Chief Justice John Roberts issued a rare statement rebuking President Trump and his allies over rhetoric calling for a federal judge’s impeachment. "For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose," Roberts said in the statement. Plus, the White House released a readout of President Trump's call with Russian President Putin. NBC News' Garrett Haake reports more from the White House, and NBC News' Keir Simmons is inside Russia with more details.
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#JusticeRoberts #Trump #Putin
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#JusticeRoberts #Trump #Putin
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NewsTranscript
00:00The court has always decided controversial cases, the decisions have always been subject to intense criticism, and that is entirely appropriate.
00:11Obviously people can say what they want, and they're certainly free to criticize the Supreme Court,
00:17and if they want to say that its legitimacy is in question, they're free to do so,
00:21but I don't understand the connection between opinions that people disagree with and the legitimacy of the court.
00:30Hi again everybody, it's Paiva Buck in New York.
00:32We so rarely hear from him. That was the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, John Roberts,
00:37making today's rebuke by him of Donald Trump's rhetoric pretty darn remarkable.
00:43Chief Justice John Roberts scolding Donald Trump's call to impeach a federal judge.
00:48The Chief Justice saying this, quote,
00:50For more than two centuries it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.
00:59The normal appellate review process exists for a purpose.
01:03About that, the New York Times writes this, quote,
01:06Just weeks ago, Chief Justice Roberts' point would have been uncontroversial.
01:10There is no modern tradition of impeaching judges for their rulings.
01:14Just eight federal judges have been impeached, convicted, and removed in the history of the country,
01:19most for egregious criminal and personal behavior.
01:23As noteworthy as Roberts' statement is, we are finally seeing him draw a red line when it comes to Donald Trump's attacks on the judiciary.
01:32It is worth pointing out, though, that this is not the first time Donald Trump has attacked a judge.
01:38You can go all the way back to before Trump took office, the first time, when he attacked Judge Curiel,
01:44who was presiding over the Trump University lawsuit.
01:47Trump attacked him simply because of his background.
01:51He is giving us very unfair rulings, rulings that people can't even believe.
01:56This case should have ended years ago on summary judgment.
01:59The best lawyers, I have spoken to so many lawyers, they said, this is not a case, this is a case that should have ended.
02:05This judge is giving us unfair rulings.
02:08Now I say why.
02:09Well, I want to, I'm building a wall, OK?
02:12And it's a wall between Mexico, not another country.
02:15He's not from Mexico.
02:16In my opinion.
02:17He's from Indiana.
02:18He is his Mexican, Mexican heritage.
02:20And he's very proud of it.
02:23And there have been, of course, numerous attacks by Donald Trump against other judges who have ruled against him since then,
02:29bringing us to his latest target, Judge James Boasberg.
02:33Trump calling for Judge Boasberg's impeachment following that judge's ruling that stops Trump's efforts to deport Venezuelan migrants
02:41by using the very rarely invoked Alien Enemies Act.
02:45The judge asked for DOJ to answer questions based on the timing of the flights over the weekend
02:51that saw over 200 alleged gang members deported to El Salvador, to which they replied to some.
02:58Judge Boasberg then followed that up this afternoon by asking for answers to more specific questions,
03:04giving them a deadline of noon tomorrow.
03:06It's where we start the hour with some of our favorite experts and friends.
03:09Deputy Director of the Immigrants' Rights Project at the ACLU.
03:12Legal Ernt is so busy, but he made time to join us, and we thank you.
03:16Lee's been facing off against the Trump administration in court over the Trump administration's use of the Alien Enemies Act.
03:23Also joining us, former top official at the Department of Justice, MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissman's back,
03:29and MSNBC political analyst, host of the Bulwark podcast, Tim Miller's here.
03:33Lee, let me start with you and the case.
03:38Tell us the latest.
03:40Yeah, so the latest is we're fighting on multiple fronts.
03:44As you know, Judge Boasberg issued a short temporary restraining order so he could hear more arguments,
03:50pointing out that the Alien Enemies Act is a special wartime authority that's only been used three times in our country's history,
03:58all during declared wars, the War of 1812, World War I and World War II.
04:03And it basically says you can declare an immigrant an alien enemy when there is a declared war with the United States
04:11or another foreign government or nation is invading us.
04:15And so given those limitations that Congress put in the law, it's not surprising it's only been used three times in our country's history.
04:22The president now has said, I'm going to use it against a gang and remove these people,
04:26not only remove them but send them to a Salvadoran prison where, frankly, they're doomed.
04:32And not only am I going to use it against a gang, not a foreign government,
04:36but I'm not going to give people any chance to dispute whether they're a gang member.
04:40So that's all playing out.
04:42The judge issued this temporary restraining order.
04:44The government immediately appealed it and is in the Court of Appeals now seeking an emergency stay of that ruling.
04:51We just filed our brief one minute ago.
04:53We don't know when the Court of Appeals is going to rule or have oral argument on it.
04:57At the same time, the district court is going to keep his expedited schedule.
05:01While all that's going on, the judge is also, the district court judge,
05:05Judge Boasberg, is also considering whether the government violated his order.
05:10He was very explicit.
05:12I mean, he could not have been more explicit in the Saturday night hearing we had with him, an emergency hearing.
05:17We said, I want these planes turned around if they're headed with these people
05:22and bring them back to the United States so we can sort this out.
05:27The government did not turn the planes around.
05:29There seems to be no dispute that the flights were still in the air at the time.
05:34The government is saying, well, they were out of U.S. airspace.
05:37The judge, you know, is very skeptical of that argument, as are we.
05:42But as you pointed out in the introduction, is asking for more factual information.
05:46So we'll see how all that plays out and what findings the judge makes about whether his order was violated.
05:51But at the same time, we'll be arguing about the legality of the alien enemies Zacks used here.
05:57Lee, we had so many conversations between the reelection of Donald Trump and the inauguration
06:03and the commencement of the immigration policies about this moment.
06:07But I want to ask you something pointed about it.
06:10I mean, Trump's folks are all over right wing media talking about a part of this story.
06:16Right. About the president's right to deport violent criminals.
06:20That's something that has 87 percent public support.
06:22But why not? Why not? Why not? It seems that he has the authority,
06:27if these really are all Venezuelan gang members, to go ahead and deport them.
06:32Why cut out the part of the process where you simply have to prove that or provide any evidence that that's the case?
06:40Exactly. That you're hitting it right on the head. That's the situation it's seen.
06:45They are playing this out as if the judge has ordered them to release people
06:49or precluded the government from arresting people or precluded the government from deporting them.
06:54The immigration laws give the government enormous authority.
06:57If someone genuinely is deportable, is a gang member who has committed crimes.
07:03What the immigration laws do, what Congress has said is, though, give them process so they can contest that.
07:08Right. And so the government's making vague allegations about who's a gang member is not and cutting out all process.
07:15The reason they're using the Alien Enemies Act is precisely to cut out any process
07:20and to be able to send them to a Salvadoran prison.
07:23Under the immigration laws, they couldn't be sent to a Salvadoran prison to be held there indefinitely.
07:28So that's exactly why they're using it.
07:30But anybody who thinks that the question is, should these people be allowed to roam around the United States
07:37or should they be sent to a Salvadoran prison, that's the wrong framing.
07:41They can be removed to Venezuela after they go through the process if they lose.
07:45And Tim Miller, this seems to be the political nexus that the Trump White House hopes no one crosses.
07:54Right. They would love for everybody in the media to be pressing on the substance of who has been deported.
08:03But I think it's the process here that is the bigger story. Right.
08:06You take a group for whom the facts are there.
08:10Literally zero percent of Americans are sympathetic to their legal rights.
08:15But they have rights. They're human beings.
08:17And if we don't actually know if people as young as 14 are actually members of a gang,
08:23it feels like the process is what should focus our mind.
08:26Yeah. And it should scare people to give the government this kind of power
08:31when they've shown that they're going to act so recklessly across so many verticals.
08:37You know, look, I hear you on how the specific cases are, you know,
08:41sometimes, you know, get you bogged down into an area that gets onto Trump's turf.
08:45But why don't I try you on one of the cases here for one of these Venezuelans that allegedly has been sent to El Salvador?
08:53According to a lawyer that we interviewed for The Bulwark,
08:57this person is a gay Venezuelan that has tattoos because they're in the arts.
09:01They're in the arts. They were in America in a detention center.
09:04So they're not roaming the streets. This was not a dangerous person.
09:07So somebody that was fleeing a communist country.
09:10So, again, thinking of what Republicans had traditionally been for.
09:14This is somebody that fled communism to come find freedom in America.
09:19And according to this person's lawyer, I will have to see the details.
09:24They have been disappeared by our government, put on a plane,
09:28sent to El Salvador to like a dystopic Robocop penal camp.
09:34And I've seen that the images from this is like nothing that we would do in this country.
09:39So I don't know, Nicole, maybe that's popular with people.
09:42Maybe the American people are for Donald Trump and Elon Musk willy nilly choosing to send people
09:50who are fleeing communism to disgusting prison camps in other countries with no due process.
10:00I'm not for that. I find that absolutely despicable.
10:05And I think that it's worthwhile to at least make the case.
10:08And we need to know more. We don't know more about some of these cases.
10:10And I think that you're right at the biggest picture, you know, talking about the process here,
10:14talking about the fact that these people did not get a chance to defend themselves in a court of law.
10:19And again, I think it's OK to say that if in some of these cases they're really gang members,
10:24they're out in the street doing crimes, then great, like send them out.
10:28Everybody's for that. But this process for like Stephen Miller and Tom Homan and Elon
10:34and Donald Trump just get to decide that somebody gets sent to El Salvador because they had a tattoo.
10:40I mean, that is not America.
10:42Say more, Tim Miller.
10:44Well, it just is. Look, it's fundamentally what the country has been about.
10:49I don't know. You know, I remember when I was younger, one of the things that made me a Republican,
10:53actually, that kind of radicalized me was the Elian Gonzalez situation, right,
10:56when the Clinton folks were in charge. And obviously all these things have complicated specifics.
11:04But like we are like America is a country that welcomed people that were fleeing persecution,
11:11fleeing religious persecution, fleeing government persecution. That's like why we exist.
11:16That is the whole point of America. And particularly in this case,
11:20when it comes to people fleeing a communist country to come here to find freedom.
11:24And if they came here to do crimes, then send them back.
11:27But if they came here to find freedom and we are going to treat them in the same way
11:34that a authoritarian country would, that we're going to send them to some other country
11:40where they're going to shave off their hair and put them in shackles and put them in chains
11:46and not feed them and treat them like they're subhuman with no due process.
11:52Like, what is the difference between us and China then or Russia?
11:56Like, honestly, like, what is the difference between us and authoritarian countries
11:59if this is how we're going to treat people that are coming here looking for a chance to live a life?
12:05Again, we can argue at the policy. If you want to say, sorry, we can't take any more refugees from Venezuela.
12:10We've taken too many. You have to go home. OK.
12:13But we're just going to pick you up off the street because you have a tattoo
12:16and send you to an El Salvador Robocop dystopia. No.
12:21Well, we are getting a readout, Keir Simmons, and I know you don't have it.
12:26And I haven't been able to read the entire thing because it was just handed to me.
12:29But this is from the you've got it now. Yeah. OK.
12:33So it's from the news agency. We have the Russian readout, Chris.
12:36If that's yes, that's exactly what I'm looking for.
12:38And you can tell me that the part that I got to that that raised a red flag was this.
12:44It was emphasized that the key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict
12:48and working toward its resolution by political and diplomatic means should be the complete cessation
12:54of foreign military aid and the provision of intelligence information to Kiev.
13:00But maybe you've had a chance to read the entire thing, which I'm only about halfway through.
13:06Yeah, I'm still picking through myself, Chris. It's been translated from Russian.
13:10One thing I will tell you just for viewers to know, you know,
13:14the viewers will understand that we we're still making sense of this,
13:17is that the Kremlin readout and the White House readout is different.
13:20So they they haven't kind of agreed a joint statement.
13:23They put out their different interpretations of what's been said.
13:26I will say that as far as we can tell from the Kremlin readout, it does not include a mention of the Black Sea.
13:34So one of the points I would make here is that I think that this is still negotiations in progress.
13:40So a week ago, the Ukrainians appeared to agree to.
13:45Well, they agreed to a 30 day ceasefire, you know, punctuation point, nothing more.
13:50Here you have a negotiation between the US and the Russians about all kinds of things, not simply a ceasefire.
13:57Now, what the Russians, what the Kremlin does say, and I'll just read this piece,
14:01because, as Garrett suggested, this is important.
14:04During the conversation, Donald Trump put forward a proposal for the parties to the conflict
14:08to mutually refrain from striking energy infrastructure facilities for 30 days.
14:13Vladimir Putin responded positively to this initiative and immediately gave the Russian military the corresponding order.
14:22So it appears right now the Russians have agreed to and are implementing a 30 day ceasefire in respect of energy infrastructure facilities.
14:35Simply that. Now, there are there is a lot more to that to this Russian readout,
14:40including a lot about prisoner exchanges and the Russians handing over Ukrainian prisoners, for example.
14:48And it is kind of described or it is portrayed in this Russian readout as the as the Russians, you know, being offering compromise in a sense.
14:59But there isn't really much compromise in this beyond that.
15:03And as you mentioned, this question of whether the US is agreeing to restrict support for Ukraine during this ceasefire,
15:12that will be deeply controversial because, OK, after the ceasefire, what happens?
15:19What kind of negotiation is there during the ceasefire over what kind of support Ukraine might might get?
15:27And of course, one of President Putin's longstanding aims has been to ensure that Ukraine is neutral and Ukrainians would say to neutralize the country.
15:40So that would appear to be a concession to the Russians.
15:44There's another point in here which I didn't hear. I haven't seen the Washington readout, but I didn't hear it.
15:49Chris, in the read what you were sharing with viewers, the Russian readout talks a lot about normalization,
15:56which translates as which translates as, you know, removing sanctions, rebuilding economic ties,
16:03the kind of things that the Russians really, really want.
16:06One last point, Chris, in this Russian readout, which, you know, kind of gets your attention,
16:11although it may seem fairly small compared with the others.
16:15It says Donald Trump supported Vladimir Putin's idea to organize hockey matches in the U.S.
16:21and Russia between Russian and American players playing in the NHL and the KHL.
16:28All right. So let me go back to you, if I can, Garrett.
16:32The look on your face may say everything about hockey, but I'm the bigger on the bigger picture.
16:38Clearly, these are two very different statements and no decisions that there's no there's no clarity on any agreement here.
16:48Well, look, I think there are a couple of points on the idea of the 30 day ceasefire against energy infrastructure.
16:53That does seem to be the big key deliverable point that is at least in principle agreed on in both statements.
16:59The Kremlin statement goes farther than does the White House statement.
17:03The Kremlin statement does also mention President Putin, it says,
17:06responding favorably to President Trump talking about this peace or security initiative related to the Black Sea.
17:13So there's at least an acknowledgment that that was a topic that came up.
17:16I was smiling at Keir's mention of the point about hockey because I was just reading to that myself.
17:21And I actually don't think it's a small thing at all, because to me,
17:24it tells me that the Russians have a pretty good read on the way that Donald Trump likes to engage in diplomacy.
17:30He cares about the personal relationships with the people that he conducts diplomacy with other foreign leaders,
17:35perhaps more than other American presidents do.
17:38He likes to have those touch points with those people.
17:41He likes to have those relationships and he likes to talk about sports and the idea that President Putin would bring up hockey,
17:48which we know that the president has recently been interested in when there was that four nations cup going on here in the U.S.
17:53with the U.S., Canada, other nations as a way to generate some kind of goodwill between two foreign leaders of countries
18:00that have had no goodwill between them for some number of years, I think is sort of a notable thing to do in the first place
18:07and to include by the Russians that they are sort of operating in this way,
18:11trying to talk about something in this kind of friendly and personal manner with Donald Trump.
18:16It tells me they understand the way he likes to engage in diplomacy.
18:20And I don't think that's a small thing at all.
18:22I don't think so, Mark. Garrett makes a really good point.
18:26And he's old enough, Donald Trump, to have lived through the Cold War, to remember the miracle on ice,
18:33to remember when Jimmy Carter decided to pull from the U.S. to change the Olympics, to pull the U.S. from the Olympics.
18:41I mean, he also knows what entertainment is. Right.
18:46And whether or not you consider whatever you consider the relationship to be between the United States and Russia at this point,
18:54a hockey game is something that would attract a lot of attention and that Donald Trump would enjoy.
19:00But big picture, how do you see this?
19:04Well, let me say the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey win over the Soviet Union was probably one of the great moments of my life.
19:10I played high school hockey. So this was a fantastic experience for me.
19:14And don't forget, and I can't believe we're talking about this, but Alex Ovechkin, who is a Russian who plays for the Washington Capitals,
19:20who was a friend of Putin, is eight goals away from breaking the all time NHL record.
19:24So perhaps the Russians did have something in raising this.
19:27But but but on a serious note. And you just knew that off the top of your head.
19:31So I'm impressed with your hockey knowledge. Yeah. OK.
19:34But but big picture. Look, there are there are clearly different readouts of this.
19:41I think the Russians are doing what they do, which is throw in kind of details and roadblocks.
19:46There's going to be negotiation after negotiation.
19:48A lot of people are going to pick through certain things that presumably would be favorable, but then a lot which would be unfavorable.
19:54But overall, I think that everyone who has spoken now is correct in the sense of these are negotiations that are going on right now.
20:01I would not get too optimistic. The Russians are very tough negotiators.
20:05I think there's a long way to go on the one note to mention is Europe was was really holding their breath at this at this at this phone call.
20:14And perhaps it's not as bad as many would have thought,
20:18which would have been in their view that the U.S. would kind of sell Ukraine down the river.
20:21So I would say this is just another step in the negotiations.
20:24The Russians are going to play hardball and maybe we'll get a good hockey game out of it.
20:29Where does this leave Ukraine, Mark?
20:32So from the Ukrainian side, I think what they see is, of course, two major powers, the U.S. and Russia, talking about the future of their country.
20:42And that's deeply disturbing to the Ukrainians, but also to the rest of Europe.
20:46I think I would hope there will be some readouts given to Ukraine from the U.S. side.
20:50And the real key point on this in terms of concessions or the future is the provision of both intelligence and military assistance.
20:58That cannot be something that the Russians might agree to it.
21:01The U.S. in no way can agree to agree to that.
21:04And Ukrainians certainly would not as well.
21:06You don't do that before any kind of ceasefire negotiations.
21:09That's a non-starter. Can I go back for just a second, Garrett, to the end of the first page of this translation, which is March 19th, which happens to be tomorrow.
21:20A prisoner exchange would be carried out.
21:22You mentioned this between the Russian and Ukrainian sides, 175 for 175 people.
21:27And as a gesture of goodwill, 23 seriously wounded Ukrainian servicemen who are undergoing treatment in a Russian medical institutions will be transferred.
21:36Donald Trump is also someone who likes to say, I got a deliverable.
21:41I told you that I was going to work on this.
21:44And here's what I have for you.
21:46Yeah, that's true, Chris. And frankly, it's kind of White House diplomacy 101 that you would not involve the president of the United States in negotiations unless there is a deliverable to be had.
21:55This White House says so many things in nontraditional ways.
21:58But this is something that you would actually expect to see almost in any other White House where the negotiations happen at a lower level first.
22:04And then when there's a victory to be claimed, you bring in the president to claim it.
22:09Notably, the White House statement does not mention that prisoner exchange.
22:13Although I was reminded that this was something that came up when President Zelensky was in the Oval Office for that incredibly ill-fated meeting he had here just a few weeks ago.
22:22Zelensky talked about the fact that when he was being pressed by J.D. Vance about past diplomatic efforts, that Russia had failed to honor past agreements to do prisoner swaps just like this.
22:33So I think it's both an important deliverable and another important touch point in kind of building trust here and goodwill between at least the U.S. and Russia and perhaps Ukrainians in Russia as well.
22:44That started with the release of Mark Fogle a couple of years ago around the first Trump-Putin phone call and now could potentially include this prisoner swap if and when that does occur, as is suggested to be happening tomorrow in the Russia readout.
22:58But again, not in the White House readout.
23:01Joe, you have the Attorney General of the United States saying that a judge's order is an intrusion on the president's authority.
23:06You have Tom Homan, the border czar, saying those flights are going to continue today and saying, Joe, quote, I don't care what the judges think.
23:15So where do we go from here?
23:17It's like saying if you're in the government, I mean, it's like saying I don't care what the clouds think.
23:24They're not allowed to rain today.
23:27I mean, yes, you have to care what the judges think, because that's that's Madisonian.
23:35You know, it's Madison constitutional law.
23:39He has to do it.
23:40And this happens.
23:41And we said, you know, Stephen Miller saying this is the greatest judicial abuse or whatever he said of all time.
23:49It's not even close.
23:51And here's the thing.
23:53Chances are very good that the Supreme Court will provide the president of the United States wide latitude on issues of immigration.
24:02They just can't violate a judge's order because they don't want to wait for the appeals.
24:10And this happens to every president.
24:13The idea that people are acting shocked and stunned and deeply sad.
24:16Like, oh, there's a it's like, you know, it's it's it's.
24:21It's like they they've never read newspapers, as you can say, never read the law books, but it's like they've never read newspapers.
24:28They've never watched this. This happens to every president.
24:32Let me just give you a couple of examples of district court judges in conservative districts who stopped rulings of Democratic presidents during the Obama administration in 2015.
24:48A U.S. district court judge from Texas appointed by George W. Bush issued an injunction halting President Obama's DAPA program,
24:59which wanted to shield millions of undocumented immigrants from deportation.
25:05Stopped it. And then it got appealed.
25:08And then the Supreme Court ruled four to four ended up against Barack Obama in 2016.
25:17A U.S. district court judge also from Texas, also appointed by Bush,
25:25issued a nationwide injunction that blocked the Obama administration's guidance requiring schools to allow bathroom access based on gender identity.
25:36In twenty twenty one, a single U.S. district court judge nominated by Donald Trump
25:44temporarily blocked President Biden's administration from enforcing a covid-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors.
25:53And it's not just federal judges who are conservative from the state of Texas who've ruled against Democratic and Republican presidents.
26:01In 2006, a U.S. district court judge appointed by Jimmy Carter ruled that the Bush administration's program of eavesdropping without warrants was illegal and unconstitutional and violated the Fourth Amendment.
26:15Claire, I go back to what I was telling my Republican brothers and sisters during the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
26:24I said, just be careful. Don't think that there will never be another Republican president again.
26:33Hold this president to the same standard that you would want a Republican president held to.
26:41And these Republican senators and members of the House that are sitting back while they're saying we're going to defy the courts are acting as if there's never going to be a Democrat.
26:50What if there's a progressive president that's elected in twenty twenty eight because of the overreach of the MAGA right?
26:59And then that progressive judge says, well, are that progressive president says, well, the Trump administration ignored judges rulings they don't like.
27:08So I'll just ignore judges rulings that I don't like.
27:13That puts us in such a dark place. Bad if a conservative does it. Bad if a MAGA conservative does it. Bad if a progressive does it.
27:23The fact is, Claire, no president, certainly this century or last, has ever done this.
27:31Yeah. And talking about the Republican Party, Joe, historically, the Republican Party has been the one railing against too much executive action.
27:40They have been the one railing against government that has a heavy hand.
27:44They're the one that has been railing against government who does not think they have to prove with facts any action taken against people in America.
27:56OK, and this protects all Americans. It protects people who are here legally.
28:02It does not protect immigrants. And what really people need to understand is this judge never said that Donald Trump cannot make people leave this country that have committed crimes that are here illegally.
28:14He didn't do that. He went out of his way to say he was not doing that.
28:19He was merely saying it is time for there to be some evidence about what has happened here and how it happened.
28:27But rather than do that, we have the attorney general of the United States of America saying that this federal district judge, who, by the way, is the chief justice, the chief judge among all of the judges in the D.C.
28:41area of all the federal judges saying that he likes terrorists, accuses accuses him of being friendly to terrorists because all he said was, wait a minute, we need to have a hearing.
28:56So the American people are protected by the law and the big government is required to go through their paces and prove their case.
29:06That's all that happened here. So it's particularly egregious that the Republican Party, who is in a lay down mode to the executive completely taking over the other two branches of government, that they're letting this go by without anybody saying anything about how dangerous it is.
29:21And you're right. Someday there'll be a Democratic president that will want to overstep their bounds. And then the Republicans will have to lie in what they've created.
29:30And that's the through line, Claire, what you just said, try to expand the power of the executive branch.
29:34Even just the last few days, we saw the president's speech at DOJ talking about using law enforcement to go after his political enemies, threatening to muzzle the news media.
29:43His claim nonsensical, perhaps to try to avoid President Biden's pardons.
29:48And then, Mike, certainly everything we're seeing here about this defiance of a court order, even if they're arguing, hey, we didn't quite defy this one.
29:54They're clearly laying the groundwork to potentially do so down the road.
29:58And they're putting Democrats in a political bind here, Democrats who are saying, look, we're a nation of laws.
30:03You have to have due process. You have to respect a judge's ruling.
30:07But the gamble the Trump administration is making, I'm told by several people involved, is that they are putting up what they deem unsavory characters.
30:15These gang members, although we should be clear, there's some questions as to the identities of some of the people there.
30:20There's some immigration advocates think that some innocents have been rounded up with this group and saying, go ahead, try to defend these people,
30:28which they put out in this highly produced, almost Hollywood like video of them being put into one of the most hellish places on Earth,
30:34this prison in El Salvador and saying, look, yeah, try to defend that.
30:37Well, thus, you are outlining what is the pivotal point of the Trump administration or Donald Trump's life, as a matter of fact,
30:44even including as president of the United States, the theater of things, the production values of things.
30:51When you see what we just saw, you know, the perp walk of supposed criminals, immigrants here illegally being perp walked out toward a plane,
31:03all dressed in white and bent over and dragged by guards and everything like that.
31:08What you're seeing is a group of people that very few Americans are going to defend.
31:13They're going to say, yeah, fine, get them out of the country. They came here illegally. They pose a threat to us.
31:18The nub of it, though, is in doing that, they are violating probably some American laws that ought not to be violated.
31:26And they are doing it with seeming impunity from Tom Holman saying, I don't care what the judge thinks to that.
31:33It's a very thin line, very thin line between what happens there and what's going to happen, perhaps,
31:40if they continue to do this to an ordinary average American citizen taken off the streets here in this country.
31:46And, Claire, this gets at the foundation of what we do as a country and always have done of our democracy,
31:51which is the courts decide the courts issue orders. You can appeal those orders and go all the way up to the Supreme Court if you want to.
31:58So I guess the question is, what happens as a practical matter if the judge rules against the administration and they keep doing this?
32:07Then they do what Tom Holman says, which is the flights are going to continue regardless of what a judge tells us.
32:12Well, there there are several things that are going to happen.
32:16All these cases are going to wind up in the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court is going to have a moment in our legal history.
32:24Well, they will more aggressively define the limits of executive power.
32:29There's a lot of people who watch the Supreme Court closely who think they're going to go further than probably most Americans would be comfortable with.
32:37But nevertheless, they're going to decide.
32:40And I think there's a number of things that Trump has done that put him in a bad place with the Supreme Court.
32:46And I would put near the top of this list not only define a court order, which is going to really rankle people who were district court judges and were appellate judges that are on the Supreme Court,
32:57but also this idea that they're going after law firms who have represented people that Donald Trump doesn't like.
33:06That's a pretty scary thing, private law firms to a large law firm who most of the people at that law firm have never seen.
33:15Jack Smith don't know. Jack Smith had nothing to do with Jack Smith, but trying to cut off their livelihood because their firm represented someone who was unpopular with the sitting president.
33:26That is really going to be something that judges are going to go.
33:29Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Our entire system depends on people who are bad people getting lawyers, much less somebody who is just doing their job under the facts, which was Jack Smith.
33:41So it's really, I think, going to be a moment where the Supreme Court they're not popular right now for a lot of ethical transit transgressions that have occurred in the recent past.
33:54But, you know, John Roberts has a big job here. Frankly, Amy Coney Barrett has a big job here. I think the other four are lost on the Maga Island.
34:03But those two, I think, have shown a willingness to really take a hard look at executive power and the overreach.
34:11Let me say it again. This is the overreach of big government.
34:16And all the folks out there in Missouri who have told me at hundreds of town halls, we want government off our backs.
34:23I don't think they realize that they have unleashed what what did she call the Kraken or whatever it was in terms of big government overreach with what this administration is trying to do.
34:35President Trump is admitting he has used auto pen to sign certain documents.
34:40The president made those comments just hours after he announced on social media he would void the pardons issued by former President Biden to members of the January 6th committee because Trump claimed those pardoned were signed with an auto pen.
34:54So what is that? It's a mechanical device used to replicate a person's authentic signature.
34:59A lot of stuff for any president to sign. Sometimes they use the auto pen.
35:02Here's President Trump yesterday asked by NBC News about his own use of auto pen.
35:09Have you yourself ever used auto pen, sir?
35:11Yeah, only for very unimportant papers. And I don't call them unimportant.
35:15If you do letters where people write in and, you know, they'd love to have a response and we'll write responses and I'll sign them whenever I can.
35:23But when I can't, I would use an auto pen. But to use them for for what they've used them for is terrible.
35:32And when you signed the CR.
35:33Who are you with?
35:34Sir, I'm with NBC News.
35:35That's the same the same one. I don't want to I don't want to talk to NBC anymore. I think you're so discredited.
35:41Doesn't like a question. Discredit the source. President Biden and Obama both use an auto pen device to sign official documents, a practice that is legally binding.
35:49That's according to a 2005 guidance from the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department, commissioned by President George W. Bush.
35:57So, John, for people who've never heard of an auto pen and they can be forgiven for not, it's nothing we talk about a whole lot.
36:03Why is this controversial at this moment?
36:06It isn't. But those on the right tried to make it in recent days.
36:10And this is yet another example of something that emerged on the social the fringes of the right wing social media to find its way to the Oval Office.
36:17And Michael Flynn, Trump's former national advisor, others on the fringe rights started putting out this idea last week sometime that President Biden had used an auto pen to sign these last minute pardons that came in his last full day of office.
36:30And some came the morning of his last day in office. And therefore, they would be in invalid.
36:35The pen wouldn't have legal binding. But, Mike, we know, I mean, as Willie just read, the government has found the legal counsel has found that they're just fine.
36:44President Trump has used them. President Obama has used them. I remember that he also sometimes got in trouble for using the auto pen more for political optics reasons rather than suggesting something wasn't legally binding.
36:56But it's just another case of Republicans. It's a hypocrisy and be trying to, for Donald Trump, take shots at his predecessor.
37:03And again, in addition to that, what you just said, it's also part and parcel of the production values of this administration.
37:11Claire, every day, every day, there is something that they flood the nation with some obscure thing from auto pens to whatever.
37:20Every day, there's an element of production in there to keep people's minds off of what is actually being done every day behind the scenes.
37:28That's not on the news. Yeah, but his his poll numbers are slipping because he's not paying attention to the things Americans care about.
37:36They you know, everybody wants to talk about what the NBC poll showed about Democrats approval rating.
37:42There hasn't been enough attention to what the poll showed about Putin's approval rating.
37:46So let me ask you a question is a longtime Democratic stalwart, Democratic senator.
37:51Why aren't the Democrats outside Social Security offices, V.A. clinics, hospitals, schools and supermarkets to document and talk about exactly what you were just talking about?
38:03The average life of the average American and what's being done with it.
38:06I think they're being I think they are beginning to do more of that. I think the key for them is to get outside of Washington.
38:13It's very hard for a senator to look in the mirror and go, you know, nobody cares what I say on the Senate floor.
38:18But that's kind of the truth. Given a speech on the Senate floor typically just goes into the ether and nobody ever notices.
38:27But if you are getting on the local news talking to somebody who can't get their Social Security figured out because the branch office is closed down and there's nobody to talk to.
38:37Or if you are someone whose child is going to a cancer trial with NIH and has a chance of becoming well again, but all of a sudden that's been yanked away.
38:50Those are the stories that need to be continually put on local news and to whatever extent you can get them on national news.
38:57Great. But this idea that you're going to win the argument from Washington is not a good idea.
39:03And Donald Trump is concentrating mostly on revenge and retribution.
39:08He said he wouldn't. And that's what he's doing when he's not talking about invading Canada.
39:13And by the way, those stories are not partisan. Those are human stories.
39:16Those are Republicans and Democrats about the suffering they're enduring.
39:19By the way, even The New York Post disagrees with this move.
39:22Its latest editorial titled Mr. President dropped this petty push to void Biden's auto pen pardons.
39:29The Post writes, sorry, any such investigation isn't just beating a dead horse.
39:33It's digging the horse out of the ground and trying to saddle it.
39:36Voters want him looking forward to building that new golden age.
39:40Talking about Donald Trump not back at old grievances.
39:43Sorry, Mr. President. Re re re litigating any of it is a gift to the resistance.
39:48Handing another stick to beat you with and the undermining of pardons signed via robot would require fact finding probes and court action.
39:56When the new administration has bigger facts to find and larger issues to litigate, the post continues.
40:02Trump has enough real work to do, especially on the economy, and has the support of voters to do it.
40:07Going down this rabbit hole would be shooting himself in the foot.
40:12The New York Post talking about Donald Trump's latest effort on auto pen.
40:17And also, let's just talk about his latest, his latest, latest effort to distract.
40:21Suddenly yesterday, just minutes after his auto pen screed announced that today they're going to release all the John F. Kennedy assassination files.
40:27We have no idea what's in there. Allegedly, 80,000 documents coming.
40:32But yet another effort quickly, you know, quickly deduced as let's just change the topic of conversation.
40:38Changing the subject still ahead.