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0:25

Tonight on All In. Brand

0:28

new indictments in Arizona. 18

0:31

people charged in a fraudulent scheme

0:33

to steal the election, including fake

0:36

electors. And Donald Trump is named

0:38

as unindicted co-conspirator. Then... Sitting

0:45

tight in New York as the high court

0:47

awaits. You

0:50

have to leave immunity with the president.

0:52

A president of the United States has

0:54

to have immunity. Will

0:56

Donald Trump face trial for his attempted

0:58

coup? And what's at stake for the

1:01

Supreme Court? Hopefully

1:03

the Republican justices

1:05

that we have and judges that we

1:07

have will make correct

1:09

decisions. Plus, today's Supreme

1:11

Court hearing on abortion rights in

1:14

post-roll America. I was the

1:16

one that brought up the conversation of what

1:18

are my options? And

1:21

they said, well, because we're in Idaho, there

1:23

really aren't any for you. And

1:26

as the campus protests over Israel

1:28

and Gaza grow, the president signs

1:30

foreign assistance into law. History

1:32

will remember this time. History will

1:35

remember this moment. And All In

1:37

starts right now. Good

1:39

evening from New York, Congress Hays. We've

1:42

got some breaking news tonight out of the state of Arizona,

1:44

where Attorney General Chris May has just announced a grand jury

1:46

in Arizona has returned indictments

1:51

in the investigation into the fake

1:53

elector scheme in that state to steal

1:55

a 2020 election. You'll

2:01

remember that was a plot devised

2:03

by allies of Donald Trump to

2:05

send false certificates to the National

2:07

Archives, claiming that Donald Trump won

2:09

the state's electoral vote rather than

2:11

Joe Biden. This played

2:13

out in seven battleground states with the

2:15

intent to sow chaos and confusion at

2:17

the certification of the electoral votes, which

2:20

was to take place on January

2:22

6. Arizona Attorney

2:24

General Mays has been investigating this

2:26

scheme since shortly after she took

2:28

office last year. We're

2:32

here because justice demands an answer to

2:34

the efforts of the dependents and other

2:37

unindicted co-conspirators allegedly

2:40

took to undermine the will

2:42

of Arizona's voters during the 2020

2:44

presidential election. Whatever their reasoning

2:47

was, the plot to violate the law

2:49

must be answered for, and I was

2:51

elected to uphold the law of this

2:53

state. Now, 18 people are

2:55

listed in the indictment, which we've just been going through

2:57

here, but only 11 defendants

3:00

are unredacted. Those include former

3:02

Arizona Republican Party Chair and erstwhile

3:04

Senate candidate Kelly Ward, as well

3:06

as her husband Michael Ward, as

3:08

well as current Republican state lawmakers

3:10

Jay Kaufman and Anthony Kern. All

3:14

11 that are named in the indictment

3:16

and unredacted served as those false electors,

3:18

the people that signed and certified the

3:21

bogus document sent to the National Archives.

3:23

Now, there are seven additional defendants

3:25

who have not yet been served and their

3:28

names are redacted. The Washington Post

3:30

reports they are former Trump White House

3:32

Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Attorneys

3:35

Rudy Giuliani, Jenna Ellis, John

3:37

Eastman, and Christina Bobb, top

3:40

campaign admirer Boris Epstein, and

3:42

former campaign aide Mike Roman.

3:45

The defendants are charged with conspiracy, fraud, and

3:48

forgery, which are all felonies, or

3:50

and I quote here, scheming to prevent

3:52

the lawful transfer of the presidency to

3:54

keep unindicted co-conspirator want

3:56

in office against the will of

3:59

Arizona's voters. Unindicted co-conspirator

4:01

one is, of course, Donald

4:03

Trump. Now, all this comes

4:06

as Trump already faces, as you well know,

4:08

88 criminal charges across four

4:10

jurisdictions. He is currently on trial

4:12

in New York, facing 34 charges

4:15

related to election interference and

4:17

business record fraud. Tomorrow

4:20

morning, the Supreme Court

4:22

will be hearing arguments in his immunity

4:24

case, where Trump claims that he cannot

4:27

be prosecuted by special counsel Jack Smith

4:29

in the federal January 6 election case

4:31

against him. Joining me

4:33

now with the latest is NBC News correspondent,

4:35

Vaughn Hilliard. Vaughn, I know

4:37

you've been reading into this and going

4:39

through the indictment. So just first of

4:41

all, just set up what happened here

4:43

in terms of the investigation, whose office

4:46

did the investigation, how long it took and what

4:49

Attorney General May's announced today. Right.

4:52

I think it's important for folks that may

4:55

be saying, why did this investigation take so

4:57

long? Why is it the year 2024

4:59

before this indictment finally came down? Well, folks

5:02

should also understand that in the state of

5:04

Arizona, it was a Republican, Mark

5:06

Burnovich was his name, who was the Attorney General

5:08

in the two years following the 2020 election.

5:11

Chris May's didn't come into our position

5:13

until winning that crucial November election in

5:16

2022. That is

5:18

what led to this investigation. And over the

5:20

course of this year, this was a sprawling

5:22

investigation that led to not only

5:24

the 11 alternate electors, 11 fake

5:27

electors being indicted, but also

5:29

these seven other individuals here.

5:32

If we just look at the 11 individuals, I

5:34

think number one, when you're looking at from an

5:36

Arizona perspective, there wasn't much effort to

5:38

hide what they were doing. They

5:41

literally videoed on December 14,

5:43

them convened at the GOP

5:45

Arizona GOP headquarters in central

5:47

Phoenix, signing this certificate and

5:50

sending it to Congress to

5:52

hopefully for them be counted

5:54

by Mike Pence on January

5:56

6. These 11 individuals include

5:59

the likes of GOP Chairwoman Kelly Ward,

6:01

her husband Michael Ward. And again, when

6:03

I talk about not even trying to

6:05

hide this, literally on December 14th, Michael

6:07

Ward, who was also one of these

6:09

fake electors, husband of Kelly Ward, posted

6:11

a photo on Twitter of his

6:13

wife taking a phone call and

6:16

him putting in the caption, quote,

6:18

another call tonight from POTUS. Can't

6:20

say exactly what we talked about,

6:22

but he told to keep the

6:24

pressure on Ducey. So this was

6:26

a very transparent effort that

6:29

was playing out for the public. Cause another name

6:31

is Tyler Boyer. He is the

6:33

RNC committee man from the state of Arizona,

6:35

but he's also the chief operating officer of

6:38

Turning Point USA, which is that Charlie

6:40

Kirk organization. You're also looking at two

6:42

Arizona state legislators, a former US Senate

6:44

candidate among those list of 11. But

6:47

then you've got the likes of Rudy Giuliani,

6:49

who was directly cited as convening a group

6:51

to try to pressure the state legislature to

6:54

overturn the election results and formally send that

6:56

slate of electors to D.C. And

6:59

of course, then also notably, you've got the likes

7:01

of Christina Bob, Boris Epstein. This gets

7:03

at the heart of the conspiracy that Chris

7:05

May is the attorney general lays out over

7:07

the course of this 57 page indictment. Yeah,

7:10

and just we were showing that video

7:12

before. We should just also notice context.

7:14

We're gonna dig into these charges here

7:16

that the notion that the

7:18

fake electors scheme itself was a criminal

7:20

enterprise is reflected too in

7:25

the Rico indictment in Georgia, where fake electors

7:27

are also part of that criminal indictment and

7:29

an investigation that's been ongoing in Michigan as

7:31

well, where some of those fake electors have

7:34

been charged. So Arizona now joins a sort

7:36

of number of states where the

7:38

fake elector plot was being pulled off.

7:40

And after some investigation, grand juries concluded

7:43

that there was probable cause to

7:45

indict for a crime with

7:47

respect to their activities. Absolutely,

7:51

and then at the heart of this indictment,

7:53

even gets the fact that the

7:55

John Eastman allegedly calls Rusty Bowers,

7:57

who was the Republican. Yep. of

8:00

the House and after Doug Ducey

8:02

had already certified the results,

8:04

and folks may recall the day

8:07

that literally Doug Ducey, the governor of Arizona at

8:09

the time, was signing it, hailed to the chief,

8:11

started playing on his phone. And we

8:13

in the press knew that Doug Ducey had

8:15

talked about how he had made that the

8:17

ringtone for Donald Trump. And as he was

8:19

certifying the election results, Donald Trump was calling

8:21

him in real time and he put him

8:23

on mute. But after that,

8:25

we have in this indictment the

8:28

fact that John Eastman had placed

8:30

a phone call to Rusty Bowers,

8:32

the Speaker of the House, urging

8:34

him to decertify Arizona's election results

8:36

and send the fake slate of

8:38

electors to Washington to be formally

8:40

counted, and then just let the

8:42

court handle the rest from there. Yeah,

8:44

Rusty Bowers, if we can show his picture

8:47

again, if folks may or may not remember,

8:49

provided some of the most compelling testimony in

8:51

the January 6th committee. He was one of

8:53

the people who testified publicly during a hearing,

8:56

very stalwart conservative,

8:58

lifelong Republican, very religious and

9:01

devout Mormon, who

9:03

talked about the insane pressure that

9:05

was brought to bear on him to

9:08

do something that he said was

9:10

just flatly illegal, which was to

9:12

basically have the state legislature vote

9:14

to send the Trump electors rather

9:16

than the Biden electors, despite

9:18

the fact that Biden had actually won

9:21

that state. Now, the charges here, there's

9:23

four counts here as I see them.

9:26

Councy is the first, count

9:29

two is, and I like this, fraudulent

9:31

schemes and artifices, count

9:33

three is fraudulent schemes and practices, and

9:36

counts four through nine are forgery.

9:39

Those last counts having to do, and this is something

9:41

that we've seen in other places, these

9:44

individuals plain as day attested

9:46

to something in a document we

9:48

have access to that they sent to the National Archives,

9:51

that was just simply not true. They said

9:53

they were the duly elected electors of the

9:55

state of Arizona, signed their names to them.

10:00

They sign their names to it and they

10:02

send it to Congress and the National Archives

10:05

and you can go and Google it. Anybody

10:07

at home can go Google it and the

10:09

documents are there online via the Federal Registry.

10:12

This is a, I think though,

10:14

where this comes into play is

10:17

that the extent to which this

10:19

even extends, Chris, beyond the explicit

10:21

acts of November, December, and January

10:24

of 2020 in

10:26

2021, but Kelly Ward stayed on in her

10:29

position as the

10:31

GOP Chairwoman for years after this.

10:33

Tyler Boyer, one of these indicted

10:35

individuals who was one of the

10:37

fake electors, is still to this

10:40

day currently RNC Committee, man.

10:42

Two of these people are still state legislators

10:45

and folks who will recall in 2021, the Cyber Ninjas

10:48

and Kelly Ward was at the forefront

10:50

of that. I spent days at the

10:52

fairgrounds where, of course, of months ballots

10:54

were being, right, as part of the

10:57

forensic audit they were calling it. Kelly

10:59

Ward was there. Anthony Kern

11:01

is one of the state

11:03

legislators who was a volunteer

11:05

for the forensic audit. Of

11:08

course, they don't get into this in

11:10

the indictment here, but it just speaks

11:12

to the length of the investigation that

11:15

hits at the particular crimes here. Christina

11:17

Bob is another name that I would

11:19

note here who was just last month

11:21

brought on in a formal role for

11:23

this current election cycle by the RNC

11:26

Trump campaign operations to be a part

11:28

of their senior counsel for election integrity.

11:31

The folks that were seeing the names of

11:33

this current indictment, which hits at the heart

11:35

of Chris Mays' statements over the course of

11:37

last year that in order to send a

11:39

clear message about how elections should not be

11:42

tampered with in the past, it's for the

11:44

purpose of future elections. So many of these

11:46

individuals are still such at the heart of

11:48

the beating drum of how Arizona elections are

11:50

being run currently. Yeah, and

11:52

we should note, of course, the Arizona election

11:54

24, one of the most watched in the

11:56

country, Kerry Lake, of course,

11:58

is the... Republican nominee

12:01

or she's running for Senate To

12:04

fill the stop that's being vacated by Kyrsten

12:06

Sinema's retiring. She still says the election was

12:08

stolen in 2020. She says her own defeat

12:12

in 2022 was also

12:14

stolen she has been sued for libel by

12:16

the Chair of

12:18

the Maricopa County Board of Elections himself

12:20

a fellow Republican who says that

12:23

she's liable She has basically agreed To

12:25

not contest that and there's now a

12:28

adjudication of the penalty. This is all

12:30

within this Republican very fractious Republican Party

12:33

Some of whose officials are named in this

12:35

indictment just handed down just about an hour

12:37

ago by the Attorney General Chris May von

12:39

Hilliard, thank you so much. That was that

12:41

was great Thanks, Chris.

12:43

Appreciate it. Mary McCord spent nearly 20

12:46

years of federal prosecutors the US Attorney's

12:48

Office in DC She litigated a case

12:50

against the Wisconsin fake electors She currently

12:52

co-hosts the Webby Award MSNBC podcast prosecuting

12:55

Donald Trump Tom Jocelyn was a senior

12:57

staffer on the January 6 committee and

12:59

a principal drafter of their final report

13:01

and they both join me now Mary,

13:03

I think you guys have gotten

13:06

a little time to look over this indictment your

13:08

thoughts on what you've read Well,

13:12

it's a very familiar conspiracy to me

13:14

having like you mentioned Been part of

13:16

a team of lawyers that litigated against

13:19

the Wisconsin fraudulent electors and

13:21

to Trump attorneys And so one of

13:23

the things I was looking for in

13:25

there our case resolved with a settlement

13:27

Which included permanent injunctive relief the electors

13:29

are never to do this again The

13:31

attorneys are never to help them do

13:33

it again But it also it also

13:35

resulted in the release of some

13:38

fifteen sixteen hundred emails and text

13:40

messages That show the genesis of

13:42

the scheme and what I saw in

13:44

this Arizona indictment is a lot of

13:47

the things I saw in those text

13:49

messages So this scheme was concocted in

13:51

Wisconsin by Trump campaign attorney Jim Troopis

13:54

and his friend Ken Chesbrough

13:56

Yes, Kenneth Chesbrough who has been

13:58

pleaded guilty in Georgia

14:01

who is unindicted co-conspirator number

14:03

four in this Arizona

14:05

indictment. He is the one who came up

14:08

with the idea. He had the beginnings of

14:10

the idea just five days after the election,

14:12

his first email to Mr.

14:14

Crouppas saying, you know, what about

14:17

if an alternate slate of electors

14:19

shows up on January 6th, throwing

14:21

things into chaos unless

14:23

the state legislatures then decide who the

14:25

slate should be, or we could throw

14:28

such things into such chaos that the

14:30

vote would go to the House. And what

14:32

that means is the vote by the House

14:34

under the 12th Amendment when there's no winner

14:37

means every state gets one vote. It's not

14:39

all 450 legislated. And

14:41

one vote at that time, it was a

14:44

26 state majority, and that would have meant

14:46

the election went to Trump. So what I

14:48

saw then in this indictment is

14:50

the communications after Mr. Crouppas sent

14:52

these memos that he asked Mr.

14:54

Crespo to write up to the

14:56

White House. That's reflected in this

14:58

indictment. Boris Epstein then said, hey,

15:00

can you replicate this

15:03

in the other states? And that's what

15:05

set Mr. Crespo off, again,

15:07

unindicted co-conspirator number four in this

15:10

indictment. I'm certain based on

15:12

the allegations in the indictment to working

15:14

so closely with people like Kelly Ward

15:17

and also attorneys in Arizona

15:19

like Jack Willenchek to make this

15:21

happen in Arizona. Tom,

15:24

when you worked on the January

15:26

6th Committee and helped draft that

15:28

final report, did you think when

15:30

you were working on the committee

15:32

that there would be downstream effects

15:35

of state criminal investigations happening after

15:37

your committee's work? Well,

15:39

you know, I think there should have been these

15:41

downstream effects. I mean, the bottom line is this

15:44

is conspiracy that cut across seven states, right? Trump

15:47

and his co-conspirators tried to steal or nullify

15:49

the electoral votes from seven states because they

15:51

lost the popular vote in the – Trump

15:53

lost the popular vote in those states. This

15:55

is now the third state Arizona is where

15:58

they brought criminal charges against the the co-conspirators,

16:00

although not Trump himself. And when I was

16:02

reading this indictment, Chris, to me, it reads

16:04

like a middle of the road indictment. So

16:07

remember in Georgia, you have the Rico conspiracy

16:09

case where all the way up to Trump

16:11

is charged in Georgia. In

16:13

Michigan, you have these charges brought against just the

16:15

fake electors, but none of the co-conspirators and led

16:17

them down that path. Now here

16:20

in Arizona, you have the fake electors charge

16:22

plus these co-conspirators on top of them, including

16:25

a number of the people who actually brought them,

16:28

led them down this false path. Except for

16:30

Ken Chesbrough, who Mary notes as an

16:32

unindicted co-conspirator. He is conspicuously not indicted here. And

16:34

yet it's his memos really did lay the groundwork

16:36

for the fake electors scheme. In fact, on the

16:39

select committee, one of the things that I learned

16:41

after the fact is how much evidence Ken Chesbrough

16:43

and his co-conspirators were able to hide from us.

16:47

They had a December 6th, 2020 memo in

16:50

which Chesbrough made it very clear that the

16:52

intent of the fake electors had nothing to

16:54

do with being contingent on election litigation outcomes

16:56

or state legislators flipping the vote, which of

16:58

course Trump and his associates were pressuring states

17:01

to do. But in fact, it was basically

17:03

there to gum up the joint section of

17:05

Congress on January 6th. So this

17:07

is, I think necessary for this type of criminal,

17:10

hopefully criminal accountability in Arizona and hopefully

17:12

other states will follow suit. Yeah,

17:14

we should just note, and if folks

17:16

don't remember this, that there were sort

17:18

of different incarnations in the fake electors scheme. The

17:22

first of which I think you could characterize

17:24

as an extremely

17:26

aggressive, but arguably

17:28

defensible legal posture to

17:30

retain the possibility of

17:33

a Donald Trump victory

17:36

if fraud was found and litigation

17:38

proved effective. The second version was

17:40

just purely a bad faith cynical

17:42

enterprise to essentially defraud people and

17:44

to create this sort of screwed

17:47

up situation, Tom. But Chris,

17:49

can I just interject real quick? The bottom line is

17:51

that when you go through the evidence very carefully, the

17:54

truth is that first option was off the table by

17:56

the time the fake electors met and voted. The

17:59

documents, Chesbrough and all the focus peers

18:01

authoring and talking about it was clearly aimed at

18:03

delaying or obstructing the certification of Joe Biden's victory

18:06

at the Joint Section of Congress. This is crucially

18:08

important because what's happened here, you can even see

18:10

this in the indictment that came out today, some

18:12

of the defendants lied about it and said, well,

18:15

you know, we just voted in case, you know,

18:17

election litigation flipped Arizona. Now, some

18:19

of the fake electors may very well believe

18:21

that. The problem is we know the

18:23

people who were pulling the marionette strings on them

18:25

did not believe that. That's why this indictment in

18:27

Arizona is so important because they're going upstream, going

18:30

after some of the puppet masters, not just the fake

18:32

electors. By the way, as we

18:34

roll this tape of that meeting, if you

18:36

can roll that again, the B roll that we

18:38

just had, which is December 14th, 2020, Kelly Ward

18:41

is the one who's seated at the chair

18:43

position there in blue. Again, this

18:45

was all public. It's remarkable how much of

18:47

the evidence, there's a fair amount of evidence

18:49

in the indictment itself, it's public. You know,

18:51

you've got Samuel Moorhead who's writing, we need

18:53

to take some action about the 2020 election.

18:56

I advocate in Arizona, the legislator decertified

18:58

the slate of Biden electors and certified

19:00

the slate of Trump electors. I would hate to

19:02

go to my grave knowing the electoral vote I

19:04

cast was not counted. They were doing this in

19:06

public. And to your point, Mary, I

19:08

just want to read again from the indictment. We haven't been

19:11

able to work up graphics, so I will go slowly. One

19:14

of the things they catch here on page 29, the indictment

19:17

is sort of in an email to

19:20

the Tea Party Phoenix Metro

19:23

email listserv. They

19:25

say, by the way, to your point

19:27

about they knew what they were doing,

19:29

if the electoral college doesn't result in

19:31

270 electoral votes for either presidential candidate,

19:33

the 12th amendment is exercised. And guess

19:35

what? Trump wins because the House

19:38

didn't go the way Dems counted it going and

19:40

our republic is saved from the globalists. So

19:43

this is all laid out. Again,

19:46

they were not like that surreptitious about

19:49

this entire enterprise. It's

19:51

all fairly well documented, Mary. That's

19:53

not always the case with most criminal

19:55

conspiracies, but this one, it's fairly

19:58

public. Yes,

20:00

and like Tom said, you know, I think,

20:02

you know, it's possible that some of the

20:05

fake electors in different states at first really

20:07

did think that there was some legal authority.

20:09

I mean, they have lawyers telling them to

20:11

do this, right? And that

20:13

there was some legal authority. But it's clear

20:15

when you see the documents by, as

20:17

Tom referred to them as

20:19

the puppet masters or the marionette,

20:22

you know, those pulling the marionette

20:24

strings, they all along. And

20:27

it's clear in the documentation, you knew

20:29

this scheme was just a scheme to throw

20:31

things into chaos, to support putting pressure

20:33

on the state legislatures to go ahead

20:35

and just reconvene and send up a

20:37

state, a slate of

20:40

electors, which itself would have been subject

20:42

to legal challenge, of course, or then

20:44

to pressure Mike Pence to count these

20:46

illegitimate votes. And worse comes

20:48

to worse, like you just said, throw things

20:51

to the 12th Amendment. But I'll say, even

20:53

with the fraudulent electors, even if they might

20:55

have some of them at the beginning thought,

20:57

hmm, maybe this is a legit scheme, as

20:59

Tom said, by the time they voted, they

21:01

did not. Yet even even

21:04

after that, we had in Wisconsin,

21:07

someone from the Republican Party flying out

21:10

to D.C. on January 5th to try

21:12

to make sure that that fraudulent slate

21:14

got to Mike Pence. And in one

21:17

of her texts, she says, I feel

21:19

like a drug dealer, Lowell. Wow.

21:23

Yeah. Wasn't it wasn't that also where like someone

21:25

passed the list to Ron Johnson to get to

21:27

Mike Pence and he was he

21:29

was the one carrying it, the senator from Wisconsin was

21:31

like, I don't know, someone gave me something. I was

21:33

just giving the vice president. I don't really know. You

21:35

know, someone gives you a Ziploc bag,

21:37

you carry it over the vice president, whatever it's got to

21:39

be. Can I can I just say this, Tom,

21:44

the other thing that strikes me here, two questions. One

21:46

is, and I'm pulling this from memory, if I'm

21:48

not mistaken, I believe of the seven states. New

21:50

Mexico is one of those states somewhat weirdly. Yeah. I

21:53

think the two of the states, the language of the

21:55

thing they certified had some kind of legal

21:57

hedge where they said something like I think.

22:00

Pennsylvania and New Mexico, I may not be remembering

22:02

this correctly, they

22:04

basically say something along the lines, if the litigation

22:06

proves successfully, yada, yada, and the other one, there

22:08

is no hedge. It's straightforward a lie. A fraudulent

22:11

certification signed the line saying, we

22:14

are the proper electors here. That's

22:17

exactly right. So five of the seven states had

22:19

no contingency language whatsoever for the

22:21

fake electors, Arizona being one of them. And

22:24

in fact, we know subsequently there was a

22:26

text exchange from some of the conspirators, including

22:28

Michael Roman in Canada's Chesbrough, Roman, who I

22:30

believe is indicted in this indictment, and Ken

22:32

Chesbrough, who is an unidentified co-conspirator, where they're

22:34

talking about this. They're talking about, hey, should

22:37

we include this language that basically is a

22:39

hedge on the fake electoral certificates? And Mike

22:41

Roman says, f these people. In other words,

22:43

we're not doing it. We're not putting this

22:45

language on the other ones, because if we do,

22:48

then maybe people will start to question what they're doing. That's

22:51

what I mean by puppet masters, right? I mean, some

22:53

of these guys knew exactly what they were doing. That's

22:55

not to absolve all the fake electors themselves. Some of

22:57

them knew what they were doing, too, obviously, perhaps

23:00

a lot of them did. But the bottom line is

23:02

that in the Trump campaign,

23:04

and the co-conspirators around Trump and Trump himself

23:06

certainly knew that they were crossing all sorts

23:08

of boundaries here, legal boundaries here, and doing

23:10

this. And they were very

23:12

cavalier in doing so, and they didn't care about

23:14

people downstream who were willing to do their bidding

23:16

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23:19

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Make the difference. I

24:00

want you guys to stay with me. I just want

24:02

to bring in Harry Lippmann. He served as Deputy Assistant

24:04

Attorney General for the Department of Justice, as well as

24:07

US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. I've managed

24:09

to physically conjure him here in my studio, Exneilo. You

24:13

know, one thing I wanted to talk

24:15

to you about, we have these redactions, right? So

24:17

we've got the 11 names and the redactions. We're

24:19

using the Washington Post reporting. It says people like

24:21

Rudy Giuliani, Mark Mendoza, Jenna Ellis. Christina Bob, I

24:23

think catching her first case. That's not a mistake.

24:26

So there's a first time for everyone. Congratulations,

24:28

Christina. Christina Bob, you've managed to get indicted.

24:33

I think because of the way Trump operates in so much

24:35

of the sense that he got 80, 80 counts, and

24:38

will he ever face accountability, you can

24:40

sort of glide past the seriousness, both

24:44

in terms of legal peril, financial strain, all of

24:46

the stress that comes with being indicted

24:48

of a crime. I mean, these people,

24:50

it's bad. It's

24:52

not good to have not

24:54

just one indictment, but now in multiple venues for

24:56

a bunch of these people, including John Eastman.

24:58

That's right. I think in particular, John Eastman, Ken

25:01

Chezbro. Mark Meadows is among

25:03

them. It's not simply that they're in

25:05

great peril. They are, of course, they

25:07

imperil Trump because they are people who

25:09

could cooperate and really don't have that

25:11

many options or that much money. And

25:14

here's a whole new one. And these

25:16

are felonies in Arizona. We're talking very

25:18

similar to Fulton County and with the same

25:20

kind of serious implications. Yeah, as you know,

25:23

Chezbro is an unindicted co-conspirator, but

25:25

Eastman is indicted, according to Washington Post reporting.

25:28

Mary, where do you see a case

25:30

like this going and the timeline developing?

25:32

I think partly because of the

25:35

strangeness of the timeline here. And Von Hilliard

25:37

pointed out this. Chris May is winning her

25:39

election by an extremely narrow margin in 2022.

25:42

It was the last race in Arizona that was called. Starting

25:45

this investigation, it taking the time it's

25:47

taken, these indictments being announced

25:49

now. Again, there

25:52

is a strangeness, a surreality to this whole

25:54

thing that these crimes which are committed

25:56

in 2020 are being charged or they're being tried now in

25:58

the case of New York. case. It's 2016 actions

26:00

that are being tried now. What do you see

26:03

as a timeline for a case like this? So,

26:07

you know, it is complicated, I think, because

26:09

this is an election year. And I don't

26:11

know if some of these defendants are actually,

26:14

you know, we're planning to try to be

26:16

presidential electors again this year. I do

26:18

think this is the kind of case

26:20

that is likely, yeah, that is likely

26:23

to result in several of

26:25

the, particularly the fake

26:27

electors themselves, probably making

26:30

some sort of plea agreement with the state.

26:33

They will want to try to minimize their

26:36

exposure to penalties. And,

26:39

you know, the others who are

26:41

not, whose names are still redacted,

26:43

who are, you know, the bigger

26:45

fish, the bigger players, that's a

26:47

very different thing because they face,

26:49

you know, well, everyone fakes

26:51

political ramifications, but they are people who

26:54

are much, much closer to Donald Trump.

26:56

And, as you indicated earlier, could do

26:59

him much more damage. And so, you

27:01

know, certainly the state has probably tried

27:04

already, we have, you know, people who probably

27:06

have cooperated like Ken Chesbro. That's

27:08

why he's an unindicted co-conspirator and

27:11

not a indicted coca spirit. And it

27:13

was widely reported some time ago that he

27:15

was talking to the Arizona AG. I can't,

27:17

I don't have personal knowledge about that, but

27:19

that was reported in the press. And I

27:22

think that's one reason when you see an

27:24

unindicted coca spirit. That's one sort of clue.

27:27

But so I think that there will be

27:29

some efforts by the state to see if

27:32

they can't get some of those other folks

27:34

to cooperate. And then

27:36

the timeline, in terms of getting

27:38

to trial and getting through discovery and everything,

27:40

you know, I have never practiced in Arizona

27:43

state courts. So I don't know if they've

27:45

got judges that move quickly or slowly. But

27:47

I think, you know, it would be very

27:49

quick to get a conspiracy

27:51

of this magnitude to trial, you

27:54

know, before the election. Not

27:56

that these people are up for election, but

27:58

before the election. It seems unlikely. to

28:00

me, Perry, it would be before the election, but I

28:02

do think the question about plea deals is interesting. Also,

28:05

Boris Eppertrine, I think, also hasn't been indicted yet, right?

28:07

That's right. He's also got it first. Yeah,

28:09

and look, it's always been important

28:11

because the electrodynamics is different from

28:14

the seven who are the acolytes

28:16

of Trump. They're people who presumably

28:18

want futures in their individual states,

28:20

and therefore, they're not going to

28:22

fall on their sword for Trump.

28:25

You're saying the 11? Yeah, right. The

28:27

11 are dangerous. Including two state representatives. I

28:29

mean, this threatens to upend all

28:31

of Arizona Republican politics. Right.

28:34

You know, just that's a whole separate

28:37

possibility. But in terms of their peril,

28:39

again, to the seven and eventually to

28:41

Trump, an unindicted conspirator, the electors, and

28:44

it's the same in Michigan, it's the

28:46

same in Fulton County. They pose special

28:48

risks because they're not Washington insiders. They

28:51

just want to be able, hopefully, to

28:53

get on with their lives. Jenna

28:56

Ellis, let me ask one more question and stay there because

28:58

Jenna Ellis, her name jumped

29:00

out to me because she was indicted

29:02

in Georgia. She pleaded guilty in Georgia.

29:05

She is the only person I've seen

29:07

involved in this entire match. As far

29:09

as I can tell, who's ever expressed

29:11

any remorse, she actually expressed remorse when

29:13

she entered her plea in Georgia. Remorse-ish.

29:16

Yeah, remorse-y. Well,

29:19

maybe the bar, especially in Colorado. The bar

29:21

is low. The bar is very low. No

29:24

one, everyone else is like, bro,

29:26

bring it on. We'll do it again. If you just bring us,

29:28

she at least. So she would be

29:30

another person I would imagine you would look for here

29:32

for some sort of cooperation or plea. Definitely.

29:36

And she has a GoFundMe site. This is

29:38

a fair bit of money for all of

29:40

these folks and some of them don't have

29:42

it. So that also exerts greater pressure to

29:45

be cooperating against the Big Seven and

29:47

even potentially the big gun and Dietico conspirator,

29:49

number one. That I would be more... I

29:53

circumspect about it. Very circumspect about it. Yeah. Mary

29:56

McCord, Tom Jocelyn, Harry Litman. Great to have you here. Thank you.

29:58

Appearing. from the fireplace. And

30:02

what's happening in Arizona is, of course, not,

30:04

as you know, the only legal issue involving

30:06

Donald Trump. That

30:08

just broke an hour before the show. Donald

30:11

Trump, tomorrow, will have

30:13

two sets of lawyers in two different cities

30:15

arguing on his behalf in the morning. He

30:18

will once again spend the day in Manhattan Criminal

30:20

Court, which he thinks is too cold, for

30:23

day seven of his criminal trial

30:25

on election interference violations and business record

30:27

fraud. At the same time

30:29

that that court is convening in lower

30:32

Manhattan, his other lawyers will be in

30:34

Washington, D.C., arguing before the Supreme Court

30:36

as they take up his novel, one

30:39

might even say, desperate ludicrous theory of

30:41

presidential immunity. And that

30:43

is the idea that he should not face

30:45

trial over the January 6 charges. They should

30:47

be utterly preempted because presidents have absolute immunity

30:49

from all criminal charges for things they do

30:51

while in office, full stop. As

30:54

Trump himself likes to put it, even for,

30:56

quote, events that cross the line. I'm

30:59

guessing many of you watching don't spend

31:01

much time browsing Trump's social media feeds

31:03

so it can be easy to miss

31:05

just how often he posts, first of

31:07

all, and specifically how often he posts

31:10

about how he must have dictator like

31:12

immunity from all consequences. It's a real

31:14

obsession. And there's one

31:16

metaphor in particular he seems to like, quote,

31:18

a president of the United States must have

31:20

full immunity. You can't stop police from doing

31:22

the job of strong and effective crime prevention

31:25

because you want to guard against the seldom

31:27

seen rogue cop. Sometimes you

31:29

just have to live with great, slightly

31:31

imperfect. Okay.

31:34

The thing he keeps coming back

31:36

to again and again and again, in which

31:38

he compares himself to a rogue cop,

31:40

I think, is that without complete immunity,

31:42

no president can do their job. Quote,

31:44

without presidential immunity, a president will not

31:46

be able to properly function or make

31:48

decisions in the best interests in the

31:51

United States of America. Quote, without presidential

31:53

immunity, it would be impossible for a

31:55

president to properly function putting the United

31:57

States of America in great and everlasting

31:59

danger. Quote, A president of the

32:01

United States must have full immunity. He really is obsessed

32:03

with this. In order to properly function and do what

32:05

has to be done for the good of our country,

32:08

all of those are from the past four

32:10

days. I mean, this is like there's just

32:13

dozens of things. Here's

32:15

the thing. There's an angle of this argument that

32:17

I feel is not quite fully appreciated by everyone,

32:19

partly because who's reading truth social. And

32:22

what's not appreciated is the threat that

32:25

is inherent to Trump's argument. So I

32:27

want to be very clear here about what Trump is saying. What

32:30

Trump is saying, loud and clear, repeatedly, online

32:33

and into microphones, is that if the Supreme

32:35

Court does not grant him total immunity, and

32:38

he has elected you a second term, he

32:40

will order the Department of Justice to prosecute

32:42

Joe Biden. That

32:45

is, what are you saying? That's

32:47

the key takeaway. Quote, if they

32:49

take away my presidential immunity, they

32:51

take away crooked Joe Biden's presidential

32:53

immunity. Quote, Joe

32:55

would be ripe for indictment by

32:57

weaponizing the DOJ against his political

33:00

opponent, me. Joe has opened

33:02

a giant Pandora's box. Quote, remember,

33:04

if I don't have presidential immunity,

33:06

then crooked Joe Biden doesn't have

33:08

it either. And he would certainly

33:10

be prosecuted for his many actual

33:12

crimes. Trump

33:15

is campaigning on

33:18

ginning up a baseless prosecution

33:20

of Joe Biden. If

33:23

I'm not entitled to immunity

33:25

as president, every other president

33:27

would get that, then crooked

33:30

Joe Biden would not

33:32

be entitled to immunity. And when he left

33:34

office, he would be,

33:36

I assume, prosecuted. So

33:39

if I don't have immunity, he

33:41

doesn't have immunity. And by the way, the statute

33:43

of limitations goes back six

33:46

years and sometimes more than that. What

33:49

is he talking about last part? But

33:51

again, a clear, crystal clear reminder

33:54

of what the stakes are here in the Supreme

33:56

Court immunity case tomorrow. First, how they rule in

33:58

the merits of Trump's regime. community claim,

34:01

but also most importantly, whether they will

34:03

dither and delay, as they have so

34:05

far in their judge and the ex-president, to allow

34:07

him to escape his legal reckoning. Tony

34:11

Manaus, Richard Painter, served as the chief

34:13

White House ethics lawyer under President George

34:15

W. Bush. He submitted an amicus brief

34:17

to the Supreme Court on behalf of

34:19

former national security officials. Still with

34:21

me, Harry Lippmann, former deputy assistant attorney general

34:23

for the Department of Justice. Richard,

34:25

let me start with you. Describe

34:28

the argument

34:30

in your amicus brief before the

34:32

court on this issue. Well,

34:36

first of all, the president should be

34:39

afraid of liability for crimes committed in

34:41

office. Joe Biden didn't commit any crimes

34:43

in office, so that whole argument that

34:45

Donald Trump is making is ridiculous. Second,

34:49

the concern here is that

34:51

it's extremely dangerous to have the president

34:53

of the United States be immune from

34:56

criminal prosecution, but everyone else in the

34:58

chain of command and the military would

35:00

be subject to prosecution for

35:02

committing illegal acts and also

35:05

would be subject to prosecution

35:07

for refusing to follow orders. So

35:09

illegal orders, you'd be prosecuted if

35:12

you followed them. Legal orders, you

35:14

don't follow them, you'll be prosecuted

35:16

for violating orders. This is why

35:18

Professor Claire Finkelstein and I drafted

35:20

this brief signed by over a

35:23

dozen of former generals and admirals

35:26

and other senior military officials explaining

35:29

to the court how this concept

35:31

of absolute immunity for the president

35:33

of the United States would erode

35:36

the military command. There'd be no confidence

35:38

throughout the command structure, no

35:41

confidence in the orders coming down

35:43

from the White House. And

35:46

we simply cannot defend our country this

35:48

way. This is extremely dangerous

35:51

to have a president, once

35:53

again, who could order the military to

35:56

commit crimes. President Trump's lawyers argued before

35:58

the D.C. Circuit. that if

36:00

he ordered SEAL Team 6 to

36:02

take out a political rival, that

36:05

he could not be prosecuted unless the

36:07

House of Representatives impeached him in two-thirds

36:09

of the Senate convicted him.

36:11

In other words, the sitting president of

36:13

the United States could assassinate a political

36:16

rival with the consent of one-third of

36:18

the Senate. We can't run a democracy

36:20

this way. And the

36:22

court, I believe, will understand that. The

36:25

justices certainly don't want SEAL Team 6

36:27

parked outside their house every

36:29

time they have a case involving the president of

36:31

the United States. Yes. And

36:33

we should note, to your point, which is

36:36

an obvious point that I guess I hadn't

36:38

thought of, of course, the members of SEAL

36:40

Team 6 themselves, of course, would be subject

36:42

to criminal prosecution because they would be committing

36:45

a crime. They would be in the hypothetical

36:47

committing murder. It would only be the person

36:49

that ordered that and the person, the president,

36:51

who would be insulated from that, which is

36:53

clearly ludicrous and unworkable idea in 100 different

36:56

directions. Are there things you are

36:58

looking for as we head, aside from the

37:00

sort of the threatening

37:02

menace of Trump's arguments on this, which clearly

37:05

to me are like, it's tit for tat,

37:08

all bets are off if, you know, you don't find against, you

37:10

don't find for me, that you're looking for in

37:12

the arguments tomorrow that are going to indicate

37:15

which way things are going? Yes. So

37:17

remember, they took 13 days

37:19

when some people thought there was a

37:22

dissent from denial being written to frame

37:24

this question. And this question is their

37:26

own wording, whether and if so, when.

37:29

What I'll be looking for right away

37:31

is whether in particular the three justices

37:33

on the right, Gorsuch, Alito and Thomas,

37:36

will be framing questions that have to

37:38

do with facts, circumstances

37:40

far afield from what Trump has done. I

37:42

think there's no way that at the end

37:44

of the day, for the reasons Richard said,

37:46

they will absolve him or

37:48

give him immunity, but will they

37:51

state an opinion that is broader

37:53

than necessary, requires a remand and

37:55

another trip up and down

37:57

the courts, effectively preventing this case? pace

38:00

from going forward, as always with

38:02

Trump, timeline, merit. Right. So

38:04

there's a way for them to basically

38:09

cutely sort of slice

38:12

the salami thin and

38:14

say, no, obviously there's no absolute immunity here,

38:16

but there's this four-part test that has to

38:18

be produced about presidential acts and whether they're

38:20

at the outer bounds. And now back to

38:23

you, Judge Chutkin, to apply this test to

38:25

the charges. And then she would do that

38:27

and that would be appealed up to the

38:29

appellate court. Now the appeal of the Supreme

38:31

Court. And in doing so, they would

38:34

know exactly what they're doing, which is you will definitely

38:36

not face trial before the election, but would just be

38:38

like, well, no, that's just what we came up with.

38:41

Exactly right. They seem to so far have the

38:43

view. They haven't always had it. Trump versus Anderson,

38:46

they ruled the day before Super Tuesday. They want

38:48

the people to know. But so

38:50

far, they seem to have the view. It's not our

38:52

business to try to accelerate

38:54

here. And yeah, I think we

38:56

will see, even if there's a descent

38:59

of three or four, that could push until

39:01

June. But if

39:03

the ultimate statement from the court, and

39:05

this is what I'll be listening for

39:08

tomorrow, has to do with some circumstances

39:10

not presented here, for example, the bombing

39:12

of an adversary and more, that they

39:14

want to say there's criminal immunity for

39:16

never having opined on this issue, that's

39:19

big trouble for the timeline.

39:21

Richard, as the

39:23

author of one of these amicus

39:25

priests before the court, what are you looking for in

39:27

Jamar's arguments? Well,

39:30

the point that Professor Finkelstein and I were

39:33

making to the court in our brief, and

39:36

that the generals and admirals assigned our brief concurred

39:39

with, is that you have

39:41

to have the same standard of criminal

39:43

liability for everyone up and down the

39:46

chain of command, including

39:48

the president of the United States. You don't

39:50

have a special rule for the president, whether

39:52

it's absolute immunity, or now Donald Trump's lawyers

39:54

are saying, well, maybe there's some sort of

39:56

qualified immunity he could have. You

39:58

simply can't have that. uh... the

40:01

uh... the people in the military need to

40:03

be able to depend on the orders coming

40:05

for the president of the united states being

40:07

a legal and uh... of the able to

40:09

assume that they're legal and uh...

40:11

the idea that the president i

40:13

think is immune from criminal prosecution

40:16

is going to erode the check of an

40:18

imagine that uh... that uh... that tilting picture

40:20

anyone the military is told it's uh... take

40:23

uh... out of building abroad and they think

40:25

that maybe the president political rival is in

40:27

that building but they're not absolutely sure what

40:30

are they going to do or they're going to be a

40:32

bad order of the president of the united states and risk

40:34

court martial uh... or they're going

40:36

to go ahead and execute that order the

40:38

members of the military need to be able

40:40

to rely the president

40:42

of the united states being bound by the

40:45

law and being bound by the absolute same

40:47

law they are bound by and the supreme

40:49

court cannot fiddle around with this and throw

40:51

around a bunch of three or four part

40:53

test and confuse everybody about that or we're

40:56

not going to be able to live in

40:58

a democracy anymore return painter

41:00

harry lepman thank you both generally special

41:02

coverage of those supreme court arguments start here

41:05

tomorrow morning msnbc at ten a m eastern

41:07

and then eight p m eastern i will

41:09

join racial matter on the rest of the

41:11

team on the trump trial and the supreme

41:13

court hearing first what the

41:16

supreme court heard today that could impact abortion

41:18

rights from millions of women that coming up

41:27

fresh off the passage of those foreign aid

41:29

bills that president biden signed today republican house

41:31

speaker mike johnson didn't take a

41:33

victory lap instead the lsu graduate made an

41:36

angry press appearance on the campus of columbia

41:38

university in new york where he was booed

41:40

by most the crowd assembled as

41:43

you probably heard the school's in the center

41:45

of the media world for the last week

41:47

over student protests of israel's war in gaza

41:50

last week the school's president after appearing before

41:52

house committee had many of those students arrested

41:55

by the new york police department thrown out

41:57

of their university housing amid allegations

41:59

of harassment against Jewish students

42:01

on campus, or at

42:04

least near the campus gates where

42:06

non-students and trolls have gathered to

42:08

spout some truly genuinely vile, threatening

42:10

stuff in viral scenes. Even

42:14

as these anti-war protests spread to

42:16

other universities across the country and

42:18

conservatives like Johnson blast higher education

42:20

as a bastion of radicalism again,

42:23

Senators Tom Cotton and Josh Cawley have even called

42:25

for the National Guard to come in. Today,

42:28

Greg Abbott sent in the Department of Public

42:30

Safety into the UT Austin campus. None of

42:33

this new for any of these conservatives,

42:35

Cotton you'll remember, wanted the army to

42:37

crush protests against police brutality in 2020.

42:41

And I have to say, as I've watched this

42:43

news cycle about the campus protests unfold, something

42:45

feels a little odd because the actual

42:47

issues raised by the process and processors,

42:50

which include the status of the hostages

42:52

in Gaza, Israel's ongoing war in Gaza,

42:55

the 30,000 plus deaths there, or

42:57

how and when that war might be

42:59

brought to a close, those all remain

43:01

completely unresolved. It is

43:03

200 days today since October 7th. There's a

43:05

lot actually happening on the ground. It's

43:08

worth focusing there where millions of lives still hang

43:11

in the balance. Israelis

43:13

are observing the first Passover holiday with

43:15

more than 100 of their countrymen still

43:17

held hostage in Gaza over six months

43:19

after they were taken the Hamas attacks

43:21

of October 7th. One

43:23

of those hostages, Israeli American Hirsch Goldberg

43:25

Pollan, was seen today in

43:27

a hostage video released by the military

43:30

wing of Hamas. Now, to be clear,

43:32

NBC News generally doesn't show such videos.

43:34

They are propaganda. And because they may

43:36

be made under duress, Goldberg

43:38

Pollan's family have asked the video to have

43:40

a wide audience with a message calling on

43:42

the Israeli government to redouble its efforts to

43:45

bring the hostages home. In

43:47

recent weeks, as peace talks broke down, Hamas said

43:49

it could not release 40 living

43:51

hostages, raising fears that fewer hostages

43:53

are alive than previously hoped. The

43:56

news comes while more than 100,000 Israelis still have been unable to

44:00

return to their homes since the

44:02

attacks in October. This

44:04

week also, the United Nations Human

44:07

Rights Office is calling for an

44:09

independent investigation into two

44:11

separate mass graves found at

44:13

Gaza hospitals after Israeli forces

44:16

withdrew from them. An

44:18

NBC News crew witnessed hundreds of

44:21

bodies being exhumed from one of

44:23

those mass graves in the city

44:25

of Kanyunas. State

44:27

House officials say there are indications

44:30

that after President Biden's testy conversation

44:32

with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Yat-Nah-Yahoo

44:34

earlier this month, the flow of

44:37

humanitarian aid has increased to Gaza,

44:39

but with an average of 200

44:41

trucks entering Gaza a day to

44:43

serve nearly 2 million people, the

44:46

situation still remains dire. The

44:49

U.S. special envoy in charge of humanitarian

44:51

issues saying the risk of famine is

44:53

very high in northern Gaza and there

44:55

is still considerable work to be done.

44:59

Much of the work of Israeli officials now revolves

45:01

around a planned offensive in the city

45:03

of Rafa. Now, you remember, everyone's

45:05

been evacuated from all the northern

45:07

parts of Gaza. There's 1.4 million

45:09

displaced Palestinians already in Rafa where

45:11

they've sought shelter from the previous

45:13

destruction. In recent

45:16

days, satellite imagery has shown the rapid

45:18

construction of tent camps in the region,

45:21

with Israelis saying they will evacuate

45:23

civilians to the camps as the

45:25

offensive proceeds. The

45:27

Biden administration is warning Israel that

45:30

the operation could have

45:32

apocalyptic repercussions for those

45:34

already desperate refugees. It's

45:38

not clear Israel is listening. Today,

45:41

the same day that President Biden signed

45:43

the $26 billion aid package for Israel,

45:45

about half of that actually for humanitarian

45:47

aid in Gaza. The

45:50

Israeli government's diaspora affairs minister, that's the

45:52

person in charge of the Jewish diaspora

45:54

outside Israel, the majority of whom live

45:56

in the U.S., said the U.S. was

45:58

growing weak under Biden. quote,

46:00

if I were an American citizen with the right to vote, I'd

46:02

vote for Trump and the Republicans.

46:05

Which perhaps explains our Republicans are suddenly so

46:07

interested in a sailing student protests against the

46:10

war rather than asking all

46:12

the questions that have been outstanding

46:14

throughout this conflict from the very

46:16

first day after the atrocity that

46:18

Hamas committed. What is the end

46:20

point here? And how many people

46:23

have to die? How many are tolerable? How

46:25

many tens of thousands? How many children? And

46:28

how will the hostages come home? And

46:31

with the specter of even more mass

46:33

destruction looming ahead, how

46:35

will the people of Gaza find anything

46:37

approaching a habitable future? Hey, Keurig coffee

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KPMG, we make the difference. It's not

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for our clients. KPMG, make

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the difference. Today

47:29

the Supreme Court that overturned Roe

47:31

v. Wade heard yet another abortion case.

47:33

And this time the state of Idaho

47:36

is arguing that its near total abortion

47:38

ban takes precedence over the federal law

47:40

that requires hospitals to provide emergency medical

47:42

care to all patients. This

47:45

is not an abstract argument to be clear.

47:47

Just listen to what the US solicitor general,

47:49

that's the person that argues for the US

47:51

government for the court, says is happening in

47:53

Idaho right now. If

48:01

a woman comes to an emergency room facing a

48:03

grave threat to her health but she isn't yet

48:05

facing death, doctors either have to

48:07

delay treatment and allow her condition to materially

48:10

deteriorate or they're airlifting her

48:12

out of the state so she can get the emergency

48:14

care that she needs. One hospital

48:16

system in Idaho says that right now it's

48:19

having to transfer pregnant women in medical crisis

48:21

out of the state about once every other

48:23

week. That's untenable. That

48:26

is the absolutely hellish situation in Idaho where

48:28

pregnant people in desperate need of emergency medical

48:30

care are having to be evacuated to other

48:32

states because their own state, Idaho, abortion

48:36

ban prohibits doctors from performing abortions

48:38

unless they are sure the mother

48:41

would otherwise die and threatens doctors

48:43

with prison for violating that law.

48:46

The Idaho Capitol Sun reports that air transports out

48:48

of state for pregnancy complications at one of the

48:50

state's largest hospitals, an increase from one in all

48:52

of 2023 to six in the

48:56

past four months. Air transport, medevac,

48:58

helicopter, the hospital's chief medical officer

49:00

says if the pace continues that number could

49:02

be 20 patients before the year is over.

49:05

Dr. Dara Cass is an emergency medicine physician in New

49:07

York City and a former regional director for the U.S.

49:09

Department of Health and Human Services and she joins me

49:12

now. It's great to have you here. I want to

49:14

just set the context for the law and TALA that's

49:16

an issue here which is the law

49:18

that requires, passed in the 1980s,

49:21

it's very interesting because I hadn't really known

49:23

about it. You shouldn't. It's basically

49:25

the federal law that says you can't kick people out of your

49:27

emergency room if you're getting any federal Medicare Medicaid. Yeah, so

49:29

the Emergency Medicine Treatment and Labor Act set

49:31

the standard that if you showed up to

49:33

an ER, we would take care of you

49:35

first and foremost regardless of your ability to

49:37

pay, regardless if we liked you, regardless if

49:40

you showed up and you didn't have any

49:42

insurance, we would take care of you, we

49:44

would stabilize you and then we would decide

49:46

do you need to be admitted or transferred.

49:48

That's it. Before that, people were being

49:50

basically ignored at the front door, put back in their

49:52

house. You're like, oh, you don't have money. No. And

49:55

bleeding, right? So they'd be bleeding at the front door of the

49:57

hospital. They would say, we won't take care of you. going

50:00

to let you go to a county hospital, a public

50:02

hospital, and we're going to put you back in your car

50:04

or wheel you down the block in a

50:06

stretcher or a wheelchair. And they would literally

50:08

be dying on the way. This federal statute

50:11

said, no, that's not going to happen anymore,

50:13

anywhere in the United States. The entire United

50:15

States will be safe for emergency medical care.

50:18

And that's what's at stake right now. Now,

50:20

this is not just an issue in

50:22

Idaho, we should know it. I want to read from the

50:24

Associated Press reporting about

50:26

this. This is emergency rooms

50:28

refused to treat pregnant women leaving one to

50:30

miscarry in a lobby restroom. One woman miscarried

50:33

in the lobby restroom of a Texas emergency

50:35

room as front desk staff refused to check

50:37

her in. Another woman learned her fetus had

50:39

no heartbeat at a Florida hospital the day

50:41

after a security guard turned her away from

50:43

the facility. Complaints of pregnant women

50:45

were turned away from US emergency rooms

50:47

spiked in 2022 after the Roe v.

50:50

Wade was overturned, federal documents by the

50:52

AP reveal. How

50:55

do you deal with this as an

50:57

emergency room practitioner in a state

50:59

like Florida or Idaho or others that

51:01

have abortion bans? What's

51:03

happening right now is these states are forcing

51:05

doctors to deny care that they know how

51:07

to give life saving care. And

51:09

we're hearing these stories now over and over

51:11

because people are finally coming forward and telling

51:13

their story. Before this, this could have been

51:15

happening and we didn't know. Now we know

51:17

what's on the line. We know the stories of

51:20

the women that are bleeding. We know the

51:22

women that are that are infected because they

51:24

need to end their pregnancy before they can

51:26

have a delivery. And that's what's

51:28

on the line. And it's happening every single day

51:30

in the United States where abortion is banned. In

51:33

the Supreme Court arguments today, the

51:35

conservative justices seemed

51:38

interested in the

51:42

idea of a sort of fetal personhood.

51:45

There's constitutional rights today. Alito questioned this

51:47

solicitor general about the

51:49

interests of the unborn child

51:51

under federal law. And I

51:54

want to play Alito here talking about how the

51:56

hospital must stabilize the threat to the unborn child.

51:58

Take a listen. the

52:01

hospital must stabilize the threat to

52:03

the unborn child and it seems

52:05

that the plain meaning is

52:08

that the hospital must try to eliminate

52:10

any immediate threat to the child but

52:12

performing an abortion is antithetical to that

52:15

duty. First of

52:17

all, to my mind there's no child here, there's a

52:19

fetus and that should be clear. What

52:22

do you hear as a medical practitioner in the

52:24

emergency room when you hear the justice saying that?

52:26

So he's creating a situation that doesn't exist.

52:29

There is no saving the fetus without

52:31

saving the mother and what he's creating

52:33

is this idea that there's a conflict

52:35

between the life of the mother and

52:37

whatever emergency this fetus is happening. The

52:39

only way to save that fetus, to

52:42

deliver that baby eventually, to have a

52:44

full healthy pregnancy is to save

52:46

that mother. There is no conflict and he's

52:48

making it at a whole club. Right

52:50

and to the extent that there is the

52:53

extent that there is a conflict or the extent that there's a

52:57

situation in which you have to end

52:59

the pregnancy of performing abortion to save the

53:02

mother's life, that's precisely what's at issue here.

53:04

My understanding from the arguments today is that

53:06

the way that Idaho state law works and

53:08

other state laws works now as

53:11

not preempted by Antala is that doctors

53:13

wait around until there's a certainty of

53:16

essentially death before they can intervene. Yeah

53:18

and what they admitted today basically

53:20

is that you don't get a life-over. It's not like

53:22

oh this is when you can ask and this is

53:24

when you can. Right, of course. And at the end of the

53:26

day. As a critical decision that has to be impossible. It's

53:29

impossible and it's gut-wrenching to watch somebody

53:31

continue to bleed in front of you when you

53:33

know what to do and you can't do it

53:35

because you're afraid that A, you'll get arrested but

53:37

B, you'll do it and it won't work because

53:40

it's too late. Like at the end of the

53:42

day it is time to stop interfering, stop letting

53:44

politicians get in the middle of the emergency department

53:46

and patient care and just say we want to

53:48

do our job and save people's lives. Dr.

53:51

Jairakas, thank you very much, appreciate it. Thank you.

53:54

That does it for all in. You can catch us

53:56

every weeknight at 8 o'clock on MSNBC. Don't forget to

53:58

like us on Facebook. facebook.com/all in

54:01

with Chris.