jonathan mitchell is a very sharp lawyer, argued before the supreme court, worked on this bill, and wehat the law means, how we read it. this is a difficult decision when you talk about a horrible thing like rape. and again, the women we spoke to who've been through it, it'sjust an indescribable situation. in a horrible situation like that, let's not make it worse. but you've gotten to the very point, haven't you? thatjonathan mitchell posits that women are entirely free to choose whether to have sex or not, that he doesn't talk about men and their responsibilities at all. it all comes down to women. and if women live in this texas world where abortion is de facto completely illegal, then theyjust have a right to abstain from sex. i haven't seen his full quote in context. i'll trust you to be reading it accurately. i don't know what he said in the context. i know that this bill says we protect the innocent human life and we come alongside the mother with real, tangible help. i'm talking about counselling, parenting classes, diapers, baby formula. we spend $100 million now in state and

wade and if that wasn't enough, jonathan mitchell, the architect of texas's controversial abortion billdwagon asking the court in an amicus brief to overrule two landmark lgbt rights cases along with roe, you know, while they're at it. in the brief he wrote that same-sex marriage and abortion rights are, quote, judicial concoctions. with me now is barbara mcquade, former u.s. attorney and legal analyst for msnbc. barbara, in the wake of the supreme court's ruling regarding the texas abortion bill there's this ominous feeling attached to the mississippi case coming up. is there a chance the court will actually overturn roe v. wade for real? >> this ominous feeling you're sensing is a genuine fear. there are a couple of reasons in the tea leaves that we see. one is there were five justices, which is all you need to make a ruling, saw fit to let this texas abortion law stand while they worked it out, meaning that constitutional right under roe is being violated every day as it goes by. likelihood on the merits is an important decision there. the fact that they didn't think that standard wa

but back in texas, the architect of that abortion law, attorney jonathan mitchell, indicated in an amicuscoming hearing on a mississippi abortion law that he also has questions about the rights won by the lgbtq community. my next guest, jessica levinson, writes all about this for msnbc.com, pointing out that mitchell writes in the brief filed last week that landmark rulings that struck down laws that criminalized sodomy and uphold gay marriage are, quote, as lawless as roe. saying they amount to court invented rights to homosexual behavior and same-sex marriage. joining me now, professor jessica levinson. so, that you know for being with us here, and you know, we talk about marriage equality as being a settled issue here, but with a conservative court, is that a certainty, and did you ever think we'd be back here in 2021? >> no, it's not a certainty, and unfortunately, i did suspect that we might be back here and what we're learning from this particular court is that nothing really is settled. think about roe vs. wade. this is a precedent from 1973. think about a case that reaffirms roe v

our reporting showed that that was true, that this legal mind, jonathan mitchell, a former scalia clerkrgely unknown person in many legal circles, someone who struggled to get a job in the trump administration, someone who struggled to get a job in academia, someone who spends an enormous time thinking about and reading about the law, came up with this device, this structure inside of this law, to make it more difficult for the courts to stop it. not only had that happened in this bill and there had been this effort to go into it, but that it had actually started as far back as 2013 when mitchell tried this in a different bill coming out of texas, when he was the texas state solicitor general, and that he had written into that bill what he thought was something that would bulletproof it and stop it from being gutted by the supreme court. breyer in 2016 ruling on that, caught him, essentially, and said not so fast. i'm not going to let that happen and gutted the bill. mitchell vowed to himself at the time that if he ever got a shot again to have his hand in writing a bill, an abortion bi

from that new times reporting, quote, jonathan f. mitchellyed as he read the supreme court's decision in june 2016 striking down a major portion of a texas anti-abortion bill he helped write. not only had the court gutted the legislation, which mitchell had quietly worked on, but it also had called out his attempt to structure the law in a way that would prevent judicial action to block it, essentially saying, nice try. quote, we reject texas's invitation to pave take way for legislatures to immunize their statues from a general review. in the majority's opinion the decision was a stinging rebuke and mitchell vowed that if he ever had a chance to write another law he would make sure it survived the supreme court. unfortunately, he was successful. mike schmidt whose byline is on that reporting we read from, and donna edwards, msnbc contributor, is still here. mike, tell us how this was for him. was he obsessed with getting something on the books that would withstand scrutiny? did it become personal? what are his views of the court and does he

jonathan, the book is out in paperback today. thanks to robert gibbs. that does it on a busy day on "andrea mitchell reports."up next with "mtp daily" only on msnbc. t with "mt daily" only on msnbc economy. observing investors choose assets to balance risk and reward. with one element securing portfolios, time after time. gold. agile and liquid. a proven protector. an ever-evolving enabler of bold decisions. an asset more relevant than ever before. gold. your strategic advantage. (vo) at t-mobile for business, unconventional thinking means we see things differently, so you can focus on what matters most. whether it's ensuring food arrives as fresh as when it departs. being first on the scene, when every second counts. or teaching biology without a lab. we are the leader in 5g. #1 in customer satisfaction. and a partner who includes 5g in every plan, so you get it all. without trade-offs. unconventional thinking. it's better for business. is struggling to manage your type 2 diabetes knocking you out of your zone? lowering your a1c with once-weekly ozempic® can help you get back in it. oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! my