free election process. whether you're democrat, republican, or independent, you need to be mindful of what this is. i mean, this is our future. at least our short-term future could be longer, if you're not paying attention. >> they are still trying to steal elections. now it's happening in north carolina. >> the people crying about stealing elections are the ones who are stealing the elections, or at least attempting to. >> come on, now. this is our last sunday in 2024. >> we made it. >> we made it.

>> we made it. >> we made it. you got any new year's resolutions? >> me? >> show up. >> alicia, what is yours? what's your new year's resolutions. >> i have no new year's resolutions, but i am enjoying the sloughing through these last few days, where i'm like, i'm going to be a better version of myself in like two days. i'll be extra terrible from now until then. how about you? >> i'm just going to be terrible, period. >> what? is this y'all's new year's resolutions? >> my new year's resolution is, i am going to get a new hobby. >> do you have hobbies, symone. >> oh, lord. >> i do, right now my hobby is doing my nails. i do my own nails. i did these nails, okay. not because i can't go to the nail should be, this is my hobby. i like to do my nails and do my laundry, in the comfort of my own home, but i want another new hobby. i used to dance. you know, i'm a trained dancer.

blal, ballet, top dance, and liturgical, before you get started. >> you could have been a rockette. >> i could have been a rockette. >> and i could have more hair. but here's the reality of the new year. >> whoever is in the studio laughing when michael said he could had more hair, basically. i could not have been a rockette. and this is why you need friends that keep you humble, okay? in the new year for y'all that don't have friends that tell you the truth, get some. we got 'em here at "the weekend." >> these are my truth tellers here. folks, look, this has been a hell of a year, and i think next year is going to be a hell of a year, too. and i think that what we need to recognize is that we don't get through that shadow of death, walking through that valley, without each other. and that's -- that's what it's going to take. i'm just tire of everybody looking at their neighbor and thinking that they're a

stranger. they're not. >> that was the lord's prayer, y'all. that was michael pulling of his priest bag, because he has many previous jobs. stick around. there's more of "the weekend" right after this. there's more of "the weekend" right after this what is — wow! sinex. breathe. ahhhhhh! love you. have a good day. behave yourself. like she goes to work at three in the afternoon and sometimes gets off at midnight. she works a lot, a whole lot. we don't get to eat in the early morning. we just wait till we get to the school. so...yeah. right now here in america, millions of kids like victoria and andre live with hunger, and the need to help them has never been greater. when you join your friends, neighbors and me to support no kid hungry®, you'll help hungry kids get the food they need. if we want to take care of our children, then we have to feed them. your gift of just $0.63 a day. only $19 a month at helpnokidhungry.org right now,

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that does it for "the weekend," this sunday morning. the last weekend of the year. velshi starts with guest host, charles coleman. all yours, baby. >> happy new year. so good seeing you guys. >> look at the