. >> joining me now is joyce vance and charles coleman jr. i don't know where to go first on this. to you, joyce. maya wily tweeted the idea of that man, tom cotton, telling a sitting federal judge, twice confirmed with the votes of lindsey graham, by the way, that she's a liar. to say why -- do you expect us to believe you was one of the most offensive she's ever seen in her a confirmation hearing. i want to throw that to you, as well. to tell this woman who is a sitting central judge that she's a liar. it was a moment for me. what about you? >> umm, i feel the same way. so much of this was political theater. it had nothing to do with the judge's qualifications. and the real loser was the american people who were tuned in for the hearing. i was stunned to receive text messages from friends all afternoon who i would not have thought of as people who watch supreme court confirmation hearings commenting on what was going on. and where judge jackson was at her finest, where she really shines, is her ability to explain important concepts in american law in a they is assessable to people

joyce vance, of course and garrett hague.nd >>> president biden set to try ease the pain at the pump. how much is it really in his control? this is msnbc. his control? this is msnbc. checking in with his merrill advisor to see if he's on track to do this again... and again. did i mention she made the guest list? digital tools so impressive, you just can't stop. what would you like the power to do? >>> president biden is rolling out new plans he hopes will bring down spiking gas prices by releasing billions of dollars of oil every day. for the next six months. that adds up to about 180 million barrels. there are questions about how much of an impact that will have on prices. chief white house correspondent, peter alexander was first to break the story and joins us now. what else is is the plan? >> reporter: this is the largest release of oil reserves in history. 1 million barrels a day a, each day for the next six months. that's 180 billions in all and comes after earlier this month, the president announced the u.s. would be b

nbc capitol hill correspondent ali vitali is with us along with analyst joyce vance. e -- excuse me. start with that breaking news. what do you make of this seven-hour gap? >> so we know, of course, there wasn't really a gap in the former president's conversations with people as the breach of the capitol was ongoing. one of the immediate consequences of this reporting and this gap -- and remember, chris, these are the records that the former president fought so vigorously to prevent from being turned over to the january 6th committee. these are part of the records that were in possession of the national archives. since there are known phone calls that take place during that gap period, all of those folks are now prime targets for testimony before the january 6th committee. their testimony becomes relevant. there's been conversation about being hesitant to subpoena senators or to informally ask senators to speak. for instance, we know there was a call placed apparently by accident to senator mike lee from utah who handed his phone to alabama senator tommy tuberville. wu

i'm joined now by former federal prosecutor, joyce vance, welcome back. >> good to see you. >> good tot here in america. my first question is the shortest, then we'll build. does this information add to the weight of legal evidence that justice thomas should recuse from these type of cases? >> it really does, ari, and i'll just use a personal analogy. my father-in-law was a federal court of appeals judge. he did not sit on cases that came from my law firm or my husband's law firm because that would have been an obvious conflict of interest, and it would have caused people to question the integrity of his rulings, in the judicial system. so justice thomas has the same situation. no one is saying that ginni thomas needs to limit her activities. if she chooses to engage in this sort of political behavior, the full scope of it, then justice thomas needs to be very careful about recusing from cases where his involvement in a matter that she has an interest in could tarnish the court's reputation. >> right, as you say, legally, she could go speak and do legally protected activity. she could

joyce vance, former u.s. attorney and current university of alabama law professor. she's also an msnbc legal analyst. georgetown law professor and former federal prosecutor paul butler, who is also an msnbc legal analyst. and msnbc host symone sanders, former chief spokesperson for vice president kamala harris. welcome all of you. so paul, the overarching theme from ted cruz was critical race theory. he questioned judge jackson's daughter's school, its curriculum, including books that she said she hadn't even seen. let me play part of that exchange. >> are you comfortable with these ideas being taught to children as young as 4 and in respect to the first book, as young as 8 and 9 in respect to the second book? >> senator, i have not reviewed any of those books, any of those ideas. they don't come up in my work as a judge, which i am respectfully here to address. >> but paul, outside groups were already on this theme. the rnc had texted out the judge's initials, kbj, crossed them out and replaced them with crt, of course critical race theory. what do you see is the p

attorney for the northern district of alabama, and msnbc legal analyst joyce vance joins us right nowd you make the case that americans can't forget trump's first impeachment and we need to connect it to the war we're seeing currently unfold in ukraine. tell us a lilt bit more about why that -- a little bit more why about why that investigation is so important right now. >> you know, i wrote the piece, jonathan, because our memories really are short. which isn't a discredit to us. it's just that we've been bombarded by so much news over the last five or six years, and the facts of the first impeachment have sort of dimmed in memory. but americans knew zelenskyy before the current war in ukraine because he is the person that the former president had this phone call with and that phone call was this. zelenskyy thought he was getting weapons that he needed for ukraine's defense against russia. trump was on an entirely different wave length though. the former president was doctor -- was interested in getting ukraine for the focus of the bogus investigation into candidate joe biden, simply

attorney joyce vance. welcome back, joyce. the congressman is off to a vote, so that's a bit why we jumped. his folks wanted to make sure he makes that vote part of the job as well. i want to play a little bit more from last night. we went through the contempt proceeding and there's more than one issue on the table, but we also heard several members of committee really implore doj to act, and congressman schiff was just speaking about that and then there's those who have like bannon. basically members of this committee who are generally aligned or at least sympathetic to attorney general garland or the administration turning up the heat. take a look. >> this committee is doing its job. the department of justice needs to do theirs. >> the department of justice has a duty to act on this referral and others we have sent. without enforcement of congressional subpoenas there is no oversight. without oversight, no accountability. >> attorney general garland, do your job so that we can do ours. >> what do you see them doing there? it

and joyce vance.america first agenda and wanting more to be done for the people of ukraine. >> it's an interesting juxtaposition given everything that we heard for four years and donald trump, the positions that the republicans had taken, which were antithet cal to republican orthodoxsy when it came to foreign policy. when you have the immanls of the horrific invasion of putin's war, when you have that beamed into your living room every day, it is difficult for americans to look at that and say, why aren't we doing something? so the idea of america being -- leading the charge and being that shining city on a hill, it tells me that still resonates with people that they want america to lead that charge. i remember when i was on the hill republicans were really critical of barack obama and their foreign policy when he talked about leading from behind. people thought that somehow exhibited weakness. now joe biden is doing on excellent job of leading the democratic countries of the world. nato is unified a

"the talking feds" podcast harry lipman and professor at the university of alabama law school, joyce vanceh and thought this isn't legal, does that development that we're hearing get us anywhere in terms of actually seeing criminal charges? >> so, what this brief suggests is that the committee ultimately will make a referral to the justice department on these charges. there's a conspiracy to defraud united states charge and an obstruction of justice charge. and it's important, chris, to note that this brief is a serious legal endeavor. the lawyers who filed it are not the cracken lawyers. this includes former white house lawyers, former u.s. attorneys, doug ledder, the lead signatory, ran the civil appeals program at the justice department for many years before he became the top lawyer for the house. so this is well thought out. it's well researched. it's well evidenced. and when this referral makes its way over to the justice department, it won't be something ephemeral or sketchy. it will be an allegation of two specific crimes, at least two that were committed, and a lot of evidence to b

attorney joyce vance who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor, and our dear friend jeff bennett, chiefc news political contributor. joyce, you love that line of questioning by the gop? fox news. because it's part of the culture wars that have nothing to do with confirming a supreme court justice. so let's get to the facts. pete williams provided factual context to that very case that senator hawley was referencing. watch this. >> the specifics in this case suggests that this was a and ten year old who was curious about this kind of sexual activity that he sought out. the court records show that a detective, when he realized that this young man was uploading some of this, contacted him and said, how would you like to have real sexual activity with my 12 year old daughter, which was make belief. and this young man's never responded to it. so there was a psychiatry as to evaluated the young man and said this was basically his sort of curiosity about a specific kind of sexual activity. he wasn't interested in younger people. he was just sort of curious about this for his own purposes that

. >> joyce vance and c.k., thanks for being with us this morning.atching some live images of inside the judicial -- there you see it, the committee's senate hearing area as well as i understand just outside the judge's home where she has been staying. and we have a camera there as well as soon as she steps out and heads into the automobile that will take her to capitol hill. we're covering all angles of this for you this morning. >>> also, breaking news. a boeing 737 plane carrying 132 people crashed in the mountains of southern china this morning. the plane lost contact in the middle of a domestic flight. rescuers dispatched to the scene. take a look at the geography there, just very mountainous, very complicated area. joining us now from beijing is nbc news janis mackey frayer. what do we know about how many people were in that plane, injured, people who may have lost their lives? >> reporter: well, so little is known about why the plane went down, but the first rescue crews have arrived to the scene. there was a fire in the forest around the cras

washington correspondent yamiche alcindor, and joyce vance, professor at alabama law school, and msnbc legal analyst. kimberly at kins store, cohost of sister-in-law podcast, and political analyst as we watch the senators gather. let's go to you on capitol hill. democrats not surprisingly praising judge jackson's record on tuesday. a lot of republicans, though, clearly playing to their base, even to the far right. airing some old grievances. she remained pretty unflappable. what are you looking for in round 2 today? >> yeah, look, history was never far from mind yesterday. democrats talking about the historic nature of judge jackson's nomination. and the rare territory we're in now. some republicans talking about recent history bringing back the unfair treatment of brett kavanaugh or amy coney barrett. i'm interested in two republicans this morning, both of whom are going to speak in the next few hours. if there are going to be republican votes out of this committee for judge jackson, they could come from thom tillis, the republican from north carolina who was just recently reelected a

attorney joyce vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor, and now an analyst for us here on an msnbc. luke, you've got the fresh reporting, talk to us about trump. we know he was speaking to at least two republican lawmakers on the sixth. yet, there is eight hours a missing call logs, with no record of it. fill in the gaps. >> right, well, we don't know what we don't know. we do know that there is seven and a half hours of missing calls, here. it's quite likely that donald trump was using somebody else's phone during this time. it was well known in the white house that if you want to get the trump, he often called dan scavino, who has purview used to provide any records of the january six committee, and was recently referred to for a contempt charge. it's very possible he was using scavino's phone, or somebody else's. there is a lot of passing around of phones in the trump white house, they didn't do things by the book. that said, there are potentially other explanations as well. i don't wanna rule anything else. even so, the records we do have from these calls are revealing, i

attorney joyce vance, who spent 25 years as a federal prosecutor, and now an analyst for us here on an msnbc. luke, you've got the fresh reporting, talk to us about trump. we know he was speaking to at least two republican lawmakers on the sixth. yet, there is eight hours a missing call logs, with no record of it. fill in the gaps. >> right, well, we don't know what we don't know. we do know that there is seven and a half hours of missing calls, here. it's quite likely that donald trump was using somebody else's phone during this time. it was well known in the white house that if you want to get the trump, he often called dan scavino, who has purview used to provide any records of the january six committee, and was recently referred to for a contempt charge. it's very possible he was using scavino's phone, or somebody else's. there is a lot of passing around of phones in the trump white house, they didn't do things by the book. that said, there are potentially other explanations as well. i don't wanna rule anything else. even so, the records we do have from these calls are revealing, i

msnbc political analyst with danielle holly walker, dean and professor at howard school of law and joyce vance, law professor at university of alabama as well as an msnbc legal analyst. we have a few minutes before we go back to the hearing. claire, i want to start with you. just some of the fireworks that happened earlier today. just in the last hour or so. senator ted cruz arrived prepared with visuals. among them, excerpts from a book for children called anti-racist baby. senator cruz seemed intent on questioning judge jackson about critical race theory. what, may i ask you, do you think the point of that was in oh, say, claire, a midterm election year? >> yeah. it was really awkward. ted cruz knows better. this is a woman that has a really long judicial record. hundreds of opinions. that he could mine for nuggets that would prove his point, but oh, no. oh, no. there's nothing there in her actual judicial record. so he's trying to shoe horn, you know, cultural war buzz words into a record that is just simply laughable. i think it looks silly when he was doing that. i think she was taken aba