coverage here this hour and next, and for it i want to bring in justice correspondent pete williams, ken dilanian is live not too far from where i am outside the supreme court, barbara mcquade is a former attorney and msnbc legal analyst and yasmin vossoughian is also outside the court. ken, let me start with you. these arguments are about an hour away. we're going to get to hear them. talk about what we can expect here. >> the arguments are scheduled to last an hour, but i'm told we can expect them to go longer than that, perhaps 90 minutes. and as you laid out very well. this is really going to the heart of the question of whether the constitution enshrines the right to abortion. initially, mississippi told the court that it could uphold this law without overturning roe v. wade, but then it sort of decided to shoot from the moon and later told the supreme court nothing in constitutional tax structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion. and so essentially mississippi is asking the court to overturn, as you said 50 years of precedent, roe v. wade. the right to abortion. that's wh

ken dilanian, utah. ♪ what do you want from me?♪ what do you... ♪ [ buzzer sound ] ♪ hah, my name is ♪ ♪ what? - my name is ♪ [ buzzer sound ] ♪ you used to call me on my cellphone ♪ [ buzzer sound ] guys, we're on. now? -huh? >>> bob dole will lie in state at the u.s. capitol on thursday as the country honors the former kansas senator. in his final message just published in usa today, dole wrote about the need for compromise in washington team work, he said, is needed more than ever. in 2018 i had the honor of interviewing dole about his life of service going back to world war ii bob dole lost a lot on that italian battlefield in 1945, left permanently scarred and partially paralyzed and with the kind of memories that don't go away. >> my radio man that was ahead of me, he had been wounded, and i crawled out trying to get him back in a little ravine, and i got shot and he didn't make it. he passed away so i tried, but i couldn't save him. >> but in loss, dole gained a purpose that animated him long after his decades in congress an

ken dilanian is there continuing to read through today's decision. ken, what are you seeing? >> reporter: just that they narrowed the list of defendants who can be sued. the more you read this, the more you realize it's not as great a victory, perhaps, of the opponents of this law than maybe it first appeared. not only can't they sue the attorney general, they can't sue the court clerk or some justice gists. they can sue some life officials, who may be involved in helping enforce part of this law. so we'll really have to see how it plays out in the texas courts. but the important thing is, they can sue and they can make the argument that this law violates existing precedent, which is roe v. wade. and of course, we know that roe v. wade is itself in question in another case before the supreme court, the mississippi case, that will be -- that we'll see a decision on later in the term, perhaps a few months from now. but for right now, the opponents of this law in texas can go forward and can ask a judge to rule it unconstitutional, jose. >> i know this is just happening on live

let's bring in my colleague ken dilanian. head around a number that big. >> this is a straf gee. straf gee, the biggest fraud in history. i've talked to the secret service at length. that's a low ball estimate. lexus nexus and i.d. me which have contracts with the states say fraud and unemployment programs alone is between $200 and $400 billion on top of the loan programs, the disaster relief fund and the ppp which could be another $160 billion. all together as much money as the new spending in the biden infrastructure bill. it's an epic fraud and in the case of unemployment, you might say well at least the money may have been stolen but circulating in the american economy? in the case of unemployment fraud, steph -- >> no one says that. it's okay that it was stolen because it went back in the economy, that's garbage. that's garbage to every person who is out there working their butts off. >> okay, but fair enough but my point is if an american stole it, it's being spent on goods and services here but it's even worse than that

ken dilanian is following this. this is issuing the mandate process typically takes three weeks. now and what are the chances they will get that. >> reporter: this is a hard one to handicap but one thing is clear the opposition by texas to this move shows state officials will fight every challenge of their abortion law as hard as they can. the way it works, the supreme court decision doesn't typically have legal force until the court formally provides notice to the lower court where the case came from. that's known as issuing the mandate. it can take up to 25 days. now the lawyers for the abortion providers are asking the court to send that notice immediately to the federal district court in texas where the case began. they say the quick action would be consistent with how rapidly the court moved to hear -- to decide the case and the delay they are saying has consequences because they say that for more than 100 days, thousands of texans have been unable to exercise their constitutional rights to terminate their pregnancy. others are being forced to take medical risks in pains of

for the news, i'm ken dilanian >>> weather alert.ful storm still hitting some parts of the islands with heavy rain and strong winds. right now that storm moving northwest over kawhi and expected to leave the state tomorrow yesterday honolulu got nearly 8 inches of rain according to accuweather. just a week into december, that city has reported more than 93 times the amount of rainfall it saw during the entire month of november here's the result. heavy rain flooded the streets of kawhi just outside honolulu you can see people were ankle deep in the water. meanwhile the airport in maui lost power for several hours and forced passengers to get off their plane in the dark. jane wells is live in kona jane, how are they holding up? >> reporter: here on the big island it's a little better. we still have gray skies, choppy waters the lifeguards keep warning people to watch out for the current. we've lost a lot of sand, but we dodged the worst of it here. further north and across most of the state it is not the aloha many holiday tourists wer

a new kind of weapon presenting a new kind of risk, both, abroad and at home for the news, i'm ken dilanian >>> weather alert. a state of emergency declared in hawaii a powerful storm still hitting some parts of the islands with heavy rain and strong winds. right now, that storm moving northwest over kauai and expected to leave the state tomorrow >>> yesterday, honolulu got nearly 8 inches of rain according to accu-weather. in just a weekend in december, that city has reported more than 93 times the amount of rainfall it saw during the entire month of november. here is the result heavy rain flooded streets of kauai just outside of honolulu you can sigh, people were ankle deep in the water. >>> meantime, the airport in maui lost power for several hours yesterday. forced passengers to get off their plane in the dark. cnbc's jane wells live in kona jane, how are they holding up? >> well here on the big island, it is a little better. we still have gray skies, choppy waters, the lifeguards keep warning people to watch out for the current. we have lost a lot of sand but we dodged the worst of it

joining me now is nbc news' ken dilanian. ken, how did this happen, and do officials believe that they're going to be able to get all that money back? >> no. every american should be outraged about this, katy, because it didn't have to happen. some government officials i've spoken to sort of brush it off by saying, well, we had a choice between speed and efficiency and we chose speed. in other words, they felt like they had to get the money out fast in a pandemic, so they couldn't do all the security checks. but experts say that's just a cop-out. private companies like amazon managed to sell millions of items a week online while keeping fraud to a minimum. what happened with covid relief was that the government didn't take basic steps to verify that the people applying for the money qualified for it or that they were who they said they were. for example, criminals purchased stolen personal information in bulk on the dark web and used it to apply for unemployment benefits. people set up fake companies to apply for ppp loans. th