Supreme Court is conscious of Trump immunity case will be ‘defective, dull circus,’ says Lawrence

Don once I want to just read this um truth social post um do we have that from the last block maybe that just got taken away from me basically uh Trump has been saying time and time again that if if there's no immunity then every president to Rachel's point in the previous block then every president will face prosecution afterwards and that.

Always reads to me as an obvious threat I mean it seems to me he's saying not just can we show that true social post um blah blah blah that must have full immunity in order to a president will be afraid to act I know from personal experience even our elections will be corrupted Under Siege so bad so dangerous for a nation save presidential.

Immunity basically he's saying like I'm G to prosecute Joe Biden if I'm elected that's the way those always read to me yeah I I wasn't reading it as that future thing I was just reading it as the kind of dumb Trump idea about the way the world works but you're absolutely right he he's saying this absolutely allows me to do it I'll I'll.

Do it um what what's so striking about it is that as the court points out in the opinion uh one thing that matters when you say if this happens then this will happen you know I mean what meteorology is interested in is hey if it comes up this way if the track is this way this will happen how do we know that oh because we've been studying it.

For hundred years we have a couple of hundred years of this not happening a couple of hundred years and the court was very impressed Court it says we're really impressed with a couple of hundred years of this absolutely not happening when the presidents believed that it could they I mean you can go into these presidencies and discover.

That yes Franklin Roosevelt was worried that this idea might be against the law therefore he won't do it Harry Truman was worried that seizing the steel mills could be against the law but he did it and he found out it was against the law and couldn't do it you know they've always been worried about is this against the law and can I do it he.

There's also this really interesting section Rachel where it's not just the history of the presidency but they also do the this analogizing to other positions and there's a few different examples right juries right like jurors we need them to make tough calls and and use their discretion but like there's stuff that they could do that would be.

Criminal in their official Duty like if someone paid them to vote a certain way that would be criminal judges judges have to make a ton of tough calls you know that judges justices were writing for but also judges can be prosecuted and it all seems to work out like members of Congress have to make tough discretionary calls about what's legal.

What's not like also be prosecuted they sort of go through all these other examples like yeah there's all these people that have to do difficult stuff make tough calls about what the law is and none of them are rendered immune right and there's I mean they go back to cases from the 30s they go through all of those different examples.

They go through all these different presidential examples that we just talked about um including I mean again most famously why did Ford need to pardon Nixon it's I mean it says in the proclamation as a result result of certain Acts or omissions occurring before his resignation from the office of President Richard Nixon has become.

Liable to possible indictment and trial for offenses against the United States right like it wasn't something we had to like read into their state of mind like it's explicit in the proclamation everybody knows that after a president leaves office he or she can be indicted and that has always been baked in to what presidents have done so this idea.

That it'll be a new thing and it will make all presidents afraid and timid they both disprove it in the law and they disprove it historically and they disprove it in a way that just makes sense to the average American who isn't a lawyer who's trying to understand what's happening with this very radical thing going on in Republican Party.

Politics trying to put this guy on the on the ballot again yeah and to that point about public audience judicial audience right because there are two throughout all this and there's two there's you know they're very Frank about sort of different sort of interest at play right presidential interest to act with some latitude in a difficult.

Job the public interest in making sure that people don't try to like overturn elections and F violent coups on the capital which they talk about now we've got this question about the public interest of this thing getting to trial so here's the timing they say the clerk meaning the court clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the Mandate that's.

Basically the sort of possession of the case back to judge tan chuin through February 12th 2024 uh and then within that period the appellant notifies the clerk in writing he's filed an application to Supreme Court the clerk is directed to withhold issuance of the mandate pending the Supreme Court's final disposition the.

Application which means it now goes to the court which has a Monumental decision both on the merits but also on the timing on yeah the Supreme Court is is faced with a a strange one here there if this was any other litigant they wouldn't take it it just it's a Preposterous claim an appeals court is dealing effectively with a completely.

Preposterous claim and so the only reason to take it is well it's presidential so maybe we should weigh in but they have to know that they're going to have seen SEAL Team Six in the hearing in the Supreme Court it's not going to be one question about SEAL Team Six you know they're going to be uh several judges who have an opportunity.

To question about uh Donald Trump's ability to have as many Supreme Court justices as he wants executed so that he can get the opinions he wants out of the Supreme Court and he cannot be prosecuted for that if he also executes enough United States senators so that he cannot found guilty in an impeachment trial yeah and and so there's a circus.

The Supreme Court knows oh my God there's a horrible stupid circus coming our way all we have to do is deny sir well and it contrasts a little bit with the the dis the position of the case it's posture Rachel going forward right because the case they're going to he on Thursday they had to take basically I think we would all sort of all agree.

Right like they you know Colorado kicked the guy off the ballot so did main other states aren't you there's got to be some the highest core in the land is going to be the one that's ultimately going to give us a constitutional ruling on this they had to get involved in this one to Lawrence's point they simply don't right and the mechanics of how.

That happens though end up being important I mean you only need four Supreme Court Justices to say yes we want to hear it which means you need I mean you don't you don't need a majority you only need four it's easy to imagine than them coming up with the four even if it is impossible to imagine them deciding on the merits in Trump's favor.

And so do they want to take the case they don't have to agree to have a incredibly radical stupid ruling in order to do Donald Trump a big favor here they just have to agree to hear it and then go slow and you know hope that Trump gets elected in which case all these cases go away and that's that seems to me I mean that's I I don't know.

What we should expect from this supreme court it's amazing they are going to get the the disqualification issue on Thursday and the immunity issue on Monday um I don't know what to expect for them but certainly if they want to help Trump here they have lots of ways to do it yeah and we should also say that this is this Court's posture um has.

Been an incredibly imperious and greedy one about what they get to say on what issues of public life they get to say they have been sort of sticking their noses in all kinds of places they been telling executive agencies uh that they've that they're you know that they get to say they've been telling Congress.

That it delegated things called major questions even though it's there's no sort of constitutional Doctrine they've invented it uh so they seem to be a court at least the the sort of conservative majority that is very much a court that's like we're GNA say and I think that kind of sense of sort of their own kind of grandeur and.

Importance it's very hard for me to see them to your point Lawrence I think they don't want the but they also want to be the like we're the ones who say and they're the most they're the most unpredictable Supreme Court of our lifetimes yes I mean predict particularly on the question of of uh precedent which is what this entire.

Opinion rests solely on which is also sort of somewhat worrying Rachel mat Lawrence O'Donnell what a pleasure to have you both off the top here let's do this all the time you bet thank you very much really appreciate it this is awesome thank you Chris thank you that.

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