but if you haven't. first alex wagner tonight starts right now. >> i can never get. enough >> you know who else can't get enough? my parents. watching my parents were, like, okay i think they watched it, twice a listen to the podcast. and they give it to. us >> yes, that's what fellow colleagues are for. unrelenting, behaving support. and, i am here for. you >> thank you. >> thank you. >> -- for a quarter of a millennium. it feels like a millennium. it's been a long time. >> all right, thank you my friend. and thanks to at-home for joining me this hour. today, the supreme court hour. today, the supreme court

appellate court. by merely deciding to do this, though, the court has essentially upended the attempt to hold donald trump accountable for his actions to subvert democracy. in fact, the court may have ended that attempt entirely. this decision is also certain to reshape the 2024 presidential race, and it will likely play a determinative role in its outcome. as much as the significance of this ruling is already apparent, the full consequences here hinge on the timing. in it the supreme court said it would hear oral arguments in the case the week of april 22 nd. now, april 22nd is not close to today, and we'll get into exactly why exactly the court didn't choose a date a lot sooner than that, but april 22nd also on its face sort of seems pretty far from the november election.

it's not. because when you start crunching the numbers and looking at how a trial could actually time out after the supreme court makes its decision here, the window in which trump could face trial, the window of that happening before the november election is incrediblyr small. the first thing you have to take into account is that the prep time that the judge who is overseeing this case, judge tanya chutkan, the prep time she allottedti for trump and his lawyers has been effectively stalled. judge chutkan initially gave donald trump and his legal team seven months to preparein for ts case,o from the day he was indicted to t the original tria date in march. back in december, on december 7thde trump's legal team asked r a pause, a stay in this case while trump's immunity claims were appealed. and judge chutkan granted it. and thatan pause didn't just freeze the case, it also paused all the prep time as well. trump's team still had 88 days left to prepare before the case

was paused and the expectation now isn't that they would still get those 88 days or something similar to prep when this case is unpaused. so that's point number 1. even ifmb the supreme court rul this case can go forward the day after they hear oral arguments, the trial just can't start right away. trump's team would get another 88 g days. now, point number 2 is about how long the trial would actually take. last year before the case had been paused, potential jurors for the case in the d.c. area received this prescreening form. you see it all on the screen, and it specified the trial would last approximately three months afterpp jury selection is completed. and special counsel jack smith and judge chutkan have also signaled we're looking at something like a three-month trial for this. let's assume 88 days for trump's

team to finish their prep before the trial, and let's assume the three months theeded for the trial itself is a nice round 90 days. that comes out to 178 days. that is how long it would take for this trial to actually conclude after we get a decision back from the supreme court. so let's go back to the calender. the election is november 5, an oral argument on trump's presidential immunity claims at the supreme court is set for the week of april 22nd. this would be the fastest possible scenario here as everything stands at present. the supreme court meet monday april 22prnd and they make a decision the next day, tuesday, april 23rd. if we add 178 days to tuesday, april 23rd, that would mean the trial would finish on wednesday, october 16th. 20 days before the general election. that is what we are working with

here in the best case scenario. joining me now is neil katyal, former acting solicitor-general of the united states and under president obama. and dahlia lithwick senior editor at slateor covering the courts. thank you both forco being here tonight. i justor first want b to start your reaction to the court's decision here, neil, and the your n level of optimism about this trial actually happening before theri election. >> yeah, i have a lot of institutional respect, alex, for the supreme court. i was there this morning with my team arguing a different case, and yet i find myself gravely concerned by this decision, by the supreme court to hear the case until april. i'm u gravely concerned for the rule of law.gr iru mean, donald trump has a bos legal argument here, and the supreme court iser spending precious months trying to hear it. and the court's known for a lot of things and certainly efficiency is notce one with th.

and i think the best that can be said is they've left a schedule leaves everyone a bit unhappy. it's too fast for donald trump but too slow for jack smith and creates far too much uncertainty about the preservation of the rule of law and the outcome. later we can talk about those dates, 178 days and 90, 88 days. i think there's still a strong possibility thei case could be tried against donald trump before the election, and i can go into detail later about that. but ier certainly think right n i am concerned. >> yeah, and i want to talk about the mechanisms by which both doj,me the special counsel and judge chutkan might try to shorten that 178 days. first, dahlia, neal raises a point in thea, world of possibility the supreme court thinks somehowib reaching a compromise decision here by having this on a time line that's faster than what trump

wants which is next nebruary and slower thanbr jack smith would have liked which of course is in march. >> i think we were hoping a week ago or twoop weeks ago the compromise trump might prevail in the colorado case and lose absolutely in this immunity case. that was supposed to be the ground bargain. right now we're starting to do a paradox where we're talking smallerer and smaller halves of what we thought might be a win. i think the real issue for me, and neal just made this point, is that the court knows how to act quickly when it needs to, and iten certainly acted very quickly in that colorado, you know, bumping him off the ballot case. in fact, it acted much more quickly. i think one of the things that worries me about this case is the sensehi the court tells us what an emergency it is, and it's done that in case after case over the last couple of years.

doesn't seem to feel that there's t any emergency or any exigent kind of shot clock goinc on here. and for those of us doing the math you're doing and that neal's doinge trying to eke ou some kind of case on the merits before the election, what the court did today was sort of events sort of no concern for the fact it's kind of democracy itself against this shot clock, and they seem to be bothered by neither of toez. >> neal, to dahlia's point if the supreme court doesn't see the shotth clock, the judge doe and the special counsel does. you mention there might be a way to shorten the time frame of 178 days. is there a way to narrow the prep time window once the case is returned to her assuming, of course, that the supreme court does not rule in trump's favor on the immunity claim. >> yes. even before we get to judge

chutkan the question is when is the court going to decide the case? and i thinkid dahlia makes suchn important point in saying, look, this is a court that moves quickly. i was a lawyer for bush vs. gore, and that was 36 days start to finish. and 3 i remember we had the supreme court we had four days to brief it. we go from four to 40 days in the supreme court. and i do hope the court i hope theyth listen to the pressure o the american public to decide this case quickly. judge chutkan in the interim does have some options. so she said she was going to give donald trump 88 days to prepare for his trial, but she said that well before trump, you know, had thell supreme court grant his immunity case, and trump and his lawyers can walk and chew gum at the same time. they don't need all those 88 days. so judge chutkan could even now

say,ve look, if this case comes back to me, donald trump you start working now because you're not going to get the full 88 days. that was in a world you didn't have months and months of pre-existing delaymo like you d now. >> dahlia, in addition to the prep time she could shrink, is there something jack smith can do? i know andrew weissmann suggested they trim the charges against trump. do you think that's at all likely and what do they take out? >> i think jack smith has dog udly made the case time after timeca to the court you've got do this quickly. and in some sense as we've said, we've had a bit of a split the baby today where he doesn't get what he wants but donald trump doesn't get what he wants. whether he can, i don't know, sort of hive off some of this, make a it a tighter -- this was a pretty tight case compare todayig it fani willis sprawlin

case in fulton county. this was a pretty tight case. i suppose there's a way to tighten it, but i think the real thing we have to ask ourselves is, you know, are we going to wait for weeks and weeks and weeks for somebody to write, say, awe dissent in this case a the supreme court, and then it's coming down at the end of june. so i think what i worry about more than anythingrr is no matt what judge chutkan or jack smith can do, if you have four votes of the supreme court of three votes that want to do the run out the clock play, i think they can kind of keep this thing stalled under much, much longer. >> do you read, neal, to dahlia's point,ne the fact they don't seem tont be working expeditiously and they know how to work quickly when they want to, i mean do you read anything in that in terms of how much they're going to favor trump in all of this? it seems clear that they understand the political reality here. i mean how could you not. do you think that suggests they

might actually find in his favor on these ludicrous claims of presidential immunity? alex, because they are so ludicrous. no, i do not expect any justices tot side with donald trump on e merits of this claim. it's crazy, and he even said so. his lawyers back when he was being impeached back on january 6ckth he says you can't impeach me, the only remedy is indict me after i leave office. and now he's saying you can't indictca me because i have absolute immunity. i take dahlia's point about the court and maybe dissent or something liket that. butke i think that when the cou hears this case and realizes just how bogus donald trump's claims are, decide it quickly. and even if there's a dissent the chief justiceer has the pow over members of the majority to release the majority opinion

without waiting for the dissent. andth in a case like this with e american publicth deserving so mucham answers about what happed on january 6th and a formal trial to get to the bottom of it, i sure hope that's what will happen once we get there. >> yeah, to the -- to the rulings that have preceded the supreme court taking it up, dahlia, i mean the appellate court ruling was i think you called itt a bench slap. like, there was no room for entertaining any legality in trump's argument, and yet the supreme court has taken it up, and i would imagine if you're sitting on the circuit court of appeals, and you're one of the judges that took your time to write y a very thoughtful wide ranging opinion about how this thing did not hold water, this immunity claim, sortth of what e the implications there that the supreme court decided to take it upd anyway? >> i mean, i'll go you one better. don't forget m when the colorad case was argued, when anderson was argued at the supreme court,

the court didn't want to touch the question of the insurrection and donald trump's responsibility for the insurrection, and in fact donald trump's own lawyer was like, yeah, that was super bad, right? so we don't even have a court that wants to touch the merits of, you know, how bad january 6th was, and i would add to that, you know, the american a public has atseen, you know, th january 6th commission, has seen the impeachment trial. they have seen, you know, two e. jean carroll verdicts. they have seen a verdict in new york in the trump financial misconduct case. there is is a pile of unrefuted evidence including the finding at the colorado supreme court that donald trump insurected. all that stuff has not been touched as best i can see by the u.s. supreme court, i'm not confident they want to touch it,

and just to neal's point i think it's important to understand when you get to the merits, when you get past all the sort of shell games about time [the court feeling it needs to weigh in on this, it couldn't do a summary, we still have not had a single signal it's bulletproof. i think it's still bulletproof. i think we're trying to figure out how toe get there. >> all i have to say is maybe the supreme court justices should look at how judge engoron, how judge kaplan, judge marshan handled their cases in new york wherend we get things n when it comes to holding people accountable. thank you both for joining me tonight. really appreciate it. we have lots more ahead this evening including the breaking news that an illinois judge has disqualified donald trump from the 2024 presidential ballot

over his actions on january 6th. supreme court, over to you. but first more on this stunning decision by the supreme court to entertain donald trump's immunity claims. which justices wanted today hear this case. that's coming up next. st wantedr this case. that's coming up next. why choose a sleep number smart bed? can it keep me warm when i'm cold? wait. no i'm always hot. sleep number does that. now, save up to $1,000 on select sleep number smart beds. plus, special financing. shop now at sleepnumber.com

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for the u.s. supreme court to agree to hear a case, at least four justices must vote to take it up. so not a majority, although it can be. 4 out of 9 is the bare minimum. it's the magic number. and now with the news the supreme court has decided to hear donald trump's claim he is somehow immune from criminal prosecution, it begs the question which of these nine justices decided to take up this case, and why did it take the court so very long to do so? after all, it took just 51 days

from the time frump was kicked off the ballot in colorado on december 19th to when the supreme court heard oral arguments for that case, the 14th amendment case on february 8th. now, on december 11, 2023, special counsel jack smith asked the supreme court to quickly weigh in on trump's presidential immunity appeal and to do so early, which the court rejected. and now by the time we get to april 22nd, which is when the court plans to hear oral arguments in this immunity case, it would have been 133 days since the court was first asked to hear the appeal. so the case is curious, around 50 days when it appears to help trump, and 130 days when it doesn't. joining me now is mark joseph sterne, and elie mccaul. first let's talk about the optics. it's unsigned, there are no

dissents. i'm asking you to answer maybe the unanswerable, but do you think it's possible this was a unanimous decision, the liberal justices on the court cosigned taking this case up? >> i highly doubt it. as you said you only need four votes to take the case at all. it was probably the four horsemen of the apocalypse who decided to take this case. there was an option for the supreme court to take the case but not grant the stay but allow justice to keep forward, and they must have had a fifth vote to either gum up that process and that must have come from roberts or bauer or both. i will say dahlia was talking about colorado earlier, right? the liberals apparently are going to allow trump back on the ballot and they got nothing for that. they traded that away for nothing because the deal of

letting trump be on the ballot but denying his immunity request, that obviously didn't happen. >> that seems to be up in smoke. i have to go back to revisit a conversation we had two weeks ago, wow. seven years ago in tv anchor time. you suggested that the supreme court may have -- had already decided to take up the immunity case. you suggested that they had sort of maybe cleared their april calender to take up a high stakes case. can you talk a little bit more about what feels like a very prescient piece of analysis? >> yes, i'm saddened to learn that my educated guess was correct there. but what i noticed was that in december shortly after jack smith first asked the supreme court to take up this case on an expedited schedule, the court was granting new cases but not

putting them on the april calender. one case in particular a filing reveals the court had secretly told the parties we're holding this over until october, so you don't need to rush. in january another major case, a death penalty case, the court rather bizarrely hung onto it and then held it over until next term. that was a strange pattern to me. i've covered the court for a long time. you usually don't see that. the justices like to clear their plates with these cases by filling up the calender right until the end of april. and so that was why when we spoke a few weeks ago or maybe a few years ago in anchor time it seemed to me a real chance what the justices were thinking was, look, we're going to have at least a blockbuster emergency case. it will probably be the immunity case, so we're going to hold open space for it later in the term. again, just my guess. but i fear in light of today's news it is quite plausible. >> if they did that, elie, first

of all, i'm reminded of the dobbs decision where they decided they were going to take up the case but didn't actually put it on the docket for several months because of political realities, right? could this court have done it again? and and what does that suggest to you about they could have taken it up in january when special counsel jack smith said, hey, can you hear this on an expedited basis but chose not to. and themotor gives a ruling like dahlia said and still chose not to take it up. >> what it says is they are corrupt political actors who act in bad faith. the reason people like dahlia seem to have a crystal ball is because they're real. and at some point people in the media, people at home, and people sitting in the white house have to stop pretending the supreme court is some kind of benign trying to do its best institution and start to realize that there are six republicans,

not conservatives, republicans on the supreme court who view it as their job to help the republican party. and until we do something about that, until we take away that power, until we draw the line on them there, they will continue to do this. they will help trump. they will take away abortion rights. they will end affirmative action. they will do all of it until we stop them and somebody -- somebody needs to start listening in the higher etch lawns of the democratic party party, because we will keep losing every day we allow these six republicans in robes to rule over all of us. >> mark, i so appreciate elie's passion and disdain for this court. it is an fact when the 14th amendment case moved around they were able to move that through real quickly even though the stakes are as high if not

considerably higher in this case. and i wonder if there is any explanation you could even fathom other than, you know, craven political calculation. >> so, look, i think there's a possibility that over the last two weeks the liberal justices were trying to come to a compromise with a handful of conservatives. i think elie is right probably roberts and barrett were seen as the most gettable here to issue a summary affirmance perhaps of the d.c. circuit's bulletproof decision or to simply deny a stay. and, you know, the court could have denied a stay, allowed the trial to move forward in the preliminary stages, and also heard arguments and rendered a decision to affirm that the trial could move forward in the summer. the out had other options, and i really do think that the justices on the left were struggling to find something, salvage something out of this over the last few weeks that would make it anything less than a disaster. but frankly it appears that they have failed, and i cannot come

up with any other justification for what the court has done here, delaying, delaying over and over again, allowing trump to run out the clock, but only in cases that he wants the court to move slowly on. as you said when he's bumped off the balt, he gets to the court next month. when he raises a bogus immunity claim, he gets to push the trial back so many months it probably won't happen before the election. that is a disturbing pattern. i have to say i am cynical about this court. even i am shocked by what happened today. last term there were some decisions that suggested maybe a few of the justices in the middle would let us have some democracy, would let us have voting rights and make our own decisions and vote in a free and fair election and hold people accountable for subverting that election. and now i just don't think that's true. i have to agree with elie's extreme cynicism. i feel this court is in the tank for donald trump.

>> you know, elie in the break you rightly point out the vested interest as it relates to their retirement. >> clarence thomas doesn't want to retire on that court and he's getting old. clarence thomas one of the reasons why he's not recusing himself is that clarence thomas needs trump to win again so clarence thomas can retire, and most likely sam alito needs trump to win gwen so alito can retire instead of having to die on the bench. so that's at least two of the nine who have a vested professional interest in seeing continued republican hegemony over this country, and that's not the first time this has happened. as we all know san draw day o'connor wanted george bush to be president and thus appointed him in bush v. gore because she wanted to retire under a republican president. this is how republicans roll. >> wow. on that note we are going to

have to leave it there. the conversation is by no means over. please come back. thanks so much for your time and your passions tonight. really appreciate it. still to come this evening, the man who's arguably the most responsible for the 6 to 3 conservative majority supreme court dropped a balk shell of his own today. we'll get to that plus another breaking story. for the third time donald trump has been kicked off the state ballot. what happens now? more on that coming up next. t. ♪ ♪you... can make it happen...♪ ♪♪ try dietary supplements from voltaren for healthy joints.

we have breaking news tonight. a judge in illinois has disqualified former president trump from appearing on the state's republican primary ballot. cook county judge tracy porter cited the 14th amendment's insurrection clause in her ruling, ordering the state's election board to remove donald trump based on his actions on january 6th. illinois is now the third state to disqualify trump from 2024 primary ballots. the others are maine and colorado. as of right now, though, all three of these disqualifications are on hold pending a supreme court decision that could come down any day. judge porter acknowledged as much of her ruling tonight writing she knew her decision could not be the ultimate outcome. now, whenever the court rules on this issue, it is sure to be

considered in light of tonight's news that the court will now take up the question of presidential immunity in jack smith's federal election interference case. joining me now to discuss all this is mary mccord, former senior doj official for the national security division and an msnbc legal analyst. mary, thanks for joining me tonight. some breaking news on all fronts. let me first just get your thoughts on the immunity question and the degree to which the fact the court is already mulling over the 14th amendment case is at all a factor in the decision tonight on immunity. >> well, i know there have been people that have said ever since the court decided, you know, to take up the 14th amendment section 3 question and people listened to the arguments and i think most of us who listened to them felt like the court is not prepared, there are not five justices prepared to bar donald trump from the ballot, they're concerned about the state having

the ability to bar presidential candidate from a ballot. i know a lot of people said maybe they'll balance that against a ruling either affirming the zaes district in the immunity case or just not taking it up at all. i don't -- i think in the subconscious of the justices those kind of balancing things out may exist, but i think they would very much deny they do any type of training like that or one case is related to another in that way when the cases aren't technically related on legal issues. i do think it's interesting today to just think about the juxtaposition of this ruling out of illinois with the decision to take up the question presented by the supreme court, so the question presented is the question that the supreme court has limited their review to is whether a former president enjoys immunity from criminal prosecutions for things that were within his official acts as

president. so we typically think of that based on the law that applies to immunity in civil cases, things that are within your -- the outer perimeter of a president's official acts may receive immunity. but that question has never been asked for criminal cases. when you think about what are a president's official acts. and on the same day as this decision to take up the case we have a court in chicago or illinois, like courts in other places who have said donald trump engaged in insurrection, just thinking about engaging in insurrection, the very thing that his criminal prosecution in washington, d.c. is based on, engaging in this entire scheme that led to insurrection, it's hard to even conceive of that scheme as being within a former president's official acts. so the supreme court could have handled this much differently, and so we don't have to address questions about, you know, in the generic space about whether

a president could ever be immune from prosecution on things in the outer perimeter of official acts because here this case in front of is about a multiconspiracy that led to insurrection and an attempt and effort to overturn the results of the american people, and whatever else you might say about official acts that is not an official act. >> it seems the courts has been handed a lot of data points if thought strong rulings in terms of here's a person who fomented insurrection, here's a person who has no claim to presidential immunity according to the appellate court system. does it surprise you they even feel the need to weigh in on this and there was no noted dissent in the ruling today. >> well, you don't normally have a dissent from a grant of cert. you'd have a dissent from denial of cert or statements that would sort of explain why the cert was denied. it would be unusual in the grant

of a cert. the ust justice opposed to cert, there's a good chance it may be opposed to the ruling of other members and issued dissent at that point. i am surprised it took them almost two full weeks to decide to take this case. i can't imagine why couldn't have known immediately justice by justice whether they thought the case was important enough to take. and, you know, i've heard others say and i don't isagree with this, this could have been an effort by the justices to actually convince others maybe newt to take the case and it took this amount of time. they could have also been trying to hammer out what the actual question would be they decided to take, but still almost two weeks is surprising to me, and i think that's why a lot of us thought they would deny cer-touch in term of my surprise about the justices, there's at least two who maybe want to side with the former president on this or at least don't want to see him go to trial before the

election, but i think that, you know, most of the justices ultimately i think will calm down on the same side the d.c. circuit did and determine that on these facts if they reach this, if they don't send it back to judge chutkan to determine whether this was in the scope of his official acts or not, but if they actually look at the facts of this case and address whether on a case with these facts that could possibly be immune from criminal prosecution, i think the answer will be no from a majority of the justices. >> you sure would hope so. i know this is going to be the subject of an emergency episode of your podcast with andrew weissmann prosecuting donald trump and i will be listening. in the past two years alone this supreme court has upended the foundational rights of modern american society. and there is one man not only responsible for molding this

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the united states supreme court has once again created chaos. today the high court announced it will take up donald trump's immunity claim in late april, a time line that could end the possibility of holding trump accountable for trying to steal an election before americans cast votes in another election this november. and the court is set to make one of the most consequential

decisions in modern american history at the precise time when americans are hugely distrustful of the institution and still reeling from the court's other recent decisions. because of the court's 2022 decision to overturn roe v. wade, the future of reproductive health care including abortion and fertility treatments is now at risk. and then there's what the court did in the past two years. it ended race-based affirmative action. it blocked gun safety legislation, it allowed businesses to discriminate against lgbtq people. this court has radically unilaterally upended american life, and there is one man who almost more than anyone else is responsible for all of this. addison mitchell mcconnell iii, or mitch to his friends and foes alike. it was eight years ago this week senator mcconnell took one of the prospective unprecedented and consequential steps in the history of the united states

senate. >> republicans threw down the gauntlet today in the fight over the supreme court. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said there would be no vote or hearings on anyone he nominates to replace justice antonin scalia. >> after the death of supreme court justice antonin scalia mcconnell said he wouldn't hold a hearing on any justice he chose to replace scalia. why? because it was an election year he said. >> the next justice could fundamentally alter the direction of the supreme court and have a profound impact on our country, so, of course, of course the american people should have a say in the course of of the direction. >> no one in modern history had ever actually stolen a supreme court vacancy from a sitting president until mitch mcconnell. and that decision had a profound impact on the future of the country. trump won the election thanks to

those votes from evan squelicals interested in a supreme court appointment, and he went onto appoint neil gorsuch to the seat that had been stolen from his predecessor. the next year trump appointed bret kavanaugh to the bench as well, and as yet another presidential election year approached, people started to wonder what would mitch mcconnell do if another vacancy opened up on the court. would he help confirm a third trump justice in an election year? >> we'd fill it. >> i would fill it. on september 18th of 2020 supreme court justice ruth bader ginsburg passed away, and with less than two months until the presidential election, mitch mcconnell rushed through the appointment of amy coney barrett. that is how we got the radical conservative majority court we have today. this is mitch mcconnell's

legacy. and today senator mcconnell announced that he would be retiring from senate leadership this november. >> i'm immensely proud of the accomplishments i've played some role in obtaining. to thoroughly disappoint my critics and i intend to do so with all the enthusiasm with which they've become accustomed. >> so mitch mcconnell will no longer be running the upper chamber. after falling out with the former president mcconnell may be trying to wash his hands clean of the trump era republican party. the iron, of course, is it is mitch mcconnell more than anyone else abided donald trump and may have helped him evade justice. we're going to talk about all of that coming up next. stice. we're going to talk about all of that coming up next.

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one. >> that was senator mitch mcconnell during trump's second impeachment explaining that mcconnell would not vote to convict trump but that trump was still liable in the american court system. today senator mcconnell announced he's stepping down as republican leader just hours before the supreme court that he helped compose, announced it would delay justice in trump's election interference trial. joining me now is michelle goldberg, opinion columnist for "the new york times." michelle, thank you for being here. it kind of feels like mcconnell's leaving the scene of a car accident that he helped create. >> that he caused. >> yeah, is that fair? >> i think it's -- yes. i think that the only thing, the only kind of maybe sliver of a grim irony is that he -- is that he has sort of laid the foundation for the destruction of the party that he so deeply

loved, right? so he -- he's enabled -- i think he makes no secret of his total disdain for donald trump, even though i would imagine he'll endorse him and bend a knee like everybody else does. but you saw after january 6th that he clearly -- he was clearly angry -- he wasn't angry enough to actually atake the step and show the leadership that would put an end to donald trump, but he thought someone else would do it for him, and the reason, the one reason that we're unlikely to see any sort of serious criminal accountability before the election is because of the very supreme court that mitch mcconnell, you know, kind of used these really devious norm breaking tricks to reshape. >> yeah, he has an influence in shaping this court cannot be underestimated. because not only does he hijack merrick garland's nomination to get one of trump's picks in the conservative, he also ensures evangelicals and conservatives

skeptical of donald trump in 2016 has a reason to come out and vote for him. that was hugely influential in donald trump's win, i think. >> right. and also just sort of was able to pack all these lower courts. and so we have these increasingly, you know, bananas decisions from -- you know, for example in texas. yes, he's reshaped the court system in this country in a way that kind of all avenues towards both accountability for donald trump and justice for people who have been oppressed by various republican policies are just being symptoms atticically shutdown. >> i also to go to your earlier point how he has abided trump, we will not stop playing that sound of him saying presidents are not immune from prosecution, but we're not going to do it here in the senate. it is choices like that, that have led us to this moment where

donald trump, it's an open question whether he will be ever be held accountable for his actions on january 6th. and the inability of mcconnell to understand the harvest he was sowing both during his time before january 6th and after is appalling. >> mitch mcconnell is also old-fashioned cold war republican who has now overseen the complete capitulation of his party to russia and vladimir putin and has been unable to engineer even something you would think would be as bipartisan as aid to ukraine when it's, you know, running out of ammunition. so he has just left such a path of destruction in his wake not just of his enemies but of all of his own sense of values. >> yeah, there's some reporting the sort of straw that broke the camel's back or one of the catalysts for this announced leadership is he really wants to press on ukraine aid. to that i say how is it that

retirement has to be a precondition for republicans? >> and it's also the opposite, right? if you really want to press for ukraine aid, that is actually the position in which to do it. >> i think the open question is there's been also a lot of back and forth in terms of reporting and general scuttlebutt in the upper chamber whether he's going to ultimately endorse donald trump, and it's amazing to me a man who so clearly recognizes the destruction of his own party would even be entertaining the notion of, you know, elevating the destruction in office. >> he's 86 years old, right? is he really going to run for re-election in two years? he doesn't have another internal senate race to deal with, but we'll see. you know, i kind of -- i wouldn't sort of put any money on mitch mcconnell's decency and integrity. >> do you have any optimism about who -- i'm not asking who but in terms of the leadership who comes next?

>> of course not. i would say this, i would say the only sign of optimism i think it's likely the leader that comes next would be less confident because mitch mcconnell is good in the same way he saw with kevin mccarthy. he was great at his job like mike johnson. >> right, as the house went to kevin mccarthy to mike johnson so does the senate go to mitch mcconnell -- >> to someone named john. >> michelle goldberg, thank you for helping me ride the chairimate tonight. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is coming up next. a surprising decision from the supreme court could have a massive impact on the 2024 presidential election. the justices will hear arguments on donald trump's immunity claim, which will delay his federal election interference

trial.